What I prayed tonight

Earlier tonight was rough. Rowan was having tummy pain and I had a hard time finding something that made her feel better enough to go to sleep. I was finally successful at about half past 10.

A couple of hours later I was getting ready to go to bed myself (trying to get more than 3-4 hours of sleep these days). As I let the dog out to do her business, I decided I needed to spend a few minutes outside under the stars, talking to God. Here is what I said.

"God, thanks for Rowan going to sleep. I pray whatever was wrong with her tummy is gone now, and she gets a good night's sleep (so I can too). I really love that little girl.

It's in moments like these when I miss Aimee, not only because she would have handled this, but because she would have known how to. If she's up there with You right now, please tell her I love her and I miss her. Tell her that I always think about all those times when she said she felt confident that I could raise Rowan if anything ever happened to her, and that I try to prove her right, no mater how lost I sometimes feel.

I hope I appreciated her enough when she was here. I think I did, I know I thanked You for her frequently and I worked to show Aimee by words and actions how much she meant to me. But if I fell short, please also tell her that too. She was an incredible gift from You.

I never wanted You to take her away from me.

And Lord, please tell her I hope she understands that I'm starting to look for someone else who can come into our lives. It's not that I didn't love her that much. In fact, in some ways it's because of my great love for her that I want to move on. She showed me what a wonderful, amazing thing a great marriage was, and I miss that. She taught me about the importance of each parent to a child, and I want a mother for Rowan. She opened my eyes to all the ways I could be a good husband and father, and she did it without saying much, but through her great example, and I really long to have a partner like that again, but as a wife and as a fellow parent. I miss loving someone like that.

Tell Aimee that Rowan misses her too. She says it a lot more now than she used to, and she cries more often. But she also seems to know that she can come to me and cry to me and that she's safe with me. Let Aimee know that as much as Rowan can be right now, she is happy, even in her grief.

So Lord, help me be a great father, especially now. And when I go up to Rowan's room in a few minutes and lean over and kiss the top of her head as she sleeps, I'll pray to You again soon, this time for her health and well-being and her future.

Thank You for listening to me.

In Jesus' name,
Amen."