Thursday, October 18, 2007

Little in the Middle

"Gabriel" means "Hero of God/God is my Warrior." Such a cool name. It's a big name. Gabriel is one of two angels in the Bible who is named. He comes to Mary and tells her she will give birth the Messiah. He reassures her and encourages her, but that's a big thing to tell a young maiden.

He also had told Zechariah, "Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you are to give him the name John. He will be a joy and delight to you, and many will rejoice because of his birth, 15for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He is never to take wine or other fermented drink, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit even from birth. Many of the people of Israel will he bring back to the Lord their God. And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous—to make ready a people prepared for the Lord." Zechariah questioned the angel Gabriel how that could be since he and Elizabeth were old, and this is how Gabriel replied: "I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their proper time." Those are some strong words!

My Gabriel is little in stature. He turned three in June, right after Juliana turned 1. Jules weighs 28 pounds right now and wears size 2T and a few 3T shirts. Gabriel weighs in at 33 pounds, and also wears a 3T. The occasional 2T pants still fit, maybe a little short, but they fit well in the waist. Juliana will catch him in the near future, and if Gabe is like his dad and uncle Joe, which we think he is, he might not catch his little sister until high school.

What he lacks in size, he makes up for in personality, heart, and skills.

No one can make you laugh like Gabriel. He thinks about things and is very observant, so he makes funny comments on a regualr basis. And he is quite the negotiator. When you tell him to do something he quite often comes up with a better solution. Most of the time we make him do it our way, for obedience sake, but when you say, okay, Gabe, that's a good idea, he lets out a very enthusiastic, "Yippee!!"

Gabe is a tender, sweet little guy. He is gentle with his sisters and our friends babies. Most importantly he is my protector. When we wrestle as a family on the bed, I am always well protected. No one is allowed to tickle, tackle or pin me--Gabe comes to my rescue. And he uses words every bit as strong as the angel Gabriel's. "Let go of my mom. She is my mom, you let her go." I love it.

We knew that he could swing a sword, hit a pitched baseball, throw and kick a soccer ball, and stack things in perfect rows, but only recently we have discovered that he can memorize like crazy and learn Karate kicks and punches at a rapid pace. He knows not only his memory verse for this week, but every verse he has memorized since the first week of September! Just this week we learned a new skill of Gabe's: He has dancing hips. He can wiggle, shake and boogey with those little hips like no other. I will attempt to get it on video--you just have to see it!

Gabriel is a big name. But I have no doubt this little guy will be a hero of God and find God to be his warrior.

My little middle got his first real haircut today. In true Gabe fashion he did great, and then picked purple when the lady asked if he wanted a color in his hair. Here he is, my cutie pie, with spiked purple hair.

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