I wrote the following letter in my journal, when our youngest, Heidi Mae, was only a few months old. I found it lifting me up today, so I thought I would share it.

I’ve been up for an hour and a half, hearing you grunt and twist in your little rocking sleeper. I kept rushing over to put your pacifier back in, sometimes standing over you, watching the tiny movements in your facial muscles. Doing this makes me feel grand, larger than life.

Tomorrow, the day will come — the light will yawn slowly through the sky, in silence. The world will awake. And you will move through it, often in the arms of your mother, bobbing back and forth, your head like a bowling ball atop a tiny pair of shoulders.

The world must seem so great to you — a great atmosphere of great light and great sound, and great faces that pass in front of you like moons, coming into your orbit and then backing away again, drifting into the beyond.

One night, you might be sleepless too, feeling as if God left a candle lit in the house of your soul. And you will sit by it, fidgeting, wondering why you can’t sleep.

In that moment, remember this: You are not alone in the world. God kept that candle lit for you. Perhaps he just wants you to lie there, silent, open to him, being still amidst the turning world. Perhaps, in the song of your life, this is a space without any notes. A key will soon be struck. Sound will come. But until then, let your heart rest on the water of consciousness. Look at the world around you and just be. The sanctity of life is in these moments, these times when you do not know why your mind doesn’t just get on with sleeping. Holiness lies in recognition.

So, burrow into your covers and recognize the stillness, the stopping in a world of motion. And breath in the silence and the dark, letting your heartbeat keep the time in the song that is you.

I love that song.