A Name and a Promise (Part 3 of 3): Guest Blogger Diana DePriest

It was 4 am on a Monday morning that I was awakened out of sleep to a ringing phone. The baby wasn’t due for another week, and we were still waiting on the DOJ to straighten out the fingerprint issue. As I aroused to consciousness I remember uttering, “No, no, no, it’s too soon, we’re not ready!” But it didn’t matter that we weren’t ready, G’s water had broken and there was no putting it off, Ethan was on his way.

I spent that day making arrangements. I had to get flights for Neal and I to Shawnee where E was to be born. We had to pack Jake and get him ready for Grandma’s house. I wasn’t even out of my pajamas yet when the phone rang again just after noon pacific time. The baby was here, it was a boy! Ethan was born.


Jake home on a school holiday was the first person I told, we danced and shouted and celebrated he was a big brother. Neal came home and we headed off on to the airport. After we landed we got a rental car and drove more than an hour to the hospital. We made it to the hospital just around midnight.


Ethan had a few health problems at birth, a couple of deformities we were made aware of that first night. And he had a skin condition that had the hospital staff on edge. I will tell you the truth, when we saw him for the first time that night he was a little bit of a mess. G was frightened with his challenges we might change our minds. To be honest the thought never ever crossed our minds. God had brought him to us, God had given us his name. Who were we to question the process?


The hospital was so accommodating, they settled Neal and I into a private room with the baby who hadn’t even bothered to wake to greet us. Exhausted from the long day Neal and I each lay down in separate hospital beds and fell fast asleep. It was some time later that I was awakened by the most pitiful little cry. Fumbling in the dark I made my way over to him and lifted him in my arms. It was the moment the crime was committed. Right then and there Ethan stole my heart. Broken, beat up and needy, and I would have done anything for him. He was my son, and I was in love.
“Hello Ethan,” I told him, “I love you.’ And I surely did. It was that love, and my faith in my God that would lead me through the next three years. I didn’t know it at the time but the road ahead of us was long and difficult. But before the journey began, there I met my most precious traveling companion, and he had met me, his mom.


Diana DePriest is wife for nearly 20 years to Neal, and mom to Jacob, 16, Ethan, 9, and Victoria, 8. Since giving her life to Christ in 1992, she has served in various ministries, including pro-life, post-abortion, women’s and youth ministries. With a passion for the Lord and her gift in writing she has been an avid blogger since 2008 when she felt the Lord called her to it as a new avenue of ministry. She writes regularly about her faith (http://dianalovestowrite.blogspot.com/) and her family (http://depriestdays.blogspot.com/)