Paradise Missed

I've missed this!  This is my connecting point with several friends and I miss regularly seeing their blogs and family updates.  And honestly, I miss sharing my life with you.  I miss this "journaling" aspect of life, reflecting on good times and venting about frustrating things and just generally being verbal with more than just my husband.  I think it is healthy, most of the time.  I know that my schedule lately has not allowed for much else besides work and sleep and I am okay with that.  But thinking about the past and planning for the future, I hope I can get back to this. 

Today I want to share a really cool vision of God that He shared with me.  The other night I was laying in bed praying for a dear friend who just lost her dad.  And I was praying for our baby.  Then I started talking straight to the baby, telling him/her how excited I am and how excited the people in our family are to meet this little person.  I started apologizing for the world this child will be growing up in.  Then I just started crying because already I love this child so much and I can't give this baby a perfect world or even a good world. 

Then so clearly, God said, "This is not the world I planned for you either."  It breaks His heart that what He planned for us was perfection; the Garden of Eden.  And where we are living is so different than that.  Then He said, "As excited as you are to hold that child, I am even more excited to hold you in Paradise."  The depth of this moment with Him is impossible for me to describe fully.  It was supernatural.

People always said I would get a different view of God when I got married; and they were right.  Then people have told me that I would get yet another view of God when I became a parent.  Again, they are right.

I'm not excited about the imperfection my baby will be living in.  I am excited that my baby has a Heavenly Father who loves him/her more than I do.  And I can't wait to get to Paradise and climb in His lap where He can hold both me and this child.