Love Letters to My Little One: Birthday Blessings

I've struggled for what feels like weeks to find the words to describe all I've been feeling as we reach your first birthday. There's something about the weather-- realizing that this is what the world felt like when I met you-- that's transported me back like a time machine.

And now that we're here, your first birthday, I still don't have the words. My eyes well up with tears nearly every time I put you down to sleep, marveling at every feature and remembering how surreal it was to have you thrown onto my chest in the blink of an eye.

I've been in one of the strangest places I've ever been recently. I feel like I'm on the precipice of some incredible change, like the electricity crackling through the air before a lightning strike, but I couldn't tell you why. As a Believer, I've been in similar places before in my life, but never so out of the blue and never this fierce. It's an exciting place to be, but certainly disorienting.

But as the Lord does, He used your birthday breakfast this morning to confirm His nature: incredible, personal illustrations of how He works. And I wanted you to know them too.

After breakfast, I put you in your playpen (our usual routine) while I tidied and got ready for the day. You immediately reached for your baby doll, Baby Huggums, and to my dismay she was covered in gooey, sticky chunks. Clearly you'd just finished eating bites of a Nutri-Grain bar the last time you played with her. I tenderly took her from you, narrating all the way that I was going to clean her up and give her back to you. But you didn't understand, nor did you care, and you began to cry. My heart broke as I realized all you saw was me, standing just out of reach with something you wanted, and not letting you have it.

What you didn't know was that I was doing this for your benefit. Because Baby Huggums wasn't ready to be played with. She would have made you sticky and dirty, and I wanted you to play with a toy that was just as it should be. And I felt the Lord whisper, "That's hard for Me too. Sometimes all you see is Me removing something from you, something that is right there, because your blessing isn't ready yet." That job interview that went super well, but the rejection email that followed? That relationship you prayed would work out and be the beginning of your happily ever after and then they ghosted? He has better for you.

Not five minutes later, the other side of that illustration came. Something you should know about your mom: I LOVE red velvet cake and I know one day you will too. Your sweet ShaSha (your grandma) knows that the best red velvet cake in the world is from SusieCakes and she had one mailed to us to celebrate. And boy, am I sad you can't have any yet. I know you'll love it. I can't wait for future birthdays when we can all enjoy red velvet cake and sit around and talk about how moist and delicious it is.

But right now, as a good mother, I'm not allowing you to have the cake. Not because I don't think you'll love it if I give it to you, but because you're not ready. The sugar, the dyes, the chemicals... your little body isn't ready for all that comes with a red velvet cake. Sometimes we aren't given what we ask for, not because the blessing isn't ready, but because we aren't.

And I feel like this is a perfect illustration of how our Heavenly Father is probably treating me right now. It feels like a big blessing is on the horizon. Something I've been praying and crying and dreaming about since I was fourteen. And I always wonder, "Why the delay? I know You have a plan for my life, my role in what You're planning to do, but what is taking so long?" And while there are many reasons, I think a big one is I wasn't ready for all that would come with what I was asking for. So I'm getting ready.

A parent's job is to protect their children, sometimes from themselves and their own mistakes. And while giving you red velvet cake wouldn't be the end of the world, I know with the knowledge I have, it wouldn't be what's best for you. I delight in giving you things that make you happy, but it would be a disservice to you to give you something you weren't ready for.

Motherhood has given me a kinship with the Lord that I pray you also experience someday. And I'm grateful that today, as I celebrate the most special day of my life, the Lord sat with us in that kitchen and showed us who He is: loving, personal, and generous.

Happy birthday, my darling girl. You're the greatest blessing I've ever received. I thank God He waited until the blessing was ready and until I was.

Luke 1:49 For He who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is His name.