Dearest Abigail,

I wrote to you the week you were born to recount the story of your birth, to etch the words in a forever memory, never to be forgotten. The day when you entered our lives.

Today, I want to do the same thing. For the same reason. So that I never forget your first year. I swore to myself when we first had you that I would never call you anything other than Abigail. What a beautiful name you have! But alas, as the months rolled on and your sisters wore me down, you were called by many endearing names, our most favorite being “Abby Cadabby” like the Sesame Street character and my least favorite being Grace’s slang of “Abs.”

Your first few months seemed a blur of breastfeeding, trying to keep up with your sisters, sleeping or attempting to sleep even though your sisters were awake when you slept (can anyone really communicate how hard it is to have three kids under five?? ever??!), and just trying to make sure that you survived their attempts to use you as their new doll 🙂 Most of the time you didn’t mind at all and anytime you did, you were quick to scream and look at me in an act of desperation, your eyes saying, “MOMMY! Free me from these crazy siblings who wish to use me as their pawn!” Now, you gladly play with them and let them play with you and Chesed has even learned how to safely take care of you in her loving, almost-three-year-old kind of way. No one makes you laugh like your sisters. No one.

But, I am happy to say, more than either of your sisters, you are a Mommas girl. You love your Daddy immensely and cuddle into his chest just like both of your sisters did, but when it comes to making your needs known, Mommas your gal. Your Daddy often tells me, “She was fine until you walked in….really!” as you break down in tears when I enter the room. While some people would see this as a negative thing (and I am not saying it is easy when this does happen!!) I secretly love the fact that you can break down with me like no one else. I pray it stays that way. That when you are 2 or 12 or 17 or 25, you will know that my arms are a safe place to rest and be yourself and be loved for who you really are – nothing more or less.

I guess that is one of the things I have realized in this first year of your life. Many of the things you have shown us to be true about you as an infant, I pray will endure into your adulthood.

And I want to write these qualities down now, these observations, which Maria Montessori would be so proud of, to remind you of who you really are, if ever you seem to forget. Because sometimes life gets hard, as you have already discovered having two sisters! and sometimes we need a gentle and loving reminder from someone who really loves us to answer those deep questions of “Who am I?”

Abigail, you love people. You hate it when everyone leaves the room and you are the only one there. You have screamed in protest about this from the day you were born, pretty much. I love that about you.

Abigail, you have a hearty appetite for life. You play exuberantly, laugh unashamedly, and are ticklish and fun-loving.

Abigail, you will eat whatever is placed in front of you. With thanksgiving. Never have I had such an un-picky eater.

Abigail, you love music. You love to dance to songs and play drums with Daddy and sing alone with Grace and her violin.

Abigail, you light up every room you enter. Your smile distracts all of my Bradley students every week when Daddy brings you in for me to nurse you. Strangers comment how beautiful you are and how happy you are. Your presence brings joy wherever you go.

Abigail, you love to cuddle. You linger in my arms and don’t just come for physical nourishment but for emotional comfort and security. And it is perfect. and beautiful.

Abigail, you are a unique and essential person in our family. And with you, we have all become better.

I love you, my dear Abigail, and my prayer for you today, on your first birthday is simple. I prayed and asked God to speak to my heart a blessing to speak over you today. Here it is:

(From Proverbs 8)

I pray that you would speak noble things, that from your lips would come what is right and that your mouth will utter truth. I pray that wisdom would be your crown jewel, that nothing you ever desire would compare with her. I pray that you would be a woman who listens to the voice of Wisdom, watching daily at her gates and waiting beside her doors…that in finding Wisdom you would find true life and obtain favor from the Lord.

I love you, my precious daughter. I praise God for your first year and I pray that you would have a hundred more, full of love, life, wisdom, and fruitfulness in Christ Jesus, whom I pray will become as precious to you as He is to me.

Love,

Mommy

Now when He got into a boat, His disciples followed Him. And suddenly a great tempest arose on the sea, so that the boat was covered with the waves. But He was asleep. Then His disciples came to Him and awoke Him, saying, “Lord, save us! We are perishing!” But He said to them, “Why are you fearful, O you of little faith?” Then He arose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm. So the men marveled, saying, “Who can this be, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?” ~ Matthew 8: 23-27

Yesterday I awoke feverish and shaking with chills, a sign that yet another bout of mastitis had hit me unannounced. Only a day before I was totally healthy, hiking through the woods of Maryland with family and friends, giddily picking leaves for our “leaf project” for school. I decided to stay home from our homeschool co-op and two friends graciously volunteered to take the big girls to their respective schools for the day. I tried to rest. Abigail seemed unwilling to nap. After a little crying (and no napping for either of us), I sighed and picked her up, grabbing my phone along the way to receive a text message:

“All Hill schools are on lock down because of a shooter at Navy Yard…” My friend told me her husband would pick up my little girl if needed, as her preschool is down the street from the Yard. Not the type of text any mother wants to get. A shooter killing people nearby my kid’s school. Once again, I tried to rest. I prayed. I sought The Lord. I lifted my eyes higher and remembered, interestingly enough, the  verse the girls are memorizing this week, the one they repeated right before walking out the door: “Yea, though i walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” – Psalm 23:4

Neither of the girls knew the events that occurred yesterday, thankfully, as they were shielded by the adults around them beautifully and carefully,  but I did. And any fearful thoughts or feelings I had were comforted and calmed by that good Word – “though I walk (not denying the reality of circumstances)…I will fear no evil (a chosen response of the will) Why? Because You, Lord, are with me. And you are with my kids.

Being sick allows you time to sit (if you do as you are told, which I sometimes don’t do – I will admit I can be stubborn!) and think (if you can tune out distractions, like second by second “Breaking News updates, ” as I faced yesterday…eventually I just turned these off completely). I am reading Matthew lately and today my reading included this passage of Jesus in the storm. Something hit me in a way it hadn’t before – “…the boat was covered in waves, but He was asleep.” I repeated this again in my mind. The boat Jesus was in was covered in waves, yet He slept undisturbed. His circumstances should have overwhelmed Him to the point of death, and yet He slept silent, undisturbed in body or in spirit. What allowed him to be at a place of such peace? A deep relationship of trust and confidence in His Heavenly Father. He knew that nothing could happen to Him without His Father’s bidding, outside of His sovereign plan.

Today I am encouraged that while circumstances may often be out of my control, my response to them is not. I can choose faith instead of fear, trust instead of anxiety, and confidence in my Heavenly Father’s care instead of doubt in His plan. But I will only be able to make that good choice in the very difficult occasions life presents if I daily make the choice to cultivate a lifestyle of intimacy with my Father. The more I know Him and am certain of His character, the less I will fear what life throws my way.

What about you, friend? Has your ship been tossed and flooded today? this week? this year? Christ wants to calm you, to fill you with His peace that passes understanding. But first, you must lift your eyes off your circumstances and onto Him. Instead of being overwhelmed by the floods of evil, sickness, stress, and troubles of life, lets be overwhelmed with His Presence instead.

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” – Corrie Ten Boom

I remember the day well. We were at my parent’s house in Gainesville, Georgia, swimming at our boat dock with our youth group from church. We had a new youth pastor whose name was Dane Burk. I had really liked our previous youth pastor and was trying, in my fifteen-year-old sort of way, to prove loyalty to him by rejecting Dane. That day, my heart softened a bit towards Dane and accepted him as my new youth pastor….or at least that is the way it went, according to Dane’s journal, which he read to me months later after we were close friends.

What he read to me from his journal went something like this, “Today Laura, Jonathan, and Kristin threw me into the lake. I think they have finally accepted me!” From that point on, me and my closest girl friends (and, of course, all the guys too – but who cared about them, right?? 🙂  spent a lot of time with Dane.  We went hiking on the Appalachian Trail for days at a time, ate uncooked S’mores Poptarts and made up silly trail songs, and had vibrant faith discussions. We went spelunking and did ropes courses (did I mention Dane loved to do extreme sport/crazy competitive type stuff? I don’t remember him “letting” us win, which I think was/is a great trait of his!). When me and my friends decided we wanted to go deeper in our Bible study times, he created “Silvermine,” an in depth bible study on Saturday mornings over lots of coffee (this is when I started drinking it – 15 years old!) and danishes.

We also went on missions trips at home and abroad. Dane saw me through several boyfriends, tons of faith-oriented questions, and even some pretty devastating failures. His rock-solid faith in God helped me to trust Him, too, and the more I learned about God myself, the more I saw that I could indeed put my trust in this man called Christ. So much of my faith journey during those crucial, formative, sensitive, and impacting years (it is really   hard to over-state the impact of those adults who choose to reach out to teenagers with God’s love, imho) included Dane at my right hand as a spiritual friend and guide as I passed through the (sometimes) treacherous waters of adolescence.

Fast-forward almost two decades. While I have kept up with Dane here and there through emails primarily, we haven’t really stayed in touch the way I am sure we both would have liked to ideally – its all part of that understanding that comes with maturity that some people are meant to be in our lives primarily for a “season.” But this week, I got an email from someone in my youth group growing up. Dane had been diagnosed with a serious brain tumor. He would be going through surgery today (Friday, September 6th, 8am).

While some people hang in with youth for awhile in a pastoral role (and I don’t blame those people – its challenging, for sure!), Dane has made pastoring youth a life-long career and journey. I don’t know those kids who he is working with now, but I do know that he is having a wonderful impact in their lives. Why? Because I know Dane.

This week, I got some emails from Dane with updates on his surgery and how he is doing. I also kept up with him on Facebook and was able to see where he was at with the idea of having brain surgery.

From one of his emails: “Our faith is strong. We trust in God completely. We have no regrets. We feel that God will be glorified in this and can think of no better place to be….I have full confidence in my God. No doubts. Full trust. It is a wonderful place to be.”

He has also mentioned how he has been carried through this trial by the prayers of all those who have surrounded him and stood with him in this in a personal interview he did.

On Facebook, just 11 hours before surgery, Dane shared, “up, ready, praying, resting in The Lord. Knowing I’ve got more prayer backing me than anyone in the world. Isn’t God good, no matter what?”

Its often been said that its easy to trust God when everything is going well in your life. But, when life throws you a curveball, when a very hard test comes your way, it shows, or proves, rather, what you really believe….

As 1 Peter 1:6-7 states, “In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” Or as The Message version translates so beautifully, “Pure gold put in the fire comes out of it proved pure; genuine faith put through this suffering comes out proved genuine.”

My friend Dane Burk reminds me today that faith is not about an outcome or a prognosis. Faith isn’t about circumstances going our way. Faith is about trusting in the goodness and character of an unseen but known God. For Dane, Jesus Christ is his best friend. He has walked with Him through ups and downs and highs and lows of life. And now, at a moment of great trial, when his faith is being held over a “hot fire” for all to watch, all I see is gold. And I give thanks, and remind myself and my kids,”this is what real faith looks like,” and give glory to God.