These final thoughts...

As the days grow closer, hours tighten, minutes and seconds evaporate before the birth of our baby. We are eager to see her and hold her and the time leading to that great moment is slipping through our fingers.

And I am realizing how the safety of where she is now housed, my womb, will soon be merely a memory, an idea once born of desire and now a place where she cannot return.

It is only the month of March of the year 2011 and our world has seen such turmoil. Our baby will be born just after one of the largest earthquakes has ever slammed the earth, bringing with it a tsunami and then the danger of radioactive winds.

This after another big earthquake only recently devastated New Zealand.

And there are the countries in turmoil: Egypt, Lybia, Bahrain, and others I've heard of in the last few days whose names are escaping me mostly because there are just so many of them.

Besides this, the people of our world are daily faced with famine, hunger, disease, slavery, abuse, addiction, and other calamaties that are beyond the scope of imagination.

Our girl will enter this world of trouble and I know that for such a brief amount of time all those issues will slip away as we hold her and cry and say thank you for this gift.

And I know that moments and even days and weeks will exist when I want to hide her. Maybe not in my womb, but keep her safely away from a world that will seek to steal the gift that she is.

And I know there will be times without number when I/we will fail her, fail to love her well. When we will break her trust, break her heart.

Still, here is what I hope.

I hope to show her beauty. Maybe it will be the Grand Tetons or a flower in our backyard or the constancy of friendship or a marriage that lasts or a moment when so clearly you hear the call of a Savior Who says: I love you.

I hope she knows her own beauty.

I want her to know that there is darkness. Ah, but the light, the light overwhelms that darkness.

I pray that she will know that there is an end to mourning. I long for her to be sure of the promise that we are not alone, He is with us.

I desire for her to laugh often and deeply. I hope she isn't afraid to love. I pray that she will be wise.

May she understand grace and see it in our lives.

May she live, truly live. Holding what is painful along with what is lovely.

I wanted to say these final things before she comes because right now the world is full of fear, but her birth, it brings love. And love casts out fear.

And that love which is perfect, it never changes. He never changes.

We welcome you, little girl, into a changing, scary world where we commit you to the One who does not change, Who brings life, Whose light overwhelms the darkness, Who promised to always be with you, Whose very name is loveliness and beauty. He is mystery, but He is truth and that truth can be trusted.

Welcome. There truly is so much to hope for...