Dear Bennett, Letter 4.

Dear Bennett,

It’s 3:32 A.M.  I’ve spent over a half hour trying to find a comfortable position for us to sleep in, yet nothing seems to be panning out.  This is not your fault.  You’re doing everything you can, I’m sure.  Tonight’s culprit is still my pesky back.

But all this tossing, turning, pillow rearranging, folding, unfolding and sitting has made me hungry.  Granola, in turn, has effectively woken us up.  And now that I’m awake and have spent a little while thanking God for many, many blessings, do  you know what’s on my mind?

Our friends.  Our friends are on my mind because they ARE the vessels God uses for so many of His blessings.

I absolutely cannot wait to introduce you to several of our friends.  (You know, they’re pretty excited to meet you, too.)

One friend, who shall remain nameless (you’ll figure this out eventually; think of it as a game), does not believe in refrigerating her catsup.  (By the way, in this family, that’s how we spell catsup.  You’ll see other kids spelling it ketchup.  While that tends to make more phonetic sense, your dad and I err on the traditionalist side.  The ketchup spellers can still be your friends, but don’t give in.)  Everyone in her family seems to have maintained good health in spite of consuming unrefrigerated, room temperature catsup, so I trust that when she watches you from time to time, you’ll be just fine.

Then there’s another friend who has loved you since before you were conceived.  (I know, that’s hard to believe; but it’s the truth.)  You see, she loves me so much and has invested such hope and prayer into my life that she knew your time would come eventually and was already rejoicing in that hope.  Wanna know her name?  Here’s a clue: there’s a chance that she might witness your birth.  These are the privileges of a friendship that has spanned two decades.  (It doesn’t hurt that she’s a photographer. *wink wink* )  Do Mommy a favor, please, and let’s time your delivery so that this friend can make it, too, mmmkay?

Then I’ve got this boss at work.  Today (okay, technically yesterday), she made Mommy very, VERY happy by approving some changes that are going to allow you and I to spend a lot more time together than present circumstances would have allowed.  As you know, I work at a salon.  So when you and I visit the salon, you’ll know which one is my boss because she’ll be the one laughing the loudest.  In fact, her laugh might make you want to laugh, too.  Trust me, nobody will mind.  Laugh away, little one!

I could go on.  While we are not rich in wealth, we are rich in blessings.  No bank can count that for us.  We have to count those ourselves.  That’s why you and I will most certainly spend a lot of time playing The Thankful Game.

With a growing love,

Your Mom