When Little Girls Grow Up.
It makes your chest hurt a bit because you can't stop remembering.
The girl climbing trees in purple flower dress and white patent leather.
The girl digging a hole to China in the back yard while sucking a Tootsie Pop.
The girl who bossed her older brother, and wrapped her daddy's heart like the gift it is.
The girl that fell for Jesus when she was only six.
The girl who came to the world slippery.
Delivered straight into my hands and my heart.
Oh, girl.
The girl who prayed little sister into life.
The girl who spooned her body close to her at night and told her about this Jesus.
The girl who heard little one's prayer under blankets of love, and a big sister's life.
The girl who seems to see everything.
The girl who often holds her own Mama in arms of comfort.
Saying, "I love you. He loves you. All is well, my little Mama."
Oh, girl.
The girl who sang her lungs out in her room.
The girl who cried and punched holes in her pillow.
The girl who still sleeps with beloved baby blanket.
The girl who reaches for the lost.
The girl nearly lost, and how all this growing up makes me think so often.
That she might not be here at all...
Oh, girl.
The girl who knows it too.
The girl who seizes every opportunity to suck the life out of life.
The girl living hers for the King.
The girl catching every drop of living all up in her sails.
The girl unfurling and here is the wind.
And how is a Mama not to cry?
Oh, wind.
Always blow her heart on home,
Bernadette
This is beautiful. Full of love and memories and God. I hope someday to know this kind of letting go because it will mean I've been a mama against all odds. But oh, I'm so terrible at letting go. I'm good at the grieving, though, and maybe that is the real secret? To say it's okay to grieve the loss of change and growth and moving on. To let the grieving heal the empty spaces and teach us how to live in the new reality? I don't know. Just pondering here, Friend, and lifting you up as you walk the sacred road of motherhood. You are brave. And beautiful. And such a gift to your children, to me, to the world. Fall on Him, the Father who knows what it is to give up a child, and trust that He'll hold your daughter always, no matter how far she is from home. Love to you, Dear One.
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