Enjoying the sunshine

Published 3:00 pm Tuesday, March 14, 2023

Chunky, Mississippi, had a special visitor this past weekend.

If you were in the area, maybe you noticed a certain brightness light the sky, a comforting warmth that was just perfect, like that moment when you pull a soft blanket up over a chilly shoulder and a smile of contentment lights up your face.

It was a supernatural, miraculous moment because it involved a miracle from a supernatural God. It was the moment my parents were able to see their first great-grandchild.

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My first granddaughter, Aurea Estrada, arrived in a shiny blue sedan with her dad Luis and her mother Emma, my own “baby girl.”

Several people have recently asked the couple how it feels to be completely ignored when people see their baby and go straight to her instead. The visit to my sister’s house was no exception.

Luis placed pink-clothed, wide-eyed Aurea in my father’s arms as he sat on the couch. “Poppa” talked to her, his face lit up with gentle love and gratitude for the moment. This little girl whose name means “golden sunshine” shone bright.

When it was my mom’s turn, “Grammar” sat on the couch and we passed her great-granddaughter to her. The image of her smiling with tears in her eyes as she cradled Aurea will be forever etched in my mind.

I hope Aurea is the first of many great-grands my parents are able to hold and rejoice over.

I pray Aurea is able to visit with them a lot as she grows; to soak up wisdom, stories and godly influence; to drink coffee with Poppa and eat some of Grammar’s homemade cookies and pepper jellies.

We didn’t let her drink coffee or eat treats this weekend. She’s only one month old, after all. But that day is coming.

For all of her days, we will praise God for the way he provided during Emma’s pregnancy and delivery, and how he has blessed them.

Maybe it’s cynicism from the state of this world that I just expect pregnancies to have problems of some sort, for deliveries to have some difficulties, for mothers to have struggles and babies to have issues that concern doctors and families alike. If all of those things had happened, I wouldn’t have shaken my head and complained. It would have been what I expected to be “normal,” and I would have continued to pray for God to heal, to provide, to make a way. I would have had confidence that God can do anything he desires.

Maybe that’s why I’m so amazed that Emma had no problems, and that all went even better than can be reasonably expected in the pregnancy and delivery. And since. The only concern we had was that at one point a small calcium deposit showed up in Aurea’s heart when she was still in utero, but that was considered normal. A few days and prayers from a few hundred people later, and the spot was gone.

Just another reason to praise God.

Aurea is an absolute gift from God to all of our family, and I could not be more grateful. We’re so glad she could meet her great-grandparents this weekend!

And to the residents of Chunky, I hope you enjoyed the sunshine, too.

Brett Campbell can be reached at brett.campbell@dailyleader.com.