...On Water
Have you ever held a 14 week old fetus in your hand? I imagine most have not, but on August 10, 2025, my heart pounding in my chest not knowing what to expect, I stretched out my hands to receive this precious gift.
Brandon asked if I was sure, but how could I be? I had no idea what this moment would mean to me or how it would forever change me. Yet still, when the nurse asked, “are you ready?” I nodded my head, palms positioned as though attempting to collect rain water. She gently placed the weightless, meticulously folded, baby blanket into my hands. Overwhelmed with curiosity, I peeked.
The sound similar to the wind up music box I had as a little girl began ringing in my ears to the tune of “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands.” Only this time there was no twirling ballerina, instead a forever sleeping baby.
I carefully examined her tiny fragile body in the palm of my hand, fingers, toes, spine, rib cage, mouth, eyes and nose. I glanced at her, then at my husband, and back at her, mesmerized at the fact that he, I mean we, were once this small; while also acknowledging that just a few weeks prior she was only a speck, invisible to the naked eye.
I felt a sense of amazement, an odd sense of peace, confirmation that my Heavenly Father who promised to never leave me, was right there in the room beside me. In that very moment, carved out for me in heaven long before I myself was formed in my mother’s womb, I was somehow able to grasp the magnitude of His love for me, His creation.
Brandon, sitting beside me, lifted his hand and gradually lowered it, gesturing the shift that occurred in the room. A shift so powerful, even he felt it. He’d later describe the feeling as one of lightness- the room no longer heavy. The tension between heaven and earth no longer existed. His Glory came down to meet us right in that hospital room, our hearts elevated towards Him.
While I'll never know the shape of her fully formed face; the texture of her beautiful hair; the sound of her cry or her laughter, I’m comforted in knowing her life, untainted by this dark world, was perfect because it did exactly what it was created to do. A purpose far greater than what I could ever imagined. There were no more tears. There was no more sadness, but joy in the midst of heartbreak. The closing of a chapter, the emerging of a new one. A life committed but now fully surrendered.
God could have given me the miracle I so desperately desired, but instead He chose me to walk on water in the midst of a storm.
To my sweet Nori, until we meet again.
Mama
