Dear Abigail,
Happy birthday my sweet girl, my little joy-bomb, the one who first called me Mom.
Your Daddy has taken to calling you Abigail The Wise. I thought it was cute, maybe something you will live up to. But my girl, when I pay attention I see that you are already, at the ripe old age of four, living into that name.
If you’ll allow me, I want to share a little snapshot of who you are today.
You still love strawberries more than anyone I know. You’re also a fan of blueberries, apples, mac & cheese, chocolate milk, and sprinkles on anything.
Your favorite song is Father by Sabaton, or “that cool song Daddy showed me” if you’re asking for it from the backseat.
You love to help me cook. You’ve made dozens of loaves of bread, helping me measure ingredients, stir. You know yeast helps the dough rise, and that it takes some time.
You’re the first to remind me to pray for God to heal a scrape or bruise, and you keep track of your skinned knees and almost always tell me, days later, that you want to thank Jesus for healing you.
You call me Mother - or, more accurately, “Mudder.” You still call your Daddy a mix of “Daddy,” “Dad,” and - his least favorite - “Josiah.”
You are fiercely protective of your sister. The two of you are inseparable. You come up with games for the two of you to play. For the past two weeks, you’ve been playing a game where she is a baby named “Sobelli” and you take care of her.
You love books. You bring me books to read to you any chance we get, and I’ll often find you sitting in the floor with two stacks of books on either side of you while you flip through the pages of each one. I can’t wait for the world of words to open up to you, for you to be able to read your favorite stories for yourself (Pete The Cat, Green Eggs and Ham, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and your National Geographic Volcano books.)
You really care about the way you look - your hair, your outfits, your shoes. Most mornings when you’re getting ready, you’ll stand in front of the mirror in your room and look at yourself from different angles and then declare, “I look adorable!” And you do. You always do. With your mismatched socks and your ponytails and your princess dresses - you are absolutely adorable.
One of the most fun things about how you’re growing up has been the way you help me get ready too. Sometimes you’ll help me choose between two different outfits (you always choose the dress.) You’re my little getting-ready encourager, telling me when my outfit looks “cute” or my hair looks “amazing.”
You love to sing and dance and act out scenes from your favorite movies. I love to hear you sing. I love to watch you dance. The freedom you bring to everything you do amazes and inspires me.
A few months ago we were talking about how we can pray to God to ask him anything. I asked if you wanted to ask God something, and of course you did. Your question was, “Does God like rhinos or giraffes better?” When the possibilities were endless, your first thought was to ask God to tell you something about himself.
I hope to be more like you. I hope for my prayers to look more like that, for the things I ask God to start, first and foremost, with “show me more of who you are.” Tell me if you like rhinos or giraffes better.
It’s been four years and I still can’t believe I get to be your mom. I needed to write that little snapshot because, with four years of practice, I know how quickly you will change, right under my nose.
Tomorrow you will be different and a year from now you will be different and four years from now you will - by God’s grace - be different than you are today. Each iteration of you feels to me like death and birth in microcosm. Gone is the newborn who looked to me at every moment for every need, whose whole world was found in my face, my scent, my breast. Gone is the infant who only napped while snuggled against my chest, her sticky fingers and warm breath. Gone is the toddler who loved to sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and always needed a hand to hold while going down the slide at the park.
And soon I’ll say gone is the spunky four-year-old who squeals with delight anytime a friend comes over, who is obsessed with volcanoes, who sings Country Roads while dancing in the kitchen. There is the death in microcosm. The you you are today that I am absolutely, madly in love with won’t last.
But my girl, you are Abigail The Wise. Who knows who you will become, what worlds you’ll change, how you will follow the Lord with your whole heart? There is the birth in microcosm, that as each new facet of who you are becoming is made known to me, I get to fall in love with you over and over and over again.
What a gift it is to be your mom. Today, tomorrow, and for always.
With love,
Mom