Letter to Our Baby, Part I

From: A Series of Promises, Part I

December 2016

Our Precious Little One,

Last night I had a dream that God was standing beside me. As your dad and I slept, He was standing beside our bed watching over us. I often feel distant from the presence of God, but last night, His presence was as real to me as any other tangible thing in this world. God had asked me to pray for you yesterday. To pray for our baby. To pray and ask Him to give us you. That’s something that’s been so hard for me to do. It’s always been easy for me to pray for God’s will. It’s always been easy for me to pray and ask that I be accepting of whatever His will may be. That regardless of whether or not we are able to conceive and whether or not I am able to carry you inside me, I will be content. That I will always know that God’s plans are far greater than my own. Because He promises that all things will work together for the good of those who love Him. But it’s been hard for me to ask Him for you. And He told me to do that yesterday. To ask Him for you, and you specifically. Our baby.

It may be hard for you to understand why I felt like I couldn’t ask God for you before. For almost half my life, I’ve been preparing myself for the news that I will never be able to physically carry my own children. Since I was fourteen years old, I knew that my body didn’t work the way others did. If I was lucky, my ovaries would do their job half as often as normal ones did. I don’t ovulate, and that’s something that has to happen in order for me to get pregnant. So since I was fourteen years old, I’ve been preparing myself for acceptance of that, knowing that someday I would find someone of whom I would love more than anyone in this world and our love for each other would make us want a family. Our love for each other would someday make us want you more than anything.

I never wanted to put you in a box. I never wanted to start feeling like you had to be biologically ours to be loved unconditionally. I never wanted to start yearning to carry you inside of me, because I know that sometimes, that doesn’t happen for parents, but that doesn’t mean that God hasn’t already created a perfect little one for them to love more than anything. And I know that regardless of whether you are carried by me or whether you are carried by another woman, you are our baby. You are the one that God has had assigned for us to love and cherish and raise in truth and light since the beginning of time. And so I felt like it would be wrong for me to ask God to give me a baby. Because maybe if I did, I wouldn’t really be asking Him for you.

I realize now that He wanted me to ask Him for you. For our baby. He wanted me to pray that it would happen now. My fears that His answer would not be what I wanted to hear kept me from doing that, but not anymore. Because I know that it’ll be all right if His answer to me is not now. It will be all right if His answer to me is not this way. Because if you are not supposed to come to us right now, if you aren’t supposed to come to us in this way, if I’m not meant to physically carry you inside me or raise you from an infant, the way you will come into our lives and the time you will come into our lives will be perfect. It will be perfect, because it will be you. Our baby. And whether or not you come to us now or later, it will always be you. The one I’ve always prayed for.

And so I prayed with all my heart for you. I prayed for you yesterday, I prayed for you all night long. I have been ceaselessly praying for you since. I’ve been so afraid that maybe I was doing something wrong. That maybe we weren’t ready for you, and that’s why God hadn’t given you to us yet. But God told me that we were ready. We are ready to love you, and we will be waiting with open arms to receive you, no matter when that day should come.

God told me we were parents. When I saw Him standing beside us as we slept last night. He gave me those words to cling to. The promise that He was preparing us for parenthood. That He was preparing us for you. To love and cherish, to raise in truth and light. He told me that I was already a mom. He reassured me that we were already parents. That we were already mom and dad. That we were already your mom and dad. Now and always. I saw His love shining down on us all as the moonlight cast a shadow over our room. I saw the cross of Jesus Christ covering us. All of us. Our beautiful family. A symbol He chose to give me through a dream in the middle of the night, a promise of His presence and sovereignty, His blessing over us as a family. A vision of you. Our baby.

And for now, I will continue praying for you. Our baby. Our precious little one. The one God has had assigned for us to love and cherish and raise in truth and light since the beginning of time. Even though you aren’t physically in our arms yet, you are already with us. And you will be for the rest of our lives. We will love you. We will raise you to the best of our ability to be a child of God and a leader of your generation. We will love you with the love of Christ. We will keep you in our hearts. Because you are ours, and you will always be. Our baby.

Love always,

Mom

“For this child I prayed, and the Lord has granted me my petition that I made to him.” -1 Samuel 1:27