Fingerprint Friday...

Fingerprint Friday from Beki at The Rusted Chain... click here to find out how to join in and share God's fingerprints in your life!

* Psalms 40:2 NIV

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

A weeks worth...

Its' been nearly a week.  Last Saturday we left, we drove all the way across the state.  Sarah slept almost the entire time, Josie looked out the window at the mountains.  We crossed the continental divide.  We drove through slush, tunnels, amazing views, and away from everything I knew for the last two years.  I was okay.  I cried, because it is very hard to do things without Marie, but it was okay.

This was why we went there.  This tiny little package.

Now we're home and after doing all the laundry and playing catch up we've fallen back into our daily groove.  Josie goes to school, Sarah and I do whatever.  We have no schedule and it is hard for me, but I don't know how to create one.  Luke is back out at the farm, getting the semi trailer ready to haul herbicides and fertilizer to treat the wheat soon.  The fields are getting greener, my daffodiles bloomed.  Spring is coming and it's beautiful and nice and a blessing... but I am all twisted up inside.

Easter is coming.  Beautiful Easter, joyous Easter, miraculous Easter.  Marie was baptized on Easter.  That day she was prayed over, washed with water, and she became a part of God's family.  Her heart was opened and the Holy Spirit filled it with love and we witnessed that love daily for the rest of her life.  And now she's in Heaven and I am not looking forward to Easter without her.

I really miss my girl.  So much that it's an ache near my heart, it's a pain that is hard to swallow around.  How can she really be gone to Heaven?  How, after this time has passed to I still struggle with that.  How could I not after how wonderful she was to be around?

Spring is coming, I should be feeling so hopeful.  There is life all around me.  Instead these days I'm just feeling a little defeated.  A little tired.  Last spring Marie was in the yard with me as we tended the flower beds, we talked non-stop as the robins built their nests...  Last spring we ate Peeps...

Last spring she opened up her Easter basket, wore her Easter dress, and though she was getting over pneumonia and not well enough to go to church we celebrated.  I am feeling such loss, but that does not mean I don't find joy, I rejoice and I hope.  This year it is Sarah's first Easter, it is Josie's sixth, it would have been Marie's third...

I delight in the color of the sky, in my flowers coming up, in meeting my new niece Lily, in Sarah beginning to pull herself up.  I find comfort in the gift of Easter, the promise that I know is kept.  If I close my eyes I see a little dark haired girl in a sundress running barefoot through green grass and I know it's only a matter of time before I pick her up.  Until then I snuggle, kiss, read to, pray over, laugh with the other two as long as they'll let me.

I read, a lot.  I am currently reading Streams in the Desert.  The other day I read "Sitting down and brooding over our sorrow deepens the darkness surrounding us, allowing it to creep into our heart.  And soon our strength has changed to weakness.  But if we will turn from the gloom and remain faithful to the calling of God, the light will shine again and we will grow stronger".  I want to walk in the light. 

I also ask that you pray for Abigail...  This sweet princess is just having the hardest time and my heart breaks.  She is so uncomfortable and even though she is in her beloved Daddy's arms she cries, from pain and frustration all day long.  Her mama says she wakes up just to cry herself back to sleep.  Please join me in praying for comfort for this sweet girl.  Pray that God holds her, that He grants her peace, whatever His will may be join me in praying that Abigail's suffering cease and that her family can enjoy their sweet girl instead of spending their hours filled with worry.  Pray that He gives her parents strength as they walk a path that is frightening and exhausting and heartbreaking.

We're going....

Right now it looks like tomorrow morning we'll be going across the state, west to my sisters.  This is our first big trip in almost three years...  I am trying very hard to keep my anxiety at being so far from home under control.  Its just the fear of doing something I haven't done for a long time, something that I would never have done when Marie was here.  And the fear of doing things without her... working on it.

It sounds so simple, go to see my sisters... one just had a new baby, her first.  It is not, it is hard.  I have worries about so many things...  it will be okay though.  The snow should blow out and it sounds like roads will be okay, I'll pack what we need, I have DVD's for the car... 

It will be a good trip.  I am just so intimdated by venturing out into the world, I stuck very very close to home for so long with Marie... it's simple here, familiar, I know where everything is...

It will be good to go though, nice to be together, fun for Josie...

Everyone have a good weekend, I will be off being brave!

Jumbled...

Because I'm writing with a baby on my lap, because a lot is going on, because I am so disorganized these days this will be j.u.m.b.l.e.d.

I have not been writing much lately, this is because we have been on the go and I got a new cell phone that I can use for internet too...  imagine that, technology hampering creativity... sad sign of the times.

I am trying to make Josie a quilt, it's my big new do something with myself project.  I've never done it before, I haven't even started.  I just laid all the fabric out on my craft room floor...

Sarah got her six month shots, she had a nasty reaction.  It was right during Luke's family reunion, it could not have been better timing.  She also came down with a cold.  Cranky, clingy, not spleeping well.  Praise God, it's just normal kid stuff but it was such a flash back for me...  last family reunion Rie had just gone through surgery to get her g-tube, just turned one, just started having movment issues that we thought were seizures at the time... we had to start a new med to try to control them, we were told it could hamper her drive to breath.  We gave her the first dose with our Pastor at the house, praying over her and us...  March 2008 was rough, we thought we were going to loose her...  This reunion, this March, so much different... reminders of the road we walked.  I'm so glad Marie doens't have to fight that broken body anymore...

On the same note, she's not fighting anymore.  Marie is in Paradise but I miss her here... everywhere I looked my eyes searched for her everywhere...  I think people don't know what to say so they don't say anything.  We have Josie and Sarah, I want to SCREAM "I have three babies"!  I look and I see a missing stair step when I look at Josie and Sarah's blond little heads.  I want to tell people, there's a brown haired girl that fits between them and you wouldn't believe her.  You think these other two are pretty?  You should have seen that girl! She had a spirit so amazing she glowed, and it hurts so badly that she's not here that sometimes I can't breath....  Instead I fake it and smile and talk and I don't let very many people see how I really am doing... which is odd, because I can write it all down here... I just can't speak it.

The sun is shining and it's warm this week.  Yesterday after school Josie, Sissy Sarah and I went to the cemetery and sat at Marie's headstone for awhile... it felt good to be outside.There's buds on the tree that grows above her and the grass is beginning to turn green...  I sat and watched the shimmery pink and white silk roses we got her for Valentines day in the sunshine...

I am going to be thirty soon... I get annoyed when people make jokes about how young/old that is.  I feel ancient...  Like my soul has aged hundreds of years...  I don't really care how old I am anymore.

I forgot to close the garage door last night...  Cooper the super dog got in and got a can of that spray foam insulation stuff Luke had been using.  He bit into the pressurized can and it exploded all over the lawn...  At ten pm I was on my hands and knees cleaning it up out of my grass...  I couldn't stop laughing because really, who does that happen to? 

Josie was so excited for St Patricks Day, we had to plan her outfit last night.  It's rockin'.

We are going to travel to see my sisters this weekend and meet my new niece weather permitting...It is a long trip, far away.  Further than I have been in three years.  I feel like a huge sissy admitting that I am struggling with anxiety about traveling across the state away from my home.  I am scared of the world in a way I didn't used to be... So much for being a free spirit.

Sarah has the busiest hands you have ever seen...

Fingerprint Friday...

From The Rusted Chain...
There is a song by Steven Curtis Chapman that says:
I can see the fingerprints of god
When I look at you
I can see the fingerprints of god
And I know its true
You're a masterpiece
That all creation quietly applauds
And you're covered with the fingerprints of god
So look around you and see where YOU can see God's fingerprints. Is it in nature? Kids? Animals? Where do you see them?

Rough, rough week.  I feel a mess, my nerves are like bits of rope all frayed at the ends.  My heart is fragile... but as I walk I am not alone...  and I feel that and am grateful. 

* Isaiah 43:2 NIV

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.

A whole lot of random...

I've been all over the place for the last week...  We took a trip west to spend some time together as a family and celebrate Marie's birthday.  Josie really enjoyed getting away but if I'm totally honest we're just not good at it.  We haven't traveled in so long there's an amount of anxiety that comes with it now.  That and we come from a town of 3000.  The bustle and rush and traffic of the city is overwhelming to those who don't live there and I have to say I am not a fan of driving in Denver.  I sound like a country girl, and I suppose I am, but I just don't get why everyone is in such a hurry.

I've been taking pictures again... in no particular order...
Flowers for Marie's birthday...

My silly little girls...

I called to make well child appointments for Josie's six year check up and Sarah's six month checkup... they go this Friday.  I hung up and was heartbroken that I had not been able to make a three year old check up for my sassy girl...

Sarah throws temper tantrums and waves her arms... I keep telling her we don't hit, she's not listening.

Josie makes my heart hurt, she tries to take care of me and is so worried about being a good big sister... it's too much for a six year old to be thinking about.

Sarah is getting bigger...

But she's still pretty little...

My amazing, beautiful, strong, spirited, ball of light.  My barely contained, heart of gold girl...

Butterflies for Marie...  I cried walking through the jungle there...

My baby shower in early August and my sweet girls.  It's beautiful but I haven't really seen a smile like that on Josie since last summer... Is my Marie the most beautiful child you've ever seen?  God really made her something didn't he?

Life feels heavy right now.

We finally got some moisture in rain that fell for most of the week and snow today.

It is hopeful seeing the bulbs coming up, the wheat getting green, the buds beginning to form on the trees...

I boxed up some of Marie's clothes today.  I left all her sundresses hanging up, I can't put them away yet.  Sarah needed more room, and Rie Rie doesn't need t-shirts and socks in Heaven...  I prayed before I started and felt a peace in putting her little shorts and pajamas away.  The only part that really made me cry was the clothes with tags still on them that we had bought on a shopping trip in August, new pants and shirts that she never needed...

Josie has no school Thursday and Friday this week.  The high school girls and boys basketball teams are going to state so school is closed.  I am glad, I feel selfish lately and I'd rather have my sunshine girl home with me!

I need to find a color to paint my bathrooms now that Luke's done remodeling them...

I painted with Josie the other day, it was good. 

Happy Birthday to Marie in Heaven...

Ahhh, Mama... what can I say?  You would have been three today...  I miss you so much, I am so proud of you, I love you more than I could ever say... 

Princess, did I ever tell you about when you were born?  You arrived right on time, your due date was March 3.  We went to the hospital and Dr J, who took such amazing care of you was there.

You were stubborn, a star gazer they said, and you wouldn't come until you were ready.  When you turned it was a whirlwind and arrived... the first night we were with you I couldn't sleep, I could not stop staring at that beautiful face.  Your dark hair, rosebud lips, those eyelashes.  This amazingly beautiful creation.  I could not stop looking at you Princess.

Spring came early the year you were born.  It was as if God had said, "Look at what I have made, have you ever seen anything so lovely?" and He smiled and the sun shined down and the He warmed the earth and the flowers bloomed and that is what I think of when I think of you Marie.  Sunshine and blooming flowers, butterflies and eternal summer... you are our paradise, and you live in Paradise now...

We named you Marie, which means "bitter" and Isabel, which means "concecrated to God" or "God's promise".  Looking back it was as if before you were even born we had given you back to Him.  You; our beautiful princess, our sassy girl, our joy, our borrowed child...

So today is your birthday and we are remembering you Marie, celebrating your life and wishing you were here but rejoicing in where you are... 

We love you so much Mama, Rie Rie, Daddy's Isabella, our Princess Marie Queen of the Universe...