Notes From God

When my arms ached to hold my angel baby who had flown up to heaven, he sent me back a message from GOD:

Dear Jocelyn, I have so many other children for you to love. In fact, there are over four hundred of them at a Title I school in a city nearby. They look a lot like you and could use some of those hugs you so desperately need to give. And so I got to teach hundreds of students every week and plenty of hugs were administered daily.

At the end of two years GOD said:

Dear Jocelyn, I have a very special child who is going to need all the love and attention you can give him. And so I spent months in the hospital, my angel Ethan nearby, watching with me as his little brother’s heart rate dipped on the monitor next to my bed. Until one day they pulled him straight out of my belly and sent him home, six weeks early, with an undiagnosed autoimmune disorder. Once we thought we’d got that all figured out and my arms were so full that I didn’t think I could possibly have any more love to give . . .

GOD said:

Dear Jocelyn, you’ve got some rough times ahead. I’m going to send you a very special little girl directly from the arms of her heavenly brother, She will carry both his love and her love with her to cover you in the darkness. And so, with a kiss and a flutter of wings, our daughter came down from heaven just as I began my descent into hell.

As I gazed up from the abyss I lamented my inability to take my children to the park and shower them with hugs and kisses, and help them with their homework, and GOD said: Dear Jocelyn, don’t you know by now that I have thousands of children for you to love? And so he taught me how to embrace others who were suffering hundreds, even thousands of miles away. Then he gave me a voice so they could hear him and a camera so they wouldn’t feel alone. And plenty of digital hugs were administered daily.

When I began my ascent from the depths and the digital realm, I found myself mourning a home bereft of the baby that didn’t make it out alive, she who was never buried, I mourned the two that should have been four. Ethan would be a teenager by now!

And GOD said:

Dear Jocelyn, I have so many children who need a home…and then he sent me a daughter on my birthday, from another hemisphere of the world, who needed to learn how to drive and date boys online. And between the two of us we more than made up for all the hugs my kids had missed out on in years past. Then she got married and we suddenly had two boys and two girls and two angels

And GOD said:

Dear Jocelyn, Thank you for loving my children. As a bonus, I’m going to give you a really good excuse for all those white hairs on your head. A friend of your heavenly son’s is coming to earth this Passover and even though the angel of death will be nearby, it will pass over him and you will get to hold a baby once again in your arms. And so I became a grandmother at age 42. And as I rocked this baby boy in my arms and sang him to sleep, I said in my heart;

Dear GOD:

Thank you for filling what was empty, for finding what was lost, for showing me time and again how much you love each and every one of your children. I’m doing my best to do the same.

Please tell Ethan I love him.

Sincerely,

Jocelyn