Anna is 11 years old on Tuesday, January 29, 2008. Feels like heaven to her, I'm sure, and watching her grow is one of my dreams coming true. For her birthday—with encouragements from a professional Christian singer-songwriter who composed a song for Anna—I wrote the following poem for her, which includes a reference to a comet ("Hale-Bopp" — see above photo) which passed through our solar system when she was born in 1997:
Streaking across the sky like the finger of God,
Burning in your heart, His will from above—
A birthday gift—the comet continues to trod
Across a vast universe maintained by His love.
Born in a previous millennium: Anna in dreamland—
No worries, no pains, no anticipation of strife.
Guarded in your bed in His well-conceived plan,
Held from all eternity for you to write with your life.
Write with your life, Anna,
Dreams He’s now awakened.
The heavens themselves the limit;
His will cannot be shaken.
Write with your life, Anna;
Freely live out your Creator’s pleasure,
As you grow to know the wondrous works
He’s drawn from His glorious treasures.
Like the comet’s fiery tail, behind you trail the years,
While many gifts to you He’s shown.
Even in those years joys mixed with tears,
A gracious work in you He’s grown.
He’s named the stars gathered 'round your head,
And, greater than theirs, He’s given to you Light,
That through all your years you might be led
And across all your course you might
Write with your life, Anna,
Dreams He’s now awakened.
The heavens themselves the limit;
His will cannot be shaken.
Write with your life, Anna;
Freely live out your Creator’s pleasure,
As you grow to know the wondrous works
He’s drawn from His glorious treasures.