An Email to My Newborn Nephew

If you know my brother – you won’t be surprised that my nephew had an email address the day he was born. So I wrote baby Amos Robert Williams the four most important things I want him to know as his favorite (and only) aunt.

Amos,

Welcome to the world!

I loved you from the moment I knew you were growing inside your mom! I love your parents so much so I knew that I would automatically love you in this way as well.

Here are some things I would like you to know in order of importance:

1. God loves you so much!

Jesus is crazy about you and knows you better than anyone ever will and wants you to know him too. He wants to be your closest friend and confidant as soon as you are old enough to know what BFF means (or whatever cool bestie phrase your generation will choose). God will never leave you even if you can’t feel God’s presence or love – God is with you always. God will love you always. No matter what.

2. Your parents are amazing people!

Two of my favorite people in the world. They will love you with all that they are. There might be days when they have to do things that don’t feel like love, but it’s because they will love you so much that they may need to make decisions that feel hard at the time but are best for you. They both learned from the best parents around (your grandparents)!

3. You have a pretty great family!

We are all kind of dorky, not very cool at all (except for your mom). But we care a lot about people and would give up anything to love and serve the people God puts around us.

There is something about us that not everyone notices at first… but we all have broken hearts.

You see, as you grow up you will realize that the world isn’t the way it’s supposed to be. People go without what they need, they are sick, they experience suffering and pain. When your family members let God into our lives, our hearts began to break for the things that break God’s heart.

We know that someday Jesus will make all things new, but until then, our family wants to be a part of what God is doing around us now to bring healing to the brokenness around us. You will grow up knowing your namesake, Amos, represents our family well – a prophet to God’s people begging them to care for the poor and the marginalized. The people the world sometimes ignores, but God loves deeply.

4. You have a HUGE family!

Yes, there are a lot of Williams’ and Singletons around. But you won’t remember a day when there wasn’t dozens of adults swirling around you every Sunday and other times of the week telling you how much they love you, how much God loves you and that you belong in our family.

We call this family – the family of God.

We all get to be a family because God is our Father and Jesus did everything that was needed for us to be God’s kids. People in this huge family of God have been praying for you since before you were born! Some of them are related to you by blood, marriage or adoption… but a whole lot of them are your brothers and sisters and aunties and uncles just because we all have the same Dad.

We aren’t perfect, we are all broken people trying to figure out how to follow God together. This family will commit to your mom and dad, and to God, that they will do whatever they can to support them and to SHOW you what God’s love looks like.

Amos, I can’t wait to watch you grow in understanding of these things! Watching your mom and dad with you on day ONE makes it clear that you’ve already experienced their deep love for you.

We ALL love you buddy!

Love,

Auntie Steph

P.S. No need to respond to this email right away.

An Email to My Newborn Nephew