and just like that HE is here! Another boy that we get the privilege to raise up and send out into the world. Our FOURTH boy!
In true Wylie fashion it took us a while to decide his name. As with all the boys we did not know his gender until birth and for some unknown reasons we don’t seem to ever be able to settle on a name until they are here and we have spent some time getting to now them.
I think that these words that J posted about his name are just perfect so here you go…
This little boy, who we’re affectionately calling ‘Shep’, joined the Wylie team just over a week ago, and I can’t believe we managed without him on our side for this long.
I named him Shepherd Jude for a few reasons.
Most of you will probably know that @mrssianwylie and I are big on the Bible / Jesus / this whole Christian thing ?♂️ so feel free to just enjoy some cute baby pics and move on with your day if the spiritual musings of a Christian Dad aren’t your thing ?
The deeper we get into parenting, the more profound the Biblical analogy of the Good Shepherd is becoming to us.
We’re told that we are all like sheep in God’s eyes: cute and defenceless and prone to wandering off and getting lost. Can anyone else relate? ?♂️
We’re told that we’re invited into a relationship with a God who loves and leads us like a Good Shepherd. Most of us know the peaceful words of Psalm 23, that God is our shepherd who makes us lie down in green pastures and rest. But also, if you’ve ever spent time on a farm, you’ll know that the job of a shepherd sometimes requires tender love, sometimes tough love, but always committed love, whatever the weather.
And then, in the book of Jeremiah, those of us who are walking with God are given a mission in life, to shepherd our own flocks. To be shepherds after God’s own heart, feeding the sheep that we’re given with knowledge and understanding.
Shep, while you are young I promise to enjoy you and protect you and nourish you.
And as you grow up, I pray you will graduate from being a little lamb into a shepherd of your own, leading and loving whoever God blesses you with. If you are blessed with a wife and children half as great as mine, your life will have more meaning and joy than you’ll know how to handle. Like me, you might watch, in awe, as your wife brings a child of your own into the world. Nothing will compare with that moment.
And Shep one day, maybe you’ll be able to look your one true Good Shepherd in His eyes and tell him, that just like your middle name ‘Jude’ declares, He is to be praised.
