Merry Christmas!

I have wanted to post pictures but haven't gotten them off my camera.  The last week has just been a whirlwind!  Saturday was Josie's dance recital.  She has only been doing tap/ballet/tumbling for two months so it was a simple little thing to showcase what they had learned so far.  She was great!  You can tell that she just loves dancing... 

I was taken by surprise though, sitting in the audience watching the class below Josie's dance.  They are three and four years old... and sitting among the other mothers of three year olds as they watched their little girls dance I just cried.  I have a three year old too... And I wish so much that I could have seen Marie dance there with the rest of them.  I wish I could have seen her smile and twirl in a Christmas dress with little black tap shoes on her feet...  That wasn't what she was meant for though.  She was meant for different things and God's plan did not include her staying here long.  I miss her though, and I wish I could have seen her dance.

Sunday night was our church program.  In our church children start attending Sunday school when they are three.  They participate in the Christmas program for the first time, saying their tiny little lines.  This year they held stars...  I was very busy sitting with the kindergarten class.  All boys.  Busy, chatty, wonderful boys.  Josie sat behind me with the first grade girls.  She sang her heart out and said her line perfectly.  I was so proud of her.  Still, it weighs on my heart.  There in the nursery pew, there could have been a little girl there with brown curls and a Christmas dress.  And I try not too let myself think of it but I wish I could have seen her in a Christmas pageant.  It just wasn't the plan...

So I try not to let my mind make wishes.  I try so hard to be grateful for what we did have with Marie, how much God blessed us in having her.  How blessed we are to still have Josie and Sarah and to see them grow.  It's just hard sometimes not to see what could have been.  The heart wants what the heart wants...  I cannot wait to grab her up in Heaven and hug her...  As much as I wish to see her in a sparkly little gown, to paint those tiny fingernails red the truth is Marie was different...

"You're beautiful...
You are made for so much more than all of this
You're beautiful...
You are treasured, you are sacred, you are His"


We wish all of you who read here a very merry Christmas.  May each and every one of you have a very blessed holiday!