So much left of your story

My Precious Eden,

Tonight I wrote about what it was like to hold your baby sister in my arms for the first time.

I still miss you so much. I am still grateful for every second of your short little life. I wish you were tearing things apart with Zoe, but every day I see more and more of God's plan with you, and I know He has even more in store than I will ever understand.

I wish I could kiss you goodnight and smell your damp hair.

Someday, in eternity...

~Mama

"Yet still, hearing her precious cry and looking into her little face for the first time...those were nothing compared to that first moment where I could lay her on my chest and just drink her in.

Holding God's promise, skin to skin, in the quiet curtained space...I will never forget."

Trapeze Day

Eden,

I didn't get to write for your birthday yesterday. Not because I wasn't thinking about you, every second, but because life keeps going.

In the midst of your baby sister learning to stand, your bigger siblings doing school work, a major heat wave and daddy's interview...I remembered you.

I cried from such a dark place yesterday, the place that will never be whole because you celebrate every birthday in the arms of Jesus.

How can it have been four whole years since you breathed your first...and last?

How can there be a person in this family who never, ever met you?

How can Zoe have a sister who is just a story and some pictures?

If it's even possible, I miss you more this year than in years past. I am aching to remember the feel of your tiny body in my arms. To smell your sweet baby smell. To hear your little coos.

I have prayed a million times that I would get to hold you, just one more time. But if I ever got that one more? I'd just want another.

You are still so much a part of me, and of our world. You are still remembered by so many. Remembered an honored. Your legacy lives in trees, in bibles, in lives transformed, in souls saved...and still, you are so far from me.

Oh, my heart aches for more time with you.

Today I will remember you, fully alive. Today I will celebrate that you lived! I will celebrate by living myself. By remembering. By worshiping the God who gave you to me, even if it was for such a brief time.

I love you baby girl. So much. Forever.

Love,

Mama

Glimpses

I know I won't know the end of the story until I am standing face to face with Jesus.

I know I won't see the brilliance of God's plan or the wisdom in His decisions, in regard to Eden, until eternity.

I know this. But still, I am blessed when God gives me just the tiniest glimpse and I see reason behind what felt so wrong.

Every year, at the start of the school year, my husband sits in his classroom and asks God to help him find "just one kid" who he can share Jesus with. He asks God to help him see the students through the eyes of eternity. Every year.

When you pray like that, you always see the broken kids. You see the ones who support their families while still in high school. You see the ones who have a closer relationship with social workers than parents. You see the ones with everything stacked against them. You think "Oh, it's going to be that one."

God sees something different.

God sees the kid with the good parents and the nice life who laughs and surfs and hangs out with her daddy...he sees the needs deep in the heart of that kid. The kid who seems to have it "all together". God knows that he longs to love every student who walks through those classroom doors. That the broken kids are all the kids living without Him.

So God sets the appointments that He sees fit. At the times that work for each student.

God sits the nice surfer girl, with an idea that all Christians are judgmental and uptight, in a history class with a loud, funny, slightly irreverent teacher during the school year that will mark the most difficult time in his life.

That girl watches her teacher struggle with the death of his baby girl and listens to him share about a faith that remains, even when he doesn't understand what God is doing. She laughs at his jokes and helps him grade papers. She sees him with his family and gets to know his kids and wife.

She somehow becomes more than student, and becomes part of the family.

And three years later, that same girl, is standing in a baptismal, crying her eyes out with joy over her relationship with Christ. Ready to make a public commitment...and she's standing there with her dad!

If losing Eden helped to bring our good friend Brenna into a relationship with Christ, and into our family, it was worth it.

Eden is with Jesus for eternity...and now Brenna will be too.

Dear Eden,

Yesterday your baby sister smiled at me. It was the sweetest, crooked smile. The kind that they like to draw in cartoons. I smiled right back and then I was just the littlest bit sad...she smiles like you did.

You smiled, and I know those smiles were involuntary but what a blessing that they came more frequently in your final hours. That you smiled at your big sister and she will always hold that in her heart.

I still miss you. There is still someone missing in our home, but the soul crushing ache seems to be a bit less when I hold the baby sister who never got a chance to know you.

She also has the same little puffy spots just under her eyes. You two are the only ones who have that. It's very special. I love to see that she looks a little like you, in a special way.

I always tell people she is my 5th baby. You are still the fourth baby and you have not been forgotten or replaced in our hearts or minds.

I still miss you so much, I wish I could hold you again. I wish you were running around, making messes and creating chaos with the others. I can scarcely imagine what you and Jack would do together. We all miss out by having had to say good-bye so soon.

Good night sweet baby. I miss you so much,
Mommy

Ornaments

It's quiet in the house. Only the sound of rain falling outside and my kids laughing in it can be heard as I steal this moment to sit in front of the Christmas tree with my coffee in hand.

All the ornaments went up last night in a blur of excitement from three children that see the magic hanging from every hook. We talked about the meaning and reasons for each special one.

The puppet from the first Christmas I spent with my husband, then fiancee. A small tree in his apartment bedroom with the magical chasing lights and simple ball ornaments. Crammed in on Christmas Eve opening gifts with his roommates.

The ark from the year we knew we would be heading into parenthood and what that dream would mean.

The light up churches that reflect a that peace and hope I have always found within the sanctuary walls at our little home church. Ornaments that belonged to my husbands father, celebrating with Jesus in heaven for these last 11 Christmases.... the memories attached to these wood and resin trinkets go on and on.

Finally we got to the most special ornament of them all... A framed photo of a little girl that I would love to hold in my lap and chase from the tree, but who joins her Papa Dewey in celebrating Jesus' Birthday in his presence.

Merry Christmas little one.

Another Birthday

I can't help but wonder when I will know what to expect. Last year was sad but still a celebration of the sweet girl who changed our world...today was nothing but raw and painful. I spent the better part of today lost and terrified of the heaviness that washed over me. I felt little comfort from my loving God who opened up the sky to weep with me.

My older children shook with sobs that came from so deep they gladly went to bed an hour early.

It was just heavy and hard.

She never stops being gone. She's never coming back.

While I take great comfort in knowing each year brings us closer to reunion, it also takes us further from hello.

I miss my little girl so much.

Love Letter

It starts so simply...and then God in his abundance, finishes it so amazingly!

About two months after Eden's initial diagnosis, well into my journey, I was introduced to another mother destined to have to make the same types of decisions for her ill, not yet born, son.

There is something special about sharing with another member of our exclusive club. We share the lows, the highs, the good and the very honest and ugly parts. We understand what it is to rail at and into the arms of God. We hold each other together while still a mess ourselves. It is a beautiful thing really. Beautiful in it's raw emotion.

We cemented a bond that is beyond this life, which is wonderful considering we are separated by an entire country and had only met online, introduced by one of our dear friends that I, again, had only met online.

For months and months we have shared each step of our shared path, stopping along the way to get down in the dirt with the other...or to hold out a hand to help the other up. Sharing tea, and tears, and laughter...all through a little box on the desk.

In my dreams I wondered if we would ever meet this side of heaven. I doubted we would, but I hoped.

And then all of a sudden it was happening! A gift from God, given through a wonderful friend and I was on a plane to surprise this dear woman with whom I had shared so much. And for 4 days I sat in kitchens and living rooms on the other side of the continent and learned what it meant to love Canada with my whole heart.

I laughed in grocery stores and cried for the joy of new-but-not-really friends.

So, once again, God gives me a beautiful gift out of one of my darkest hours. It is so amazing to be loved so fully by the creator of the heavens and the earth.

Two Months

It's not that I have anything particularly profound or exciting to say, just the idea that it's been two months since I last updated this blog makes my heart break a little.

Here I am, Eden's mother, and all I can really do to tend to her, or care for her, is keep this blog...and for two whole months there has been silence.

Eden died 17 months and two days ago. An amazing little girl who profoundly changed me, and who's influence in this world is immeasurable, has been away from it for nearly a year an a half. Sometimes it feels like a lifetime ago I held her in my arms and kissed her sweet bowed lips. Sometimes it's as if I just said good bye.

There are days when the ache in my heart is enough to make me wish this whole world would just stop so I could be reunited with her again, when living one more day without my baby girl seems like a burden to heavy to bear.

And yet there are others, where the joy and honor over having been trusted with the responsibility of being Eden's mother is overwhelming in it's own right.

The truth is there is great blessing in the midst of this journey that I still walk everyday, and that much of that blessing comes from up out of the ashes of hope.

So today I am taking a moment to nurture this mother's heart, the heart that longs for first steps and first words... not memories of final breaths and last goodbyes. I am taking a moment to parent Eden in the only way I can, in my heart and mind, and dreams.

A Repost

From my other blog:

Sanctity of Human Life Week is coming. A time to stand up and be heard about the inherent value in all human beings. A brief moment set aside to, not just decry abortion, but to speak to the value of the life contained in the womb.

I remember the first time I heard about abortion and being horrified at the mere idea of it. I remember joining a protest on the whim. Just a child, not much older than my oldest son. I also remember that it sent a lighting bolt in my home. My mother not at all pleased that I would take a stand on an issue I couldn't fully understand.

She was right, I didn't understand it all. I didn't understand what would drive a woman to make such a choice, I saw a selfish desire to just "do away" with a mistake.

As I grew into adulthood and saw a more human face on abortion, my view didn't change much. The slogan "Abortion stops a beating heart" always rang in my ears. My heart broke for the desperation some women, some girls, felt when choosing to end the life of their unborn.

I listened as semantics were juggled and words like tissue, fetus, potential for life were used. I tried to understand the idea of a starting point for humanness... but still I saw the pictures I had seen as a young girl of discarded babies and brain couldn't understand how this choice would be good for anyone.

Then on May 17 2007 I was told that the baby I was carrying would die. I was encouraged to abort and everything I knew and believed and felt changed. I struggled through the idea that I may end a pregnancy of a baby not destined to live.

Once again though, I saw the pictures of those discarded babies and couldn't bring myself to make that choice.

In making that choice I discovered that my mother had been right all those years ago. That there was much to this debate I couldn't fully understand.

I also realized how sacred life really was. Eden, my baby girl, did die just 36 hours after her birth, but in those 36 hours I saw her fully realized humanness. That even as one profoundly damaged, her worth was immeasurable. Being her mother changed me in so many ways, changes I welcome and embrace. Eden's life changed many people and pointed to a God beyond description. Eden's short life, lived outside of my womb for such a brief instant, was a life filled with purpose and rejoicing. And I life that still effects people today.

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.