Dear Angel

Dear Angel, today would mark your twelfth week growing inside your mommy. This weekend, we would have told grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles about you—they would have been so excited to hear of your coming!

This weekend, we had pictures taken with Daddy’s family. I felt like someone was missing…and that someone was you. When you were still with me, I had this wonderful idea of how we would tell the family that you were coming. I wanted to make a sign for Daddy and I to hold that would say, “Love never fails…”, and on the other side, we would write “We’re expecting! 1.17.12”. We were so excited!

When I made our sign, I was so sad that I couldn’t write what I really wanted to write on it. That’s when I realized that what I wanted was to talk to you. I wanted to tell you how very, very much Daddy and I love you. I wanted to tell you about my dreams about kissing your little fingers and toes, counting them again and again in their perfection. I wanted to tell you how much I think about you—how I envy you sitting at the feet of Jesus.

Dear Angel, can I tell you how you’ve changed my life? You have taught me so much about love. You have helped me to see how wonderfully loving your Daddy is—he is going to be the best dad someday. I have learned how to be loved. In my pride, it’s so easy to say that I can do everything on my own. As so many of our friends have poured compassion into our lives, I have seen how a heart can be full of hurt and full of love at the same time.

You have led me into the depths of my Father’s unfailing love. Through your little life, He has shown me how He longs for me to seek after Him as a child—to reach out for Him when my vision is clouded by sin or grief. To be able to say, like Asaph in Psalm 73:

Yet I still belong to You; You hold my right hand. …Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire You more than anything on earth. My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; He is mine forever. ...But as for me, how good it is to be near God! I have made the Sovereign Lord my shelter, and I will tell everyone about the wonderful things You do.

You have opened my eyes to a greater awareness of the hurting of others. How often have I had my mind set only on myself and completely missed the sorrow of my neighbor? How often have I thought I wouldn’t have the right words to say because I’m too afraid of the awkwardness of their pain? You have given me the courage to reach out and be there for others like so many have been for me. And faith to recognize how God can work in their lives when I ask Him to.

Dear Angel, it has been almost a month since we lost you. We will never forget you! Your brothers and sisters will hear all about you. We will be better parents to them because of you. You have taught us to not take life for granted. And that time spent together is time well spent. You have brought so much joy into our lives by bringing us closer to each other and closer to the One you have always belonged to. Know that I long to see you, but I know that I will see you—and for you, it will seem like the blink of an eye.

Loving you always,

Mommy