remember when i was adamantly against having a girl? like ever? it's so crazy to me the change that has gone on in me since i thought i would prefer wiping 4 boys worth of urine off the toilet seat every time i went to the bathroom over the drama of having even one little girl. there have just been tiny nudges, glimpses and "coincidences" that have totally paved the way for not only acceptance but EXCITEMENT about our little XX chromosomer. here's a REALLY cool example.
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jesse and i came from our works to the ultrasound in separate cars. after finding out, we went out to lunch and all rode together. when we finished lunch we went back to the hospital to pick up my car, trusty voldemort the volvo whose A/C does not work in the summertime (5 minutes on, 5 minutes off, such fun). we have satellite radio. no, we are not rich or fancy, but it is an expense we have deemed worth the $12 a month because the commercial-free stations keep me from changing the channel every 3 seconds as i get enraged by talk and ads and ending up in a fiery auto inferno.
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anyway, there is a channel on there that i don't listen to a bunch, the coffee house, only if my first few presets let me down, because it's so hippie and artsy and chill and it sometimes is a bit too folksy for my liking. well for some reason that was what was already on when i got back in the car. i was not really paying attention, but i about fainted with shock when i realized the VERY first words that were coming out of my speakers are these:
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my little girl
you’ve gone and stole my heart
and made it your own
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you’ve stole my heart
and made it your own
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um, hi. are you joking me? i started looking around thinking this had to be some elaborate prank from all the people who wanted me to have a girl even back when it was the last thing i wanted. i was flipping. i called jesse and told him to turn it to that channel but by the time he did the song was over. in fact the part i heard were the final words of the song. well, i had seen on my little radio display that is was a new song by jack johnson (already a fave who appeared on our wedding CD). so i told jesse all about it and we downloaded it when we got home.
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two more crazy weird interesting things:
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1. the song is a ridiculously short 2 minutes long, so on top of the fact that i rarely listen to the only channel that would play this song i just so happened to catch it during the 120 seconds it was on AND just so happened to be right at that part of the chorus AND it was the very first music i heard after finding out about MY little girl.
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2. the rest of the lyrics could have literally been yanked directly out of jesse and my hearts as far as what we pray for this girl:
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hey little girl
black and white and right and wrong
only live inside a song
that I will sing to you
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you don’t ever have to feel lonely
you will never lose any tears
you don’t have to feel any sadness
when you look back on the years
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how can I look you in the eyes
and tell you such big lies
the best I can do is try to show you
how to love with no fear
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my little girl
you’ve gone and stole my heart
and made it your own
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i start tearing up just reading these words. there is something about little girls that makes you want to protect them and keep them safe from the world. it's the same with boys to a degree, but boys grow up to be big strong men and we tend to think that they can look after themselves. girls are more vulnerable. one of my first thoughts after seeing that this baby was a girl was, "what are we going to do?" i may have even said it out loud in the video. i was thinking, okay, how can we keep her safe and out of danger and protect her little heart from ever feeling pain?
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but just like the song says, any promises we could make to her in that regard are lies and fairy tales. she is being born into a fallen and broken world and there is going to be hard and sad stuff she is going to have to encounter and work through. she is going to cry tears of pain and have her sweet heart broken. as much as that kills me to know, there is nothing i can do to change it and in trying to shelter her from every single little trauma, i would only succeed in making her afraid and closed-off and smothered. and the absolute very best thing we can hope for her is that she will be able to boldly show love in a hateful place that is often scary. and the crazy thing is that this is the exact prayer we have prayed over both of our babies, but especially this girl.
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she's not ours. obviously we will be smart and keep her and all of our other children out of the most obvious dangers, but i think jesus would be pissed at us if we tried to engineer our kids' hours, days and lives to be spent in a safety bubble just avoiding pain or danger rather than out showing his love in dark, frightening places. does that scare me for them? um, yes. but just like the song says, i don't just pray this for my little girl. i SHOW her how to love with no fear. that starts with me loving them without fear; fear of losing them, fear of them not liking me, fear of them getting hurt, fear of the opinion of everyone else.
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the song says, "you've stole my heart and made it your own." i just love that that is a cute way of expressing love and smitten-hood, but it also says something kind of profound to my little brain. this little girl's heart (and judah's and any future ones') is going to be made up of parts of whatever is in jesse and my hearts. whatever fruit our hearts produce is what she is going to see and inevitably take in and pattern her own life after to some extent. if we show fear or hatred or anger, that is going to be communicated to her as how people live and she will likely do the same until/unless she learns that it is wrong and does the hard work of reprogramming her childhood experiences in her adulthood.
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in growing up with us as her parents she will literally "steal" what's in our hearts and make it her own. it's a sobering reminder that i don't just get a do-over with my kids and all the ways that i went wrong i can just reprogram them to do the opposite. i can't want something better for them without being something better myself. those damn little sponges of brains they have are watching us and laying down tons of synapse connections that tell them the way the world is and will play a big part in governing their behaviors and decisions. i want them to have a foundation of love and selflessness and jesus, so man, that better be what i am putting out there. they are going to take my heart, my life, my behavior and make it their own, for better or worse. i can't control which parts they take and which ones they skip, so better safe than sorry, i should probably make sure my heart is as right and christ-centered as it can be, through and through, so that they only get the good stuff.
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if i hadn't already been sure that having a girl was "supposed" to happen, i think this would have done it. thanks, jack. thanks, jesus.
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