Letter to Baby

Back in November, when I was in my first trimester of pregnancy with Grace, I wrote the following letter. I had completely forgot about it until I stumbled across it today while doing some journaling. I cried as I read it, because God grew that little "prune" into a baby who's sleeping downstairs, and I want this for her more than I did then.


11/26/2011

A Mama’s Prayer
Little one,

I do not know you yet. Baby books tell me that you’re the size of a prune right now, building bone and cartilage, forming teeth buds, and have a heartbeat of 150bpm. I don’t know whether you’re a boy or a girl, how long you will live, what sort of foods you’ll like, your personality, whether you will like your dad and me when you’re grown, your eye color, your voice. I do not know you yet, but the One who is knitting you together knows everything about you. He counts the hairs on your head (or at this point, the hairs covering your body). He knows every word you will ever say. He knows when you’ll take your first step. He knows when you’ll disobey. He knows when you will cry, and what it will feel like for you when you first are betrayed or hurt deeply. He knows when you will rejoice. He knows whether or not you will know him. Your dad and I are praying that you come to know Him. His name is Jesus. He is our Savior. He is our Redeemer. He is the reason we are alive. He is the one holding this world together. If we do nothing else for you (and I hope we do a great many things for you), I hope we show you how much Jesus loves us, loves you, and how much we need Him. Your daddy and I are sinners. We make mistakes every day. Some seem less painful than others, but all of them are sins against God. God made us, created us for good things, gave us a perfect world with no pain and no sin. Nothing was wrong. Then we rebelled against God and sinned by wanting to be God, wanting to know what He knew, wanting not to serve Him and love Him, but BE Him. In the midst of our rebellion and betrayal of God, He loved us and sent His son to earth, Jesus, to pay the debt of the sin we owed him. See, when we sin against God, we now owe him a debt. We can’t ever pay Him what we owe. We don’t have enough. We deserve to die for our sins. Instead of us, Jesus came to die in our place. Now, instead of dying, we are now considered innocent, completely righteous and clean by God. Isn’t that amazing? Isn’t that incredible? Jesus has given us a gift that we can never deserve or earn. He’s saved our lives. He’s cleansed us from all that was wrong. We are called to simply accept this gift by confessing with our mouth that Jesus is the Son of God, and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, and we will be saved. Like I said earlier, your daddy and I are praying that you will be saved by Jesus, too. He died for you, little one. He died for the sins you have yet to commit. And then he rose from death, and is alive forever!

I want SO much for you to know the riches that are in Christ Jesus! I was reading in Ephesians 1-2 this morning and felt like I wanted to write you a letter, telling you my heart for you. Even before we know you, your daddy and I love you like crazy. Just because you’re you, not because you’ve done anything for us. Just because you are YOU. Your heavenly Daddy loves us like that, but so much more perfectly. He loves us when we hate Him. He died for us when we didn’t want anything to do with Him, because He loves us so much. Little one, Jesus loves you so much more than your daddy and I will ever love you. We hope and pray you come to love Him, too.

We can’t wait to finally meet you! I’m excited to feel you move for the first time. In almost a week now, we’ll hopefully be able to hear your heartbeat. Every time your dad thinks about that or we talk about it, he starts wiggling with delight and gets a goofy grin on his face. I can tell he can’t wait to meet you, and be a daddy. If you’re a girl, he keeps saying he’s going to be “done.” By that, he means that you will melt his heart, and he will be the most doting, loving, protective man in your life, perhaps until your husband comes along. If you’re a boy, he gets excited thinking about wrestling with you, teaching you how to do things, how to be in a dangerous situation, how to have adventures and take risks, and other boy stuff that your mom doesn’t know too much about :) I grew up with three brothers, but am obviously a girl, so I sort of know what boys are like and how to live with them, but I do not understand them! It makes marriage to your dad very interesting and fun!

We love you so incredibly much.
Greg & Melissa, Mom and Dad (wow that looks weird to me!)


I can't wait to deliver this letter to Grace when she's old enough to read it and understand it. Her daddy, although he is loving and doting and "done" (particularly when Grace gives him a big gummy grin), is doing the most loving thing I can imagine for her. He isn't reading this letter to her. He is telling her every day about Jesus. He is praying for her salvation every day. One of my favorite moments each day is at night, when Greg reads her a Bible story and prays over her. I just sit in the room to listen and watch. I get glimpses of how my heavenly Daddy loves us when I watch Greg with Grace.