...and not a day goes by...

20 years ago today I made the most important decision of my life.

Now, I know many people who would say that about many different decisions that have been made. Who they would marry, where they would go to school or work, etc. But in my life, those decisions are dwarfed by another.

Today is my (Christian) birthday.

20 years ago I gave my life to Christ, and not a day goes by that is not influenced by that decision. Because every other important decision in my life is weighed against this one. My relationships succeed or fail based on this relationship. My path in life is authored by this path.

Looking back now, I understand that I knew next to nothing about what I was getting into, or what was really going on. But who does? Who has perfect, or even mature, knowledge of what they signed up for when they get married, or have kids? That's not the point. The point is that I knew enough to know that I was in no way a good person, there were consequences for my not being a good person, and Someone had paid my price for who I was. I remember the burden I had been carrying around, the guilt of all the things I had done that I knew weren't right.

And I remember the freedom when I came up out of that water. The pure exhilaration, the joy, the knowledge that those things didn't matter anymore, I was newborn!

I'm still a bad person, I guess I always will be. But I'm beginning to understand Grace, and freedom from sin, and the Love of God.

And I feel like not a day goes by that, if I walk with God, is not touched by Him to bring me closer. To who I could be. To who I should be. To Him.

Thanksgiving!

So, we knew we were having another holiday baby. We even figured that she was coming early. But we didn't expect it to happen quite like this:

3am on Monday, November 29th, was just like any other 3am on a Monday. Or so we thought. We have a fire alarm that is hard-wired into our house's electrical system. It is also the loudest thing I have ever heard. I say this because, when it went off at 3am on Monday, November 29th, I distinctly remember it being the loudest thing I have ever heard. I'm pretty certain it could be heard from space.

I didn't know what was going on; whether it was the burglar alarm or fire alarm. I fully expected to find someone in my living room. Then I'm crawling all over the attic and through the house to find the fire. None could be found, so then I tried to figure out how to turn off the alarm. Everyone in the house is now awake. Daniel looked like he couldn't figure out what was going on. DJ was yelling at me to make it stop. I'm taking the speaker off of the wall to "cut the hard line" when I remember that I can start flipping breakers. Finally it goes off, but now I'm awake. I had to get up at 4am anyway, so I figure I'll just stay up (besides, Predator was on AMC). And then Kellie tells me that she's having contractions...

I decide that she can go back to sleep and they'll go away. I am wrong. Kellie calls me at work around 8:30 to tell me that the contractions are continuing. The fire alarm from space has woken even my unborn child up.

We had a healthy baby girl, Dakota Brooklyn, at 6:07pm that night!

But, in true Sapp fashion, there's one last humorous story from that day.

We had Dakota at home. We also had Daniel at home, and it was a great experience both times. But it didn't look like Kellie was progressing as it got closer to dinner. So I called a friend of mine to see if he could wrangle up some grub. He orders delivery pizza. As Kellie's labor speeds up, I start to have a bad feeling of coincidence. Sure enough, just after Kellie pushes out Dakota's head, the doorbell rings...

I read somewhere that some OBGYNs who don't like homebirth had bumper stickers made that said "Home delivery is for pizza, not babies" - now it's both at the same time!

By the way, isn't my baby girl precious?