My Living Dream: 1 Year Later

Tomorrow my sweet baby boy will turn one year old.

He is my living dream. 

Has it really only been 1 year?  Hasn’t it been a lifetime? I cannot remember life without him.  Wasn’t he always a part of me?   Yes.  I know that he was.

In honor of the anniversary of sweet Wynn’s birth, I thought I would repost the letter I wrote to him just after he was born, detailing our wait for his arrival and God’s faithfulness.  I have so much more to say about his first year, but for now a birthday cake needs to come out of the oven and I have last minute birthday party decorations to hang.  Stay tuned for birthday pictures, coming soon.  Until then . . . my words and thoughts from one year ago.

Dear Wynn,

I carried you in my heart for many years before I carried you inside my body, and now, in my arms.

While you were in my heart, sweet boy, I talked to Jesus often. I prayed that he would send you down from heaven so that you could be my darling babe. And so that I could be your mommy. How I craved you with my whole heart.

The Lord chose to not send you right away. I believe the angels were having too much fun with you in heaven. They weren’t ready to give you up. I bet they cuddled you close and smelled your sweet warm skin and played with your fine hair. Did you rest in His holy arms? Were you there when my prayers reached His throne? How I wish you could talk while that memory is fresh and share heaven with me here and now.

While I waited and yearned for God to send you to daddy and me, God sent a different gift in the form of a lesson. The lesson of patience. And obedience. Mommy learned to wait on God and pray for His will, not my own. I wasn’t always a good student. Sometimes I would pray to God for His will and cry tears wishing for my own. I bought things for you-clothes and once a cloth diaper. Daddy wasn’t sure this was a good idea. “What if you never made your appearance?” He was afraid it would be even harder for mommy to have sweet baby things in the room that was waiting for you, here, in the New Old House.

Then one April morning, when it was cool and rainy and otherwise nondescript, God answered my prayer. For the second time in my life, I felt the presence of God speak inaudibly to me, telling me most clearly that I would give birth to a baby that coming March. Just like that, simple as His truth and complex as the holy spirit whispering to me as I stood in the bathroom on cold tile floor, ready to climb into the shower. Bare in more ways than one; unworthy me, present before a perfect Lord. There he revealed the gift of you. I stopped fretting and wondering when you would come. He told me. I believed. And therefore I knew.

Months past and summer came, hot and sunny. I waited on the Lord to fulfill His promise. I walked by faith, not by sight. I believed but I couldn’t quite see you. You were always just a step ahead of me. Still, I waited on the Lord for big things. I believed the Lord for you, my son.

The first weekend in July, daddy went out of town. When he came home, he brought me a birdhouse in the shape of a chapel. That same day, I brought home a pregnancy test. It was probably the 50th pregnancy test that I took, watching for the first indication that you had begun your journey to us. I took that test and I knew the answer before the two lines slowly appeared like a glimpse into the future. I knew the test had to be positive that month if you were in fact to be born in March, as God had promised. Sure enough, the message of the Lord was suddenly tangible before me. And I rejoiced.

I walked downstairs and met daddy in the living room and turned on our wedding song, Fields of Gold. I held daddy close and we danced. I was trembling. No moment can ever replace that moment for me, that feeling of being bathed in a warm light of God’s awesome blessing, when, toward the end of our song, I stood on my tippy toes and whispered in daddy’s ear:

“I am pregnant.”

I will never forget the look on daddy’s face, as he was lit from within with the promise of you. I remember I was wearing a green sundress and that daddy picked me up and kissed me and twirled me around the living room. I remember I felt beautiful. I remember I felt beautiful because of you. Oh how we celebrated the joy of the Lord that evening! We basked in the blessing of you. Mommy will never forget.

Several days later daddy put the birdhouse in the backyard. It sat empty all winter long, and you grew bigger and stronger inside me. Several days before you were born, I looked out the kitchen window and found that a family of birds had made their nest in our birdhouse. Soon now baby birds will be born. And now you too are here.

I will carry you outside this spring and show you the nest and listen to the sweet chirps of new life. I will tell you about the Lord as I know Him this side of heaven. I will teach you how too see the little things and thereby recognize His voice. It is the least I can do for you, my tiny miracle, my living reminder of the one true living God. The finest example of the endless bounds of His love.

All my love my darling boy,
Mommy