Love You from Scratch

Today it hit me in a different kinda way that I love these two little babies so much and I haven't even met them yet. They don't look like me. They don't live near me. I don't know what they look like. They don't speak my language. I don't know what kind of issues they might have. And yet, I love them. Wholly. Implicitly. Irrationally. There's no good reason why I should love my soon-to-be kiddos. I love them from scratch, with no substance to explain why I should. I just do.

I'm sure all mommas feel that way about the babies growing in their belly, but this is just a little weird for me since my body looks the same and my kiddos won't look like me.

Yet, it speaks to how I think God must feel about me, too. I've read Psalm 139:13-14 a hundred times before, and I've read them to countless others whom I've wanted to ensure how God feels about them. But now I feel this way about my little ones:

Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother's womb.
I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I'd even lived one day.

God's loved me from scratch - before there was anything there to love. I love my babies like that, too. We know our older one is alive somewhere in Ethiopia right now. We bet our younger one is conceived and growing in someone's womb somewhere. In my deepest prayers I have to believe that God's protecting them and preparing their life to be with us. I can't wait to hold my little ones and exclaim to them, "You're breathtaking! I thank God for you! And I promise to know you as best I can from the inside out." I think I can say that because God's said that first about me.