There are very many things that I am looking forward to teaching you. There will be lots of new lessons for new stages. Pretty soon I'll have to teach you how to nurse and how to sleep when it's dark out. Eventually you'll learn things like how to sit up (and how to sit still) and how to talk and laugh and play. You'll learn a lot and your daddy and I will learn a lot too.
But as I have been thinking about all the things that I want to teach you, not only with my words, but with my attitudes and my life, I keep coming back to the one thing I know that has made all the difference in my life.
I want you to know, most of all, that God is very good. There is nothing else in this life that I am as certain of as this.
As I wrote about last time, many things in this life can be hard or painful or uncertain. People we love suffer, we suffer, we can become quite ill, our relationships can develop tensions, the things that we own can be stolen, the things that we want most sometimes cannot be achieved and all these things can bring hurt.
But, when you know most of all that God is very good, all of these hard and hurtful things teach us that life is ultimately not just about you or me, but is about you and me living closely in relationship with a God who is very good. When we hurt, we can grow very angry because life is not fair, or we can grow very peaceful because we have learned to surrender our rights to leave more room for God in our hearts.
God is very kind, comforting and very merciful. I could not promise you that He is safe. But everything hard and wrong and crazy about this world and the way that we have made it, God knows how to redeem. He knows how to use what is most difficult about life to form us and to make us truly and abundantly joyful as we learn to love others more than ourselves.
Over and again, you will see that God is a God who will make true the desires of your heart and make your heart sing for joy. But never think that God's goodness will make your life safe. Just know that when you are most scared or fearful or in doubt, you have the greatest learning opportunity for discovering God's goodness.
As your mom, I already know how much I don't want to see you hurt and I already know that when you are in pain, I will be in pain with you. It's just how a mommy's heart works.
I think it's how God's heart works too. When you are in pain, think about how God Himself walked this earth and finally ended in the Garden of Gethsemane all alone in great grief and sorrow. He knows how you feel when you hurt, because he moved into our world and felt our hurts with us. And even though the greatest act of cruelty was committed against Him, he still showed us that He was very good and very powerful and he forgave those who hurt Him and overcame even death itself.
I can't promise that hurt will never come to your life, but I can promise you that God is very good. And I hope I can help you learn to bank your whole life on that promise.
I love you,
Mommy
