Happy Birthday - in Heaven!

Today is your birthday.  It has been 3 years since you were stillborn.  I still miss you.

Do they celebrate birthdays in Heaven? Do years have significance in eternity? I am a little envious of my daughter who has gone there before me - to be in the presence of God! To have a heavenly body without pain (considering how sick and in pain I've been lately)! While I'm certain you're in Heaven, Sweet Girl, I don't know what that looks like for sure. Yet.

What I AM certain of - down here, we're celebrating.  A life is a life, no matter how short-lived.  In this house you are part of our family.  While you are not in our family photos or sitting with us on game night, you are very much present in our memories and hearts.

So today we are celebrating the day you were born.  And although it was also the day you died, we choose to be happy - to be grateful for the time we did have with you and the impact you made on our lives and hearts.  I can be assured that my daughter is in Heaven and being cared for well - which inspires me to be a better parent to those children I have here on earth.

There are times when I still miss you.  I grieve because you are dead and I do not get to see you grow older.  It is your 3rd birthday - if you were here you would be a toddler, such a fun stage! Would you be twirling around in tutus playing ballerina princess, or would you instead don a cardboard shield and pretend you were Captain America? I don't get to know these things, as you were made for His glory alone.

I see you everywhere, Sweet Baby Girl.  You're playing on the slide at the park with other little girls. You're in the sparkly pink boots in the shoe aisle at Target.  You're playing with the Dora castle at the kids consignment sale.  I know it's not you, but it could've been.

All children belong to God; we are merely entrusted to train them up in the way they should go. Knowing this enables me to surrender them to Him daily, and ask for strength, patience, wisdom, that He would equip me to parent. You have a far better Father in Heaven than I am a mother on earth.  I am an epic failure most days and am grateful to know you are well cared for.

The pain is different now, less raw and fresh, but it still exists.  But now, 3 years later, I am fully able to celebrate your life without being bitter over your death.  I know I will see you again, and until then we will continue to love you - dear daughter and sister.  I wonder when I get to Heaven, will you know me? With open arms will you welcome me and call me Mother?

Now when I think of you I feel joy, not sadness, not despair, not anger or resentment.  You were mine for a little while.  You will be mine always.  Your purpose in creation has already been completed - and you are in the glorious House of The Lord.  Fly High Baby Girl.