2.18.2011

The day I thought I might dread the very most is upon me.

February 18.

It is on this day that I was due to deliver our twins. And I can't even believe 9 months has passed.

And so, today is a sad day. Really, it feels like we lost them only yesterday. I miss them, and what we can imagine life would have been like with them here. I know they would have been here by now, and how different our life would be!

Hugh and Leif.

I mourn that I don't know their faces but for the almost formless ones I stared at for days before burying them. Would they have had tons of black hair like I did? Would they have had their Daddy's beautifully-shaped blue eyes?

The Lord sent me encouragement. I was reminded that though we call them our two angels in heaven, they are not. They are something better: heirs of God, that passed right from life to glory.

I do wish I had taken pictures. I wish I could hold them both in my arms. I wish I could teach them to walk and watch them cringe as they bite into their first lemons.

Peter and I talk of them so often. We're making big plans and working so hard so we can provide their siblings with great opportunities. But how I wish they were here.

For some reason they are not, and there are a million and one things our great God is teaching me through this.

For the Lord God is a sun and shield;

the Lord bestows favor and honor.

No good thing does He withhold

from those who walk uprightly.

And so I am sad because of the boys, but rejoicing that our God of comforts has been gracious. He has blessed us with another baby, and that brings us great joy. We are so grateful that we can spend my due date rejoicing in the life of another child forming inside me!

(More on that last paragraph very soon. . .)

-A.H.