A Christmas Letter to the Baby

Dear Baby,

Today is Christmas, 2011. I am 15 weeks pregnant with you and I am fairly certain you are a boy, but I could be completely wrong. If you are a girl, we will be thrilled with that, too. I am so happy that you are mine. No matter what else is going on in my life, I think about you growing inside me and it fills me with joy. Your father and I love each other very much and we've been married now for 6 wonderful years. We are partners and we've been through a lot together. I am so happy to bring you into our little family where love is the foundation.

I have so many hopes for you and Christmas just makes me think more and more of what I want our little family to be like. I wish I could offer you a world where things weren't so hard or complicated, where there wasn't such great evil and selfishness as there is. But all I can offer you is the world that we have, where we take the good with the bad and trust in the Lord for the rest. If I can just teach you to trust HIM, then I know I will have given you the greatest gift I can and that you will weather whatever life brings your way.

Your father's family is fighting this year and it hurts me to watch their pain. I want to protect you from ever knowing that families fight, but I don't think I can. I get discouraged when I see your father's family so upset during Christmas, despite your father and my's best efforts to spread cheer and keep everyone together. It makes me wonder, if I can't help them be a family, how can I possibly create my own family? Your father says that when we don't know what to do, we should throw up our hands and give the problem to the Lord, like when King Jehosaphat had three armies coming to attack his country. I know that your Dad is right. The Lord has promised me that HE will take care of the three of us and that HE will take care of you, and I am clinging to that promise.

When I was a child, my parents made Christmas wonderful for me. It was such a happy, exciting time. We decorated the tree together, we made silly videotapes of each other, we baked cookies, we visited both sides of the family, and it was simply wonderful. I pray that we can do that for you and for all your brothers and sisters to come.

I can't wait to meet you in June and to spend next Christmas with you in my arms.

I love you, my precious one,

Love, Mom.