Eight Maids A-Milkin'

Sometimes when I cradle Layla in my arms, a position she hates unless she is asleep, I think and pray for all the people who cradled her when she would have liked that position or when she didn't have the muscle strength to get herself out of their arms. Was it a few nannies in the orphanage or was it a lot? What was she like as a newborn? Did she enjoy being cradled? Could you cradle her and she would instantly go to sleep?

Was she talked to or sang to as she was cradled? Was she cradled and walked the length of the orphanage, the main room the size of two living rooms? Was her face kissed as she was held? Did she hear words of love? Or did none of that happen and that's why she doesn't like me to hold her like that?

I don't know. I'll never know. When I was asked if I had any questions for the nannies, that never popped in my head. I was more concerned about her eating and sleeping habits. The practical things to ask when you're handed a baby you've never met before and are after less than two hours together will be joined together for life and let no man put asunder. If my now self could go back to that "Thank God Lisa and Nancy found the cafe that specialized in American cuisine" self, I don't know if I would have believed such questions would ever be important to me.

Or maybe the practical self I can be would have thought of that Third Day song And so tonight I pray that God will come and hold you in his arms/And tell you from my heart/I wish you Merry Christmas
and still not ask because the ultimate answer is God held her. God cradled her. God loved her, kept her safe, until she was placed in my cradling arms. As Rebecca St. James so simply and brilliant sang, It's God/Truly God/Can you see/Can you hear/Can you touch/Can you feel/It's God/Truly God/I can't explain any other way/Cause it's God, because at the end of the day that's the only answer there is.

I pray when the baby learns her full story as brief as it is that she will have peace, that God will grant her peace, and she will rest her never to be answered questions in truth- - that God sent His only Son to die for her sins because He loved her that much and He always has her back and wants the very best for her because no one has or will ever love her like He does.