at the feet of Soul

It's a Saturday afternoon and the five of us are gathered in the living room waiting for pizza and watching the movie, 'Turbo'. Somehow I've managed to monopolise the heater (my favourite is laying spread out in front of it) and you're next to me Soul. You are busy playing with a puzzle and some sort of sorting game.

And all in a flash flood of emotion I'm looking at your little feet, fresh out of the bath, and I'm wondering where these feet will carry you in your life, the places you will go, what your passions and desires will be. And I feel it well up like a flash flood, this longing to see you grow, and have those late night conversations, and glimpse your heart, and for you to hear me tell you I love you, and for you to be old enough to remember it, know it, be without any doubt that you are deeply keenly loved by me. And it overwhelms me for a minute, so I grab that little foot and kiss it, knowing that it's not in my destiny to be here for the milestones that will gather and see you a grown man…And the ache of this takes the rest of the movie to settle into deeper places in my spirit - not gone - just put away into a safer place that won't threaten to pop out at any moment like that 'Jack In A Box' one of you boys were given.

So here I am thinking about you Soul. How I love your cheeky expression when you get your way, or your quick succession of, 'sorry, sorry, sorry mum' when you know you've misbehaved. I adore your big eyes, your air kisses and your ever growing array of sentences. 

But I'm greedy.

I want to see you start school. See you join a basketball club. Help teach you how to ride a bike. I want to watch you grow into a gangly teenager who eats me out of house and home and who is much much taller than I am. I want to meet your first girlfriend, I want to be your confidant as you seek out who God has created you to be. I want to welcome your wife into our family.

Oh my goodness I want too much Soul.

And it's greedy of me because I longed with all my soul for you my darling after two miscarriages, and you are unashamedly the biggest miracle of my whole life. My joy was complete when I gave birth to you my third boy. God has big, beautiful, crazy, better-than-you-can-imagine plans for you.

I just ache because I so badly want to be a part of those plans.

So, here I am thinking of you, wanting to burn the memory of you into my very spirit, and wishing badly I could make all of the yuck that's happening/going to happen with me being sick just go away so we could always be together.

But I'll remind you as I'm reminding myself tonight that God is good and it's His hand that we hold as we go through this trial. We are not forgotten, and in the deepest part of me I am already looking forward to our family being together again in heaven. 

He Who has promised is faithful.

I love you Soul.

xx