almond sliver of grace

Sweet Charis,

I have been weaving this letter with my heart strings for weeks now and no matter how many times I've started it, the result has been a pile of tangled thread. I know now that my block was simply that God hadn't finished weaving the tapestry of His sovereignty in my own heart...so I couldn't finish weaving it for yours.

Three weeks ago we celebrated the gift of one whole year with you; what a precious year it has been. This past year has been such a joy watching you grow--almost quadruple your birth weight!, learn to crawl, wave at your sisters before you even enter the room they're in because you delight so much in being near them. You have spent so many hours with your little body buried in my chest just snuggling, your head tucked in the crook of my neck, sharing with us a laugh that makes us all giggle. In the midst of pain or frustration you have been so calm, so content.  As you grow, we pray that the peace you exhibit will be evidence of God's grace in your life, fruit of His Spirit.

Since your birthday, we have listened as friend's and loved one's lives were changed forever, all without much forewarning.

Two parents left the hospital with empty arms as complications from croup claimed their two-year-old boy,

a beloved wife and mother of two small boys who battled uterine cancer not too long ago, underwent surgery once more for the removal of more of the cancer, and a third of her lung,

a newlywed said goodbye to his bride of less than a year when her heart gave up as she awaited new lungs,

our extended family mourned a man called great grandpa, grandpa and dad whose heart beat its last with no warning,

the list goes on...

babies in the NICU,

loved ones of loved ones who passed away,

and finally, on Sunday afternoon I held the shoulders of a dear woman as she held her husband of 40 year's hand and God called him home.

In the midst of the past few weeks and this past year since bringing your tiny four-and-a-half-pound-almond-sliver-self  home from the hospital (you weren't quite big enough to be called a 'peanut'), we have held you tight, whispered prayers of thanksgiving, counted each moment with gratitude for your little life and thriving health. But know with certainty, that not you, nor we, are guaranteed a tomorrow.  So with this breath I'm given, in this first birthday letter, I've been trying to weave out on these keys the words I want you share most with you. Now I see, that this letter could only be knit together with the story of last Sunday.

Just like many a Sunday before, I was getting you three girls ready for church when your papa called and asked if I could go to the hospital to sit with our friend Marilyn and her husband Don (who by the grace of God in the body of Christ we call family) at the hospital. Don had taken a turn for the worse and they were unsure of how long he had left to live.

With the three of you in good hands, I found my way to a room in CCU that bed a weak man and a wife who loved fiercely.  In the hours that would follow there were tears of joy and sorrow as we waited for our sovereign God to call Don home.  And though I wept for the wife he was leaving, and I wept for the suffering he was enduring, it was a dying man's words that opened the floodgates of my heart.

With as much energy and as many words as he had left, he was proclaiming the sovereignty of God to the point that the doctors thought he was delirious.  But we know different.  We know that in all clarity he was pleading with the doctors to understand that it was God's will that would prevail.  He wanted them to hear the gospel and when the doctor proclaimed "God isn't going to talk to me" in the mumbled response of a weak man beneath an oxygen mask, I made out the word "repent."

I chuckled a bit.  God is always speaking whether the doctor had ears for listening or not.  Don knew this.

In the first hours that would follow, Don labored to finish each passage of scripture that our pastor read to him, words he had faithfully written on his heart. He proclaimed himself the chief of sinners and nodded with agreement as our pastor reminded him that soon he would be standing before God, with Christ interceding, clothed in Christ's righteousness and not his own.  And he repeated to his wife, 'don't cry, no tears.'  He wanted us to celebrate that he was going home.

His breathing became more and more labored, his words became few and then after we were questioning why God wasn't letting Don leave this world, he slowly, peacefully, drifted off to sleep and his heart slowed to a stop.  I'm certain that he awoke fully satisfied for he was face to face with his only hope, a God who had called Don, His own.

It might seem strange to share this memory in your birthday letter but the prayer of my heart is that I will live and die with the same fervency for the gospel, and love for my Savior as Don did. I pray that you will also.

Charis, what you think about God is the most important thing about you. It isn't how musical or athletic you will be, how many children you'll have or vocation you choose. The most important thing in your life will be your relationship with the One who gave you life. On your death bed I'm most certain you won't be thinking about how you should have lost those last 5 pounds or bettered your golf game, mastered a trade, lived in your dream house, or traveled the world. Rather, I pray that what will press on your heart, like Don's, is that the people around you may not know the truth.  I pray that you will love Christ so much that even as you take your last breath you will long for those around you to know Him too.

I want you to understand that you, like your mother and father, like Don, are the chief of sinners.  There is no righteousness in you apart from Christ's righteousness, and you cannot, no matter how hard you strive, save yourself. Because

[we] were dead in the trespasses and sins in which [we] once walked, following the course of this world... among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace [we] have been saved through faith. And this is not our own doing; it is the gift of God not a result of works, so that no one may boast.  ~Ephesians 2:1-9

Like Don, I pray that you will have absolute assurance that because of Christ's death for your sin on the cross, that Christ will and has interceded for you before the Father and that by Jesus' stripes alone you are healed.

God knit you in my womb and you are fearfully and wonderfully made.

He knows the hairs on your head, He has the tears you'll shed in this lifetime in a bottle and He has already numbered your days.

He gives. He takes away.

And our prayer for you is that as you walk through this life whether in rain or sunshine, sickness or health you will be able to proclaim "Blessed be His name."  That in all things you will have a heart of gratitude because you have been given the greatest gift.

Life will not always be easy. In fact, you will suffer. People you love will get sick, be taken from you suddenly, you may get sick, be taken from us suddenly. Know that God is good and His ways are not our own.  What you believe about Him matters.  Your view of God and your relationship with Him will be what sustains you, helps you navigate raging waters and will be what will lead you through the valley of the shadow of death.

His promise in Romans is clear that all things work together for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. It doesn't mean that we will have perfect understanding now, or that if we love Him more He promises us a BMW. Rather, the promise that all things work together for the good of those who love Him is rooted in what He has already done, what Christ has already done. For once He has called you His own

neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord... For those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. ~Romans 8:38-39, 30

Our desire more than anything else in this world is that you, sweet Charis, will be called His own. We plead with the Lord for this and trust Him for it.  We pray that you will desire to love Him with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, realize that it isn't possible apart from His grace, and trust Him all the more.

May your hope be in the One who formed your inward parts, who knitted you together in my womb. May you praise Him, for you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are His works; may your soul know it very well.

We love you, Charis, and thank God for you--our little almond sliver--who reminds me that while a mustard seed of faith can move mountains, a little almond sliver of God's grace can change hearts.

Happy 1st birthday!

So teach us to number our days

that we may get a heart of wisdom.

Return, O Lord! How long?

Have pity on your servants!

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,

that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,

and for as many years as we have seen evil. 

Let your work be shown to your servants,

and your glorious power to their children.

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,

and establish the work of our hands upon us;

yes, establish the work of our hands!

~Psalm 90:12-17