17 months of life-giving life

My precious girl,

One day I will tell you a story about a young woman who truly could not believe that God could possibly love her. She made mistake after mistake and didn't live her best life every day. She tried very hard but felt like she failed Jesus every day, the person she loved most. She had little understanding of grace and could not comprehend how someone so amazing, so perfect, could possibly love her.   And then,  July 9, 2010 happened.

Little girl, because of YOU, I am starting to get it. I am starting to get how someone could be their very worst self only to be met with unconditional love, forgiveness and adoration from their parent. On our most challenging days, around hour 14 of being together, neither understanding what the other wants, I take over dad's routine. I rock you and the second you tuck those arms under your belly on my chest, the second you let go of all that feisty-ness and wiggling and simply let me love you, in that very second I am overflowing with an indescribable love for you. And on days that are just the average level of challenging, when dad rocks his girl to sleep, I am usually awake before you are, waiting for the minute I can go into your room. No matter what the day before was like, I cannot wait to see you! Could it be that on days when I bark at daddy and snap at me-maw and don't bask in gratitude for this life, our God can't wait to see me, too?

Because of how I love you, I am starting to get how our precious God loves me (and you, though I never doubted that!) The most amazing thing is that He loves you and I about eighty gabillion times more than I love you, though I cannot conceive of how that is possible. My girl, the day we got you, I began a life-saving journey of understanding that no matter what we do, no matter what mistakes we make in life, no matter how far we roam in the wrong direction, we are loved beyond measure by Jesus. Also, it does not matter how much good we do, how many people we serve, how much we try to "be good." Jesus loves us not because we might be good, but because HE is good.

I intended a post all about your life at 17 months. But all I can think about today is how your life, in so many ways, saved mine.

I love you precious girl,

love mama