Letter to Liam

Sweet Liam,

Your dad and I are so excited to meet you—but not for a few more months.  You still have a lot of growing to do, and to be honest, so do we.  Sweet boy, I want you to have this letter when you are older so you can understand why we are the we are.  This is something you probably won’t understand until college (and you WILL be going to Purdue college), but I want it to be something you know.

Liam, your dad and I aren’t perfect.  But we’re the parents you were given.  And we love you.  And we absolutely want the best for you.  First and foremost, your dad and I want you to live passionately for God.  We want you to know Jesus as your Savior and to live a life sold out for him.  We will do our very best to teach you about Him, and to model Christ in our lives.  I know some days we will fail, but we know that God is faithful, even in the midst of our failures.  Sweet boy, cling to Jesus.  Cling to your Savior.  Know Him, love Him, and seek after Him wholeheartedly.  If you learn nothing else from us, I will consider that a success in parenting.

With that said, I do hope there are a lot of things you can learn from us.  I hope you can sing and play guitar like your dad.  I would love for you to be funny like him.  I don’t know what I want you to do like me.  I’m sure I’ll figure it out.  Liam, I want you to be able to experience life.  I want you to have a wide variety of experiences, to know the world around you.  I want you to see and experience creation, to recognize that God has given us a wide world and created people differently for a reason.  I have a real passion for creating memories, creating traditions, and for enjoying and experiencing life.  Right now, we live in a small town.  I teach high school English, and it’s been a really eye-opening experience for me.  I have realized how many kids grow up in homes where they aren’t introduced to the world around them.  Many of my students don’t have family traditions, and don’t do things with their families.  They don’t have memories of going to festivals or fairs or vacationing with their families.  Those are all things that I thought everyone did because your grandma and granddad did them with Aunt Lauren and I.  Even this week, I asked a class to draw a picture of a menu from a restaurant, and one student had only ever seen a menuboard at a fast food restaurant.  It broke my heart.  And made me want better for him.  And definitely want better for you.

I want you to know that the world is a big place.  I want you to know that being  a citizen, being a person is more than just existing.  I remember talking to your dad last summer (he really is as wise and wonderful and he is funny and goofy) and telling him why I liked doing things like going to farmer’s markets and picking fruit and he said that it’s the experiences we have in life that make it really living.  Your great-grandpa, Robert Cook, whose name you have inherited as your own middle name, hit the nail on the head.  Before he passed away this winter, he told the doctor that there is a difference between living and existing, and when you are just existing, it’s not worth it.  And my sweet boy, life is worth it.  It’s a gift.  One that I want you to enjoy, and one I want you to be thankful for.  As many opportunities as your dad and I hope to provide for you, as many memories and experiences we want to give you, I hope above all else that you see them as blessings from God and that you do not take them for granted.  It’s easy to do.  It’s a trap I fall into often.  I hope that you grow up with a thankful and loving spirit, one that is attuned to the blessings in your life.

Liam, I just want you to know, that whatever your dad and I do or have done, it was done with love.  We want to seek God’s will in our lives and in yours, and the things we do and see with you (or that we don’t do and see) are done because we love you and we truly want what is best for you.  I love you, my boy.  I’m so excited to meet you and know you. 

Love,

Mommy