I thought it would feel effortless, simple and that your babyhood would be my chance to masterfully present my aptitude for all things motherhood.
It's funny the ways we can find ourselves humbled.
Precious Theodore, my gift. A gift I did not deserve or earn simply by all my doing, all my mothering that came before you. Oh, how my soul has been ravaged and spilled out this year, and how the deepest joy has filled so many of the rifts my pride tore open.
Your first year has been something beautiful. It has written so many new declarations of love upon my heart.
You came into this world as a weak, hurting child. Your body was weak, small, hungry. You and I together, we found grace. I found that even in what I thought was my most capable role I was still so very fragile, very much in need, not able on my own.
My son, we are all so breakable, so weak, so in need of much more than we can toil though on our own. You have tasted the bitterness of that from your very first days, you have known pain, you have felt the ache...and you have tasted the goodness of a God who meets us in our hurt, our weakness, our need.
My prayer over your life is that you would find the most precious gift our human hearts can be offered, the depth of what our souls crave, the joy to which you have been called. Jesus. Yes, He is so deeply and perfectly good.
Before I loved you, knew you, held you. He did. He is. He will. Always.
I am so thankful for your life, the gift that it is.
You are loved.
Happy First Birthday, sweet Theodore Donald.
