How Many Children Do You Have?

I used to love answering that question...  In the time since Ethan's death and our miscarriage I have cringed when the nice store clerk asks me how many children I have when I am obviously buying for kids or have one with me.  I never really know what to say and I freeze in a moment of panic because in my heart I have four, but I only have the evidence of two with me.  I have said "four" with a smile, but then get the next question: Wow, you must be busy, what are their ages?, now what do I say?  Well, I have a six year old, and a three year old, my two babies are in the arms of heaven.  - say that to someone who is just being kind and watch their whole day/face change.  But that isn't always the case, I have meet more people who have been touched by miscarriage or the death of an infant in that way.  The painful loss is not so foreign to people around us, but we don't talk about it.  It is always surprising to find someone else who has been faced with living after the death of their baby, but that instant connection is there.  They understand me  like no one else can - they've walked this road, and they are still here - living.  We met a lovely couple last night at our group. They released their infant daughter to the arms of heaven 15 years ago, and then three years ago released their 18 year old daughter into the arms of heaven.  They could tell us their story with such peace, and smiled so beautifully when talking about their daughters.  The secret to their joy is their faith - this amazing unstoppable faith and trust that just flowed from them.  We asked them how, how can you be so full of peace and joy and trust God so strongly after all that your family has been through.  They said, of course there have been hard times, and they did not always have that peace, joy and trust, but they have been intentional about it.  They have purposed each day to living honestly in the presence of the Lord - and some days when they can't utter anything else they say only, "Jesus, I trust in You."  They also shared that they do not live in fear - they have no fear of the future - it is in God's hands and sometimes what He allows to happen does not make sense to us, but they know that the glories of Heaven await them and there they will be reunited with their daughters.  Then they shared - not that they are in a rush to get there, for they have a lot of work to do here on earth yet - that they do.  I have never before met a family who has been through all that they have not only loosing two daughters, but siblings at a young age and parents, going through cancer, loss of jobs, etc. and just radiate peace and joy - God truly is doing amazing things through them through their painful experiences and they touched our hearts deeply.  Oh that someday, God will give to us that peace and joy, and use us to touch the hearts of others - what an honor, what a gift.

Fear vs. Faith

I have been spending a lot of time contemplating faith and what that looks like when being overwhelmed by fear.  Faith I am told is being certain in the face of uncertainty and processing hope when all evidence points against it.  That is a very difficult act to perform when there literally is no certainty and hope is a thing of the past.  Faith is believing with every ounce of you that God will act, will carry you, and can do the impossible.  We live this life, somehow lulled into a sense of belief that we are in charge of our destinies and I think we are, in that we make decisions every day in a world full of sin and daily we struggle against our own selfish desires.  The hand of God in our life is never fully known to us, and if he directs the world, then why not give in to the fear - give it all to God - since He is going to do with your life what He wills anyway and we have no control over it.  Or, is that faith - giving our life totally and completely over to him, since we are helpless sinful creatures and He is ultimately in control.  That really is the question - do we trust him with our futures?  We want to control and know what is coming ahead - especially if you are like me, you would like to plan a little bit.  Do we trust God enough, and have faith enough to lay it - all of it - open and broken at His feet and know with all of our being that He is our Father, loves us, and will make good on his promise of giving us a hope and a future.  Or, are we too afraid to let go and let God?  Do we really believe in the greatness of Him or is our God a "god" of convenience?  Right now, I don't know all of the answers to the tough deep theological question, and sometimes I don't even know the answers to the easy ones, but what I do know is this: God hears, He listens, He gives, and He loves.  He hears every fear that I bring him, He listens with a bleeding heart, He gives me what I need to get through each day in the face of my overwhelming emotions, and He loves me - so much that He willingly allowed His child to die for me.  I know that I did not willingly let Ethan pass into the arms of Heaven and if I could have done anything to stop it I would have, and so knowing that the son of God died so that I could live is enough right now to bring me through my overwhelming fear in faith.

Moment in the Journey...

As anyone who has studied or worked through the journey of grief knows there are stages - passages if you will.  You will stay inside of each point of grief for a time, experience that part fully, and then move through to the next stage.  I have felt stuck inside the stage of anger - anger at God, myself, the medical world.  Anger, sucks the life out of you, drains you and leaves you empty.  Which in reality is a very necessary stage - the anger drained me so much that I felt completely devoid of all emotion and life.  The long lasting instinct of humanity is survival, and as I have become completely drained, forcing myself to go from day to day, I began to struggle for survival to find a way to be filled.  Slowly, Slowly I feel the drips of faith - not so far as hope yet, but faith in that I am not alone on this journey.  God is indeed with me.  God gave myself and my husband a realization on Sunday - our 7th wedding anniversary.  Over the past seven years we have had some very rough spots in life that affected our marriage, and there were moments that being and staying married was by choice alone.  Our first two children, the blessings that they are, separated us more from each other, then we miscarried, and that separated us even farther.  Then came Ethan, and God used Ethan's life and death to heal our marriage.  We were two selfish stubborn individuals, who were having a really hard time becoming one.  Never have we felt closer, never have we known each other better, never have we been more in love then we are now.  Light in darkness...  My husband and I share the deepest emotion known to humanity - that of the grief of a parent loosing a child - he is the only one who truly understands, because he is the only one who also lost Ethan as I did.  When you can scrape away all the extras of life and face the deepest darkest journey one can image (unless you have been there) together - there is hope in that.  God gave us to each other for such a time as this....another drip of faith in the journey.

Someday Soon...

(Make sure to pause page music)

I Wanted So Much For You...

We were given this poem at our infant grief group meeting last night.  It was written by Maria LaFond Visscher, as she grieved her child's death.  It speaks so much of what my heart cries, and so I wanted to share it here.

In honor of my baby who died:

I wanted so much for you, my sweet little baby,
I wanted to change your diapers, not my life.
I wanted to work with you, not my grief.
I wanted to dress you, not bury you in your last dress.
I wanted to hear the sounds of your crying for me at night,
not my own sounds of crying for you at night.

I wanted to see you grow, not the grass upon the grave,
I wanted to see you asleep in your nursery, not in the casket.
I wanted to give you life, not have you see death,
I wanted to show you off, not go on alone without you.
I wanted to comb your soft and silky hair, not save a lock of it.

I wanted to pick up after you, not put down my dreams of you,
I wanted to hold you in my arms, not have empty arms,
I wanted to walk late with you at night, and now I feel so alone.
I wanted so much for you,
My newly born, newly gone... baby and child that I longed for.
I wanted so much more... I wanted you.

How Am I Doing?....

When we were in the NICU I saw some t-shirts that said "Riding the roller coaster of the NICU".  It was so true - one hour good news and you feel on top of the world, full of hope, the next hour bad bad bad news and you have plunged all the way back down again.  I have never enjoyed roller coasters.  The last time I was on one was when we were on our honeymoon - I did it for my husband, but I kept my eyes shut the whole time and kept telling myself as my hands gripped the security bar in front of me that it would all soon be over, and it always was.  The difference between roller coasters that one chooses to ride and the emotional kind that we do not choose to ride is, well I guess there are several, first one is a choice and the other is not, and one we know is coming to an end soon and the other we don't know when or if the end will ever come.  As I would stand in line to get on a roller coaster on our honeymoon I would watch the people before me successfully complete their ride having survived, and tell myself that if they can do it I can too.  Isn't that true for most of life struggles, we want to see those who have gone before, what have they done, how are they surviving?  Seeing that someone else has been there before us gives us strength to go on.  That is why we are trying out a "infant loss" group/class that runs for six weeks to see if we can meet more couples who are there now or have been there before.  Many people often ask me, How are you doing?...I never quite know what to say, it really all depends on the day and where I am on the roller coaster.  Am I on the way up a hill (that I can handle) or am I plunging down the other side (that is much more difficult).  Every day is different and sometimes hours within a day are drastically different from the other.  I might be being silly with my boys and having great fun smiling over their antics or word choices one moment, and the other wanting to crawl in the corner under a blanket and cry my eyes out.  It is exhausting.  So, to answer the question.  I don't know how I am doing, but I do know that I am on the roller coaster - having chosen to stay and live through this.  Hoping that the upward climbs get more frequent, and the downward plunges are not as steep.  Hopefully one of these days I will be able to open my eyes and unclench my hands and find the roller coaster is slowing which can only mean that the end is in sight - though I fear that I might be on this roller coaster for a long long time - it will probably change its speed and dramatic intensity but I will still be in the front car holding on.

Finding Myself

Have you ever heard the saying "I have left to find myself, if I return please keep me here until I get back."  Cute, but true.   As a busy mother, wife, and business woman I have often felt that I had lost who I was - those important details that make me comfortable and happy being me.  I suppose that comes from giving to and encouraging others so much throughout my day that I do not have energy left over for myself.  This journey that I am currently on is forcing me to find myself again.  It all really started as a crisis of faith, as I began questioning everything that I have ever believed to be true about God and my relationship with Him.  As I travel this road I know that that part of my journey is very important, but not, interestingly, the only aspect of it that needs a renewal.  I have come to the realization that I need a realization of spirit.  In that process I have begun doing things again that I have loved, hobbies I guess you could call them, but thing that have been put aside over the past 7 years in favor of meeting the needs of my husband and children.  Don't get me wrong, I am still meeting their needs, but the difference is that I am admitting that I have needs too, and I am taking the time to meet them.  If that means that I need some time alone to journal and cry then I let them know I need quiet time.  The thing that I have learned through this process is that amazingly I have lived for years believing that they wanted me to go go go and do do do and I was growing resentful which really affected my marriage and my relationship with my boys.  Now that I am honest about what I need for myself and am guiltlessly taking that time I feel renewed and am able to be a better wife and mother even as I am on this journey of sorrow in my life.  And have found that they do not resent that, but actually encourage me to do so.  My oldest has given to asking me, when he can tell I am tired or out of sorts, "Mommy do you need to go to the Japanese Garden?" (my favorite place of rest) :)  So what am I doing for myself?  I am embroidering again - making fun surprises for people I love.  I am reading again, for fun, not just for knowledge.  I am taking black and white photos again.  And, ready for this....I am exercising again - it has been 7 years since I really did anything "real" in that area - it hurts, but is amazing!  It took this, this moment of sorrow to completely change my life and my perspectives in it.  I wish it hadn't.  I can see that I let the pressures that I felt or put on myself take over who I was in my daily life, and the results were all negative.  Those things also kept me from a deeper relationship with God, and I pray that that relationshipw will be renewed stronger then ever, even though I am very confused and angry right now, I am still seeking.  Now, that I feel there is nothing I could loose or nothing anyone could say that would affect me as greatly as what I have experienced I feel the freedom to re explore me; and so far I am liking what I am finding.  My hope would be that anyone reading this will take the time to examine who they are and live their lives in joyful freedom - celebrating the gift of who you are as a person both to yourself and the people around you.  You are here for a purpose - find it - live it - love it!