There is a longing that grows deeper still these days. In our bedroom is an empty crib. In the living room sits an empty swing and a bouncy seat. The changing table is filled with diapers and tiny clothes neatly folded. And I want to hold my baby.

I want so much to hold my baby that never got to feel the warmth of her mother's arms. That sweet little girl who was never tucked into her crib, and never laid in the swing purchased for her just weeks before she left this world. I never got to dress her in her little clothes, or change her diaper, never really got to mother her in this sense of the word.

As we do these last minute things to prepare for our baby boy; getting out the baby tub, the blankets, the burp rags, each one is a reminder of all the things I didn't get to do for Eliana. There is a longing that will never go away, even as it might change shape with the passage of time, and changing life circumstances, there is a place in my heart that will forever be hers, always yearning and reaching for her until we meet again.

And now, I long so much to hold her little brother. He is growing so big and seems to be running out of space, and I am just so ready to meet him. I can hardly wait for him to fill these empty arms, the empty swing, the empty crib. And when I think of him now, it's no longer bittersweet. He brings his own feelings of pure sweetness and joy when I think about how much I love him, and how we long for him to be in our lives just for who he is.

Even as the empty crib is a symbol of heartache and brokenness, it is a symbol of great hope and promise, beckoning me backward in love to Eliana, and forward in faith to our son's imminent birth. Like the symbol of a rainbow in the sky, our Rainbow Baby, God's promise of grace and beauty following pain. The effects of sunshine after a storm, an image of His love and His greatness, and the overall goodness of His often incomprehensible plan.

There is a deep longing that grows deeper still--to hold my baby. To hold our precious little boy and watch him breath and blink and squirm, and to one day hold our daughter again, in the absence of all longing, in the presence of the Rainbow Maker--never to face another storm.