So the Wencels discovered recently via ultrasound that another girl has joined our family. That makes us a family of six. Two boys and four girls. We don't yet know whether she, too, will have red hair, as do our other girls, Ariana and Grace. But we do know her name: Zoe Eden Wencel. She is now sixteen weeks old, and her due date is January 5, the year of grace 2019. And per her imaging profile, she's pretty stinkin' cute.
Zoe is from the Greek of the New Testament and means “life.” It's the same word used when Jesus said: “I am the way and the truth and the life” (Jn. 14:6). It is also the Greek word used for Eve's name in Gen. 3:20 of the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible). Adam, the text tells us, called his wife "Zoe" ("Life"), "because she is the mother of all the living." Eden originates in the Hebrew Scriptures and is reminiscent of the garden of God of old (Gen. 2:8; Isa. 51:3). There the Lord placed the mother of all the living, and there God walked with man in the cool of the day.
Almost needless to say, we're grateful beyond words for another little life added to our clan. Praise God from whom all blessings flow! May the Lord impart to Zoe Eden the life of God, and bring her safely into his everlasting Eden. May he lead her all her days until she at last enters the great promised garden-city of the new heavens and new earth (Rev. 22:1–2), where fullness of joy and peace abound in the permanent presence of the glory of the One who sits on the throne, and of the Lamb.
