Sweet Baby

I wrote this several years ago to our youngest child before we knew her. I thought I would share this for those who are waiting...

Sweet baby, I miss you.

We’ve never met, so how can I miss you so much? Why does my chest ache with an emptiness I can’t understand? Why do my arms feel empty? Why do I count the heads at the table and feel like someone is missing?

I love you. But how can I love someone who was never created? Is it that you are out there waiting for me to accept you? Will your chubby hand never grasp a Cheerio while marble eyes beam above two mounds of white cheek? Or will you go to someone else if I wait too long?

I close my eyes and I can see your eyes, feel the soft skin on the curve of your cheek, smell the wispy hair above your ears and it’s hard to let you go. It’s hard to know that you may never be mine to hold, to love, to raise and then finally to let go.

Instead, I have to let you go now. Even before you exist. You are not mine…not that you ever would be. You are God’s—to give or not to give. It is not in my power to make you come to be. It is only in God’s power that your life is created. And that is fitting, for only through his power can your life be redeemed.

But I can’t help hoping that you might still come to me. My heart races at the thought that the gift of your life might be placed in mine. That my life might be given to yours to help you come into the world. And then it would be my honor to watch you grow. To pour my life into yours. To see you become the wonderful vision God had of you when he sat down to create you.

If one day you’re given to me, it will be the greatest gift. But even the thought of you…the hope and longing for you is a wonderful joy. And so I love you baby, and always will.

Mindy Hirst