I took Audrey to her very first dance class today. I didn’t think it would be a big deal but I was really, really missing my mom as we drove to the studio. I thought about all the firsts that she has missed. I thought about how excited (and probably slightly traumatized) she would be to see Audrey in a leotard and hair in a bun. So many memories of her first baby doing her firsts. I missed her and I so wished she were here. It didn’t stop there though. As I continued driving I got caught on the rabbit trail of missing George. I realized as I was longing for my own mom to be here and experience this that I was longing for my child to be here too. I wished he could be in the carrier as Audrey and I danced around that studio. I wished that as I was packing up Audrey and making sure we had all of the things necessary for an outing during nap time, for George Mason to have been a part of that packing up.
Today isn’t a terribly sad day. It’s not an ugly cry kind of day. Its just another normal day. Another day without my boy. Another day of God’s perfect mercies. Another day of questions and longing desires. We had fun at the dance class. Audrey said she wants to do it again. That’s a wonderful joy in the midst of this sorrow. My sweet, darling, Audrey is so full of life. She doesn’t know to be sad over her brother. She doesn’t understand the pain of him not being here. She just knows that she is loved very much and that her mama and daddy are in her corner. She is a perfect example of God’s love for me. I hate it for her when she’s having a rough day. I hate it for her when I can’t give her exactly what she wants when she wants it. I hate it for her when someone or something hurts her. As I wake up every morning to do this life I realize how much I love my daughter and my husband and how much more my God must love me. That’s a pretty amazing thing to know. I’m going to miss all of George’s firsts because they are happening in heaven, and that’s going to be really hard. But if my son can’t be with me, I sure am glad I know he’s with Jesus. A God who loves with unimaginable passion and care. A God who loves so deeply He gave up is own son. A God who loves with so much intensity that He knows every hair on my head. Forget amazing, that’s literally the definition of awesome.
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother. - 1 John 4:7-21