It is early in the morning and I am up sipping coffee while your dad is still asleep. It is hard to believe that in only 12 weeks you will be here to greet us (please don’t come late, buddy!). 

Here are a few things that I can’t wait to do, just you and me:

Take long walks 

Play in the sand (For as long as I can remember I have loved the beach. It makes me think of my   family because we grew up going to Port Aransas as much as possible. It makes me think of my mom, especially, because we would always take long walks near the ocean and search for sand dollars. I think when you’re older you’ll prefer surfing or tossing a foot ball with your dad, and I will sit in the sun and smile at you both. But while you are young, I’ll take you to hunt for sand dollars while we let the ocean tickle our toes.)

Read (I know your dad will love doing this with you, too. We both love to read and write, and I hope you’ll love literature as much as we do. It is so rich. My mom began reading to me when I was a baby, and I am grateful for it. I look forward to reading while you fall asleep on my chest.)

There is so much more that I can’t wait to do with you. Right now I pray you are healthy and strong. I have prayed since I knew you were inside me that the Lord would create in you a heart for Him, and that you would grow up to be a mighty warrior for His kingdom. 

It’s hard to believe how much we love you already, and when I feel you kick it fills me with such joy.

Time to wake up your daddy…

Love,

Mom

October 12, 2008

 Dear Baby,

 As I write this snow is falling and the ground is covered in sheets of white. Peer outside our window and it looks like a snow-globe. It is breathtaking. Your dad and I have never lived in a place where it snows like this, so this is not only your first blizzard, but ours as well. You are only 10 and a half weeks old but already this is one of the first things we will experience together as a family.

 I felt connected to you for the first time last night. Your dad and I went to the symphony after a delicious Thai food dinner (hopefully you will enjoy Asian food as much as we do!). The special guests were folk artists Joe Ungar and Molly Mason. I hadn’t heard music like that in quite sometime-the kind of music that makes your heart swell and brings tears to your eyes. I thought of you, especially when they played this beautiful song called “Harvest Home Suite,” a song that takes one through all the different seasons of the year. I couldn’t help but think how you are a part of us now, and from now on each season we are three.

 “Do you hear the music?” I kept thinking. I hope you did.

 Love,

Mom

Alfred, our pastor here in Montana, offered the other day that when we find ourselves bored or lacking joy, we should remind ourselves of the bad news – that is, that we are sinners, and our sin runs deeper than we could ever imagine. Not until we understand our own depravity can we understand the redemption we have in Christ (the good news): “but God shows his love for us in that while were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Paul writes in 1 Timothy 1:15, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.” Yes. This is good news. 

As I’ve tried to ponder on this “bad” news (Lord knows I don’t do it enough) I’ve been humbled by some of Tim Keller’s (pastor of Redeemer Church in NY) thoughts on the matter: 

“So according to the Bible, the primary way to define sin is not just the doing of bad things, but the making of good things into ultimate things” (Keller, Reason for God). 

I can go on and on about how many good things I turn into ultimate things, instead of making God my “ultimate” – my husband, my friends, my family – all good, but when I worship them instead of worshiping the Lord my God, things get bad. Keller quotes in Reason for God, Ernest Becker, author of Pulitzer Prize winning The Denial of Death: “No human relationship can bear this burden of godhood…If your partner is your ‘All’ then any shortcoming in him becomes a major threat to you.” How true this is, and this should make us turn immediately the opposite direction – that is to the One relationship that deserves our utmost everything, the God, the One who has redeemed us from our deepest sin-ourselves. 

Now that we are having a baby I feel I take all these truths to heart even more, knowing we’ll have to instill them in him or her from an early age. Becker notes that a child’s need for self-worth “is the condition for his life.” If this is the case, then it is of dire importance that we teach our little one that his or her worth comes from the Jesus who loves them, that his or her identity lies in Christ and Christ alone. Not only this, but Bryce and I must model this, and this means not worshiping each other, but Christ.

Faith Be Not Blind

My faith be not blind

No search in abyss

With eyes squinting tightly

Be not of remiss

My faith be not careless

Imprudent or unwise

Lackadaisical nor lax

Be not ill advised

My faith be intelligent

Be it sharp as a sword

Be it grounded and wise

And based on the Word.

My faith be not fragile

Nor feeble nor frail

But able to stand

In the fiercest of gales

My faith be robust

Be it steadfast and sound

Built not on sand

But the most solid of ground

My faith be not blind

But stripped of my scales

By power from Him

Pierced for me by the nails

The following poem is a simple one I wrote on our balcony in Paris, inspired by Linke. (I had also just read The Long Walk to Freedom, the autobiography of Nelson Mandela, and attended a Mugabe protest in London)

i dream for africa.

my eyes are wide

my vision blurred

if you look closer

you will see

her people are more

than a map.

my hope stretches

like a dancer

twirls and twirls and

tangles with

How?

if you stretch

you will feel

her hunger.

my hands are weak

my fingers small

if you reach

you will touch

the untouchable,

her children.

my mouth is no longer

silent.

my voice speaks

if you listen

you will hear a whisper

Help us.

if you love

we will wake

from this dream.

I rise for Africa.