I've Always Loved You

"Not you Mar..." were my dad's words when I called home in the first few weeks of medical school and told him that "everybody failed the first anatomy test."  "Not you Mar."  Unconditional love, confidence, faith, and maybe even admiration in me....  "Yes, Dad, me too."

So, on my wedding day, I danced with my dad to a tremendous song by the best Christian band on the planet,  "Don't you know I've always loved you?... Even before there was time... And I always will..." so the song goes.  It's a song telling the story of God's unconditional love for us and it'll make you cry.

Although I'd experienced it in the receiving end, I didn't know much about emoting unconditional love until my brother's son was born.  Before I even met him, I felt true love in my heart for that boy.  I really did, and it shocked me.  Prior to that I really didn't know what everyone was talking about all giddily.  

Recently that same song came on my radio ~ it doesn't get much radio play ~ so that was a special treat. 

Hearing it again got me thinking about my future daughter or son.  I don't know who they are.  I don't know where they are.  I don't know what they are... how their eyes will look, or how their laugh will sound. 

But one thing I do know, is that I love him or her.  Deep down in my soul, I have love.  Set aside just for him or her.  Perhaps it hasn't been there since 'before there was time."  But it's been there for at least two years last August.  At least since that second pink line showed up and I knew I was a mother of two.  I've been dreaming of that girl or boy.  Not in the how cute they'll be on prom night kind of way, but in the companion kind of way.  The story-telling, laughing, keeping me up at night, kind of way.  I imagine my son's sibling relationship and the strength of character that'll grow in him.  I hear a heart-to-heart with my husband and our second child and it's a beautiful image.

My second baby was a girl and my fourth was a boy, the others I don't know.  And again, I don't know what the next will be.  But, that doesn't matter.  I don't really see that the love is being 'transferred' from one baby to another.  It's always been there, right where it belongs, on the heart of the one to come.  The babies I've lost, I love too, but they were never going to Be.  The ship didn't go off course.  It's right on. 

I'm filled with the hope of tomorrow, and of today.  That the baby I've longed for will be here soon.  And I'll finally get to say, "don't you know I've always loved you?"

Probably, he or she won't really know it until he or she sits in this seat one day. 
Unconditional love is really something special,

and from this vantage point is breath-taking.