Love Letters #867

To my Betrothed,

     It has been many years since I received my very first letter from you.  At the time, you were simply a friend of a friend, an acquaintance who I barely knew.  I was curious that you chose to write to me and perplexed that you showed an interest in my life.  I had heard many good things about you and couldn’t understand why you would be mindful of me?  I was rather absorbed in myself and my perceived problems in those days and wasn’t even considerate enough to write back.  And yet you continued to write to me, seemingly unfazed by my apparent lack of interest in return.  You showed a genuine concern for the difficult emotions I was experiencing and tenderly reached out to me, a young girl on the verge of womanhood.  I was sad, confused, and lonely and your sweet letters brought rare beams of light into my dark world.  Each tender word, penned with compassionate care, began to gently, yet persistently work its way into my heart.

     Then, on a day when the pain could no longer be ignored, I finally decided to write back.  I poured out my fears and found expression for the sorrows that caused such deep aching within.  I could only hope that you would read it and I had very little expectation of how you might respond when you could see just how unenjoyable my company would be.  Perhaps you would stop writing me when you saw the contents of my heart and yet it was a risk I had to take, for I had no one else to turn to.

     If only I had known what I know now, I would have written you much sooner!  Your response came to me almost as soon as I had sent my letter to you.  Your words of love and acceptance were more than I could bear and the torrent of tears that followed were like a healing balm upon my wounds.  After I had no tears left to cry, I discovered something was missing!  The awful aching inside, the depression that had been my constant companion was nowhere to be found!  Apparently there were still some tears left, because my eyes filled up again as I began to laugh with a joy I never dreamed possible.  I will never forget that day as long as I live. 

     Over the years, we became very close friends and I began to treasure your letters above anything else.  And somewhere along the way…I fell in love.  How could I not?  From the very first day, you pursued me and drew me near with your lovingkindness.  As I grew to know your heart and your character, I couldn’t help but begin to love you more and more with each word I read.  Even though I have still yet to meet you and see you face to face, I feel like I know you.  As I have poured endlessly over your letters, reading them again and again, my mind’s eye has sought to imagine what you look like and I have dreamt of gazing into your eyes, leaving me convinced that if I saw you, I would instantly recognize you.  At the same time, I am equally convinced that I have but barely scratched the surface of the incredible man that you are and I feel like there is still so much to discover, to search out, and to learn about who you are and what you think and feel.  I await your letters eagerly, as each one gives me one more glimpse into your soul. 

     You are the one I love!  And these words I write now feel so weak and inadequate to describe how I feel inside!  Can you sense the emotion behind these letters?  Can you peer into my heart and feel the longings and desires that are there, just yearning to find expression?  Do you understand this pain I feel at loving you and yet not being where you are?  To have found such love, yet still be waiting to be united with you?  Yes…I know you do.  You have told me many times of your own yearning to be with me.  For you are my betrothed.  I can hardly believe those words even as I write them.  Betrothed.  You are mine and I am yours!  Though we still await our wedding day, our commitment to one another is no less sacred or lasting.  We are promised to each other and it is binding.  Oh, that you would place me like a seal upon your heart, like the brand of a king’s signet ring that cannot be revoked, marking you as my own!  And I would do the same, for you have certainly marked me and ruined me for any other!  Just to think that you are truly mine is more than I can comprehend.  That you would choose to give yourself to me with such abandon and be willing to belong to me makes my heart soar with such gratitude and adoration.  Even your hands bear the engravings of my name upon them, a constant reminder of the price you paid to make me your own.

     For love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave.  Your love has already overcome death and my love continues to grow with each passing day, as I seek to love you in return with that same intensity and passion.  My love for you bursts forth like a blazing fire, like a mighty flame, consuming me and overwhelming me with desire.  Oh that it would burn like an everlasting flame that cannot be quenched by the many floodwaters of this life!  I would desire for my love to be unswayed and unmoved by trials or temptations, by pain or persecution, or even by blessing and riches.  That if anyone were to offer me all the wealth of this world in exchange for your love, may I consider it an insult, an offer to be utterly scorned!  For you are the one I love.  I am yours and you are mine.  I have been marked by your holy love and I am humbled and in awe that you are likewise marked with the seal of my love.

Until the marriage feast,

Your Beloved

Happy 9 Months Justice!

So, Justice turned 9 months old on Dec. 4th!! I can’t believe he’s already 3/4 of a year old – crazy! That also means that I only have 3 precious months of maternity leave left. But I can’t complain – these 9 months have been amazing and I am so thankful for this time with my little prince. Now, to update you on the many exciting adventures of the last month in Justice’s life, I have uploaded MANY videos for your viewing pleasure. There is no pressure to watch them all, as I’m sure they are mostly entertaining for only us, but I hope you’ll find some of them fun! Sadly, YouTube decreases the quality of several of them a lot, but there’s not much I can do about that. Enjoy!

1. Those top three teeth came in and he has now developed the lovely ability to grind his top and bottom teeth together! *Shiver* The noise just gives me the willies!

2. Justice went on his first long distance road trip and his first vacation outside of the country!! He was an absolute angel on the 14-hour drive to and from Kansas City, Missouri where we visited the International House of Prayer.

3. Justice is getting STRONG! This boy has an iron-grip when he’s got a hold of something and can easily hold & move large, heavy objects such as chairs, pots, shampoo bottles, tables, etc.

4. Justice discovered the joy and frustration of trying to open cupboard doors and drawers – lol. I am amazed at his curiosity and ability to figure things out! Combined with the aforementioned strength, it appears this boy is going to get into lots of trouble.

5. He’s learning how to stand!

6. Still working on crawling. Not too much progress to report here. He can lift his belly off the floor now & definitely gets up on his hands and knees and has even moved forward a handful of times, but he mostly continues to move backwards. But he can definitely travel remarkable distances, regardless of his inability to conquer the conventional crawl as of yet!

7. He had his first trip to the swimming pool and LOVED it! It took about a half hour for him to get comfortable with his surroundings – he’s usually very sober and serious when somewhere new – but he never cried and it didn’t take long before he was splashing away and having a great time! He definitely loves the water and it didn’t even bother him when he got it in his face. We had such a fun time there with him and with our friend Jacki and her son Joshua, who’s just 2 months older than Justice.

8. This kid is developing a voracious appetite! Lately, he has started to cry miserably when we stop feeding him or even if we just take too long between spoonfuls – lol. He is a hungry little man and it makes me a little nervous as to how we will keep this boy’s growing appetite satisfied! Some new things he has tried this month are chicken (not a big fan of this yet), shredded cheese, and cottage cheese. Here’s a video of him reacting a bit unpleasantly to some store-bought squash…

9. He’s a lot of fun! When he isn’t grouchy from teething (which he seems to be doing a lot of lately), he is a very happy kid and makes me smile a lot! Here he is having fun in his highchair…

10. He’s learning to say more sounds. He’s started to say “mamamama” again (yay!), but he has also added “dadada” to his vocabulary! I’m pretty sure he doesn’t actually associate either word with either of us, but it’s fun to pretend. His other favorite “words” are “ga”, “gung”, “ba”, “bum”, “mum”, “da”, “day”, “dee”, “hmmm”, “brrrrrrmmm”, “na”, “nay”, “wah”, etc. These are usually all strung together into long continuous sentences. In this video, you’ll want to skip to about 1:25, since I don’t have any decent video editing software to cut out the boring parts.

11. His face is very expressive! I love watching all the facial expressions he can make – my favorites definitely being what he can all do with his eyebrows – lol. He has developed a very good furrowed brow and I especially love the little dimples that show in his eyebrows when he lifts them up – so cute!

12. He discovered gravity! One of his favorite things to do now is to drop things from his highchair and then lean over and look down at them. I have spent many minutes (hours?) of my days picking up the things he drops.

13. He loves banging and smashing. I have mentioned his love for the drum in the past, and I think I’ve probably mentioned the piano as well (he will literally SLAM his little hands down on those keys with all his might!), but his most recent pleasure has been the computer keyboard we let him play with, as well as an old phone. Anything with buttons to press (hit) is a lot of fun!

14. Sleeping at night is still a bit of a hit-and-miss. Depending on the night, he can sleep for large chunks of time without any disruptions, while other nights he seems to need us to come give him his soother or stroke his head every hour! We have continued to swaddle him, which helps for putting him down initially, and then he usually gets out of the wrap at some point in the night and is fine to sleep unswaddled from then on. I’ve been needing to feed him at 5am every morning and then he’ll usually go back to sleep until 6:30 or 7:00am. I would like him to be able to sleep until 7am before needing to eat, but so far this is what works for us.

15. We’ve been trying to get him to take a bottle with no luck and so lately we’ve been trying a sippy cup, which we’ve had a small amount of success with. He will drink some formula from the sippy cup without the valve in it, which allows the liquid to just flow out without requiring him to suck it by his own power. He has managed to suck some out with the valve in a few times, but mostly he’ll just bite on it. I’m thinking it definitely would’ve been better to have given him a bottle a few times a week all along, just to keep him used to it, since he did actually take one when he was younger, but I guess now we know for next time!

I think that’s all for now. I will end with some adorable pictures taken of him when we were in Kansas City…