Friday, December 30, 2016

you already have community

Dear Little One,


Yesterday, less than twelve hours after being told you have a condition called fetal anencephaly, we called and emailed family and friends about the news. We went to sleep, and overnight our inbox received email after encouraging email from people telling us they were praying for us and crying with us. In the weeks that followed we got phone calls, text messages, chat messages and cards in our mailbox from friends all over the world. All because the doctor said you're in trouble, Little One! See how they love you?

I was a bit fearful of having a baby here in Germany, in a new city where we know so few people. But when we told some people here in our new city about the doctor's diagnosis, they responded so kindly. They cried with us and brought us cards. They came to our house to visit us and pray for us. They gave us truth to hold on to. One man who doesn't feel confident in English came to our house and read a long passage from Romans 8 to us in English, just because he thought we'd prefer to hear it in our mother tongue. His wife made herself available to attend appointments, give advice, or just have coffee with me and talk and pray. They saw that you need community, and that we need community, and they offered to stand in the gap. Can you feel their love, Little One?

These people have never met you, Little One, but many of them are praying for you every single day. You already have more genuine community than many people would have in a whole lifetime. You're already blessed more than you know.

Mom and Dad