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.