My dearest son,
We're about a month out from your upcoming wedding at the time I'm writing this. So many scattered emotions are suddenly flooding my heart and soul as I think back over the last eighteen years that I have known you and loved you, playing several different roles in your life before I finally became the one you call Mom.
Though I sought out to adopt a daughter, a sister for David, God led me to a tiny picture on an e-mail of a ten-year-old boy and wouldn't let me stop thinking about him. I knew so little about you, but your love for soccer and your November birthday--and your sister--captured my heart.
History can tell the story of how we found you, met you, loved you, lost you, grieved over you, and finally released you both back to God so he could do what only God can do by giving you back. (I always wondered why God only gave you back and not your sister, until we got to meet the family that she completed and saw how much they love and cherish her. What a gift from God to share that moment and time with you when God put her back in your life.)
Those five years to finally get to you weren't for the faint of heart. They made no sense and required so much sacrifice in all areas of life. How ironic that our relationship grew and blossomed over those years through phone calls, the one form of communication that fills me with anxiety and tangles up my tongue more than anything else. But somehow God gave me words to connect with you over that phone and to demonstrate both our love and His love to you.
I cherish the nine years He gave us together, and I'll admit that moving away without you made no sense to me at all. But just as we left, another female entered into your life and fell in love with you. Seeing the way she loves you and cherishes you makes me so thankful that God gave you back. Not only did He complete our family, but He had your future family in mind, a wife to join you with, and the children you will one day bring into this world. I know how you've longed to be a loving husband and father to a wife and family of your own. And I know you will love your wife and your family with everything in you.
Many moms look upon their sons with tears on their wedding day, opening those clenched fists to pass off their baby boy to another woman, hoping she will love, appreciate, and cherish him as much as she has. But my tears on your wedding day will be tears of gratitude and honor. I'm absolutely honored to be the mother of the groom on your special day. What a privilege to be the one dancing with you for the mother-son dance that we've talked about for years. It's such an incredible honor to know that God chose me to wear that title, that God used us as His instruments to bring you to Texas to meet the woman who will soon call you her beloved husband.
Because of God's tender love for you,
He allowed me (us) to love you,
so you can now be blessed with her love for you, too.
You are a gift of God,
and being the mother of the groom
on your wedding day
will be nothing short of
one of the greatest privileges in my life.
