The Prettiest Doll, She’s Ever Seen.

“Isabella was breathtaking and worth all of the bad in the world” my sister Amber


October 4, 2009. It was 5 months ago when she was brought into the world. She weighed about 6 pounds 9 ounces of pure bliss. She was twenty inches long. My sister was pouting because Isabella was taking away for awhile. Isabella was premature 5 weeks early and Amber (my sister) didn’t get to hold her for very long because they had to run various tests to make sure she was okay. She waited for two hours. When she did get to hold her she thought “she is the prettiest doll, she’s ever seen.” That was the same thing my mom said about her when Amber was born. Amber said “Isabella was breathtaking and worth all of the bad in the world” She had the prettiest red red lips and still does. She looked like she had lipstick on. I had thought she had the face of a forty year cab driver it turns out I was wrong. She was so tiny and embodied perfection. Once Amber got to hold her she stared at Isabella for about an entire week. The doctors kept taking Isabella away to run various tests. Isabella was jaundice and couldn’t maintain her own body temperature, she lost too much weight. They kept her under the warmer the first night and Isabella got to wear cool looking sun glasses. She was so light and so loveable. I truly believe in love at first sight now. “Nothing else in the world matters only your baby” Amber says. She received so much love and attention, gifts galore. I was told that Isabella i going to have an amazing sense of humor because of the people she will be surrounded by. Before this time Amber, our mother and I were going through a lot of pain in our life. I will not express what was going on in their lives but they had struggles and the same lack of self-worth that I had, my mother said that she loves to raise children and wished that she could have a baby in her life. After that came the greatest earthly gift in my life, Isabella Marie Anton. Here’s my story of what I was feeling leading up to Isabella’s birth and how I feel now. LUX MUNDI (Light of my world)


She redirected a feeling that I had during the time of my life. My faith was in question; my life was so hard to live in at the time. I had felt attacked by a spiritual bankruptcy and felt like I was driving directly into a black hole. I started to struggle and even told my sister that I wanted to kill myself. She was empathic, scared and told me that I should get help. I refused to listen to her and started to feel worse. I came to her at the middle of the night one time and expressed the feelings of self loathing and anger towards the world. Christianity was nothing a worthless life to live. I compared my pain to the Lord who loves the sinners who defiled and desecrated his name. I don’t match up at all but I get worth through him now. At the time I was suicidal, empty and going on life as a raging “dry drunk.” I was refusing to align my life with the spiritual necessity that I lived by. I needed help, just in the same way I needed help the day I gave up drugs and alcohol, just in the same way I needed to move out of a toxic situation, just like I needed help in rebuilding a relationship with my father. When you no longer have all the answers, you feel one foot tall, walking underneath everyone. I feared for my sobriety and was on a verge of drinking again. I was planning to drink, having a premeditated relapse. I began no longer caring about myself and others around me. I started neglecting prayer and meditation.
That’s the great joy in family; I once again scared the life out of my family with my anger. When I used to drink, I didn’t have my license till I turned 23 years old. I would stumble over to my sister’s house around bar close. I was dating a woman who loved me but I didn’t trust. I would begin to cry, I would lose myself in my sisters arms. I was so broken and lost, I constantly told her to drive me to the bridge so I could jump off. I was so empty, I was so empty. I never blamed anybody for how I felt but I was alone and I thought the cards that I was dealt was the losing hand and that God was the dealer. It was his fault my family was poor. It was his fault my life was in shattered pieces, it was his fault that I never felt love for people around me; it was God’s fault that I had no faith in anything. No one wants to be an Eeyore , you want to be a Tigger (Randy Pausch, Last Lecture).

I wanted to die and I was heading that way in a swift drunken fashion, especially after I got my license and began drinking and driving. I was not much of an addict though. I did enjoy using cocaine though; it made it so I could consume alcohol more and continue a night of “clowning around.” I lost myself when I drank, because I didn’t have to face myself. I thought is everybody wasted and is anybody free from bondage.


One evening I was feeling ashamed of myself after I failed to ask this girl out on a date. I was not attending meetings at all, my sponsor was not being used, and I was avoiding friends and isolating myself. I was being overwhelmed by so fear; I understood what it must be like to be in quicksand.


All these feelings lead up to treatment, which was the best decision at that time in my life. Just before Isabella was born was when I went to Amber’s house to express my pain. The very same pain that I felt when I was drinking, the very same feelings only at this time my breath doesn’t reek like liquor and my memory was a naked highway. I had the opportunity to feel all of this emotion, pain and acute. The two lines where connected. The two pains connected. Jesus didn’t die on the cross alone, he had two thieves on each side die next to him, and one man mocked him. Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us! (Luke 23:39). The other transformed his feelings towards Jesus said “Today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43). I felt that when I became a Christian a year ago at a conference for Intervarsity campus fellowship. I felt moved by the Holy Spirit and began to cry tears of true forgiveness for the way I lived before my walk started with Christ. My life has been moved into a new direction and I want to share this life with others.


Even at times there is light in our darkest hour, if we hold on to the raft in the chaotic waters of our lives. The turmoil and vicious tyrant called negative emotions crashes upon us. We have to have hoped that life has some meaning, some purpose driving us to greener pastures. It goes beyond us. The gifts that are provided for us, we obviously our not meant to always have negative emotions otherwise we would all be miserable and the anti-depressant pharmaceutical companies would be rich (this is meant to be funny; everybody knows they have enough money to collectively buy half of the continent of Africa). I believe God gave us Isabella to save our lives. Our worries haven’t completely disappeared but Isabella is a remedy to the hurts around us. Lately, seeing her smile, talk to objects, grab at things, hearing her giggle and seeing her twinkle in her eyes brings me to weep pure joy. All our joys become complete and we feel a universal feeling of goodness when she is in our arms. My sister is an amazing mother; she is revived and fueled with love that I hadn’t seen since she was a younger child. My mother has a smile that glows and could illuminate an entire city block now when she is with Isabella and for me I remain humbled and have a life to protect and love as much as I can. I had a discussion awhile ago that could be a little morbid but it worried me after I almost got broadsided by a semi-truck on the highway. I could have died, instantly no questions asked. It worried me, what stories would Amber tell about me if I was to die.

This life is so fragile and special and we need to embrace the present so we can protect the future. When looking into the eyes of children you can see Jesus. My grandmothers favorite bible verse is “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. (Mark 10:14) I love my family and understand a little more about God loving us, wanting to protect us, see us walk and fall and get back up, only to fall again. I’m learning more about dependence on a God who loves us and wants a relationship with us. We are also to love each other as a body. For just as watch of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, each member belongs to all the others (Romans 12:4,5).


I believe more about God sending a son to the world he created to teach us righteousness, defeat death and give us eternal life through his body and blood, grace and mercy. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes may have eternal life. (John 3:16) A gift that we humans have, besides our enormous brains, vast curiosity, intricate circulatory system, enigmatic charisma, and our ability to fall faster than a toddler on a slip and slide; is the gift of eternal life through Jesus.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. (Galatians 3:26) Isabella continues to grow and teach us, challenge us and smile and giggle at us much like we need to do in our acts of faith and worship. Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you (James 4:7). We are all no different in our faith than she is all growing and evolving as children. Thank you God for giving us Isabella Marie Anton, she is a blessing for all of us! Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. (2 Peter 4:7) It makes me want to sing Away in a manger, no crib for his bed, the little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head, the stars in the sky looked down where he lay, the little Lord Jesus, asleep in the hay. Thank you!


“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”-Mother Teresa

“Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul.” John Muir