Sweet and perfect gift
from God,
As I stare at the video
monitor watching you sleep so peacefully in your crib, I can’t help but think: how on earth did I get so lucky to
have you? Today you are five months and twelve days old. It’s amazing how
fast time has flown since we first brought you home from the hospital. I have
hung on to every moment with you, all the while wondering how life could be any
sweeter than it has been since you arrived. I stare at you with pride, with
hope, with a fierce protectiveness---the Mama Bear in me will come out should
anyone ever so much as attempt to harm you. You mean so much more
to me then I could express or convey with words. To say I’m mildly obsessed
with you is putting it lightly. I’d like to believe it’s a healthy obsession
though. I look at you; a sweet, sweet angel I get to call my own and I see
‘perfection’ at its finest. I look at you with intense and humble gratitude
knowing that the blessing of you has come from the Love of our Father out
of His perfectly Divine grace. The miracle
of life; that I carried you in my womb as you formed and developed, still
stuns me. I look at you and sometimes struggle to grasp it all. It is with
awe-struck wonder that I wonder how something so marvelous, so angelic, and
perfect could come from heaven and out of my own womb. It can only be
summarized as one of God’s many mysteries of Love as He intended it to be when
He created it.
I look at you and in your
eyes already see so much determination. I see a drive in you even as an infant
that leaves me wondering about all the things you are going to achieve and
accomplish in your life. I wonder about the things that go through your mind
right now as you are unable to convey them in words. I can’t help but wonder
how much you will have to say when you can. If there is one thing I’m
sure of, you have the determination of a ‘go-getter’ and you will always get
what you want in life. I just know it. The drive is in your soul; through
your eyes Hannah, I look deep into your soul and it tells me a story. Your eyes
possess a wise curiosity which only reinforces my intuition about you. You are an old soul, I am sure of it and your
personality; well where to begin?
You’re spunky and playful, silly with your noises, and stubborn when you want something. You’ve already mastered the high-pitched scream and fake cry and boy do you demand attention when you’re yelling at us. It is the funniest thing when you close your eyes tight and then open them again; the tears don’t come so you just keep on yelling, trying to make yourself cry. You are a miniature drama queen. Oh Lord, help me! But you are also the happiest baby in the world and for that I am so grateful. You always have a smile on your face. You’re friendly with strangers. You love to watch people and you’re just as laid back as you are wild at heart. You are a bright ray of sunshine every morning that I go and get you from your crib. You smile back at me and flail your arms and legs in excitement and my heart simply melts. I fall more in love with you every day and then wonder how that is even possible.
I will promise you this
much Hannah; I will never ever stop loving you. I look at you and
feel as though God has bestowed on me the greatest honor and blessing in
life. I look into your eyes and feel our souls reflect one another with
the same sense of curiosity and expectancy. I’m thrilled that we are now and will continue to venture through this life together;
learning from one another and teaching each other as we go. I hope the process
of that will never end. I can tell you this much; you have already taught me so much even as tiny as
you are now. I look forward to raising you every day for as long as the honor
is mine, realizing that every moment in and of itself is a gift from God and ultimately out of
our control. Especially now that you are in it, I don’t take one single moment
of this life for granted.
Hannah, I look at you and
see my purpose in life now and forever; a mother; a parent with the responsibility of loving you
and raising you in the Truth and Light of God. May He bestow on me the wisdom
in proper love and discipline through all the decisions we must make for you
before you are old enough to make them for yourself. I pray that I will
make the best choices possible and lovingly guide you along as you grow up and
begin to ask questions. May God always give me the discernment and patience for
you that His Love demands. For you Hannah, I have prayed that you also would be
ever-anointed with wisdom and discernment. I pray that you will always
experience the richness of God’s love for you. When I look at you, I know God on a deeper level and understand His
love now more than ever before. I never knew until you
arrived, that I could love something so passionately and every day my love for
you only gets stronger. This kind of love, again, can only be summarized as one
of God’s miracles. We are both His children and I hope you come to understand
that He will be the only one who can ever love you more than I can. That’s a lot.
I will teach you about
Jesus and I’ll read you stories and hope that you choose Him; that you will
understand His love for you at an early age. I will say that there is no other
spiritual ‘master’ who ever walked the earth and died on the cross out of love
for mankind. He is as personal as it can ever be and
He longs for life-long eternal relationships with all of us. As the Unique Son
of God, He was perfected in the love of God as human in flesh and blood and He
desires that we might also be perfected in this Ultimate Love. He has given
us The Way, The Truth, and The Life in the giving of Himself on the cross, He
paid the price of sin for you and me and the entire world.
Though I may teach you these things with the hope
you will choose Him for yourself one day, I will not force Him on you; or any
other belief of my own for that matter. I hope and pray that you will never let anyone force on you a legalistic, limited
religious view of God. Religion is man-made and God’s love demands so much
more. I will teach you that Jesus’ was the ultimate sacrifice of Love and that
you may still be His follower while acknowledging that God makes Himself known
to different people in different ways.
If aspects of any belief
or idea resonate with depth in your soul, never be afraid to open yourself up
to it and allow it to become a part of Your Truth. I hope to teach you that we
are the sum total of our experiences and most often those experiences determine
our faith and views of God and the world. Therefore, what is right for you will
not always be right for someone else and vice versa. It is never our job to judge others but to respect
people and what they believe even if we don’t agree.
I pray that you will be
free and perfected in the love of Jesus where it is by His perfect love that casts out all
fear. 1 John 4:18. May you always explore and discover for yourself who you are
and what is right for you. Don’t let fear ever hold you back in your search for
Truth and God and always pay attention to your intuition. It is your soul’s
attempt at communicating with your mind and body. And since your intuition will
be felt in your gut, as the saying goes: never ignore your “gut intuition”. Trust that it
will steer you where you need to go in life, faith in the unseen, and love and
whenever you are in doubt; pray.
Never cease to remember
the power of ‘creative thought’. Be free. Be creative. Live Life to the
fullest. Do it loud and proud. Strive to love deeper and more selflessly and
there you will experience the Joys of Heaven on earth. Experience the art of
‘silence’ and connecting with God’s glorious creation; it’s everywhere you look. Never get so wrapped up
in life that you forget to notice and appreciate it. And experience every last
one of Life’s Laughters, for ‘Laughter
is the key to happiness’. Love without limits and be open while cautious
too. That is an art in and of itself as there may be
people you encounter in life who will try to take advantage of you. Always see
the good in people before the bad; but trust your better judgment when someone
or something doesn’t ‘feel’ right, and know when to walk away. Trust your ‘gut’
in every instance of life and at all costs, don’t ever give up on yourself. Don’t ever tell
yourself that you “just can’t
do it”. With hard work, determination, a strong will and dependence on God,
you can do anything that you set your mind to. Reach for
the stars and never forget that if you fall from one, I’ll be there to help you
up; to dust you off and cheer you on as you try again or change directions.
I hope you learn early on
that trusting a broken heart to God is the only way to get through it. When He
is your Hope, He will give you the sight you need to overcome the most
difficult tragedies and heartaches that life may throw at you. I hope that if
there’s anything you learn from me by the time you are venturing off to college
and into the world, that it would be my teaching you how to love God and others
with the depths of your heart. May God help me lead you by example knowing that
as you discover the love of God Hannah, you will discover everything that is
important in life. He is our Creator and loves us with a passion beyond our
human comprehension. Even as I write this love letter to you; my perfect and
sweet little baby; my child; my daughter who I love so profoundly [to quote the movie ‘Life of Pi’] “and
So it goes with God”. Hannah, He will always
love you even deeper and no
one in life will ever know you better than Him. He knows us better than we even
know ourselves.
I can’t make any other
promises than the promise to always do my best. In this thing called
‘parenthood’ I humbly acknowledge that I am bound to get a thing or two wrong
here and there. I cannot promise you that I will be the perfect mother. I can’t
promise you that I am not going to make mistakes because I know that I will.
But I will promise you that no matter what, I
will always, always, always love you. As you grow up and
make choices in this life, no matter how many of them seem like ‘mistakes’ I
promise that you will never lose my love and support. You have a purpose in
life and only you, through
your own will and God’s power and grace can achieve it. I will always do my
best to guide you on that path. Always depend on Him and don’t let anyone, not
even me, ever hold you back from what you
know in your heart is right.
I love you beyond measure
Hannah. I look into your eyes and find myself crying tears of joy as you smile
back at me. That is where my Heaven will always be my sweet and precious
angel...in your eyes.
With All my Love,
Mommy
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