Saturday, December 01, 2012

First Letter to My Darling in Ethiopia

To my child halfway around the world: Mommy loves you. You have been on our minds and hearts for a few years now, but in the coming weeks we will be closer to you than ever before. Still far away...but closer still.

And so you are now part of this blog. Just like Hunter, Millie, and Will, we will tell of the highs and lows of waiting for you, becoming your parents, and living our lives together. There will be lots of pictures and lots of funny stories. There will be treasured milestones and recounting of the little things day by day. We wait for the day that we see and know you face to face and in our lives as a family of six. For now, we wait and pray and anticipate God's goodness in adding you to our family.

Lord, would you help this Mommy wait well? Would you help me trust over and over that your perfect timing for our family will reign supreme?

Dear one, these verses in Mommy's Bible have been coming back to me often in these past few weeks. I pray I will cling to them knowing that God loves you and is watching over you even now:

Psalm 121
lift up my eyes to the hills.
    From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
    who made heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot be moved;
    he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
    will neither slumber nor sleep.
The Lord is your keeper;
    the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
    nor the moon by night.
The Lord will keep you from all evil;
    he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
    your going out and your coming in
    from this time forth and forevermore.

The Lord is our help. When we lift our eyes for help, he is there. He is not distant. He will not sleep. He will keep us even as we are apart. He keeps your going out and your coming in. He does not rest or slumber even in the dark of scary night. As you lay to rest, I pray you will know the keeping and sustaining and loving presence of our God. As I lay to rest in these long days to come, I pray I would know that too. He will keep us, watch over us, and love us day by day...and will do that forever. Even once we are together, he alone will continue to keep us.

Your Aunt Jenn and I loved a movie when we were young, "An American Tail," about a little mouse separated from his family. He sings a song looking up at the stars, "Somewhere Out There":

Somewhere out there,
Beneath the pale moonlight,
Someone's thinking of me,
And loving me tonight.

Somewhere out there,
Someone's saying a prayer,
That we'll find one another,
In that big somewhere out there.

And even though I know how very far apart we are,
It helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star,
And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby,
It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky!

Cheesy as it may be, those sentiments bring me peace tonight knowing that even as we sleep under the same big sky, we have an even bigger God who watches tenderly over both of us. 

Sleep well, my darling. Mommy longs for you and prays we will both find rest today and everyday in the sure arms of our God and Savior.

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