17 Jul A Letter to My Son on His Fifth Birthday

My Dear Joseph David,

Today you are five! A whole hand! Your excitement about turning five is contagious. “What will it be like when I am five?” you asked your Dad as you snuggled next to him at bed time. “Well, it will be a lot like now, except you’ll be a little bigger,” he said. This morning, on your birthday, you awoke and came to me crying. “Daddy said I would be bigger today!” you said, disappointed. “You will grow, son,” I said. “Growth just doesn’t happen all at once.“

And grow you have. It seems like just yesterday I pulled you up out of the water and onto my chest and there you were, an answer to a dream and a prayer, in my arms at last.

You see, about a year before that moment in the water, a friend of ours from our home group at church, Juan Carides, pulled your Daddy and me aside. “I had a dream that you were pregnant with a little boy, Laura.” Just like Sarah in the Bible, I laughed. “Oh, that’s funny, Juan!,” I said. He didn’t laugh but said, “Well, often when God gives me dreams like that, they happen.” A month or so later on my birthday, I had asked God for a promise from His Word that I could carry into the year ahead. He gave me the story of Hannah and Samuel. At the time I didn’t quite understand why God was giving me that passage.

Hannah asked God for a son and the Lord answered her request and gave her Samuel. When he was born she said,  ^“I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.  So now I give him to the Lord. For his whole life he will be given over to the Lord.” And she worshiped the Lord there.” This Scripture is now on a plaque on your bedroom wall. 

Only a few months later, I sat with your Daddy in a restaurant after we had seen a positive pregnancy test. We were both surprised: “We are going to have another baby!” And then your Daddy said to me, “A few months ago when I woke up in the morning I felt a yearning in my heart for a son. I am so thankful for our three girls and feel so content, but I felt that God wanted me to ask him for a son – that he wants to give us a baby boy. So I prayed and asked God, if it is His will, to give us a son.“

In that one moment, it all made sense – Juan’s dream, the scripture about Samuel, your Daddy’s prayer. There had been no sonogram to confirm it yet, but God had spoken. He was giving us a son. We wept with awe and joy.

A few months later, our entire family entered a clinic for my twenty week ultrasound. Your sisters and Daddy huddled around my bedside while the lab technician put warm gel on my belly and turned on the screen. Your profile showed up on the screen and we beamed. Then she said, “Well, this is new for your family! Looks like you are having a baby boy!“

Once again, the tears flowed and the smiles beamed. And we all learned through your birth that sometimes, in His sovereign plan, God prophesies a promise and a word received in faith becomes sight before our eyes.

You are nothing less than a promise fulfilled and a prayer answered, my son.

For five years, we have watched you grow and we have grown with you. We delight in your presence and you fill our lives with joy. Your incredible love for people, your passion for play, your thrill for adventure – all of who you are has enriched our lives in innumerable ways.

About a year ago, when Grace was putting you to sleep, you told her you wanted to know Jesus. She told you what Jesus did for you to demonstrate his love – how He died on the cross for your sins and rose again from the dead that you might have eternal life. That night your oldest sister prayed with you and you were born again – in the Spirit!

My son, may you grow in relationship with your Heavenly Father, with your Savior Jesus, and in the fullness of the Holy Spirit every day of your life. You become more independent every day and yet I thank God that you still run to my arms and linger there instinctively. My love for you is a blazing fire, but my hand must stay open. You aren’t mine but you are the Lord’s, my son. As long as you live, you are lent to Him. He’s got you.

Always yours,

Mommy