I was re-reading your birth announcement yesterday (of course, on your real birthday. You're one. You really don't care that we saved the cake for today instead) and of course, it all started coming back to me.
Auntie Charity always likes to remind me that we weren't really crushed during that season of loss after loss after loss that led up to your birth (2 Cor 4:8) but, if that wasn't crushed, I don't want to know what is. I praised God in that season because He is worthy of our praise, but not because I felt I had anything to bring to His throne of grace in worship. I knew that God draws near to the broken hearted, so I knew He was close to me. But it was a hard, dark, lonely place to be.
Throughout that season, I regularly remembered the verse that got my mama through some of the darkest, scariest days of her life, "I would have despaired, unless I had believed, I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." (Psalm 27:13)
A dear friend was blessed with her own sweet baby boy a couple of weeks before you were born. I remember often tearfully saying of both of you boys, "this, this is the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."
Jonathan, you are a joy to our lives. We love all your antics, we love your joy and your smile and your emerging curly waves at the nape of your neck. We love how you wave your arms like a conductor while you sing and how you clap your chubby adorable hands whenever we say, "yay!!" We love your cuddles and good humor and how you bring out the sweetest, tenderest side of everyone around you...and especially your older siblings.
We love you, Sweet Boy, and we thank God for you. May His face shine upon you all the days of your life.