My dear sweet babies,
I am sitting here thinking about you and imagining your futures. My heart feels like it could explode right out of my chest. You have no idea how much I love you. More times in a day than I can count, I'll look at you and really see you and love punches me right in the gut. There's this knot that forms in my stomach that slowly travels up to my heart, into my throat, and ends up in my eyes where the tears spill over. It sounds awful, doesn't it? But, it's actually pretty amazing. To be able to love someone so much that sometimes it hurts.
As your mother, the very last thing I want is for you ever to feel pain. I want to protect you from everything and keep you safe and innocent and happy. Unfortunately, that's not how life works. It's full of millions of happy moments, and life is easy in the happy moments. It's easy to love those around you, to be kind and compassionate, to sail right through your days without stopping to think about the blessings you have. Because when it's easy, you feel fine. You feel whole. You feel complete.
And then something is going to happen that punches you in the gut in a completely different way. You are going to get hurt. It will start in your gut and travel up to your heart hardening it, shooting up through your throat and into your eyes and it's going to not only cause you tears, but it will change the way you see the world.
You will get hurt by all kinds of different things. By people. By your own choices. By situations that life throws at you that you never saw coming. You will hurt physically and emotionally. The physical pain will be a little easier to forget. The emotional pain will stick with you, though. When life throws an emotional punch at your gut, you will never be the same.
You have a few choices when things get hard. You can, ideally, sit down, embrace the pain, and climb out the other side. Or you can quit, which always seems a whole lot easier. You can run away. You can find a way to ease the pain and make you temporarily forget about it. Some people turn to food, some to alcohol and/or drugs, some to spending money that they don't have, some put on an invisible armor that no one can get through. It is not fun to hurt. You will probably try all or some or maybe more of these things as a way of shielding yourself from that pain.
I want you to hear me right now, though, my precious babies. Shielding yourself with these things is only going to end up causing you more pain. They will cause you to turn into yourself and away from those who love you. You will feel completely alone. Some of them will destroy your health. They will all cause you unending amounts of stress. Please hear me, my babies. Do not choose a band-aid for your pain. That's much easier said than done. You have to learn on your own, so I'm guessing that at some point, one of these band-aids will seem like the easier choice.
Eventually, though, you will have to face the pain. The longer you wait, the harder it will be. The more of yourself you will lose along the way. The harder it will be to get back to your beautiful, loving, open, amazing self. I want you to always know that when you are ready to rip that band-aid off, Daddy and I will be here waiting with arms wide open. We will gather you in and do our very best to hold you together when the pain hits and makes you think you might shatter into a thousand pieces. We will do our best not to let that happen. If it does, we will help you glue it all back together.
We will help you battle through the pain and you will come out wiser, more solid, and with more love in your heart for all that life holds. Because it takes feeling the pain to truly understand love. To truly appreciate all of the beautiful things that your life holds.
The most important thing I want you to remember is that when life gets hard, God is not abandoning you. He is crying with you and carrying you. It's going to be hard to remember that. Your faith will be shaken. You will feel like God has forgotten about you. You will feel like He cannot possibly love you if He would allow you to feel such pain. He knows exactly how you feel. Don't ever forget that He walked through this life, as well, and His earthly life ended when He was broken and bloody and battered and hanging from a cross.
As much as Dad and I will be here for you, God is the real healer. He is true love. He is the one you need to hit your knees, bow your head, and pray to so that you can finally find yourself.
Mom and Dad have been on their knees since the day you were born praying for everything that is happening now and will happen in the future. God has been holding you since before you were born. He loves you in a way no one here on Earth can love you. You are surrounded always. Remember to let that love and light in.
You are not alone, babies. You are never alone. Remember that. Use that. Find strength and truth and love in that. There is always someone out there loving you with all that they have. Find peace in that. Find courage in that. Find everything in that.
