All I Want For Christmas

Yesterday morning, when I started this post, my kids were watching I Love Lucy. It's one of their favorite shows and I am fairly certain I have now seen every episode a dozen times.

Thursdays are always pretty slow since we are out late the night before.

Back to the Ricardo's...

So this is the episode where Lucy discovers she is pregnant and is trying to tell Ricky in some sweet and amazing way.

I never got to do that. I was always just way too excited to stage a big reveal.
This episode wasn't sweet or funny yesterday. This episode tore at my heart and soul. My arms aching for Eden and my womb aching for the baby it should be carrying.

I have had people suggest to me that this was all "for the best" and maybe God just "wants me to be done."

Was that what God wanted for Elisabeth as her soul ached for a child?

How can someone put reasoning into the desire for a child. No, maybe it's not logical but my very being crys out for a baby to hold in my arms. To nurse . To love. To adore.

When you have been a parent, and watched them grow and shared every parenting joy and frustration, and you think that you are stepping onto that roller coaster again...and suddenly the ride stop...you know what you have lost. You know what you are not going to experience.

Tonight my family walked over to see Santa, and as we stood in line, Jack yelling from twenty feet away "Hi Santa! Lego Star Wars!", I struck up a conversation with the family behind me and played with their beautiful little girl. All cozy in her pink footie pajamas, I watcher her smile at Noah and play with my camera and suddenly my heart broke all over again.

Unexpectedly, it all came rushing to the surface. My heartbreak, my loss, my desperation.

I miss my baby girl.

Thankful

When I wrote this line in my other blog I knew I needed to grab a cup of coffee and come sit in this special place and think some more... write some more... about who God is showing Himself to be to me.

I wrote :

I make a choice everyday to serve and love God when my circumstances seem bleak, because I want God to be made strong in my weaknesses... I think weaknesses make God excited to really show off His strength and glory.

I know I have written before about my choice to serve, love, and worship God when in the midst of a struggle. In the midst of pain. Yet, each day i learn there is so much more to this choice and that it transforms, not just me, but my whole world. This choice has ripples that I may never see, but I know they exist.

Recently, just after the loss of our last pregnancy, one of my husband's students wrote to him that she was angry with God. that this seemed cruel to her and how could He... all things I felt in the midst of our loss. Things my husband felt.

It broke my heart for her because I don't think she knows Him. That she can turn to Him with these questions. I did. I wept bitter tears and threw out a lament to rival King David. I felt forsaken, betrayed.

Yet, in my utter brokenness and heartbreak, God revealed His great strength because my weakness was great. He stepped down from a place of glory and got in the dirt with me to lift me up.

I have no "why" that I can find. They have been offered by some, but I believe there is really no "why" there is an "is" that God wants to use as refinement and glory and to show something to the world beyond myself and my family.

God is showing that He can still be glorified when there is no "why'. He is showing that the miracles are still there and the biggest ones happen on the inside. He could have healed Eden. he could have stepped in to protect and restore my pregnancy. He didn't. But He DID step in to restore my soul. My heart. My faith. Physical healing is amazing and has it's place and is NOT something He withholds, it is available everyday... the healing of a spirit is beyond what eyes can see and so rarely labeled as a miracle...but I can tell you as one who is walking it, it is so much so. In my life and soul, almost more so.

At Peace

The thoughts in my head are all jumbled and not linear or particularly intelligible but it is clear that one thing has happened to me tonight... God, the creator of all the universe, has met me in my dark and desperate place of need. He has come to sit and share a cup of tea and offer me understanding.

He has shown himself to a desperate and broken child and revealed His great love for me. Not His plan, but His love.

I don't need to know the whys as long as I can trust the love, and that trust faltered this week. Faltered and nearly shattered, but has once again been restored, refreshed , and renewed.

God, in His great love and compassion gave me the time to mourn and the time to be angry and let me pour it all out at His feet...and then he scooped me into His immense Fatherly lap and, rather than cuddle me in my brokenness, spoke to me like a woman and child of His and reassured me of His immensity and His sovereignty.

He did not let me slip into a pit of resentment, no matter how tempting, He just revealed Himself once again to me.

Poured out another portion of joy and intimacy and loved me.

I am once again, gleefully under the shadow of His wing and nestled up to Him for my comfort.

Thank you God for loving me through my weakness and showing your strength overwhelmingly.

Can scarcely speak the words

It is with a heavy heart that I write that my pregnancy has ended.

To say say we are devastated is an understatement. My mind cannot seem to reconcile this heartbreak so soon after the first birthday of Eden. This loss has shaken my faith to it's very core, yet almost despite myself, I can still see God trying to show me compassion...

The ultrasound last Thursday showed that, while I was pregnant, a baby had never formed. This is key for me at this point. Our loss is still great, visions of a sumer spent with a newborn in our arms are gone, and we mourn them. We mourn the sleepless nights and first smiles. We mourn the dreams we had for our family. Yet for me, if I were mourning another child who lived and died before I ever got to really know it, I'd be broken in wholly different ways.

I am glad I wrote so much of God revealing himself to me in the darker times in Eden's life because I need the reminders.

Please continue to pray for us as we struggle through this new heartbreak.

No longer ordinary

Since I am not actually posting this tonight, I should probably note that tonight, is Tuesday October 28th.

I'm not sure where this goes either...this blog? A place so devoted to the lessons and journey through faith that came from my sweet little Eden. Or is it better posted in my other blog? Somewhere where I am trying to live my faith out loud in my reality.

In the end, I think it goes here. Much of this particular story is directly influenced by Eden's life and death.

Tonight My husband and I decided to share a secret with out three living children. A secret we have been keeping for nearly a month.

Tonight we told them that we are, once again, expecting.

I think they almost melted from the sheer joy. My daughter especially. Eden was supposed to be her special gift. Her only sister thus far, born just two days after her birthday.

Her heart craves that sibling even more so than her brothers. She craves a sister most of all...and for lots of reasons I hope this baby is a girl. Never to replace Eden, but to meet a significant need in all of us.

There was joy tonight in the announcement. Joy even from the little one. And lots of jokes. A few times my children started or ended with "If this one lives.". It was the most innocent and non jaded ways it could ever be said, but it cut me to the quick. I don't even think they think this baby may not make it, but they don't live in a world where all babies come home either.

It both breaks my heart and makes me glad as well. Breaks my heart that so young this their reality, but so glad that this house is a safe place to talk about such things. That it's not a secret fear or dread.

So once again I covet your prayers. We all do. Prayers for a healthy baby. A safe delivery...and so much more.

God's grace is heavy here but the enemy whispers words of fear and dread almost constantly.

And now an update on Thursday October 30th:

Not even 24 hours after we told the kids and within hours of telling my mother and my pastors wife , I noticed some unusual things happening with my body. So this morning I had my first OB appointment.

My dr seemed rather unconcerned given the size of my uterus but, with "spotting" and such we opted for an ultrasound.

What we saw was neither good, nor horribly bad. A fetal sac in the right size and shape, but no little kidney bean.

What this means is that, either I was just a little too early to see the baby, or...and my heart breaks to say it... there is no baby.

Needless to say I left the office thick with emotion. "How could something like this be happening after all we have been through?"

I can't help but wonder, what is the lesson? What is the plan?

The mood is not bright in our house today but I can feel, somewhere at the fringes of by battered heart, I can feel God reaching to comfort me. To tell me...something.

God still has dominion over this pregnancy. He can still reveal a healthy little baby. I can still hold this baby in my arms this summer.

My faith and hope tell me these things but my heart is having trouble truly believing them.

I am begging for and coveting your prayers. I am oing in again next week and hope with all the hope I can muster to see a little miracle.

One very amazing year

A few weeks ago someone asked me how I planned to remember Eden this week. At the time my husband and I had made no solid plans but knew that what we really wanted to do was just be together as a family...

One of the things I said to my friend was that really, I wanted to fill the house with flowers and celebrate her.

We have had flowers in the house ever since I returned from the hospital. Flowers from friends filled the house in the weeks following , but as they slowly died and the number dwindled it became something that we could do to remember her.

We have a spot in the living room that always has flowers. Something bright and beautiful and cheery... we make a choice to remember the joy rather than the pain with these flowers.

So I just wanted to fill the house with them. So many that I wouldn't know where to put them. Roses, daises, lilies...

I only mentioned this to one person, not even my husband, but one person in another country.

Monday morning when I woke up there was a vase of flowers and a plate of cookies. Happy flowers with an adorable pink bow. My husband had discovered them outside our door that morning. It felt wonderful to have such a thoughtful gift, even if there was no card. Later We received flowers from some very special friends of mine and I smiled at my two beautiful vases of flowers. I slightly remembered the conversation about the house full of flowers.

Tuesday was still a special day. Tuesday was the anniversary of, not the day Eden was born, or the day she died, but the day she lived. In the hours after Eden's birth I was obsessed with time. Each new hour was another hour she had lived and breathed on this earth. When the clock hit midnight I was ecstatic to know that when her name was written the date of her birth and death would be different... And when we reached midnight again, to know there was a whole day that she simply lived was almost more of gift than I could ask for.

Tuesday there were once again flowers and treats left for us. I cried. More bright and cheery flowers to mark this special day. When I brought the vase inside I found a lovely necklace with a silver E wrapped with the bow.

And today, more flowers and brownies. This time a card. Filled with love from friends who loved my little girl right along with me. Who now carry a precious child of their own.

It means so much to me to have her remembered and it brings smiles and happy tears to see my house filled with love...and Eden's flowers.

October 15th

Also from my other blog:

Tomorrow is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day, a day that I once knew nothing about and even if I had I wouldn’t have really paid attention.

One of the things I realized in the last few years is that, especially in western culture, we are so silent about death, about grief, and especially so about the grief of lost babies. It’s one of those things that people fear to talk about and so often just don’t acknowledge.

I have been blessed beyond measure that my sweet Eden has been celebrated and talked about and cried over openly. She is not a secret we just never mention. Her photograph hangs on my wall with her brothers and sister and doesn’t cause anyone to wince or become uncomfortable. I think it would actually make my friends and guests more uncomfortable if her picture wasn’t there.

So tomorrow I will light my candle in remembrance of some very special little people whom are greatly missed here on earth. Eden, Nathan, The Twins, Krista’s babies, The Triplets and so many more…

First Birthday

This post is taken from my other blog...

Today there is a sense that there is great expectation about something amazing and heartbreaking...

In reality I have shed several happy tears today. Been frustrated by some people. And had a lovely surprise on my doorstep early this morning...

Last week I received a card from The March Of Dimes because a good friend donated in my Beautiful Daughter's name. Standing at the mailbox I wept happy tears that, even a year later, Eden's life mattered to people who never got a chance to know her. That loving her didn't require actually meeting her. That a short little life could impact and change people.

Mostly I am just happy when she is remembered. Not as a sad footnote, but as a little girl who was celebrated.

Being Eden's mother has changed me in ways I never could have imagined and I am hardly the same person I was a year ago, and I scarcely recognize who I was two years ago.

This past year has been filled with a pain deeper than any I ever believed I could endure. I have watched my children and my husband weep from so deeply I thought they might never stop, I have wondered if I would ever cease to ache.

But in the midst of all of that God has revealed himself to me new, nearly everyday.

I don't know if I will ever understand why God denied the pleas of so many of His children. Why standing and silently saying no fit His plan better. And I believe I will always wonder about that... but still, I know that God is who He says He is. That His plan is perfect and that I have seen what true peace is. That I have lived it, felt it, breathed it.

The enemy has come many times to whisper in my ear about an impotent or uncaring God. He has poured salt in the deep wounds of my grief. He has attempted to shake me free of my faith many times.

And when he has, I have found renewed strength and renewed faith in the utter holiness of Eden's final breath. I can scarcely look back at that time without seeing all of heaven weeping as I handed my daughter into her Father's arms.

I have been through even more trials since I had to submit to the will of God and love Him while his actions hurt. I am in the midst of one even still. But when Satan tries to tempt me into depression and resignation I am empowered in my faith by remembering 36 holy hours that He gave me with my little one.

36 hours in which my baby girl cooed, cried, peed on so many nurses and guests, and proved her full humanness by getting cranky when she was unswaddled or cold. 36 hours in which I got to cuddle and love her. 36 hours that are so removed from everyday that they are almost like a dream, though they are forever etched in my memory.

So today is not a sad day. Today is a day I rejoice that God chose me. Trusted me with a difficult choice.

Today I remember her beautiful bowed lips and her feisty attitude, and celebrate the first birthday of my precious Eden.

I love you sweet girl. My arms ache for you everyday but my heart is happy to have gotten to love you!

Conversation

Noah: Why are you crying?

Me: I'm thinking about your sister.

Noah: Phoebe? Why is that making you cry?

Me: Your other sister.

Noah: Oh, Eden.

Me: Yep. I think about her a lot

Noah: But why are you crying?

Me: Because she died 10 months ago today.

Jack; (playing with his Star Wars guys) Eden died.

Me: Yes she did.

Jack: And her did go to heaven?

Me: Yes. She's in heaven. And I miss her and that makes my heart sad.

Jack: It makes my dad sad too.

Me: Yes it does.

Jack: (goes back to playing with Star Wars guys)

Nine months

This seems like such a huge milestone. I guess when you have carried and birthed four babies nine months becomes a very significant period of time.

I think the thing about losing Eden is that it never stops, I never stop "losing" her. She is always gone, always separated from me. I won't ever hold her in my arms and nurse her to sleep. I will never hear her giggle or see her smile. I can never braid her hair or dress her in frilly clothes. Every second of every day she is gone.

I was reading Psalm 119 to my kids the other day and could barely choke out this part of the passage...

81 I am worn out waiting for your rescue,
but I have put my hope in your word.
82 My eyes are straining to see your promises come true.
When will you comfort me?
83 I am shriveled like a wineskin in the smoke,
but I have not forgotten to obey your decrees.
84 How long must I wait?

The psalmist captures my heart and soul in that passage, my anguish and my exhaustion. My longing to hold the child I had to let go of far too soon...

Yet I cling to God for in Him alone can I and do I find the strength to smile and live and enjoy the life I have yet to live.

89 Your eternal word, O Lord,
stands firm in heaven.
90 Your faithfulness extends to every generation,
as enduring as the earth you created.
91 Your regulations remain true to this day,
for everything serves your plans.
92 If your instructions hadn’t sustained me with joy,
I would have died in my misery.
93 I will never forget your commandments,
for by them you give me life.
94 I am yours; rescue me!
For I have worked hard at obeying your commandments.
95 Though the wicked hide along the way to kill me,
I will quietly keep my mind on your laws.
96 Even perfection has its limits,
but your commands have no limit.

I know there is still so much work to be done. So much more to be dealt with. So much more grief to endure...but I am confident that my Jesus will carry my through and protect my bleeding and wounded heart.

Blindsided...and rambling

Sometimes the emotions hit me at the oddest moments...

They make sense in moments like yesterday when I took down my youngest son's crib and put it away, thinking the whole time that I should still be using the crib, not making room for it under his "big boy bed". When I look at a pile of no longer needed baby things and feel heartsick that I have to figure out where to donate them...

But just now, I logged on to write about the transition and found Nicky's comment unmoderated so never published, on my last post. And I cried.

I cried mostly because I don't do that. I don't imagine what would have been very often because it hurts just so much. And honestly, I am stuck with the imagining of what we would have done to announce her healing. That one I see so clearly. That one I see almost as a memory...but it isn't a memory. It's a dream.

Someone gave me an outfit for her shortly after the diagnosis...Embroidered on the front of a cute white onesie in pink letters "I am a miracle". I searched for the perfect pink pants to match in just the right shade...eventually Nicky found them. I packed them in my hospital bag, but at the bottom. I imagined putting my perfectly formed baby in that outfit and just having that picture flashed on the overhead at church Sunday morning. I can still hear the collective gasp and applause that would have gone out. I can still feel the warmth radiating out of all those euphoric faces. To be in the church where great and miraculous healings occur. I can hear the worship songs...

I imagine my pastor. A strong and mighty man of God beaming with reverence at the power of Mighty God, instead of forlorn and broken by the disappointment of a healing denied.

And these images haunt me sometimes.

I told my husband, driving down the 405 freeway towards the delivery that I believed 100% that Eden would be healed. I was giddy with the excitement of it.

I broke when he looked at me in the OR and shook his head, tears in his eyes. I just broke in that moment. I asked God to heal her still, but I knew we'd received His answer, and it was no.

I knew I had to choose to keep living in that brief second. Not physically, but spiritually. I knew I had to ask myself if I could still trust and hope and believe in all of who God was in that second. Upon choosing him he held together that which had broken in me... My heart, my spirit, and in someways... my faith. He began to repair it even then, but what was still broken He held.

I don't talk much about the really ugly parts because I want more than anything to allow God to be glorified in my life. In this experience. There are ugly moments though...and here are a lot of them.

I think in someways the hurt is harder now. It is duller and not as sharp and stabbing, but it is exhausting. To know that I will always grieve...everyday...somedays seems like too much. To know that certain worship songs will continue to stick in my throat for weeks, and months, and years makes me want to pull the covers over my head and just stay there.

I picture her in heaven a lot. Dancing in the flowers. Jesus giggling and smiling at her. And I am so glad she is with Him and I am so happy for her...I just wish we weren't seperated.

Missing You

Dear Eden,

I printed up a copy of your picture today.

It's a little overcast and the house is really quiet, the big kids are gone and the little one is taking a nap.

I wish I could curl up on the couch and nurse you and nibble on your fingers and toes. Smile at you. You'd be playing right along by now...

I miss all the things we never got to do. I miss memories we never made.

But I still smile almost everyday because I know I'll not only see you again, but that your life served a great purpose.

I know you don't read my blog, :D , but I just wanted to tell you today how much you are missed and how much I love you...and how you have impacted me as a person.

~Mommy

Better Days

Some days are so hard. Days like my last post...

Most days aren't. Most days the supernatural peace and grace of God surround me. I never know when it will be painful, but I know that God is always faithful to buoy me when my arms stop moving and I start to sink.

I am greatful beyond words to have been given Eden, even for the short season we had. I am grateful that God gave me, not only strength, but the support of a church family without whom I'd have fallen apart. Friends who loved my baby as much as I did. People as invested in a miracle as me.

Eden was a gift to many and the line to snuggle her and kiss her will be long in heaven. The people who never got to nuzzle into her sweet little neck but miss her all the same.

So days like today, when God has brought me through another patch of ugly, are truly a blessing.

One year ago today

I learned what it meant to be "a little bit pregnant". I knew what it was to have a wiggling, living, baby inside of me...and be told I would never love her outside of me. I learned what it felt like to be told the best thing to do would be to end my child's life.

My whole world turned upside down and I am not so sure it ever really righted it's self again.

I have grown and loved and felt joy in this last year.

I have also known pain that hurt so deep I could barely catch my breath. I know the ache of a mother's arms without one of her babies to fill them.

I know what it is to long for something I will never see or know.

God has been so incredibly faithful to me, held me as I wanted to crumble into a mess on the floor.

Today though, on a day motherhood is celebrated, it feels too big and I want so badly to wake-up and find this whole year was nothing more than a nightmare.

I rejoice over new babies and my heart breaks in every smile...I want my baby so badly today. I want to love her and kiss her. I want to hold her in my arms and nurse her to sleep. I want to pace the floor with her when she can't sleep.

It's hard sometimes, and a little overwhelming to know that I will feel all of these things every day.

Sacred

Today has not been an easy day. The last week or so my grief reached a familiar place, one I've been too before...or been near...and it's hard to be visiting here again.

Somehow, this time I feel more desolate. It is a far more difficult struggle...or maybe the difficulty hasn't changed, I am just growing accustomed to the better days...so the harder days seem that much more pronounced?

It is almost more difficult to admit this time through. I feel almost as if I am failing at something? I don't want to let anyone down. I want to still be standing in the strength of Jesus. Yet today? Today it is all I can do to sit here at His feet and weep.

I want to throw a mighty fit and beg God for a do-over. For another moment with my baby. Beg Him to let me wake-up from this. That it would all be a dream. That whatever God has taught me or shown me would have been impressed on me and now I get to keep my girl...

And even in this moment, here as I type, and admit the immaturity and ugliness, and see the parts of my heart I have been trying to hold back from God this week...even now He reaches down to comfort me and caress my tear streaked cheeks with his own hand. With His own tears He comforts me.

Every time I want to tell Him this isn't fair or ask Him why I see a glimmer of His plan...just a glimmer, as if through the fog, but I see He has not abandoned me and this was not something He allowed out of callous disregard...

I am so like one of my Children, anxious for "the end" not wanting to endure the lesson or wait out the plan.

Happy Half Birthday

I can hardly believe it's be only six short months since I first looked into the face of my precious daughter. Beautiful and perfect in her brokenness. Six months since I saw true beauty in ultimate heartbreak. Six months since a me I used to be ceased to exist. Six months since my faith was tested to it's limit.

It's overwhelming sometimes to think that getting here doesn't mean the grief is over, just that it continues to change...and change me.

I was telling my husband the other day that part of me was afraid that I was lying to myself everyday. That this new element to my relationship with God would shatter and I would see that, in reality, I was bitter, broken, and angry.

My growing closer to God has been very deliberate. I made a conscious choice to continue to magnify His name and to love on Him. To believe in His word. All of this a huge step of faith after my beautiful daughter was born broken.

I try my hardest to be honest with God about it because I want this to be sincere.

So last night I was at prayer and a song I have played continually this last year came on...

The enemy's been defeated
Death couldn't hold you down

I think I have said before, that I imagined, while pregnant with Eden playing that song in church as we beheld the sweet baby God had brought life and wholeness to.

When that vision wasn't to pass I would stiff often turn to that song to lift my faith. Satan was still defeated by God's supernatural peace poured out within moments of Eden's birth.

Last night I believe God spoke to me, just little me.

The enemy's plans for me were defeated. I was not destroyed by my daughter's death. I am not continually oppressed by my grief or my questions. I live and love my God every day. It is sincere and He knows it.

Clear Acrylic Cups

Yesterday morning I went to pick up a few staples from the grocery store but as usual got sidetracked by the $1.00 specials. I was delighted to find small acrylic cups for the kids so I picked up two each of the blue, green, pink, and clear. Pleased to be getting two for each kid and thinking that I knew who would naturally gravitate towards which color.

It wasn't until I got home and was unloading that I realized I bought two cups for each of my children...yet only have three children at home with me.

I hadn't particularly chosen cups for Eden... but I just picked up eight.

On another heartbreaking note my friend's twin girls died. She birthed them and held them and said her good-byes. She said they were beautiful.

Pray for her now...she and her family. She as two daughters at home... and has had to let go of two she never got to know.

Unprepared

I've just returned home form dropping my older kids off with dad for some much needed bonding time, my littlest is in his crib taking an afternoon nap. I was planning on settling in for a nap of my own but came online to check on a friend...

She is around 17 weeks pregnant and had an irregular test and was going in for genetic testing and a high level ultrasound today.

Just hearing her retelling of the day elicited a strange reaction in me and I am now suitably unsettled enough to not be able to take my nap. I want to pick up the phone and call all of my wonderful friends for comfort but at the same time I want to hide in the darkness of my bedroom and scream and thrash and cry.

The memories of Eden fade a little each day, I only knew my daughter for 36 short hours. But the memories of the day I was told that she would die, that I should end her life without ever getting a chance to say good bye... those memories are crisp and clear.

I want to say no one should ever have to go through that, but I feel like to say that discounts what God did through it.

Right now I am feeling it all anew. It's like the last year has vanished and I am right back there. And in some ways it hurts more because I know how the story ends. I know the answer to my pleading is met with a quiet, and heartbroken, no.

I see Him. I have such an image of my heavenly father weeping as He leaves the little body of my Eden unfinished. As He turns His head to say no. I see Him as his tears roll down His face looking at my heartbreak. Knowing His plan will hurt me in places I didn't even know hurt could dwell... What must it be to know you are doing what needs to be done, but know it will break the heart of your very child. Not to break the heart in discipline but to allow it to break for the furthering of a plan they might never see fully.

I wonder if I seem foolish to some, to turn my hurt and heartbreak over to the very one who allowed it in the first place? But where else would I ever find comfort? I can find no comfort but from He who has walked this road... God himself had to deny His own hearts cry and allow for the ultimate pain of watching His only son, not just die, but be beaten and abused by the very people He was laying His life down for.

My God and My Jesus are the only comfort.

Pray for my friend...her news was full of great joy...Twin girls...and great angst... they are sharing a sac and entangled in such a way as to make carrying them to term very dangerous.

Simple words

I want to be profound here today. I want to write words that will move you to your very core...that will gird up the faith of the faithful and turn the unbeliever to Jesus.

I want to chronicle the vast changes in myself, my husband, my family, my friends, and even my church that have come about in the journey of carrying and losing my beautiful daughter.

I want to pour out my very soul, wrapped in the love and protection of my perfect savior...

But really, I am just here to sit and remember. To let the tears flow in this place while I try to recapture what it was to love her in person. To hold her tiny and imperfect body in my arms for 36 short hours. To kiss her cheek and watch her slip into the arms of Jesus. to be so fully enveloped by the supernatural that the tragedies of the natural world seemed a million miles away even as they unfolded inches from my face.

I am a little hurt that there are people who think it's time for me to move on, and eternally grateful for those who remember with me. Who are still moved and hurting for me. Who don't expect or hope for this to ever "go away".

How beautiful and wonderful it will be to see my little one again someday... To have the immeasurable joy of seeing not only the savior of my very soul, but seeing Him holding my sweet girl. To be reunited with one I knew so briefly but loved so fully.

I miss my daughter and can't imagine that it's only been 5 months that I have carried the ache that longs to hold her again...

Four Months

I was very aware this last weekend that Eden's four month birthday was passing... that the days that numbered her all too short life were once again upon me.

I thought about what she'd likely be doing. She'd be moving on to pureed food and probably sitting up... if she followed after her siblings, she'd likely be sleeping for nice long stretches...

I wanted to write, just to remeber her. In the absence of holding her in my arms, I wanted to hold her in my thoughts and words...but the fact is, I was to busy to sit and formulate a post. Life continues to go on, the world continues to rotate and quiet moments get swallowed up.

I thought about Eden a lot. I missed her terribly. My heart did not break from the grief but she will be a missing piece of me until I stand before the Lord and he places her tiny hand in mine.

I have had the unique opportunity to become friends with another mother who found out shortly after I found out about Eden's anencephaly, that her sweet baby would also die shortly after his birth. It is a strange relationship in that we are in different countries and have never even heard each other's voices, yet we are eternally connected by this shared journey...

I wrote to her tonight and thought that these were the things I'd like to share here as well...

It's amazing isn't it? How completely upside down everything seemed and felt for those months we carried our little ones with the knowledge we would only have, if we were lucky, a few moments with them here on earth...and now it's so, relatively, normal? It seems to me, at times, to be both my greatest blessing and deepest heartache...that life is once again, so normal.

We are truly blessed, you and I. It sounds crazy, I know. But I do not feel cursed for what I had with my Eden. I feel blessed for the experience...not a blessing I'd ever hope for again, mind you...but blessed all the same.

This Sunday God brought James 1:2-4 to me. I hear James 1:2 all the time, but the latter verses spoke to me even more.

"2 Dear brothers and sisters,^[a] when troubles come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy. 3 For you know that when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to grow. 4 So let it grow, for when your endurance is fully developed, you will be perfect and complete, needing nothing."

I feel like a totally renewed creature. I know I haven't reached perfection yet but I stand on an assurance and faith I hadn't ever imagined attainable by me, now.

I have a confidence in who I am in God now, that I never knew before. I know I am not nearly where He desires me to end up...but I am very certain that I *am* on the path He has paved for me... and there is a blessing in that that overwhelms me.

Smiling through tears

It's late and I suppose it's tomorrow already but I couldn't close my eyes tonight without remarking on the day that has passed.

Three months have flown by in the blink of an eye, yet it seems like I have carried the memories of my sweet baby girl for my entire life.

I was struck this morning, as I went about my daily chores, with how unremarkable the day was. How dishes still need doing and floors still need scrubbing. How my children still need to be led and diapers still need changing.

Yet today was remarkable. Today I woke up, snuggled my babies, and spent time with God. I was truly content and joyful. Even with the heaviness of my great loss, I felt joy today. I remembered my girl, as I always do, and I smiled at the time we had spent together. Even more I smiled remembering a moment I have no ability to explain. A moment that changed me from the depth of my very soul. The moment that coforts me when heartbreak threatens to crush me. I reflected today, on my daughter's death.

I have never seen Jesus, not with my earthly eyes, But my spirit has. My spirit knew, felt, and saw God, himself, lift my baby from my arms. Remove the soul that had blessed so many from her earthly vessel. God lifted her and cradled her just as I had for the blessed hours we had spent together.

I miss my daughter, yes. I always will. My heart aches for the moments we will never share. The kisses we will miss. I will never know her giggle or her smile.

But she is clothed in glory. She sits at the feet of the Creator of the Universe...no, she is cradled by His loving arms. I will not mourn for her. I will mourn those missed moments, but I will remember her beautiful blue eyes as she saw the face of her savior.

And I will smile.

"Think of your child; then, not as dead, but as living; not as a flower that has withered, but as one that is transplanted, and touched by a divine hand, is blooming in richer colors and sweeter shades than those on earth."-
Richard Hooker

Holding His Hem

Has it really been nearly three months since I held my sweet baby? Three months since my world changed forever, in a way I couldn't imagine?

Tonight was a typical trip to the craft store. Just a quick trip for ribbon, but my oldest daughter decided to come along. She picked out crafts and ribbon and yarn that she would love to have...all of which stayed behind.

As we loaded into the van and began our short trip home we were laughing and joking and within minutes there were tears. A joke went touchy and my sweet girl began to cry. At first I assumed she was crying over not getting things her way, but then she broke and the truth came out.

We had gone to see Daddy at work today and, playing at the whiteboard as she usually does, she caught a glimpse of the picture he keeps of her sister. A picture we see everyday. Today though, something was different...and it broke her heart again.

It was hard to sit in the van with her and know she was hurting, carrying a burden that seems altogether too large for a little girl of seven. But at the same time it was beautiful.

It gave me a sort of sad joy at knowing that she had gotten a chance to trully love her sister. That she had known and held a very real little girl in her arms. That she had seen a glimmer of a smile on the face of the sister she had dreamed of for years.

She will always have her sister, real and in her heart.

I have been listening to a song that I had always imagined playing when Eden's healing was revealed. Lyrics that spoke to me so deeply when I was carrying her...

The enemy's been defeated.
Death couldn't hold you down.
Were gonna lift out voice in victory.
Were gonna make our praises loud.

I imagined a scene, not unlike the Lion King, holding her up before all as the baby God had healed.

This song is still His song for me. The death of my daughter will not be my defeat but the defeat of the enemy of my soul. He who tries to crush me with weight of it everyday. He who tries to get me to shout curses at God.

I will not turn from God in my hurt. I will not turn from Him in my confusion. He will still reign in my heart and in my life. Because He sees me. He created me. And He loves me.