Our Journey Home

Fingerprint Friday...

2012-01-20T09:02:00.000-07:00

I haven't participated in Fingerprint Friday forever. Finally, I am!

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? Here's how to join in.

This morning as I wiped the toothpaste of the bathroom counter for the hundredth time, picked up toy food and dress up clothes for the thousandth time I realized that's my blessing. As I sauteed onions for the crock pot and our french dip roast I realized that having a house smell like onion at 8am is a blessing. As I said goodbye to Luke on his way out to the farm and looked ahead to a morning filled with folding laundry, washing sheets, wiping Sarah's runny nose I was pushed. Those are my blessings. This beautiful mess. Because this mess means a house filled with children. This mess means a partner to share my life with. That onion smell? We never have to worry about our next meal. We have actually been blessed with abundance.

God gives me so many blessings daily. The laundry, cleaning, mothering, repetition. It's His work. I am blessed that He picked me to do it for Him. He knew what I'd need before I even did!

My French Dip recipe (my friend Jill gave me this originally and I modified it to our tastes):

One chuck roast
4 cups water
6 tsp beef granules
1 small onion
3 tsp butter
3 tsp Worcestershire sauce
3 tsp mustard

Saute onions in butter until the get translucent and start to caramelize. Mix beef broth into water. Whisk in Worcestershire and mustard. Place roast in slow cooker. Cover with cooked onions, pour beef broth mixture over top. Cook on low (8-10 hours).
We like it on hoagie rolls with provolone and of course that yummy broth! I usually serve this with green beans or broccoli/cauliflower mix but it's good with just about anything. If you wanted to get fancy I suppose you could serve it like pot roast with mashed potatoes and make a gravy out of the broth. I don't know about you but by January we are all a little tired of pot roast at our house!

Worry...

2012-01-18T14:09:00.000-07:00

Anxiety sucks. Worrying is a waste of time. So easy to say. Unless your worry is justified. We noticed Marie was not hitting milestones when she was about five months old. At six months our family doctor confirmed it and at eight months we were told to take her home and love her.

So until Eva hits six months I know I am going to worry. I will actually worry until she turns one. No, that is a lie. I will always worry. When she's two and stumbles I will ask if she's just being clumsy or is it something else. When she's seven and going through a string of sleepless nights I will pray it's just part of growing up and not a sign of something. I will worry about her hitting milestones, gaining weight, nursing well. I will second guess everything. Because it is my job. Because I love them so much. Because I am terrified.

Since our sweet Marie and all she had to go through I don't just have a fussy baby. I have "what if". I worry at every cold, every time that maybe she's teething. Is this crying a sign? Is she holding her head well enough?

And with Eva I am for the most part reassured. She is a very good eater. She is strong and according to her family doctor she is doing great hitting those milestones (we check in once a month). She is sensitive, she has a terrible temper, she gets overwhelmed and she cries and cries. But she sleeps through the night every night. She's huge. She just started chuckling when we tickle her. She has a favorite toy, a pink sock money. She like Daddy, loves me and doesn't dig strangers. She is really becoming a little person.

Still, that worry is there. That cold blanket that settles over my heart and lets the blackness creep in. What if? We'll deal with it. But having babies is different after you've buried one. My heart breaks missing my Princess Marie, my heart aches at the idea of watching another child go through what she did. And she did it smiling, she didn't know any different. That kills me. Kills me that I couldn't save her. Couldn't stop it. All I could do was cram as much love into the time I had as possible and let God do the rest.

I try to pray but the truth is that when you are anxious you forget to pray. I cry, and I know that the Spirit hears my pleas. The Spirit intercedes on my behalf and I am blessed by a loving Father who gave me the strength I needed to care for Marie. Then He brought her back to Him when it was time. He is in control of all this life that feels like chaos and I need to trust Him. But I'm a control freak and I am a mama bear and they are my babies and once one of them got sick and I am terrified that it could happen all over.

I just don't think I can do it again. And the worry creeps in and my heart aches cold. I fight for light and sanity and pray, but the worry still lurks frightening in the shadows.

She's three months old now and doing well, we're getting there. I love Miss Eva so much... I love all of them so much.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Romans 8:26-27

Valentines is coming...

2012-01-16T19:53:00.000-07:00

I get really excited about Valentines Day. I like the idea of doing something special just because you love someone. It also gives me an excuse to spoil my girls.

This year I am planning to make them these:

Source: gltc.co.uk via Shannon on Pinterest

As far as I can tell it's just pillowcases sewn together. There aren't any instructions. All I have to go on is the photo. Don't they look fun? I am thinking for movie watching, for camping, for slumber parties.

And to make it even better this is what I found to make them with:

Source: amazon.com via Shannon on Pinterest

For Josie.

Source: amazon.com via Shannon on Pinteres

For Sarah.

You need five and there's two cases to a set so I'm going to do two sets (4 animal print) and one hot pink one. Total cost for this will be about $125. About $74 for the pillowcases and then $50 for pillows (we don't have any extras). It sounds a little pricey but I'm hoping that we will get our money back in use for these. We don't have any loungy furniture or bean bags or anything. I am hoping they last for years. Also, because I should be able to slide the pillows out and wash the cases that should help to keep them nice.

I cannot believe in a few days I will have an eight year old. Josie is turning 8 on the 27th.

New year, new me.

2012-01-10T14:07:00.000-07:00

It is 2012. Hard to believe. Time is passing so quickly and for me the last years have been something I've fought. It has been a time of healing, learning, and struggling.

I am a fighter. I don't like change. When Marie went home I fought hard. I fought the reality that my daughter was in Heaven. I fought the passage of time. I thought that if I could keep things from changing it would bring Marie close.

After Rie went Home it took me a year to cut my hair. Because she held my hair as she'd fall asleep. I resisted cutting those strands as long as I could. I refused to rearrange our furniture. I made sure that every day when I got dressed I wore something that I had owned when she was with us. I remembered what nail polishes I had used on her, what I had been wearing and I stuck to those colors. Somehow I needed not to change.

Then I began to slowly realize that by not changing little things it wasn't keeping her close. I was told Marie being in Heaven is like Josie being in school all day. I have to learn to let go. It does not mean I love her any less. It took a long time to learn this.

Slowly I began. I cut my hair. I bought new nail polishes and used them. I made myself stop stressing about what I was wearing (what little girl really cares about her mothers clothes that much anyway? Well, Josie cares very much what I wear but she is nearly eight not a toddler.) I moved our bedroom furniture, Josie's bedroom furniture, Sarah's bedroom furniture. Part of this was forced, we were getting ready to welcome a baby. It was a blessing, I was learning to embrace the change.

Right before Thanksgiving I made a big step. I moved our living room and the pictures on the wall around. The couch is now in a different place than it was when I would rock Marie to sleep every night. Do you know what? I remember doing it just as well even though the couch moved. I didn't loose anything by making that change. After Thanksgiving I made another big step. I changed my hair. I cut some bangs, embraced my curls.

I am getting there. It has taken me more than two years to be able to do this. No one tells you that. No one tells you the odd little things that you will do when you have a child in Heaven. The rituals that you put yourself through. No one tells you how healing is weird.

This is a new year. I am a new me. I am okay with being a different person than I was when Marie was with us. I look back at myself and I was so happy despite the worry in my heart. Marie flew Home when God called and I started a journey. I have been through the valley. Sorrow is heavy and I've carried that. I've learned, I've gotten stronger in different ways. I see the world differently now. I am still happy, even with sorrow in my heart.

This year I'm going to embrace me. Who I am now. It's okay. Little Mama wouldn't expect me to be the same person I was two years ago. She loves me no matter what, and I love her no matter what. No matter what little changes take place. It took a long time to learn that.

If I could tell myself two years ago. That shell shocked mother with a newborn in her arms and a heartbroken five year old. That broken woman who had no idea what to do or how to put it back together. I would tell myself of two years ago that it was going to be okay. Sorrow is weird and I'm still getting through. But I'm going to be okay, I'm going to change and it won't mean letting go of Marie.

New year... new me. Blessed.

Philippians 4:13 ESV
I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Happy New Year...

2011-12-31T12:16:00.000-07:00

Christmas flew by. Eva's first, Josie's eighth, Sarah's third, our third without Marie. It was busy, blessed, bittersweet.

Today we are holed up inside decorating gingerbread houses. The wind is ripping around the house, they're calling for gusts up to 70 this afternoon.

Not all of us are having a great time...

Eva is, as always, in her sling...

Wishing you all a very blessed New Year. May God smile on us in 2012!

How to tell...

2011-12-05T11:00:00.000-07:00

Eva answers the eternal question. How do you know when it's time to stop taking pictures of your baby?

"Mom, now. Stop."

A week...

2011-12-02T17:20:00.001-07:00

Another week and time has flown. Thanksgiving was so nice, and Luke's been done with corn so he's been home more. Such a blessing!

Eva will be 8 weeks old tomorrow and two months old on the 8th. I cannot believe she's getting this big already. Lately she seems to be all bright eyes, watching the world. If we are lucky we get a few sweet words from her. She is smiling more often and her huge toothless grins are priceless.

We are working our way through Advent. I found a really wonderful set of devotions for Advent that I wanted to share. It's just the Word. Beautiful and simple. We are so blessed, Advent is such an exciting season... and with Marie in Heaven the gift of Jesus is so sweet I cannot put it to words. I appreciate it now like I never did before.

Josie and Sarah were reading together in my laundry basket last night, it was so cute I had to grab a few pictures!

We got our tree up and Eva has been enjoying laying beneath it staring at the lights. It's been so nice to see her noticing things more!

This verse was from our devotion last night, the words are so beautiful! Have a blessed weekend!

Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. 2 He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; 3 a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. 4 He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coast lands wait for his law. 5 Thus says God, the LORD, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it: 6 "I am the LORD; I have called you in righteousness; I will take you by the hand and keep you; I will give you as a covenant for the people, a light for the nations... Isaiah 42:1-6

Happy...

2011-11-21T14:37:00.000-07:00

Happy is a place I once thought I would never find again... and yet somehow we're here.

Then maidens will dance and be glad, young men and old as well. I will turn their mourning into gladness; I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow. Jeremiah 31:13 NIV

I look at Josie and Sarah and I see joy in their eyes... I look at Luke and even though there's that sadness in his eyes I see happiness there too. Right now I am feeling so incredibly blessed. Marie is in Heaven and we all miss her so much... but we know where she is, and we'll see her again. Until then, we have each other. After the rough road we've traveled I think we appreciate it more... I hope that we do.

Josie took this photo of me on Saturday. I look at it and I see myself but in so many ways I see more than I used to be. I am smiling... for a long time I had lost my smile. And I look... beautiful. I've never thought of myself in that way. Yet in this image, captured through my daughters eyes I see the beauty that she must see. I am strong enough to carry my children (Eva is under that blanket snuggled up in my pouch sling). For a long time I felt weak. I am not so old. For a long time I felt so old. Josie sees me this way. That makes me feel so good. I see a little of who I used to be in this picture but if I'm honest I like the person I am now. I've seen joy and sorrow and they've helped me become more than who I was before. I would not trade either. Without the sorrow I would have missed out on the joy of Marie... and she was worth the sorrow. That sorrow also has made me appreciate Josephine, Sarah Kate, and Evangeline all that much more. God gave me the sorrow. He trusted me with it and I am humbled. I am grateful.

My blog has been quiet the last several months. I didn't know what to say. Somehow, int he last few weeks I am feeling more whole. More sure of myself and who I am now. I hope that I am closer to becoming who God wants me to be. A wife, a mother, a daughter of The King. And that is enough.

I want to write more, to share where we are on this journey. In this healing process. In this life. I know others read and I hope that my being transparent would help them in some way... There are other mothers who read who have lost babies... I hope that somehow my words would give them hope.

Mostly right now I am feeling very grateful. How great is our Father that He would trust me with these precious babies of His? That He would give me a partner that would walk beside me the way that Luke does. That He gave me such good friends to walk with. Those I have hugged and those I know only through their words but long to hug. And our church...

He is turning my mourning into gladness. Some days are sadder, some days are happier but on a whole I feel now I am at a place in the trail where I can look back and see the valley I have walked through these last years. Seeing the valley must mean that I am beginning to rise out of it, right? I must be gaining ground. Although sometimes I feel I am slipping it is not all the time. How great Thou art!

Thank you Lord for all the blessings, the joys and the sorrows....

Fingerprint Friday...

2011-11-18T14:23:00.000-07:00

Excuse the poor quality of the photos, I took them on my phone. It was the only thing I had on hand when I was greeted with the most beautiful smiles this morning! God is so good!

Eva's smiles this morning have had this song stuck in my head all day and that is a beautiful thing! I need more joy filled words in my life!

"Rise up this mornin',
Smiled with the risin' sun,
Three little birds
Pitch by my doorstep
Singin' sweet songs
Of melodies pure and true,
Sayin', "This is my message to you..."
Singin': "Don't worry 'bout a thing,
'Cause every little thing gonna be all right." Bob Marley

One month...

2011-11-08T15:30:00.000-07:00

One month ago today I met Evangeline. I cannot believe how quickly the time passes. She is just something. We are all pretty taken with her.

In one months time we have learned that she has a little bit of a temper. She can't stand having her diapers wet. She enjoys baths. She wants to be held. All. The. Time. Evangeline is a good sleeper, and a wonderful nurser, and we are so blessed with her.

In one months time I have learned...

Having Eva here makes me miss Marie more. Who would she be? What sort of big sister would she be? My heart longs to see all of my daughters together.

Our family has changed. Our day to day life is so different, we are blessed by two little ladies who will never know the day to day with their sister. Life is different now, we are different now. It feels like it's been so long sometimes since Marie's been gone. It makes me sad, but at the same time I acknowledge that this progression of time is unavoidable. Even if Marie were here our family would be different, we would be different than we were two years ago. And I hate to think of the struggles she may have faced as life moved forward.

In the last month I have learned that having two little girls 25 months apart is a little demanding. Sarah is still pretty little and Eva is pretty impatient. Josie and Marie were three years apart, and Jo was potty trained when Rie was born. The three year spacing is definitely easier.

It feels like corn harvest is never going to end.

I have learned that I still really need to pay attention to what Josie is up to. She lost her coat and I spent the week tearing the house apart because we were certain it was somewhere at home. Totally neurotic, looking under beds tearing the house apart. Turns out the coat was at church. Josie needs watching.

I already knew this but I am remembering it now. The miracle blanket is a miracle.

One month, God is so Good. All the time, even when it hurts.

God's Child...

2011-10-25T15:31:00.000-06:00

"From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another..."
John 1:16 NIV

Eva's baptism, Daddy's birthday: October 23, 2011.

Eva's Godparents, Aaron and Kendra (Luke's cousin and wife).

Eva wore the same dress beneath her gown that Marie wore when she was baptized. The gown was worn by my father, myself and my siblings, and all our girls.

Now she is God's child...

These first days...

2011-10-17T11:44:00.000-06:00

These first days have been such a blessing, such a gift. There has been a lot of rocking, and cuddling. Lots of kissing a brown little head. Sisters have been in awe of this tiny sister, they call her "Littles" which is what Josie called Sarah when she came. We have been enjoying the joy of it all... It has been so different from Sarah's birth and that makes me a little sad.

We have been home, we haven't left. Eva's first official outing was church yesterday morning. We have been spoiled by wonderful friends bringing meals over. We have been smiling, and sighing, and crying just a little.

This is so wonderful. I look at Eva in awe, it's hard to believe she's really here. The months of hoping, praying, carrying her and she's arrived safely. Praise God!

On Thursday I got sick and had to go to the doctor. I delivered Eva with the stomach flu and my defenses were down, recovery is tougher this time. Thursday I had a fever and the doctor said, an infection. Thanks to the antibiotics I am finally beginning to feel like myself. It's been hard to not feel good when I want to just enjoy this blessed little window of time before life really picks up again. I want to savor each and every one of these first hazy baby days. And of course they have been bittersweet.

She is so beautiful, and she looks just like her sister. We prayed. Josie prayed, and I prayed before she was born. "Lord, let her look a bit like Marie". Maybe with dark hair. so that Eva in the coming years will have something to tie her to her sister. She can say, I wasn't here when Marie was but I look like her.

And God answered the prayer, as He always does. Eva looks so much like Marie my heart catches in my throat sometimes when I look at her. What I wouldn't give to see them together... and I will. I just have to wait for Heaven first.

Marie, March 2007

Eva...

We are just taking it easy, getting to know this new girl and enjoying this all as much as we can. I don't know how it happened but I am just incredibly humbled by how much my Father has blessed me.

The blonds...

Little monkey...

His arms are full... Bittersweet. We wish that chair was more crowded. There's still room for Marie there...

Evangeline...

2011-10-12T17:40:00.000-06:00

"Look how she lights up the sky
Ma belle Evangeline
So far above me yet I
Know her heart belongs to only me"

October 8, 2011. 2:34pm. 8 lbs, 14 oz. 21"

Evangeline; Latin. Meaning the good news, the Gospel.

Lucile; Latin. Meaning: light.

Our new blessing...

"To someone as beautiful as she
Who loves someone like me
Love always finds a way, it's true
And I love you Evangeline".

Ma Belle Evangeline.

Indian summer...

2011-10-04T14:52:00.000-06:00

"See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven."
Matthew 18:10

Fingerprint Friday... Photos.

2011-09-30T13:45:00.001-06:00

Please continue to pray for Abigail! Her mom Clarissa posted an update.

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? Visit The Rusted Chain to join.

My fingerprint this week is just pictures... Where we are at the moment. And what's a blessing is in thirty years I will be able to look back at the pictures and it will kick start all these memories...

Child labor...

Sisters...

Beautiful...

39 weeks, 1 day...

Beautiful memories...

Silly girl...

Her eyes...

"I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body..." 2 Peter 1:13 NIV

39 weeks... the hard way.

2011-09-28T10:06:00.000-06:00

Today it is official. I am one week from my due date.

And I haven't had much time to think about it. Last week Josie brought home a nasty head cold. Friday Sarah really seemed to catch it and by Sunday evening we knew something was up. A long night Sunday and a doctor appointment Monday and it was confirmed Sarah has croup. I have been up nights with her and busy days with her just trying to get through it. I've never had a little one with croup before. Her cough is better now, not as barky, but the steroid pills they put her on are terrible. She's cranky, they taste terrible, I'm tired. It's not a great combination. She's still really not feeling good but we are seeing some improvement.

Luke worked 15 hours yesterday. He was literally not home at all. He's trying to get all the wheat sown way up north. They just finished section 11 and Tolstrip... on to Barnika's today and back to the farm place tomorrow. As soon as he's done with that it's time to start picking up the millet they swathed the beginning of the month. There are three and a half fields, or another three days of work there. He hasn't been home since Friday when they were able to start sowing wheat again.

We are a little overwhelmed. I don't like this journal because it sounds like I'm complaining. Really I'm not, we're blessed. Blessed to be expecting, blessed that Sarah is strong enough to cough hard and fight this virus, blessed that Luke has work and we are provided for. The truth is though that we have a lot going on!

Josie is struggling. Anxiety is something she deals with all the time but lately it's been worse. She has a hard teacher this year. Last year she had a very sweet teacher who mothered her, this year her teacher is really pushing personal responsibility. It is hard for my sensitive, anxious girl some days. So there's been that too. We really just need to get through the year with this teacher... and there's a lesson in it for her. About how it's not always easy with other's in this world. I just hate to see her worry over school.

I am so glad that I don't have to worry about Marie getting this virus that Sarah is fighting. She just couldn't cough. Then I feel guilty about being relieved about that because it means she 's not here. And I miss her and wish she was here but I am so grateful for Heaven...

So we've hit 39 weeks but the last week has been hard. My next doctor appointment is Monday and my due date is Wednesday, the 5th. I will talk to the doctor about our options for induction if/when I go over my due date. I have had to be induced with all three of our girls so far as my labors don't progress. After going nine days over with Sarah I am going to ask they not let me go past 41 weeks this time. Poor Sarah was starving at birth, her skin was cracked, and there was meconium in her fluid so her lungs were compromised. She just baked too long and I would like to avoid that with this little one if I can. That and the hospital is an hour and forty minuets from here so it would be comforting to have some sort of plan.

Please continue to lift Abigail up in your prayers as she is still fighting pneumonia...

Prayers for Abigail...

2011-09-26T14:41:00.000-06:00

Please take a moment of your day and say a prayer for sweet Abigail... She is sick and fighting the beginning of pneumonia. Please pray that she do well with treatments, this does not set her little body back, and can avoid getting any sicker.

Marie was hospitalized for pneumonia and they were some of Luke and I's scariest days. Thank you so much!!!

38 weeks...

2011-09-23T14:53:00.000-06:00

I have been terrible about writing lately. I am 38 weeks, halfway to 39. It is amazing to think that soon there will be another baby in this house, soon our family will change again. This change will be good.

It has been a hard road. My emotions have ruled me and I have grieved through this pregnancy even while I have rejoiced. And soon she'll be here. I can't wait to meet her. I am so excited to see what God has in store for this little girl, what she'll look like, how she'll fit in with her sisters.

Luke is back in the field sowing wheat after a weeks break from the rain. We are hopeful that he can get all the acres in and some spraying done before our new girl arrives. I don't think we'll get the millet picked up before she gets here though.

Josie and Sarah fought a tummy bug last week. This week it is some strange cold with a yucky cough. I hope all of this clears up soon.

We're just busy with day to day. Busy and excited waiting for our baby. Laundry, cleaning, making meals, running after little ladies, it all seems to occupy my time so much more these days. I am blessed by the busy, blessed by the work. And always, Marie is in our hearts and on our minds. She would have loved these cooler days...

This is how God spoke to me this week... The Resurrection Body...

But someone may ask, "How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?" How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body. All flesh is not the same: Men have one kind of flesh, animals have another, birds another and fish another. There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another. The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor. So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable...
1 Corinthians 15:35-42 NIV

Mitochondrial Disease Awareness Week

2011-09-19T14:25:00.000-06:00

Mitochondrial Disease Awareness Week is September 18-24.

Mitochondria are:

Tiny organelles found in almost every cell in the body.
They are known as the "powerhouse of the cell."
They are responsible for creating more than 90% of cellular energy.
They are necessary in the body to sustain life and support growth.
They are composed of tiny packages of enzymes that turn nutrients into cellular energy
Mitochondrial failure causes cell injury that leads to cell death. When multiple organ cells die there is organ failure.

MITO HAPPENS! IT IS NOT AS RARE AS YOU WOULD BELIEVE!

About one in 4,000 children in the United States will develop mitochondrial disease by the age of 10 years.

THERE IS NO CURE FOR MITOCHONDRIAL DISEASE.

All families can do is treat symptoms, and try to slow the progression of the disease.

Marie had Leigh's Disease, it is one of the most severe forms of Mitochondrial Disease. She fought hard and we are so proud of her... still, there are so many children and adults who are fighting. It is hard to loose someone to a disease no-one knows about or understands.

Please, in memory of our Little Mama pass along the information about Mitochondrial Disease this week.

You can learn more by visiting MitoAction.

On Wednesday join us in Light a Light for Mito and light a candle in memory of all of those who have fought Mitochondrial Disease and were called Home.

Every day we miss our Princess... Please join us in the HOPE FOR A CURE!!!

Marie, wide eyed at the Downtown Aquarium in Denver, CO August 2009...

Princess Sarah turned two...

2011-09-07T16:37:00.000-06:00

Here are a few photos from her party. It was a beautiful day and she was surrounded by a lot of special people to help her celebrate. She was also spoiled rotten...

You can download, print, and make the banner yourself here.

I say it all the time, but we really are so blessed to have Sarah Kate in our lives. Her white blond hair, infectious smile, quick hugs, fiery spirit, and roll with the punches attitude have been such a comfort to us. God made Sarah Kate something special indeed!

Mercies...

2011-09-03T09:17:00.001-06:00

Last Sunday marked two years. Two years since Mama flew home. Two years since God stepped in and said "Enough!" and wrapped her in His arms and took her back. And thank you Father... but it still hurts.

The truth is I am having a really hard time. I am so very pregnant with this fourth baby, and while that is a huge blessing that I cannot give thanks enough for, it also means my emotions are ruling me right now. And right now they scream for that child. I miss her so much. I miss everything about being around Marie. I am going to have a baby soon, and the last time I had a baby I lost one. That sort of messes with your head. The waves of grief keep rolling in and I am struggling to keep myself above water. That, along with the day to day business of a second grader, a two year old and a farmer husband and I feel spread thin.

So last weekend we celebrated Sarah, and we grieved Marie. Sarah's party was Saturday, Sunday in an attempt to get through the day Luke and I decided to take the girls up to the lake. We loaded up the pickup, and the dog, the coolers, and the chairs and left. The weather was beautiful, the lake was empty. We spent the day being together, I prayed a lot and watched my children in the water and it was good. There were still a lot of tears because how can you not shed tears in missing that baby. She was really something and we were blessed with two years, five months and twenty five days of Marie... And even if it had been 100 years it wouldn't have been enough.

Still, there were some mercies last weekend. I think that God sent us a few amazing gifts...

On Saturday, Sarah's birthday, it was hard. Luke and I had to leave Marie that day to go to the hospital for me to be induced. It broke our hearts to leave. Since she went Home there have been a lot of butterflies. Actually, just days after she passed my flowers were covered in literally clouds of monarchs like we have never seen before. On Saturday there was a huge yellow butterfly on Marie's flowers (Josie picked one of these flowers and put it in Marie's hand before the funeral home took her body away). It was as though God said "See, she is with Me".

This spring we planted a crab apple tree for Marie. One grew at our old house and many hours were spent lying beneath it with her staring up at the branches. Her little tree had a tough summer. After we planted it we got seven inches of rain in four days. Then it got hot and the leaves withered up and a lot of them blew away. Finally this August the tree seemed to take hold and thrive. It is a little thing, only about five feet tall. After Sarah's party Saturday we were cleaning up the back yard and Josie called us over to see this. One tiny branch on that little tree had bloomed with two snow white flowers. Just in time for the day of the year that we dread most. Out of season, there were crab apple blossoms for Marie's anniversary day.

The plaque we placed beneath her tree.

Sunday the lake was beautiful. No wind, no big waves, not too hot. Just sun and sand and quiet.

Two years... and it's not getting easier. The waves of grief don't hit as often but when they do they hit just as hard. We are so grateful that we know where Marie is and we'll see her again. It just doesn't make being apart right now that much easier. She was something special and we miss that baby so much.

We love you Isabella... Little Mama... Rie Rie.

Fingerprint Friday...

2011-08-26T09:37:00.000-06:00

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? Visit Beki at The Rusted Chain to join in!

My Fingerprint happened this morning. In the busy of getting Josie off to school and setting up Sarah's big girl toddler bed for her birthday Luke was putting the crib back together. Taking off the rail making it a toddler bed and putting on the rail making it a baby bed. He raised the mattress and stepped back calling me to come and see the finished work.

As I waddled down the hallway to him big with what is most likely our last baby the look on his face was my gift. The smile and the look in his eyes as he watched me walking to him carrying his baby that he'd just put the crib together for is one I want to remember forever. Because I know by that look how much I am loved even if my farmer struggles with the words. His eyes tell me.... and God's fingerprint is all over that.

Seven years, four little girls, joy and sorrow, a life built together and so much still ahead of us. Everyday in my prayers I thank God for Luke...

Another week....

2011-08-24T16:34:00.000-06:00

School started and another week has flown by. Luke has been in the tractor spraying weeds, getting fields ready to sow wheat in September. The millet is ready to cut, we went to Nebraska to the big county fair. I am 34 weeks and getting baby clothes ready. Sarah will be two, Marie will be gone two years...

Life is weird.

This summer I have felt like I've walked this path before. Being pregnant again, my due date only just about a month later. Only Little Mama is not here with me. And I remember falling asleep in the afternoons with her talking herself to sleep. Rubbing the back of her neck behind the curls because she'd calm down then. And chocolate kisses in the afternoon, snuggling her to sleep at night when she'd hold on to my hair or hold my necklace in her fist. And today I bought her new flowers for her tombstone, for her anniversary.

That is something no mother should ever buy. I should still be holding her here. I should still be kissing her goodnight and washing her clothes and painting her nails. Life is weird. Two years and this life, while blessed, is not as full without Marie in it. Everything is different now. I have changed.

I am now a compulsive list maker. It helps me to keep my anxiety in check. I never had anxiety before and I loved thinking I was this free spirit who could just roll with it all. Not so much. Now I make a note, I cross it off, I have to.

I check over and over again at night that doors are locked, babies are breathing, lights are off. I always turn around before I leave the house, I double check before I close the garage door. I cannot shake the feeling that I have forgotten something.

I question myself more. Am I doing a good enough job, am I good enough in prayer, am I leading my daughters the right way? Am I a good example to them? Somehow Marie gave me confidence in those things, I struggle to find that now.

I keep to myself in ways I never did before. I am closed off with my emotions when asked how we are doing. The same as we were, we still hurt. But that's the hard answer and I don't want the conversation so I say fine.

And again I am getting ready for a baby and praying it will be healthy. I am snuggling a two year old (almost!) again. I am getting used to Josie being back in school... and life cycles back to where it was before. And I should be used to that, the wife of a farmer. Every year we cycle through the same work in the same seasons again... And I suppose it will be this way until I go Home...

I cannot believe another year has come and gone... how have I gone without kissing that freckle on her forehead so long? Though we are better at coping now the pain is still the same. And this weekend we will celebrate and mourn. The Bittersweet... And life cycles on.

Random... and pickles.

2011-08-16T14:43:00.001-06:00

Tonight is back to school night. Josie will take her school supplies in, meet her teacher, then we're coming home and having tacos. I cannot believe the time has come.

Tomorrow I will be 33 weeks. It has flown but it is dragging all the same. I am looking forward to meeting this new little girl.

I am struggling with feeling guilty about that excitement. With Sarah I was so grateful for just the day, and how Marie was doing, and I really never daydreamed much about the little life within me. I was grateful for hearing she was growing well, I was praying like crazy that the baby thrive, but I never felt that giddy excitement. I feel so bad that I didn't do that for Sarah, and guilty for feeling it now. Mama guilt is complicated. Extra kisses now make up for it.

Tonight we are having Carne Asada Tacos using the recipe Clarissa turned me on to. I never make salsa to go with them and cook the meat in the crock pot. My family doesn't seem to mind.

I am pretty sure the terrible two's have arrived. My sweetheart has been a handful lately.

I made eighteen jars of pickles yesterday and tonight I am pulling the cucumber plants. That is a total of 30 jars of dill pickles. That is insane. For Katie, and anyone else who might care, this is my recipe for pickles. It is a compilation of a recipe found on food.com and Luke's cousin's wife Kendra's spicy dill pickles that are awesome. I just altered it enough to make a ton!

SPICY DILL PICKLES (this recipe is to make 7 quart jars at a time, for more than that you just keep making another batch of brine because you want it hot) Beg, borrow, or steal to get a large water bath canner with the rack. It's just too hard otherwise.

for the jars

fresh dill

jalapeno peppers, enough to do at least one pepper per jar

minced garlic (I just by the jar at the grocery store)

dried dill (because it should be dilly, otherwise what's the point?)

for the brine

8 1/2 cups water (distilled)

2 1/4 cups white vinegar

1/2 cup pickling salt

Steps

1. Fill water bath roughly 2/3 full with tap water. Start it boiling, it takes forever.

2. Fill a small pot with some water and start warming your lids. I do mine until they just boil and pull it off the heat.

3. Get the brine going. Mix water, vinegar, and salt and bring to a boil. Remove from heat.

4. Get your jars hot. Do this either by running them through the dishwasher and using them just as they dry or by putting them in a large pot of boiling water.

5. Slice, dice, get your cucumbers ready. And dice up the peppers.

All of this will take hours. It is a slow start.

6. To prepare jars add to the bottom of each 1 diced jalapeno, 1/2 of a spoon of minced garlic (I just use a spoon from the silverware drawer), a dash of dried dill, and a nice piece of fresh dill. Don't be skimpy.

7. Fill jar with sliced cucumbers, try to get it nice an evenly filled, no huge gaps anywhere. Don't stuff it so much there's no room for the brine.

8. Pour in the brine (use a funnel). Add a hot lid and your mason jar ring and set aside.

Once you have 6-8 jars you are ready to put them in the boiling water bath. Add jars to boiling water, add water as needed so that when the rack is fully lowered your jars are covered by an inch to two inches of water. Bring heat back up. Once it begins to boil I process my quart jars for 20 minuets (if you live over 6000 feet you have to adjust that time). Pints would process for 15 minuets.

Once done remove jars and set on a towel to cool for 24 hours. If the seal hooray, if they don't put them in the fridge and eat them in the next week or so.

Josie and I are going to work on the baby's blanket (I have made one for each of the girls) and then I have to do her back-to-school mani/pedi.

Summer winding down...

2011-08-10T15:18:00.000-06:00

We have been racing and I have not made the time to write down our lives. It is hard to believe that it is already August. In no particular order, this is how we have been spending our summer days.

Today we have been finished with wheat harvest for exactly a week and a half.

Today I am 32 weeks. I cannot believe in two months time we will be meeting our little girl.

Today marks one week and one day before school starts.

Yesterday I drove 303 miles round trip to take Josie to her ear specialist. We thought she had lost her ear tubes as she has been fighting ear infections for a month. Turns out she just has a really horrible infection, the tubes are still in place though. The specialist thinks it may have begun as swimmers ear and then moved into the inner ear. The infection is so bad that her right ear was literally bleeding. Three weeks of antibiotic drops and we're going back for a re-check.

Sarah was awesome in the car though.

Last night we had some big thunderstorms move through. The millet up north and at the farm was hailed. It has been a summer for terrible storms.

Sarah will be two soon...

Marie will be gone two years soon... that is hard to wrap my mind around and breaks my heart every time I think of it.

Josie is nervous about starting second grade. She worries and struggles with change...

We went to the lake with Luke's cousins. It was good. We relaxed and had fun and played in the water.

I have been canning pickles and will do peaches soon. I actually got myself a present and bought a big water bath canner. It was embarrassing how excited I was about a canner. A big pot. That actually means more work for me. I am insane.

This weekend is the last real weekend of summer. School starts on the 18th.

Fingerprint Friday...

2011-07-29T12:09:00.001-06:00

And His Fingerprints are all over Sarah, the surprise baby that we didn't know how much we'd need. He sent her to save us, to pull us forward, to make us laugh, to give us strength. He made Sarah just for our family and we are so blessed by her...

Simply, we are blessed. By the three girls we have been given and the opportunity to welcome this fourth... just so incredibly blessed.

Running, watching radar, cooking far to much, and dessert...

2011-07-26T16:39:00.001-06:00

We are nine days in to this harvest. So far the weather has been good and we have been in the field every day. There are storms west of here today and I am watching the radar and praying they stay west and pass beside us. We still have four fields to cut over by Nebraska, where the hail was bad. One of them is good, the other's all are dinged up a bit.

The girls and I have been living in the car. Last night I drove out to a field we simply call "29". It's up north, a half hour one way. There was no wheat on that field last year. The last time I drove those roads Marie was in the back in her car seat, bringing dinner out to the guys. Marie was mad that Josie got to ride in Daddy's pickup and she pitched the biggest temper tantrum on the way home. Marie was mad at me when we got home, mad at me all through her bath, and when her Daddy got home I told him he'd better deal with her. All she wanted was that Daddy.

I cried most of the way out to the field last night. Just remembering. God, I am so grateful I have so many memories of that child. Thinking of her doing things that I haven't remembered in awhile, it feels good. Driving that familiar road, it feels good. We all miss her so much.

Time doesn't ease that. I've learned to smile easier, and I've gotten used to carrying this cross of grief now. But still she's always in my mind, always right on the edge of my tongue. The coming of this new baby doesn't change any of that. In fact, in many ways I think Luke and I are feeling the ache of Marie's absence more now.

Today they are finishing up the little field on the west side of the county and moving east.

Today I mowed the lawn, ran Josie to gymnastics, baked.

Today Sarah pitched a fit wanting to wear her green dress again. It's too big but she wears it every other day anyway.

Today I'm praying for Abigail, that it doesn't rain, that baby is healthy. And I'm praising Him for all this business, this craziness, and this harvest.

Today my girls are fighting and I've got to be honest. It's a blessing, I love it. I love that they have each other, that Sarah gives Josie a run for her money, and I've dealt with this sibling fighting before when Marie and Josie did it. But I've just about had it. It is obnoxious. I'm over it and my patience is frayed.

I need to start dinner in about 20 minuets.

These are what we're having for dessert and they are amazing, and easy!
One Hundred Thousand Calorie Bars

Fingerprint Friday...

2011-07-22T10:37:00.004-06:00

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

To join visit Beki at The Rusted Chain.

This week has been busy. Everything has been focused on the harvest, feeding the guys, Josie going to a sleepover... In the midst of everything that goes on though there are always a few constants. God's love, the blessings He gives us, knowing that Marie walks with Jesus...

And for me, there's always Luke. And all of us girls are just crazy about him.

He's been in the sprayer from 5 am on and in the combine from about 10am to dark every day. He's been gone since long before they wake and he comes in the door when they make their way to bed later than usual. The girls haven't been able to see him unless we go to the field. I only get to be with him when we fall into bed at night and he is asleep before his head even hits the pillow.

This week, I am grateful for the man that God has blessed me with and how hard he works to take care of us.

And he's pretty cute...

And a really great Dad...

And he has this amazing faith...

And he lets each of us know that we're loved...

I am proud to be his wife.

Harvest....

2011-07-20T10:12:00.000-06:00

It's been a long time coming. Last September we drilled seeds into the dust. Trusting, hoping. And the winter was dry. No moisture came and there was worry. And spring brought her rains... and the hail came. Four quarters nearly destroyed. Acres and acres of could-have-been smashed into the earth by ice.

But it's here now. After heavy rains that would not stop, after prayers. After all that trusting it's here. We have a harvest. And God is good... all the time. I think even in the lean times there must be some lesson He's teaching there. For me the big one is TRUST... I'm getting there I hope.

"As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come."

Mark 4:29 NIV

Prayer request...

2011-07-18T17:23:00.000-06:00

Please pray for Abigail. She is going through a hard time right now and my heart just breaks for her. I wish there was more I could do but I know that prayer is powerful and it's what she needs most right now. If you are moved please leave her parents your words of support.

Lord- please bring Abigail comfort, please bring her parents peace and the ability to accept your will. Please guide the doctors and open their hearts to compassion. You have a perfect plan for your beautiful Abigail, and we trust in you. In Jesus name, Amen.

A Labor of Love...

2011-07-10T14:37:00.004-06:00

Last year, July heat beating down while we watched our kids swim in the inflatable pool in our backyard my friend Brooke asked me a question. "Would you help me" she said "get something going to redo the playground at the fairgrounds?". I agreed, thinking of the baked in the sun, splintered wonderland that my girls don't play on. Too old, too dangerous. And our county had just finished building a state of the art events center at the fairgrounds too. Such a bummer. It could be great place to play.

Fast forward a few weeks and Brooke and I are sitting in a golf cart waiting for the parade starting our county fair to begin. "We need something to make this project really special, to make it stand out", said Brooke. "You know" I said, my mind on Little Mama, "it would be really wonderful if that park could be universally accessible".

And it began. We worked fast. We applied for a Great Outdoors Colorado (GoCo) Grant the end of August. And we were turned down. Not enough community support they had said. Not surprising, we hadn't had much time to raise any. And stubborn farm wives don't give up. The team of four stay-home moms and the county commissioners had applied for other grants and we had received them. We worked hard, secured donations, raised support in the community, made pancakes, applied for some more grants. And we applied to GoCo again.

Then in June sitting in the sun on bleachers watching Josie play t-ball against the team from one town over. Another friend sits beside me and asks "did you find out yet, did you get the grant"? Huddled together over a smart phone as our kids battle it out on opposite teams we pull up the website to see if GoCo had made a decision... and they approved us! We received a $200,000 grant from Great Outdoors Colorado to build a universally accessible playground here in northeastern Colorado!

We are blessed to be able to put a facility like that here for children that don't have a lot of the fancy stuff you can find in the bigger cities. For kids who have a hard time playing on the parks that are here now. But soon, they will be able to play and be part of things, just like everyone else. And that fills my heart like you cannot believe!

Because I think back two years ago, carrying our Princess Marie at the city park. Daddy helping her through the parts that he could. Me sitting cross-legged, the metal floor of the play structure cutting in to my ankles. Holding her up and helping keep her hands on the wheel so that she could drive a pretend firetruck and we could see that smile... And she was just a kid for a little while, having fun at the playground and she wasn't different from the rest of them. She was happy, and that meant more than anything else. Watching Marie play just like any other kid... priceless. Watching her swing in her special swing at home, beside Josie, the two of them making memories. Priceless. My favorite memories are her playing.

And we will be able to share that with other kids. Because they're out here, in this farm town. In the other tiny towns surrounding us. Over in Nebraska, those kids are there. And soon they'll have a place to play and I am blessed to have gotten to be a part of that.

"I have yet to meet a child who isn't special and doesn't have needs...it's all just in varying degrees." Sandra Eller (mother of a child lost to Mitochondrial Disease)

It's been my labor of love, in memory of our perfect Princess. My Little Mama, Daddy's Isabella. Our Rie Rie. If feels so good to still be able to do something good, in some sort of way, for her.

2011-07-01T11:48:00.001-06:00

To join please visit Beki's blog.

This week the fingerprint was simple...

I saw God's hands in the same cotton dress, plaid on one side and flowered on the other. And that two sisters who were together only briefly can still wear the same dress... And from Josie, to Marie, to Sarah, that dress will pass down again. They're all tied together whether their bodies are together or not. Someday all of my girls will walk together in summer dresses up in Heaven. This week it did my heart so good to see Sarah and Marie wearing the same dress.

Times flying...

2011-06-30T10:26:00.000-06:00

26 weeks already. It's amazing to think that baby girl #4 will be here in just a few months!

Two years ago today...

2011-06-28T15:57:00.001-06:00

That's my big girl. In her swing for the first time. Barefoot in green grass. With chocolate on her face. Just like she is today. Only today, two years later, instead of being carried and being cradled, that child is racing in the green grass of Heaven with her beautiful perfect body that works just like God meant it to (only she may not have the chocolate on her chin).

Heavenly Grass by Tennessee Williams...

My feet took a walk in heavenly grass.
All day while the sky shone clear as glass.
My feet took a walk in heavenly grass,
All night while the lonesome stars rolled past.

Then my feet come down to walk on earth,
And my mother cried when she give me birth.
Now my feet walk far and my feet walk fast,
But they still got an itch for heavenly grass.

But they still got an itch for heavenly grass.

I miss her so much...

I read this really wonderful article by a man named Steven Kalas. He tries to answer the question "How do I get over this?" this loss of a child, this living on without them. And he says...

"You don't get over it. Getting over it is an inappropriate goal. An unreasonable hope. The loss of a child changes you. It changes your marriage. It changes the way birds sing. It changes the way the sun rises and sets. You are forever different.

You don't want to get over it. Don't act surprised. As awful a burden as grief is, you know intuitively that it matters, that it is profoundly important to be grieving. Your grief plays a crucial part in staying connected to your child's life. To give up your grief would mean losing your child yet again. If I had the power to take your grief away, you'd fight me to keep it. Your grief is awful, but it is also holy. And somewhere inside you, you know that.

The goal is not to get over it. The goal is to get on with it.

Profound grief is like being in a stage play wherein suddenly the stagehands push a huge grand piano into the middle of the set. The piano paralyzes the play. It dominates the stage. No matter where you move, it impedes your sight lines, your blocking, your ability to interact with the other players. You keep banging into it, surprised each time that it's still there. It takes all your concentration to work around it, this at a time when you have little ability or desire to concentrate on anything.

The piano changes everything. The entire play must be rewritten around it.

But over time the piano is pushed to stage left. Then to upper stage left. You are the playwright, and slowly, surely, you begin to find the impetus and wherewithal to stop reacting to the intrusive piano. Instead, you engage it. Instead of writing every scene around the piano, you begin to write the piano into each scene, into the story of your life.

You learn to play that piano. You're surprised to find that you want to play, that it's meaningful, even peaceful to play it. At first your songs are filled with pain, bitterness, even despair. But later you find your songs contain beauty, peace, a greater capacity for love and compassion. You and grief -- together -- begin to compose hope. Who'da thought?

Your grief becomes an intimate treasure, though the spaces between the grief lengthen. You no longer need to play the piano every day, or even every month. But later, when you're 84, staring out your kitchen window on a random Tuesday morning, you welcome the sigh, the tears, the wistful pain that moves through your heart and reminds you that your child's life mattered.

You wipe the dust off the piano and sit down to play."

She was here, her life mattered. It's been nearly two years but she is still a part of me and who I am and I don't want to let go of that. We write her into the story everyday. Sarah looks at her pictures every day. We talk about her every day. She is our second born, the dark haired one. The one that was the Daddy's Girl. The stubborn one, the bossy one. She is the missing stair step in this band of daughters. She is in everything that I do and in my thoughts, still, all day long.

Two years ago she was here, and she was happy that day. And we are so blessed in that and I so grateful to God for letting us have her. She was happy and that brings me more joy than words can say.

Fingerprint Friday...

2011-06-24T09:04:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I woke up with a heavy heart and missed Marie all day long. What would she be doing now? How long would her hair be? Would I be starting to maybe help her more with her letters to teach her to read (she could have, her mind was sharp, it was only the body broken). I missed feeding her breakfast and trying to keep her feet off the dining room table. I cleaned the bathroom and missed looking out to see her sitting in her nap nanny in the doorway and talking to me. I missed napping with her after lunch. I wonder what sort of big sister she would be and if she'd be as excited about the new baby coming as Josie is.

So I cleaned, I had lunch with my a good friend. I ran Josie to gymnastics and Sarah took a nap while I watered. We went in the pool when Sarah got up and friends stopped by to visit and all day long I was busy and had company. And it was good.

Last night after dinner we were out in the backyard and I randomly snapped pictures of our night. I was mentally cataloging the good things, the blessings, and it helped my heart not to hurt so much.

Sarah's picture face, waiting for the flash...

My petunias. They're so simple but they're so pretty.

Luke.

Blessed in that for the last eight years our house has been filled with tiny toe-nails for me to paint.

Josie's imagination. It is amazing.

A flower in the ally, unexpected pretty.

The sunset. And Marie... she's just behind it. Because there's no night in Zion.

My tiger lily's with buds on, I can't wait to see them bloom.

To join Fingerprint Friday please go here.

Storms and a slow down....

2011-06-21T11:52:00.001-06:00

Saturday was the big finish. Josie's machine pitch/t-ball tournament went all morning. I was so proud of her. She played hard through three games, and went out to finish the last two innings of the last game after getting hit in the neck with a ball that had been tossed into the dugout. It was good to see her accomplish something, and she was proud of herself. Not to mention on her team, "1" there were 12 kids, only two of them girls. Not bad at all!

Sunday, Father's Day. We had breakfast together and the girls gave Luke their gift, a new sign saying "Dad's Garage" for his new shop. We went to church, came home and grilled steaks and took naps. When the Sarah got up we climbed in the Jeep and headed out to the cemetery. We took Marie new flowers to replace the ones we brought out at Easter. Pink, yellow, and white daisy's. It is hard to have Mother's and Father's Day without her. Especially Father's Day. She was his baby through and through.

We came home, played in the backyard, had good friends stop by. And we watched the sky. It was dark and windy and Luke was on the radar. Nasty storms Sunday night. The girls and I spent a good portion of the evening downstairs in the basement with tornado sirens going off and the weather radio on. The wind and rain were amazing. It literally came down sideways from the north. And north of here it was bad. Three fields are gone. Three fields of wheat that was growing and beautiful are basically standing empty now. And insurance will cover the loss but it's not as good as a harvest...

And Sunday was a day of storms. Storms of the heart, storms of the sky. Missing Marie and the rain slashing down. Ice falling and leveling stalks of grain. I know this. God did not make hail. It's a product of a sinful world. Still, we are blessed.

Three fields is not everything. Of the five or so fields hit only three are total losses. Our house is fine, the farmstead is fine. We were all safe. No tornado's touched down. The girls didn't hear the siren and they weren't scared. We still have wheat to harvest, we still have each other, we'll see Marie again. And the weather is going to warm up again the end of the week so we look forward to that and maybe getting in the pool. Finally!

Fingerprint Friday...

2011-06-17T14:09:00.000-06:00

Sometimes you don't need to say much... is there any blessing greater than this fireball of a daughter sleeping sound on the quilt on our bed?

"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 " Steven Curtis Chapman

To join Fingerprint Friday visit Beki's blog here.

Busy days...

2011-06-14T09:11:00.001-06:00

Summer has arrived here. Josie has been out of school for two full weeks and it has been non-stop. I actually don't like it like this. I want slow, lazy summer days. It hasn't happened yet but I know it will soon. Sometimes I miss Marie setting our pace. She slowed us down, made us appreciate things, kept us grounded. Maybe it is Josie getting older, more involved but it seems that time is just passing far to quickly these days.

Landon's Hope was great! We were so grateful to everyone who came and walked with us, and our team raised far more than our goal for the UMDF!

Josie had her dance recital. She had been taking jazz classes since January and it was really wonderful. She loves dance, we could see how much she practiced and how much it meant to her to do well at the recital. She did great and it was so fun to see just how big she's getting.

Sarah is so busy. I thank God constantly for her being able to be into so many things. Her hair is not getting any darker, it's still white. She reminds me of Marie more these days and I am grateful for that. In so many ways I am lost for what to do with her. It's been five years since I gave any thought to potty training and big girl beds. Marie was a big girl too but it was so different. With Marie I had to learn everything over again, and I feel that way with Sarah too. I'm learning this all over again.

Josie has been playing machine pitch t-ball for the last two weeks. This Saturday is her tournament. She really likes the game and it's fun to watch her. She gets frustrated with herself easily, but I think it's a good learning experience.

This is my favorite picture that I've taken for awhile. She looks so grown up, I'm really not sure when that happened.

I will be 24 weeks Wednesday. It's hard to believe we've gone through six months already. In just four months we'll be meeting this new baby girl. It's such a blessing, but I find myself struggling more these days. I wish Marie were here to be going through this with us. I want to share it all with her. I can't imagine really who she would be a four years old. She wasn't meant for that and in my heart I know it. It's hard to accept, that I have a beautiful girl who was meant for greater things than this world. Because I am grateful she's with Jesus, but as her mother I am selfish and I still want her here with me.

Luke is in the fields planting millet. Only three quarters but it's good for the soil. One up north and two out by the farm. It will harvest in September when he'll swath it into windrows and leave it to dry. Picking it up just before this fourth baby comes. It's the continuity of it that brings me comfort. He planted millet the year Marie was born, he planted it again the year after. He is planting it this year, and he will plant it again the coming years. The same kind of seed, the same soil, the same man. Some things don't change so drastically.

Summer days oddly enough make me miss Marie. Those were my last days with her. The long, hot days of summer. It will be two years and that makes me want to scream. It can't be that long. It can't be. But it is. And I can't stop time so we'll make the best of it. The ache of two years for me is the being without her. Little Mama is unaware of time, she's just where God meant her to be and she'll see me whenever I get there and she won't recognize that we've been apart for even a second. And I think she's with the twin that vanished, the other little girl that we would have had, the identical twin to this baby that I'm carrying now. We would have named her Jayne...

Still, it's summer days and I need to turn off the water in the vegetable garden and fold laundry and carry the metal watering can around to the seeds the hose didn't reach and make Josie get dressed and do dishes and all the other work that God gave me to keep me busy and sane. And I am blessed...

Fingerprint Friday...

2011-06-03T10:24:00.000-06:00

It has been a very busy week! Between vacation bible school, dance recital dress rehearsal, machine pitch (t ball) practice starting, and gymnastics kicking off we have been in the car a lot. It sounds like Josie is involved in everything. This week, yes. It was sort of an overlap week in activities. Next week will slow down and we can take a breath.

Today we are heading for the front range and a dentist appointment for Sarah. Tomorrow is the Landon's Hope walk and we will spend the morning remembering Marie... I am looking forward to it.

I realised today that I have not taken any pictures this time with baby number 4. That won't do at all. I love having a record of each pregnancy with my girls and No. 4 will not be any different.

So, my Fingerprint this week...

22 weeks, baby girl number four. Not a great photograph. Learning to be joyful with a broken heart. Missing Marie and rejoicing in the girls that I have with me. Thirty years old and still trying to become who God would want me to be. Life is weird... I am getting better at just trying to rejoice in what God gives me in the moment. It is easy right now because as you can see, I am pretty blessed.

A new recipe...

2011-05-25T15:03:00.000-06:00

Yesterday morning Sarah and I made cookies. Because she is a monster we made monster cookies. They turned out wonderful. I enjoyed the time with her. She's getting so big and changing so much.

She wants to dump every cup of oatmeal, peanut butter, chocolate chips into the bowl. She wants to taste everything. She want's to help and lets me know loudly "I help", "I do" and Luke and I's favorite, when she is successful we are blessed with her smiling "I did it!".

I watch her and I'm amazed. It comes so easily her holding that head, reaching that hand, grasping life tightly. She is unafraid. I want to be more like her and seize fiercly, live fully in the moment the chocolate on my toungue and not waiting always for the next tragedy. For the ground to open and swallow me up.

Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid. The LORD, the LORD, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. Isaiah 12:2 NIV

Who among you fears the LORD and obeys the word of his servant? Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the LORD and rely on his God. Isaiah 50:10 NIV

Watching Sarah grab with both hands, exploring the world. Watching Josie read devotions at bed time, thirsting for more words from her God, longing to know more about her Jesus. Feeling this new baby thrive and grow inside of me... Knowing that I have a princess in Heaven with dark hair and blue eyes and I will hold her again... knowing that no matter what He's here... It's okay. I need to trust.

I need a new recipe. For the last 20 some months I have been holding my breath. I have known fear. I want to let it go, to just trust. To enjoy the blessings fully that I have and not worry about the next thing. I am ready, and it doesn't feel like leaving Marie behind. It feels like becoming who she, and God want me to be. It is time to try a new recipe.

And again, "I will put my trust in him." And again he says, "Here am I, and the children God has given me. Hebrews 2:13 NIV

It was good enjoying that simple blessing with my littlest girl yesterday. Making cookies, soaking her up. If you are interested, here is the recipe we made.

Blessed...

2011-05-24T14:36:00.001-06:00

Today I stumbled across just what I needed. Today a friend put her thoughts into words and they said what I have tried to say...

If you know me in person you know that I am shy. I am too tall and awkward. Clumsy, silly, and I stutter when I'm nervous. I blush easily. I struggle with saying things. It is hard for me to talk about Marie openly, to talk about what our family has been through. I struggle finding the words to express how my child was not a burden, how I was blessed to have her. I struggle to find words to explain what we've been through and how it's changed us. I try... but in person I fail. I can write it though and in those words on a page I can lay my thoughts out. So in person I feel I fail often at explaining just how much I love being the mother to the children God has given. Just how much God has given me in having them.

Often I'm asked by strangers how many children I have... I always say three. I cannot leave Marie out... I don't go into explaining that I have two here and one in Heaven unless the person I'm talking to seems to deserve to know, or need to know. And now that I'm carrying our fourth I talk about my four children, and I talk about how there were twins at the beginning with this fourth pregnancy because I suppose there are five. And in Heaven when you see me walking I think that five will be there walking with Luke and I too... because although only three are here all of them are in my heart and that's what being a mother is. It's loving them...

Today I read Clarissa's blog and her words spoke. The child that died. BLESSING. Would you do it again? YES. Terminal diagnosis, special needs, 24 hour care, a burden. NO, I LOVED EVERY MINUET OF HAVING THAT GIRL. Being around her made me feel better than I have before or after in my entire life. Being around Marie filled me, and you could see God in her. And feel God around her... and that was BLESSING.

Having a baby born and a child die less than 24 hours apart? I don't understand but it was HIS plan and I trust it. Because of where we walked and how He carried us, and taught us to believe... BLESSING.

Clarissa is one of my best friends. I am a little selfish and I enjoy spoiling Abigail... because Marie isn't here anymore... And she lets me. She is so strong and her faith inspires me, fills me, makes me keep moving forward. Her words are beautiful... Please visit her here... today this was my blessing.

And I am blessed, I am one blessed Mama...

Rhubarb...

2011-05-19T14:39:00.000-06:00

May has flown by. Below are some pictures of what we've been up to lately. It looks beautiful in the pictures but the last week and half have actually found us pretty chilly and getting a lot of rain. Praising God for that. Luke was talking to his Dad this morning and it might just be enough moisture to carry the wheat through to harvest. It needs rain to fill the heads with grain and this rain might soak the ground enough to last that long.

Josie and Sarah have been playing together so well lately...

Her hair is getting longer...

Sarah loves being in the new shop with her Daddy...

One of Marie's many butterflies...

Some of my flowers blooming...

Number Three...

My tomato plants in the ground. It's been so cool they haven't grown much since I got them in.

Rhubarb...

Josie handling the knife for the first time. She was thrilled when I told her she's big enough to cut the leaves off now as long as I'm watching.

Sarah loves helping...

Taking it inside...

Beautiful Song...

2011-05-17T11:49:00.000-06:00

Yesterday on the way home from bible study Josie and I heard this song. It is beautiful, and just what I needed to hear!

Blessings, by Laura Story

We pray for blessings, we pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering

All the while You hear each spoken need
Yet love is way too much to give us lesser things

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears?
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You're near?

What if trials of this life
Are Your mercies in disguise?

We pray for wisdom, Your voice to hear
We cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough

And all the while You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears?
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You're near?

And what if trials of this life
Are Your mercies in disguise?

When friends betray us, when darkness seems to win
We know that pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home
It's not our home

'Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears?
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You're near?

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst
This world can't satisfy?

And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise?

Baby....

2011-05-13T10:59:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was my ultrasound. I had so much anxiety going into it. I was praying that this baby just be healthy, I doesn't matter if it's a boy or a girl. Whatever God sends is fine, just let this baby be growing well.

The nice thing was the the ultrasound technician is from here. She was raised a few miles west of Luke and they know one another from "way back". She was wonderful. She took her time, she explained why she was doing what she was. And baby, well... Baby is beautiful.

Tiny little hands were moving all over, and she showed us a profile, a little belly, a little spine. All four chambers of a heart, two beautiful little kidneys, everything growing just as it should be. And then we got to see the bottoms of Baby's tiny feet. There is enough room now that Baby was just fully stretched out. I had never seen the bottom of their feet on ultrasound before. And then she said the words we had been waiting to hear...

It's a girl.

How blessed are we!!?? God has given us four beautiful girls! It was wonderful seeing her, and most importantly, seeing that she is growing just as she should! God is GRACIOUS!

We came home and told Josie our happy news. She had a moments pause, she had really wanted a brother, but is just happy that there is another baby coming. She and Sarah played well all night long and Sarah was so proud to show Josie the pictures of "Baby".

My mind kept reeling though. This is so wonderful, but it is so bittersweet. This happy news brought with it grief I wasn't expecting. I wonder when I will begin to get used to that? There is another little girl I longed to share the news with, to show the pictures of another baby sister to. And she's just not here. And that's the bite. The bittersweet. The tangle. With happy comes sad, with rejoicing comes remembrance and longing. And it's just life now I suppose, and taking the blessing with the pain is something I am learning to do.

Last night I lay in bed and my mind kept calling images of Little Mama, brown hair loose, blue eyes crinkled, smiling at me. Will this baby have brown hair? Will I see Marie when I look at her? Sarah and Josie favor one another so strongly, favor their Daddy so strongly. Marie just had her own looks. She was me, dark hair and skin with her father's blue eyes. God made her so beautiful... And I'm glad He lets her face remain so clear in my mind.

Four little girls, so blessed are we. Four princesses. Luke is so outnumbered! I know that he longed for a son but he admits that his daughters have him wrapped around their little fingers.

It is amazing the turns a life takes. You find yourself where you never thought you would be. I never thought I would have four children. I never believed I would carry twins, if only for a moment. I never thought I would bury a child. I didn't know pain and joy could be so close together. I didn't know how deep God's love is until it held me... We will continue trusting Him... He blesses us.

Today...

2011-05-10T13:39:00.001-06:00

Today I woke up and decided I was going to feel better about things and not let myself worry.

I did the dishes.

I made beds.

I aired up the tire on Marie's old BOB stroller.

I walked with my friend out in the country.

I sprayed weeds.

I took a shower.

I made lunch and Sarah actually ate part of her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I have been trying to get her to eat them forever.

Sarah and I planted petunias in pots by the front door.

Today I am happy.

Today I am choosing not to worry.

I am comforted by the wiggles from this tiny baby that I felt last night and I have felt occasionally today.

I am choosing HOPE.

Today is okay...

Living after...

2011-05-09T14:02:00.001-06:00

Yesterday was Mother's Day. It was hard. Anniversaries are hard. And my second Mother's Day without Marie here was difficult.

Josie was so excited and gave me a necklace she had made in art along with a folder of coupons, a card, bookmarks, and a picture all talking about how much she loved me. Sarah was a stinker, but that's sort of what she's into right now. The terrible two's have hit my little princess early. Josie made a frame in Sunday school with her picture in it.

I kept thinking, Marie would have sung in church. Marie would have made a foam picture frame for me and I would see her face smiling back. Marie would have some craft she might have made, Marie in a summer dress and sandals, Marie in her Daddy's arms, the farmer's daughter... if Marie was healthy. If Marie had been doing well enough to go to church. If Marie felt good it would have been a very good day. Because in my mind Marie is always as she should have been, and it is because I know she is healed.

Luke worked hard to make the day special. He did dishes, made lunch, changed stinky diapers. I sobbed in the car going to the cemetery... We do it every Sunday but yesterday was hard. Because I want her in my arms. I want the rest of the world to see that I have three little girls and they're beautiful. I want to kiss and cuddle little knees and feet that would be getting kissed golden by the sun because the weathers been so warm. I can't equate the child that I love, the one that I fought for, prayed for, cried for, would have died for... I can match her up with the cold stone...

Sometimes it all still feels to horrible to have happened. And it's been a year and half and I think people get sick of my carrying it with me. But I can't put it down. It's my cross, the one God gave me. And I am better at dealing with it now but the pain hasn't changed. It's deep, in my gut, it pierces my lungs, and it crushes my heart. And it still feels the same as it did the day that I saw her last, just sleeping. But she wasn't, she was gone Home. And that's what I carry.

And I'm pregnant. And I am so filled with worries. Having another baby after having buried one is different.

With Josie I was so blissfully ignorant, nothing bad would happen. With Marie I was too... through her pregnancy I was just so exited to meet her. At my 20 week ultrasound she was shy, and so we didn't know if we would be having a boy or a girl. I remember praying a few days before she was born "Lord, please let it be a little girl". I was so in love with her name, Marie Isabel. In my mind I saw a dark haired girl, eyes snapping. And she was. But I don't know that I ever prayed for Josie and Marie to be healthy. I was naive and I just believed that they would be, that nothing horrible could happen to me.

And then we found out about Sarah. And I prayed. I prayed that she thrive, it felt like too much to ask God to make her healthy. I just prayed that this child would thrive. And she does. She was a surprise too, at the ultrasound the cord was between her legs. And there she was, another girl and I was in awe of her but worries of Marie were heavy on my heart. We barely rejoiced at Sarah's birth and despite that she carried us through the darkest days I have known.

And now this baby. I am 18 1/2 weeks along. The beginning was scary, they were so cautious because my blood work was off and my numbers were too high. There was the ultrasound where I saw the two circles, two lives so tiny their heart beats couldn't even be seen. And then the next ultrasound when there was only one baby. And I have been sicker, and I haven't gained any weight. And I felt this baby move later than the others and because I know the dark, I know the fear, I know the weight, I know that bad can happen I worry. Do I feel this baby move later for some reason? Is this baby okay? And I pray. "Lord, please let this baby healthy". Somehow now I'm brave enough to ask for that. A healthy baby. I ask God to let it grow, let it thrive, let it's life be used for His Glory. But I'm terrified. I don't know that I could loose another. It's too much to consider so I try to avoid the thought.

Carrying a child after you have buried one is different. There is joy there but so much worry. Because I know now, I have seen with my own eyes how fragile our children are. How fragile our lives are. I understand fully that this child is not my own, it is only with me for me to love while I can. And I don't want to let it go, let another go, ever. Because the hugs that I cannot give to Marie make my arms hurt and I don't know that I can handle any more pain.

Every day I seem to do battle with this fear, this worry. Every day I feel like I could sink into it. Instead I just want to be happy. I want to delight in this gift. I know so many who haven't had one child, let alone the four I have been blessed with... and I want to have joy. So every day I feel like I fight for joy against my worry...

It's different living after the loss of a child. Even though she's not lost, I know just where she is it's not here. And that is the hardest thing...

2011-04-29T10:32:00.000-06:00

I took pictures of little ladies in Easter dresses after church... Wishing that the bench was fuller...

We went to Kansas and met our new little niece who is just beautiful... once again I took more pictures and there was an empty space...

Because Miss Marie is in Heaven and Easter marked her fourth baptismal anniversary. Marie was baptised on Easter when the lilies covered the church. When Christ rose, when the promise that was made in the beginning was fulfilled. And now she celebrates Easter in Heaven which must be amazing... but I sort of miss her.

Random...

2011-04-20T09:59:00.001-06:00

We have had so much going on lately I feel like I haven't had much time to think, let alone organize my thoughts into something that would make sense written. Luke and I have been in the midst of finishing several projects. The garage/shop is nearly done, it just needs painted. The roofers are here replacing the wood shakes. It is expensive but it couldn't be put off. It was amazing how many wasps nests they found under those old wood shakes. We have also been mulching the flowerbeds now that they're re-done and it looks so good.

We finally got Marie's crab apple in the ground. We bought a "Royal Raindrop" and I hope that it blooms this season. I will take a picture of ours soon but this is what the blooms will look like.

I've been praying for Abigail, praying for baby...

I've been up a lot at night with Sarah, her eye teeth are coming in.

I have started a new med for heartburn. I've never had it this bad before. It makes me think of Marie and Abigail and what they live/lived with daily. My heart hurts for them...

I am trying to save on groceries... and gas. It's amazing how expensive they are!

We've been keeping house, running around, wishing it was warmer, thankful it's been raining, riding 4 wheelers in the mud with Papa, and so much more!

Fingerprint Friday: Blessed...

2011-04-15T11:21:00.002-06:00

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? Click here to join!

"...The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away. Blessed be the name of the LORD." Job 1:21 NAS

Sitting in the doctors office we wait. And wait. And then through the speakers of a tiny handheld microphone we can hear it. Beat, beat, beat. 150 of them, those precious beats. 150 beats per minuet. And Sarah smiles and says "Dog!" Because it does sound a little like a dog panting.

For fifteen weeks it has been growing, for fifteen weeks I have been praying. This tiny blessing, this huge surprise. A child within me that we didn't know we were ready for. But God did. And so he sent this baby. Two actually, though one vanished back to Heaven in the early weeks.

And I hold my hands around my just swelling belly and pray... "Father please, please let this baby be healthy. Please let this child grow, let it thrive..." Because it's all Him, all His plan. And if He wills it will be so.

Marie was born in a broken body but God's glory shone all over her. Because she was broken people were healed and the miracle was seen, seen all over her because His fingerprints were all over her.

And it will be the same with this baby. Whatever will be will be and God will give us what we need to make it through it. Still I pray, please let this child be healthy...

And we are blessed. By a baby coming after a storm. Arriving at the end of the season when we sow wheat... a new season, new crop, new baby. A baby coming in October. And I see Luke's eyes twinkle, and I smile, and Josie sings happy, and Sarah has no idea what is about to happen to her. And Marie... well she is with Jesus in Heaven and that is all that matters.

Because the Lord had given, and the Lord has taken away. Things change but in the end it is God and God is love... And blessed be the name of the Lord.

Isn't she beautiful?

2011-04-12T13:46:00.000-06:00

Sunday night Josie lost her very first top front tooth. She had lost both bottom front teeth before but was really excited to loose her top tooth. The Tooth Fairy brought her some earrnings shaped like stars and covered in black rhinestones. I was out of coins so I improvised.

She told me I was the best Tooth Fairy ever. It was nice to see her smile that big! Isn't she beautiful?

Fingerprint Friday...

2011-04-08T14:25:00.000-06:00

And what a blessing things can become. My third baby, a fireball. How God uses her to save me over and over again.

My first blessing, her mind opening. And her Sunday school craft to bless my dining room wall... It is good.

The second blessing. What I learned from her. That being broken is a blessing. That even while broken I can give thanks. That God is, and God is good. And even Jesus, on the night before they jailed him and beat him, and the day before they killed him. He gave thanks...

And he took bread, gave thanks and broke it...
Luke 22:19 NIV

Pin-wheel...

2011-04-07T21:53:00.001-06:00

It feels like spring has finally arrived here. There are more flowers blooming, the trees are budding out. Today I did my big shopping trip and at Wal-Mart got the goodies for the girls Easter baskets.

Well, first I went to the silk flowers. I picked out a white lily for Marie that we will put in her vase Easter morning. I picked out white, purple (her favorite color), and blue (they match her eyes) hydrangea flowers. I sorted through until my bouquet felt right and then Sarah carried them, even though the stems were as long as she is tall.

Then I went to the candy. There are so many toys, so much. So much glitter, and cheap stuffed animals, and too much sugar. None of it felt right. I couldn't find the chocolate crosses I normally buy. I had a very hard time as I sorted through the isles of stuff finding something suitable for a cemetery and a stone. Something that won't blow away in the wind. When Luke and Sarah found me I was nearly in tears with a silly rubber duck in an Easter hat in one hand and a plastic pin-wheel whose stem was filled with gum balls in the other. He asked what was wrong and I really started crying then. Right in the middle of Wal-Mart. People looked at me I'm pretty sure.

I told him that nothing was right, nothing was right for Marie. And I need to do something because this is it. The one thing I can do to care for her now. I can care for that patch of ground, that silver stone. She isn't there but I can keep it nice, I can decorate for the seasons there. I can do something... I wound up getting the pin-wheel.

It's hard to know what to do sometimes so I sort of follow my gut. I think I do the right thing. I know it helps Josie to have Marie included in our holidays. She likes making sure that Marie's "place" is still there. And it is. That empty chair at the table, the shelf with a few t-shirts and pj's on it in the closet, she is in every family portrait that's drawn, and she is everywhere here in our home that whispers memories. There is the creaky place in the hallway I stepped on every night carrying her to bed. I can look out the window and see her still, swinging, by a grapevine that isn't there anymore. I can see her smiling in the swimming pool, I can see her so clearly.

Today was a little rough. It would be nice if stores would have a section for us lost parents... the Easter gifts for your daughter in Heaven aisle. That would be useful. I think the pin-wheel will be nice. Goodness knows there's enough wind here in Eastern Colorado in the springtime to make it spin...

Prayer request...

2011-04-06T14:38:00.002-06:00

Please pray for Abigail. She is having a really hard time lately and could use to be lifted up. I think for their family the most helpful would be just to ask for comfort, peace, guidance for the doctors that Abigail see's, and that her vomiting and pain lessen. Poor sweetheart! She is so strong in smiling through all of this!

Silent...

2011-04-04T14:02:00.000-06:00

I haven't written much lately. I've been quiet, and busy. It's amazing how you get caught up in your day to day life and before you know it a week has flown by. Honestly, time never moved that fast when Rie Rie was here and I see now that that was one of the gifts God gave us. Life was quieter, time moved a little slower, we were able to soak her in.

And lately, it's been busy.

I've been transplanting day lilies, poppies, and mums.

I've been watering sod and digging in soil.

I've been rocking blond headed little girls.

I've been missing Marie... but the ache is different now.

I've been going to Lenten services... I love Lent. It is a season of sorrow but I have learned that the best gifts are sometimes found wrapped in shrouds of pain and sadness.

I've been hanging out with Luke.

I've been praying for my niece.

I've had a million thoughts bounce around in my head and leave me wondering and questioning if I am liking who I am. I can't shake the nagging feeling that I was a better person when Marie was here.

I have made breakfast, lunches and dinners.

I cried when the repairman came and fixed my dishwasher. It was my birthday and it made me so happy it was fixed. They were tears of joy.

I turned 31...

I took the girls to the doctor for well child checks and Sarah got a shot. I also learned that Josie is short for her age.

I started sorting out summer clothes.

I wore flip flops.

I have been walking the dog.

I have been struggling with being consistent as Josie is punished. She disobeyed and chose to ignore what she was asked to do and got in big trouble. She is learning a lesson and I know that it is good, and best for her but it is hard to punish.

I have hugged her a lot to make up for it.

I decorated for Easter and hung a wreath with robin's eggs on the front door. It makes me happy every time I see it.

I have been... and time seems so fast and a little out of control. And it's good, and it's bad. There are things I don't want to miss but at the same time each day is one day closer to Jesus.

Fingerprint Friday... in pictures...

2011-03-25T15:19:00.000-06:00

For me this week... it is the photos on my camera. The moments that God allowed me to capture, for us to remember. Photos are incredibly precious to me now. Josie saved in a moment as a newborn, Sarah tiny and brand new. And they are my only chance to gaze at Marie's face now. Every photo is a blessing, and though I have a million snapshots in my head that I treasure it feels good to have the pictures... the recording of our lives.

My fingerprint this week is us in March, and the moments I was blessed to capture.

At the Butterfly Pavilion for Marie's birthday. Josie's dream has been for a butterfly to land on her finger... I caught the moment...

There were the most beautiful flowers... It is impossible not to think of Marie there among those flowers and the butterflies and all that beauty.

Sarah's personality is really starting to shine through. She loves her new rain boots... this is her after church one Sunday, still dressed up but outside to play!

Sarah is loving lipstick too... the other night I let her do my makeup. She was thrilled with herself.

Another moment. I asked her for a "big smile" and this is what I got. Cheesy, fully of sass, sweet Sarah.

We are celebrating Lent. Josie is doing a paper chain with a link for every day until Easter. Every night after dinner we read the link which has a prayer, a conversation topic, a question etc. and add the link to the chain. We talk about Jesus and the sacrifice and how blessed we are to be saved by grace.

Looking at this picture now I see Marie in her swing... This really symbolises life for us now. She's not really gone, still a part of our family just not physically here. I am incredibly grateful to Jesus. Because of His gift I am able to live with the hope of seeing my little girl again.

Luke hooking up the flatbed trailer. They are pulling the old grapevine's out today. Hauling them off. A new start of sorts, cleaning up. Change is a little scary but I'm ready for them to be gone as most were dead anyway. It will be good to see flowers blooming there this summer...

We are blessed by the work put before us. The grapevines being torn out, a new shop going in. The wheelbarrow is full of bulbs I am going to try replanting (hopefully it will be successful) and I have day lilys and poppy's I salvaged from where the shop went in. Tomorrow I am hoping the weather is nice and I can be outside getting those plants in the ground.

Missing...

2011-03-21T14:27:00.003-06:00

Today I am missing our Marie like crazy. I think it's March, with spring coming on, and memories that do it. I think of her and how the weather getting warmer would have been so good. We wouldn't be trapped inside for winter anymore. I could maybe take her outside and we could sit on the steps.

Marie, March 23 2009. Eating blue marshmallow peeps.

The last March we had Marie with us was rough. She was in the hospital here for pneumonia, it was a scary time. I am so glad we don't have to worry and watch her go through that anymore. It's funny, because now I look back on that time and I am just so sad for her. So sad that my just-two-year-old girl was in a hospital struggling for breath. Sad that she had to fight so hard. Sad that that's what it was like for her. Sad that she's not here.

It's very double edged, rejoicing in where Rie is now and missing her like crazy and just longing to see her at the same time. I feel guilty, I still struggle with not asking God "why?". I work hard to just praise God in His infinite knowledge and power. He had reasons for calling her home, He knows more than I do. I cannot understand and I must trust my Good Father and He is. God is so Good. It's just hard, and sometimes it's a lot of work not to be angry, not to feel sorry for us. I don't want to live that way. I want to be content, I long to accept God's will, and I want to serve gladly, waiting for the day we are all together again.

It is so hard to, when I am missing Marie so much to think that she is four. Four years old already! And I don't know what she would have been like at four. All I know is Marie with tanned skin and light brown hair at almost two and half years old. Marie who still had some baby left in her. Marie that I miss so much it hurts to breath sometimes. Marie...

I miss saying her name, and I repeat it to myself now. Just to keep it familiar on my lips. I think of who she might be, how she would be with her sisters. Then I have to stop myself because for Marie it would have just kept getting worse.

She was doing so good that last summer, but even then the part of her brain that controlled her breath was dying. It would have kept dying. It would have gotten harder for her. I can't bear to think of what she would have had to go through and that is probably why I am so careful to praise God for her healing. She didn't have to suffer through all those might haves. She got to dance instead.

I just miss her. Because she is not four. She is still my baby, just a toddler. And they say the pain gets better. It doesn't. I just get better at dealing with it. At living with it. No matter how much time passes I am still going to have arms that ache to hold Marie. The rest of my life will be that way.

I just have to work at being glad despite it. Sometimes that is really hard work.

Fingerprint Friday...

2011-03-18T09:05:00.001-06:00

Spring...

2011-03-16T14:18:00.000-06:00

Spring is in the air. I can feel it and right now I can't wait to get outside. I am even going to do my windows as an excuse to get out there. That is a big deal.

We are doing well. Sarah hasn't been sleeping the best but she sort of knows how to work Luke and I and we're softies so we pick her up. Trying to quit doing that...

I had Josie's parent teacher confrence last night and she is doing amazing. Socially and academicly she is where she needs to be and I am so happy for that. I worried after going through the Marie being called Home that Josie would struggle. She hasn't been much, and I think we have our wonderful councellor to thank for that. I am so glad that we have him to ask for advice and for guidance as we still try to figure out living.

My crocus are blooming all yellow and they are beautiful. I put a red bandanna on Cooper because he wore his blue one out and he looks pretty handsome (for a dog). Luke is working out at the farm and it won't be long before tractors are rolling, fields needing spraying and millet needs planting. Spring just seems to bloom with new life.

I have been working hard to count my blessings lately and I have so many... I am so grateful that I feel blessed again. It is good. It feels good.

My windows are calling! Happy Wednesday!

Happy...

2011-03-09T15:02:00.000-07:00

Things that have made me happy so far this week...

A little silly in Daddy's chair...

Fruit, washed and ready to eat.

That we even have fresh fruit in early March, and that I have clean water to wash that fruit in. We are blessed and I am thankful.

Strawberries... God really outdid Himself when He made them. And my 30 plus year old Pyrex bowl from an old home-ec classroom in the early seventies. They are invincible.

Day to day...

2011-03-08T14:26:00.000-07:00

Not too much is going on with us right now.

Last week we got ready to celebrate Marie's birthday and poor Josie woke up very early Thursday morning throwing up. I got her cleaned up and back to bed but the entire process woke up Sarah (who is the lightest sleeper ever) and I wound up being up with her for a few hours.

We kept Josie home from school and Luke stayed home as well. Thursday was a quiet day of remembering Marie. We got her balloons and let them go in the cemetery. It was sunny but started to rain just as we were leaving. The flowers at her stone were beautiful and it was wonderful that she was thought of. We left her a birthday bow, and of course, the balloons.

That evening I got sick, Luke fed the girls leftovers and we watched videos of Marie. We don't do it often because in the past it has really hurt to see her. This time it was good and we were all left with smiles on our faces, not just tears in our eyes. I suppose that is the passage of time. The hurt is no less, or any easier to bear, but we are getting better at carrying it. And honestly, I would not choose another cross. It was good to see Marie smiling and laughing, we are so blessed to have those moments recorded.

The stomach flu hit me hard and I was out all day Friday and most of Saturday. Luke stepped right in, and as much as I tease him about how lost he'd be without me the truth is he'd be just fine. He was so wonderful.

We had planned to go to the Butterfly Pavilion in Denver to celebrate Marie's birth with some fun family time but the bug put a stop to that. Josie has this Thursday and Friday off school because our high school girls are going to state with basketball so we are thinking we may go then. I am looking forward to seeing Sarah take it all in, the butterflies, the bugs, just being in a different place. She was so little when we went for Rie's birthday last year.

And, I'll leave with a few photos. My girls are getting so big!

Sarah, all ready to go to the dentist in Fort Collins. She had two teeth coming overlapping and along with nursing at night that caused a cavity. We were referred to a wonderful pediatric dentist up there and they did a temporary filling. When she is three or so they'll put a permanent filling in. Until then they need to monitor it regularly.

Sassy miss... I had to bribe her with the tutu just to get her dressed that day!

Josie with her cousin Kyle's Flat Stanley that was mailed to us from other cousins. We had a hard time saying what Stanley go to see while he was visiting our town! We finally wrote that he got to see tractors, wheat and corn fields, and the co-op elevators!

Thank you all for thinking of our sweet Marie on her birthday. It means so much to us to know that she is remembered!

Four...

2011-03-03T14:28:00.000-07:00

Today she is four. And I have so many questions... how long would her hair be? Would she still love Tinkerbell? Would she be wanting to be more independent? How tall would she have gotten by now?

And then I stop and think... What would her life really be like if she was here now? Would she need oxygen all the time? Would we be in the hospital? Would she still be that wild, smiling, brown skinned girl she was at two that blessed summer when she felt good and we were so happy?

Only God knows. And He decided that she would celebrate her 3rd, and now her 4th birthdays in Heaven.

In Heaven with choirs of angels singing, no sickness, no death, no heartache and no tears. No pain, no night. In Zion....

Happy birthday to you Princess Marie... the day you were born is the most special of my life and I am forever changed by loving you.

Thank you Father for two and almost a half years with this child that humbled us, brought us joy, taught us, bossed us, comforted us while we tried to comfort her. Marie was so... I cannot think of the word but just being near her made you feel good. Thank you for trusting us with the miracle that is your child.

We love you so much Mama... We hope you love your balloons. We can't wait to see you! We will be there soon, until then we know you are safe and more loved than we can even comprehend. Happy birthday Princess, the angels sang the day you were born!

First...

2011-03-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

First buds of spring poking their heads out...

First sign of my crocus'...

First thing in the morning...

First haircut today...

Please say a prayer for Abigail. She was being sedated today to have some tests run... praying for good news from the doctors and that her precious little body handles the sedation well!

Eighteen...

2011-02-28T14:44:00.002-07:00

Eighteen months since we've held you...

Or kissed your feet...

Or seen that smile...

That long since we've hugged you close and breathed you in deep...

We cannot believe that much time has passed since we stared into those eyes...

Or were able to show you the things of this world...

Eighteen months since you've been dancing Marie... Eighteen months you've been home and listening to angels sing... Eighteen months Princess Marie and we love you so much... We'll see you soon and we won't remember the hurt of this being without you... Be good Little Mama... We love you.

Ecclesiastes 3:4
"a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance,"

Why?

2011-02-25T14:36:00.002-07:00

I put Sarah down for her nap and ate lunch. Then I moved down to the basement office, I had bills that needed paid, farm bookwork, I needed to open mail.

I set my iced tea down and reached for the biggest envelope... better to start there right? It was from our health insurance company and I scanned the pages. Me, me, me, Luke, Marie... Marie. Her name, beautiful name. Printed in black and white and a sight that used to be so common. Her folder was over two inches thick from health insurance... all the keeping track I used to do. And the date of service, February 6, 2008... She wasn't even one then. Now it is creeping up on what would be her fourth birthday... That was so long ago.

Three years ago with a sick baby in my arms that couldn't stop vomiting and they told us she was starving to death. She was so tiny at nearly one... I remember it. Only 15 pounds... I held her in my arms all day long, every day back then. She'd cry if I let her go and she hurt... And I remember the doctor appointment they're suddenly billing for, three years late.

We had taken her down for a study, to see if reflux caused her pain. I had to coax her to drink a thick pink mix, so stubborn even then. I remember tiny brown eyebrows scowling at me and us just pleading "come on Marie, just a sip, please Marie..." And the x rays showing her tiny organs, her tiny esophagus down to her stomach and the pink drink coming back up and the pain that reflux must have caused made my heart ache because she was just so small. And nothing was working back then, we didn't know how to help her. That was the day the scheduled surgery for her g-tube and the Nissen. February 6, 2008...

So they billed us this February, for that appointment long ago. I called them and asked why, why now, why three years late. Why on a child that is... deceased. It is a disgusting word. Sliding off my tongue black and oily. Deceased. Evil word, not touching the emotions or the love still carried. Just a vile word.

The woman was so businesslike. She told me the account was closed, zero balance. Then she explained the account is closed because my child is dead. Thank you. Thank you for clearing that up. As though that is a fact that doesn't touch every corner of my heart, shadow every hour of my day, as though I wasn't aware. I told her it was ridiculousness to even get this statement of benefits. I told her when my insurance company received the bill, in 2011. I told her how unhappy we are with Children's Hospital. At every corner they have been too little, to late, to wrong, and they have never apologized. We have been mid-diagnosed, double billed, asked to be studied, we have been moved into dirty rooms, we have notified them in a timely manner and still not heard from their grief program until she was gone six months and we were beginning to learn to live again. But we always get their requests for fundraising dollars, they have no trouble asking for our money. And I told her that we would choose another hospital if we ever needed that kind of care again.

The lady very politely offered to give me an email address that I could use to file my complaint. She did not say she was sorry. I told her it probably doesn't even matter anymore and hung up the phone.

Why? Why today? Why did I get this statement? Why did I have to talk to that woman? What is the lesson I am supposed to learn from this?

It just hurts... because my Marie is gone, baby gone. And I wish her back every day though I know God won't give her and I wouldn't take her if He did because she's Home... but the hurts no less. And what am I supposed to learn from this? Why?

Why this on a heart aching to plan a fourth birthday party instead of wondering how to fill those hours. That day four years ago I labored long and hard and then she was... Marie all dark haired in her Daddy's arms and we didn't know anything bad yet, we were just so happy. Why this reminder as I come up on that day. That she is gone, baby gone.... And she is not just some account. She was Little Mama and we love her...

Why this, why today?

Still here...

2011-02-22T16:03:00.000-07:00

I haven't been posting a lot. Life has seemed so full these last weeks. Today I've been going through pictures... we switched computers over the summer and some that I know we had are gone... even on the disks I had backed up. So I've been sort of obsessing over that.

And Sarah has been demanding attention and I love that she can speak her mind so well! All is ok with us, just busy... I think we are all feeling the anniversary coming next week, and Marie's birthday coming Thursday. It's hard to be without her these days.

I'm going back to my pictures... Until later-

Happy....

2011-02-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

This one...

Is almost always happy...

Silly. She works hard to get everyone laughing.

Lately all she wants to wear are skirts. Anything similar to a tutu or this kitty covered skirt are her favorites.

She loves books and will put a stack in your lap.

She's always in motion.

She's such a blessing and so much fun.

We are so lucky to have our sweet Sarah Kate!

Heavy...

2011-02-14T14:30:00.000-07:00

I feel as though so much lately my heart has just felt heavy. The weight of it is something I can feel, something I have to breath around. I have so many blessings in my life but the sorrows sometimes seem to weigh more.

I have been praying... praying for Clarissa and Joey as they adjust to life with a child called Home. It reminds me of Luke and I in those days. The one's I don't fully remember the happenings but I can't forget the emotions. The weight of Marie's loss heavy in my chest. And it's still there.

I know the hurt, and I hurt still. Time takes on different significance and it keeps passing on. Soon she would have been four... and I try not to let myself but I wonder what Marie would have been at four. Blue eyes laughing? How long would her hair be? Would she still want to cuddle me or would she fight for independence? And I won't know, not this side of Heaven.

And soon she'll have been gone a whole year and a half. How does that even happen? How can it be when I just kissed her goodnight? How? I don't know and I don't like the distance when I think of it and the weight of that feeling is so heavy.

I have been trying to pray, trying to count blessings, trying to see joys and not sorrows. But it's hard. Hard when someone I have come to count among my best friends buries a baby. Hard when I wonder what I'll do when Sarah doens't have any more of Marie's hand-me-downs to wear. Hard when I bring Valentine's roses to a cememtary (complete with fairy wand) for a little girl that isn't here on earth anymore.

Hard when Josie cries... Hard when Sarah doesn't say Marie's name yet, only calling the big sister in the pictures baby.

There is so much to be thankful for, but at moments the weight of the longing is just heavy. I long for Marie but I ache for Clarissa too. That she be able to hold her little boy, that I could somehow ease the pain of it. Even in the sorrow there is beautiful... just bittersweet.

Counting the blessings...

Please pray for Joey and Clarissa and their children as they make their way through there hard days. Ask the Lord bless them with healing, comfort, peace, and the knowledge of His love.

Hard times...

2011-02-14T08:13:00.000-07:00

Please be in prayer for my friend Clarissa and her husband Joey as they grieve the loss of their son Elijah. He was born and called home last Wednesday. These are hard times, dark days. Please ask they feel God's love, comfort, and peace during this time. Thank you!

Change...

2011-02-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I am still completely amazed at the world and how it just keeps turning. Time marching forward, events of my life pulling me on. In some ways I want to fight it and stay still, I want to hold close the last time I had Marie and not let it go.

Then I realize. There is no benefit in that. Not for her, not for me, not for the other girls. I have to move forward... one foot. In front of the other.

This morning we were driving and I was looking out the window at cold plains, brown grass, frozen trees. Flying by outside my window and Luke talking, saying something. The sun shining but still the cold, cold of February. These brown grasses, they looked this way last year and the year before that.

They will look brown and dry in the February sun next winter. Somethings don't change. The farm fields stretch on and the sky is blue and the wind blows cold. It doesn't change. Even though time pulls forward it doesn't change. And my feelings don't change. And my love doesn't change. And His love doesn't change and that. That is very good.

I am so grateful today the wind doesn't blow like that in Heaven. Marie will never know the bite of February wind again and for that I am happy. The wind always stole her breath away... and I'm comforted that my little girl doesn't feel the wind like I felt today in Heaven.

Calling for prayers...

2011-02-06T19:21:00.000-07:00

For my friend Clarissa. She is having some complications with her baby and is hospitalized right now. Please lift her up and ask for comfort and peace!

Busy days...

2011-02-02T17:16:00.000-07:00

We have found ourselves very busy in the last week...
Celebrating...

Finally figuring out the stairs...

Trying out our new rain boots...

Being fabulous...

Getting spoiled...

Eating cake...

Hanging out...

Getting attacked by the tickle monster...

Becoming the tickle monster!

And of course... remembering our Marie. With Josie turning seven it was a celebration without her and we missed our Little Mama...

Seven....

2011-01-27T14:19:00.000-07:00

She is... seven... today. Where have those years gone? So much life lived and she's becoming someone really amazing. Today I am filled with gratitude for my fierce independent one. My girly, lip syncing to Taylor Swift, anything with chocolate please, just like me, artistic, smart, funny little girl.

Happy birthday Josephine, I thank God for you every day!

Amazing...

2011-01-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

The last week has been filled with events that have caused me to pause. I have spent a large portion of time in thought about so many things. While my hands have worked my mind has questioned, it has pondered, I have felt anger, peace, and ultimately joy.

And then over the weekend Josie became the teacher and I the student. On Saturday night I put Sarah down and went into Josie's room to pray. She was sitting in her bed with an enormous smile on her face. She was so excited. She said "You know Mom, when you think about all the things that God has done, all the things He has made isn't it just amazing? And that He sent Jesus for us because He loves us that much, AMAZING! God is just amazing Mama... I love thinking about Him and all the things He has done."

Just like that I was schooled. Who am I to question? Who am I? It is indeed amazing. It is amazing what He has done, what He will do. And I am overjoyed to hear those words from a little girl who has lost her sister, a child who has seen the hard edge of life. She has gone through it and still she rejoices. I have so much to learn from her.

Please continue praying...

2011-01-22T15:49:00.000-07:00

Please if you can find the time today visit Abigail's site. She continues to fight a fever and now is struggling with a nasty cough. Like Marie, Abigail's body does not have the resources to fight a virus well. Please pray for her, and for strength for her parents.

Thank you,

Shan

Fingerprint Friday and an urgent prayer request!

2011-01-21T11:22:00.000-07:00

First and foremost, please pray for Princess Abigail. Little Miss is fighting a nasty bug and having a very rough time today! Also, please visit her CaringBridge page and leave her family some words of support. Let them know you are praying! They are going through so much right now and every time we have struggled your words have given us strength and helped us carry one. Let's do the same for them!

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? Here's how to join.

This week my fingerprint is the snapshots of our life. Nothing too fancy, just the day to day of us. I treasure the routine. After being on a roller coaster with Marie and our days being dictated by worry and wondering when the bottom would all fall out I promised God I would never complain about boredom again.

So, here's to the same ol', same ol'. The dishes in the sink, the walk that needs shoveled, the laundry that needs folded and the day to day. I am so grateful today that Princess Marie dances in Heaven and no matter how much I miss her, I am so glad I don't have to worry for her anymore.

Playing in the snow the beginning of this month...

Marie's photo in the dining room and an angel someone gave us when she went Home. I like having the photo there. From where I sit it's almost as if she's at the table with us.

All diva, all the time.

Silly...

Driving Josie crazy...

The ice storm this week. It was beautiful. As though God had angels paint each branch.

Marie's flower covered in frost. So delicate and like her, obviously crafted by the Master's hand.

Lord...

2011-01-20T14:08:00.001-07:00

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.

Romans 8: 26-27

For the last two days I have been trying to pray for a friend. A wonderful woman, who is a sister in Christ but also a sister of my heart as she walks my road. She loves a daughter like my daughter... She is so strong but life happens and her feet have been knocked from beneath her I know... And there's nothing that anyone can do to take away the hurt and the sting that I am sure she is going through and I want to do something. Pray.

And I have so many words in my heart and head bursting for release and I sit to pray... All I can say is "Lord..." And I have so much else but don't say it. Just that one word, saying it in desperation, saying it when you don't know what else to say. It encompasses the why?, the please, the now, how?, the miracle...

And the Book tells me it is enough.

"Lord..."

Pray...

2011-01-19T14:29:00.000-07:00

Ice coats everything today. From bare branches to side streets to the steel flowers blooming in my garden. It is cold. The highways are slick, the roads too bad for Luke to drive the semi as he takes millet we've stored to the elevator. There's it's sold and it rides trains east or west to big cities, to feed people, but not our grain. Not today anyway. Tomorrow he will haul again.

And the ice brings quiet. And time for thought. And time for reading. Today I was reading the writings of Ann Voskamp. Her words bring a peace to my soul. She talked about praying. She wrote the words “The only thing that prevents me from praying more is me.”

I hang my head with her, ashamed. I want to commune with Jesus, I long to lay my head at the Lord's feet and find the stillness there. So why don't I do it more? It is my own fault. Because I feel the toys need gathering, the counters wiped down, the washing machine filled and emptied again. This morning I made time for a tea party with my littlest princess, but I did not make time for my God.

I whisper silent one sentence prayers through a day, I pray at night asking for safety, that He guard my sleeping children. As I think of people here and there I ask God to see to them. But rarely am I still. Rarely do I kneed silent before Him and listen to what He has to say. I fill the Lords day with my words, never pausing for His.

I want to be a better woman... A better daughter. How could I keep forgetting to spend time with my Father? I want to sit silently and learn the lessons from He who formed the world. The one who sees Marie before Him.

I know I am blessed by His telling me things very clearly at times. The Lord has put His words inside my head at times in my life telling me simply what I am to do right now. He always stops me in my tracks and I am filled with gratitude at the presence of Him. If I would take the time to sit quietly with Him more often would I get to hear His voice more?

I wonder, and I am humbled... And I am going to try so very, very hard to pray more. Or just sit, being still with God.

Done...

2011-01-18T11:16:00.002-07:00

I am done with that woman who has the cold voice. I finished with her this morning. After talking to the husband, and his father it became aware that I was taken yesterday. She was calling to sell insurance. It was not something decided but something she was pushing, making me think that I needed to do it. And from there she invaded our accounts. We didn't need to talk about beneficiaries, it wasn't the reason for her call. But she took it there.

And I didn't need to tell her about our Marie, my father in law told them at the office, a long time ago.

And that made me a little mad. So I called and talked to the man in charge. I told him how that call made me feel... How it upset me, and upset my husband, and upset his father. All so she could sell some insurance.

And she isn't handling our accounts anymore.

In the words of Sarah Palin "you don't mess with a Mama Grizzly". Or the mother of a special needs child. My ability to tolerate being pushed around was maxed out a long time ago and I am still fierce about protecting us.

The telling...

2011-01-17T16:36:00.003-07:00

I woke this morning scratchy throat sore, face aching. Sick. I push on, I don't like slowing down. No resting, regular day.

After lunch our phone rings... A woman's voice, asking about life insurance. Ahhh, the work of a farmers wife. And I talk to her about this and that, for the farm. For it's interests. She is a financial adviser after all, it is her business the details of the farm somehow, her voice seems cold.

After her talk of this and that I ask her... we have money scraped together. Saved carefully for college educations. Dreams for the far future where I am still afraid to dream. For my daughters, their beginning. What to do with this money? How do we save for Sarah, add to Josie's or open a new account? Because we do this when they are one... and when Marie turned one things were different and we did not save for her far future, we were just loving her and taking care of her for that day. And she asks me, how many children do you have now?

The world slows its spinning and I reach a hand for the dining room table because I need to hold on. Three, I say, but only two here.

What about beneficiaries, of our accounts. This is after all about farm business, not about babies. You are saving she says, for Josie and Sarah. What about Marie. I have Josie and Marie listed as beneficiaries.

What about Marie indeed? Marie who dances with the angels and sings praises in the gleaming city that is Heaven.

Marie has passed on I say, choking and gulping out the words. Leaning my forehead against the cool glass of the window. Wishing this wasn't happening. The telling. The telling that my baby, Little Mama is gone.

Well, the cold voiced woman says, she'll need to be removed as your beneficiary seeing as she has passed away. She does not say she is sorry.

Not away, just to Heaven! I scream silent in my head.

How do I spell Sarah, what is her birthday? On and on goes the cold voiced woman who's world seems to me a place of facts, figures, values. Not my world. Not the world of the lives we are discussing. That world is faith, soil, sun warmed earth, wheat golden, children smiling, Marie dancing... somehow my vision of here is blurred with my hopes of Heaven.

She says a few more times this and that, what we must do. Because of course, Marie has passed away. (She keeps saying it. Lord please, make her stop saying it.) Marie must be removed because she is not now. And I stumble and mumble my way through. And I hang up the phone and my tears fall hot, collapsed at my desk, holding my smallest baby on my lap.

Because the telling, the TELLING. It has exhausted me. Because I have just had to tell that my girl died. The biggest wish of don't happen came true and I am here and Marie is not now. And tears fall hot, choking my sore throat and I am back to the days and weeks of after Marie when I had to do the telling to the insurance, the hospitals, the plan makers. And the hurt, the hurt of it all.

Shaking hands call Luke and I cry to him, hot tears, spilling pain. And he whispers hushed comforts and I hold the littlest on my lap.

And I cry hot tears and rain falls wet in January...

Even though Marie is not now Jesus still is. He was before her birth, He was with us when we were with her, He was after, He is now. Jesus stays the same. And white knuckled I cling to him, crying silent. Jesus is the same... and He will be the same tomorrow. And for me that is enough.

Fingerprint Friday... Seven years...

2011-01-14T13:08:00.000-07:00

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...

To join check out Beki at The Rusted Chain!

My fingerprint this week...

Seven years ago. So young, ready to have a baby. Luke and I signed a marriage license in that tiny apartment in a college town. His giving in to me, wanting to be married somehow before the baby came. Holding hands, the future totally unknown.

I look back now at that younger girl and I want to protect her. To hold her tight, to try to shield her from the world to come. But I can't, and it wouldn't be for the best. I think the best things in me were learned during my trials and that girl is young. I like the woman she's become.

And I like the man that he's become. The safe place, strong arms. Calloused hands that have held our babies; hands that gently touched a cheek, telling one baby goodbye. Hands that have folded in prayer more times than I can count. The wrinkles on his face tell the story of the years we've been through and the gray in his hair shows the weight's his shoulders have carried.

I cannot believe it's seven years and at the same time it sounds so little. I've lived a lifetime by his side already...

God has blessed me with a wonderful partner to walk with. After all we've been through I can say completely that I would choose no other. Whatever may come, how difficult it may be, with you I can make it. Seven years... I love you more now, stronger now, fiercer now... You are His fingerprint.

Fingerprint Friday... Lean...

2011-01-07T14:05:00.000-07:00

If you would like to join in on Fingerprint Friday hosted by Beki at The Rusted Chain go here to learn how. My fingerprint is way down at the bottom... There's a lot of explanation in getting to it.

This week... Hmmm. The year is still feeling raw. Josie is having a hard time, both in missing Marie and with friends at school. Luke has been busy a lot helping his cousin and so I've had a good bit of quiet time on my own. I've been feeling a little lost, a little worried for Jo, missing our Rie a lot...

I started reading the book Heaven Is For Real: A little boys astounding story of his trip to Heaven and back. The story was written by a pastor one town over from here. His son had a terrible bout with appendicitis, the doctors missed it and they nearly lost him. The book is well written and it grabbed me, pulling me into the story. Until I got to the end of chapter 4 or 5. I can't remember which. There the man realizes his prayer for his son to survive, to be healed, to live, it has been answered.

The pastor ends the chapter with this: "And Jesus answered my prayer? Personally? After I had yelled at God, chastising him, questioning his wisdom and his faithfulness?
Why would God even answer a prayer like that? And how did I deserve his mercy?"

Right about there I put the book down and burst into tears. Because I've been there, done that. I have had the same prayer and God answered but not the way I hoped for. No miraculous healing on earth for us. And I have stuggled just like that man. I have screamed at God "why won't you let her sleep, why can't she have some peace?" I have begged to God "please, heal her. I know you can. Do something old testament and powerful Father." I have envied. The woman who bled for twelve years and was healed by just grasping Jesus' robe? Why was she lucky enough to be there? If I could have touched that robe I would have asked nothing for me, but healing for my daughter. The girl that Jesus brought back to life? Why not my child? I have cried "Lord, where are you? Why are we so lost?". I have believed, clinging to the Truth as it's been taught to me until my knuckles have all but bled. I have put so much effort into accepting His will, but my child is gone. She is in Heaven and I can't touch her, see her, kiss her. And that is hard, because I can't. And this pastor can, why him? Why not me?

One morning in August, in the middle of our big bed, the Lord was in my house. He picked up my little girl and he brought her Home. Home to Heaven. And I KNOW He healed her. I know she is safe, and where she is it is better than here. I'm so happy for her. But the ache is because she is not here. My prayers for healing were answered, but that answer required that my little girl go to another place. And we were left here still, left without her. And I know it's temporary, but man. When you are in the trenches of grief it feels like it's going to be a very, very long time.

And this man's prayer was answered. Just as he had asked. Mine was answered too, but not like I wanted it to be. And I am maybe a little jealous of that.

So in tears I grabbed the phone and called my Pastor. Because he has answers. He listens to me, and he doesnt' judge. And I was weak and I needed something lean on.

I asked him if he'd read the book. He said he had. I asked him if he thought it was a good idea for me to read it. He told me no, don't finish it. He explained the story is based on that families experience and their son's life, and that boy has his own purpose. The book is written on that singular touch with God. It can't be related to mine, to my daughter, to our family. Marie's purpose was not the same.

And I'm not going to finish the book.

Not because it isn't a good book. I think it is, it has a good message. I question some of it, wonder if the story hasn't been distorted a little by this world. But the story is good and hopefully it reaches someone and brings them to, or back to their faith. But it's not for me.

My fingerprint today? My Pastor. Who was just a phone call away and there when I needed him. And our church, our church family who has been so consistently there. We are really blessed in that. That support.

What do people do when they go through hard things without a church to lean on? A pastor to lean on? That must be really difficult.

So my fingerprint today it my Pastor. Thank you. And my fingerprint is a prayer, "Lord, please help all your children to find your church and help them to call it home. Please let them find the blessings I have found there. Please let them see the importance of gathering together and spending time in your house. And thank you for giving that gift to me. In Jesus name, Amen".

Happy New Year...

2011-01-05T17:18:00.002-07:00

So it begins. 2011. We have been struggling with it some here. The year still feels a little raw. It feels a little emotional. Josie had a hard day the day after New Years. She pointed out that Marie would have been four in 2011... instead we enter a new year without her. Some days there is a great deal of try in our getting through. You try to smile, try to act like it's okay, try to find peace, try to accept God's will whatever it may be.

Other days it's much easier.

I have thought a lot about making this year better. Not so lost, not so confused. I want to try to move forward with acceptance this year. I want to be a better wife, better mother, better friend. I want to be a good parent to Marie still, I want to be a good steward to her memory. I want to maybe get rid of the wight I gained last year. It's a combination of baby weight and grief weight and maybe I would feel better if I lost it.

I want to embrace this year. I want to give myself permission to feel joy, pain, sorrow, peace. I often am too hard on myself and how I cope. I want to work on being nicer to me.

I wish all of you a blessed new year. May 2011 be a beautiful year.

Snow...

2010-12-31T10:11:00.000-07:00

We have been praying and praying for it. Since we drilled wheat in September almost no moisture has come. The fields have been dry, the dust blowing. We got an inch or so the beginning of December but not enough to make a difference. Until now. The last day of the year, the first real snow of the winter. Thank you Lord!!!

Cope...

2010-12-27T23:08:00.001-07:00

"How did you cope with a loss and a birth at the same time". This question was asked by a beautiful woman named Rachel who's writing has carried me over the last year. She writes of the most inspiring things... Her blog is called Waiting for Morning. My friend Brooke told me to visit her blog a long time ago and read this post about a lemon tree. I cannot count how many times I have thought to myself, I have been cut but my roots are growing deeper. I will push through this. I can do this. The lemon tree has given me so much strength and I am grateful she wrote it. And if you're reading this, thank you Brooke.

At any rate, it turns out that Rachel reads my blog and she left a comment and asked "How did you cope with a loss and a birth at the same time". It is the first time that anyone has asked me this. I cannot believe it is the first time anyone has ever asked. And yet I wonder, how can the whole world not think it? Sarah was born, less than 24 hours later God came and whispered in Marie's ear and she got up and followed Him Home. Who does that happen to? Who has to deal with that? And the truth is, I don't really know how I cope. I don't fit in anymore among the mother's who have never lost a child, but even among those who have I cannot help but feel that I am somehow different. Just because of how it happened, how God twined my daughters together, how His plan fell into place.

There are moments. Real. Honest. Horrible. Moments when the pain is so intense that my chest seems split in two and I scream in a voice that scares me because it is too much and to terrible to comprehend. The baby, the beautiful little brown haired girl that I carried inside me, the princess that I could not get enough of, the hand I held constantly for two years, five months and twenty five days... she is gone. And on Christmas morning I screamed in a cemetery. I clung to Luke's fleece jacket and screeched in a voice that is not my own because sometimes it hurts that much.

Then I took a deep breath. I wiped the tears on the back of my hand, I wrapped my scarf tighter, fluffed my hair, blew a kiss to Heaven and told that little girl I love her, and I got back in the car with the other two and held it together.

How do you cope with loss and birth at the same time? To have one arrive and barely have celebrated it and have your heart ripped out at the others leaving is surreal. I did not put Sarah down for weeks. Rarely did I let her out of my arms. I held her like a lifeline. I rocked and crooned and cried and held on to that tiny baby with everything I had. And Josie... she was so lost. And who could tell her no to anything after her sister had just gone. She developed a huge attitude and I was having to deal with her, and worry about her, and try to keep it together enough that she would be okay. And Luke was so lost and my heart hurt so much for him because Marie was his. His baby. And his baby was gone.

I don't know how we made it through that. Still make it through that, because we still have to. Every day we still have to make it through. I dreaded being asked how old Sarah was, because answering meant telling them just how long it had been since Marie was gone. I am so grateful now because I can just say "Sarah is one". I don't have to tell them it's been almost 16 months...

My body was so confused for a long time. The pain of recovering from Sarah's birth was sharper, the cramps crueler. My legs ached, my back hurt, my womb felt like it was being pierced by a knife. I think my ability to handle the normal pain of recovering from childbirth was just not there. I was not able to move through the pain as well. I would look in the mirror and despite having Sarah in my arms I couldn't comprehend that I was not still pregnant. The grief of loosing Marie took so much energy to process I never really came to grips with the fact that I had just had a baby. It took me a long time, and Sarah was probably eight months old before I really absorbed that I was not pregnant anymore and in passing I was no longer shocked to see my profile. Sarah was probably eight months before I really began to rejoice in that tiny little white-blond haired girl. The easy baby with an easy smile. It is horrible to say that it took me that long to really celebrate her. Oh, I loved her so much from her first breath but my heart was too broken to celebrate much of anything for a very long time. Praise God for her health, yes. Thank God for her being there because I knew she was saving me, yes. Coo, kiss, cuddle, sing to, play with, oh yes. But really celebrate with joy in my heart? A long time coming.

How do you say hello to one and goodbye to another? For twenty minuets our three girls were together in one room on earth, then Luke took the big girls home and they have not been together since. I dislike very much being a family of four here. I dislike very much when people point out the large age difference between the two children they see. Six and one? What a space! I want to scream at them, I have a three year old! But how can they know?

I have gotten much better at just letting things go. I tell people about Marie only if they seem worthy of knowing about my special little girl. The one who was "made for so much more than all of this".

How do you cope? Tonight it is after ten pm and Josie cried when I prayed with her at bedtime because we saw Tangled and in that movie the King and Queen lost their Princess and we have lost our Princess too... And she cried because she has a whole life to live before she goes to Heaven and she is not very happy about being away from her sister for such a long time. She is more than I little jealous that Luke and I do not have as many years left. How do you cope?

I don't think we do. I think that God carries me when the pain from my broken heart is too much and my legs are too weak. I feel Jesus near when I am shaken and yet need the strength from somewhere to pretend that I am not. When it is all too much I know the shade from the shadow of His wings and I hide there (Psalm 57:1). Our faith has become more of a desperate thing, so much simpler though, and so much deeper. I cling to the Word in a way I never did before.

I have no idea how I got from August, 2009 to where I am now; teetering on the edge of 2011. How am I the mother of an almost seven year old and a feisty one year old? How can my beloved brown haired girl have spent two Christmas' in Heaven rejoicing among the angels? Life is a funny thing. It has taken turns that I did not expect, and somehow I have made it through what I once believed would kill me.

I am blessed by a deeper appreciation for so much. For the miracle of my children, for the scent of their hair and their being here to hug. I am so taken with my husband. The man I was made by God for. His strength and his quiet determination. His annoying desire to tease me when I am sad until I get either angry or smile. His being there for me in ways I had no idea that a man ever could, and for the father I have been blessed to see him become.

I don't know how we make it through the troubles... I have been carried, sheltered, held. I am blessed to have seen God at work in my life and to have felt His hand on me. I love Jesus so much more than I could have imagined... and I believe Him when He says:

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world." John 16:33

Does it answer the question, How did you cope with a loss and a birth at the same time? I don't know. I don't have an answer I suppose because I don't think I coped. Somehow we just made it through, and every day we make it through another day. I hope that I am like the lemon tree because my roots are deeper and I feel stronger. My branches are beginning to stretch skyward again... and someday, just maybe I will bear fruit. And just like the birth and the loss, just like a lemon, I know that the fruit will be bittersweet.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-21T15:21:00.000-07:00

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!

Favorite picture...

2010-12-14T14:41:00.000-07:00

My favorite picture of 2010... I think it is this one:

Just her... sitting there on 30 year old concrete... In the sun and wind and the grass green. Her daydreams that remind me of young. The things I knew before I knew things. The watching of ants, the tickle of the tall grass, the whisper of summer winds. Her hair matching the golden wheat, long blond, soft as gold. Sun-kissed skin, plastic beads dancing on her wrist. This is my blessing, my child... The feel of sun on her back in a quiet moment of reflection... As it has been a year of reflection, a thinking time, a healing time. God's love on us like sun's heat on cotton shirts... Summer day heat, hope, home...

A Monday in December...

2010-12-13T14:51:00.002-07:00

We had a good weekend. Saturday we were around the house, Josie and I made some fudge. I spent some time working on a few projects I wanted to finish. Luke and Sarah have been fighting a cold so they rested, took it easy. After how busy November was I am enjoying these slower days. Yesterday was really nice so we got outside and went for a nice walk at the fishing pond. I got a couple of really good shots of the girls and Cooper had a good time running.

We have the house decorated for Christmas, and I am so grateful to have a lift in my heart this season. Last year Christmas was pretty tough... December's have been hard for the last few years.

In December, 2007 we got the confirmation that Marie had Leigh's Disease. It was overwhelming... Looking back now Luke and I were talking about how little she was. Only nine months old and tiny. I remember the drive home from Denver sitting in the back of the car with her. Talking about what we would do now...

Marie 3 years ago today...

Marie had some very rough days. When we turned her care fully over to God, along with our wonderful Dr J and the brilliant neurologist Dr M she stabilized. She thrived then and in God's hands, without the meddling of so many physicians we got to see her smile and enjoy her very, very good months before she was called home.

Some days it is still very hard to believe that she's gone. So hard to believe that Marie has been in Heaven for over a year... In so many ways I feel like I just kissed her goodnight a moment ago.

December's have been hard, but there is so much to celebrate too... It feels good to be able to find some joy this season. I was so very lost last year.

Chocolate Pudding Cake...

2010-12-06T08:34:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I chatted briefly with my friend Clarissa about a cake that I make often. It's become one of those desserts that has a lot of memories and emotions tied to it for us.

The original recipe was typed on a typewriter sometime after Luke's Grandmother and Grandfather were married in the early 40's. It was so weathered and used that when she made me a copy not long after Luke and I were married it didn't copy well and my recipe has her hand typing with smudges from the years.

I have made this cake for birthdays (it is one of my Father-In-Laws favorites). I have made this cake on snowy days (it is at it's best eaten warm). Josie and I have made it together. I have made it alone in a huge hurry to have something on hand for this or that occasion. One of the last times I made it was for the second birthday of Princess Marie. She adored chocolate, and her Great-Grandma's Chocolate Pudding Cake was perfect for her.

This cake recipe is something special, made again and again by at least three generations of women in my husbands family. It has stood through 70 plus years of changing tastes, and really, I've never found anything quite like it.

Chocolate Pudding Cake

1 C flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 C granulated sugar
2 tbsp cocoa
1/2 C milk (or water, or orange juice, or 1 egg plus enough water to make half cup)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp shortening, melted
1/2 C walnut meats (optional)
   3/4 C brown sugar
     1/4 C cocoa
     1 3/4 C very hot water

Sift together flour, baking powder, salt, sugar, and cocoa. Add 1/2 C milk/water, vanilla, and shortening; mix until smooth (will be very thick). Add nut meats. Pour into greased 8 inch square pan. Mix brown sugar and cocoa, sprinkle over cake batter. Pour hot water over entire batter. Bake in moderate oven (350) for 40-45 minuets (cake will not be "set" when fully cooked).

This recipe gives you a cake on top, and a creamy chocolate "pudding" below.

Fingerprint Friday...

2010-12-03T13:05:00.001-07:00

I am finally getting around to participating in Fingerprint Friday again, a little event that I love. It is so cool to visit the different blogs and see God working in peoples lives...

To learn how to participate in Fingerprint Friday please go here.

"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"

That really says it all doesn't it? Is my Josephine a special soul or what?

Chocolate and Memories...

2010-11-30T14:10:00.000-07:00

I was remembering kisses. I used to bribe Marie with them to get chores done. Vacuum house= three kisses, vacuum stairs= one kiss, bake cookies= five kisses plus however many chocolate chips she managed to get Josie to give her, clean bathroom= two kisses. Rie would hold them on her tongue as the bits of chocolate would melt, she would almost hum "mmmmm". She would be so excited when we would unwrap the foil. She knew her chocolate was in there. We don't buy kisses anymore.

I was remembering how much Rie enjoyed things. Loved her chocolate, loved mac n cheese, hot dogs. Loved playing in tents with Josie. Whatever it was she approached it with the most pure happiness. And we got to experience that too. In some ways life was much simpler when Marie was here. Our good and bad days were based only on how she was doing. All the other details of life faded into the background.

I do not recall much worry wasted on our bank balance, or on the wheat, or on all these outside things. Days were good if Marie was good, if she wasn't okay we worried about her. I am grateful Lord that I no longer have to worry about her... I do miss her like crazy though.

I am so thankful God for memories, remembering is like spending time with her. I can close my eye and remember her joy in eating bits of Hershey kiss and I am given a few minuets of time with my girl. I can glance back at Sarah sleeping in the car seat and catch a glimpse of Maire's face as she dreams. I brush Josie's hair and for a second instead of being the color of ripened wheat it's darker brown and full of ringlets and Little Mama is scowling at me for doing it. Only for a second, but I am so grateful or the seconds that come, it is like spending time with her.

Thanksgiving was nice, we traveled and it's good to be home. We got to spend time with my girlfriends from college and it was so good to be there with them. With their children. To watch them play...

Sarah has cut those little teeth right in front of the molars, top and bottom. Both came in last week and she was cranky and not sleeping well. Josie cut her hair off and it's pixie cute. She looks so grown up with her new hair-do. I am trying to get my Christmas cards together...

It's been 15 months since I kissed my Rie... I'm not feeling that raw hurt anymore but my goodness! Do I ever miss that baby...

Thankful...

2010-11-22T22:09:00.004-07:00

This year I feel real gratitude. I can say I am thankful and I can mean it. Last year I was so lost, my heart was so broken... This year I am thankful.

I am thankful for the way we have healed in a years time. It is not a complete healing, there are times when my broken heart aches with a nearly unbearable pain, but it is a better place.

Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.

Jeremiah 17:14

I am thankful for the peace that has taken the place of despair in my heart. There are times when I feel broken, when despair fills me. But it is always replaced with the feeling of peace that passes understanding, and I now know exactly how it feels to be carried by my Lord.

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

John 14:27

I am thankful for my two beautiful girls, Josie and Sarah, who bring me so much joy. I am humbled that I was trusted with Marie, my princess in Heaven. From her we were given so much. I would welcome them all again and again.

I am thankful for the people that have surrounded us in the last year. Through them we have felt so much love, be carried so many times. I am so grateful for the friends and family that surround us.

I am thankful every time I hear Sarah say the word "Mama..." Josie call me "Mom" or sass me with "Mother". I cannot wait to hear Marie utter that word when I see her in Heaven.

I am thankful for my husband. I am so blessed that the last year has brought us closer together rather than driving us further apart. We have God's hand upon us. Never once has there been a resentment held, a word of blame cast... Together we have rejoiced at the highest of highs and cried at the lowest of lows.

His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely. This is my lover, this my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.

Song of Solomon 5:16

This year I am grateful to have grown and matured in my faith as a daughter of God, a woman of Christ. I am grateful for my Savior who gave His life for me. I am humbled at the love that I have seen over and over with my own eyes. I am thankful that traces of doubt have been replaced with conviction, faith, belief in what I am told.

Every day I miss Marie, every day I think of her and what it would be like if she were still here. I imagine her face at nearly four years old. How long her hair would be, if her eyes would still be so blue... In Heaven she is thriving and I am grateful for answered prayers. He healed her after all, "not my will, but Yours be done", and I try to thank God for it every time I pray.

This year my life is so much different from two years ago. It is so much more hopeful than last year. I pray you all have a blessed Thanksgiving. I have said it before and will say it again, in my life I am BLESSED.

Blessed is she who has believed that what the LORD has said to her will be accomplished!"

Luke 1:45

What can you say?

2010-11-17T21:12:00.001-07:00

Yesterday when I went to pick Josie up from school her teacher met me. The moment I saw her on the sidewalk I knew something was up. I told Josie to get in the car with Sarah and Mrs. McK filled me in.

Apparently in science they were studying fish and as part of that the watched the movie Finding Nemo. At the beginning of the movie Nemo's mother dies. Josie could not handle it. Mrs. McK said she was shaking, crying and I am so grateful for this insightful, sensitive woman, she removed her from the classroom where she could grieve in private. She was able to miss her sister and not have the other children watch her cry. I am so glad her teacher was understanding of what she was going through, and more importantly took the time out of her day to let me know what happened.

Josie sat and read a book about penguins while the other kids watched the movie.

We talked about it at dinner that night and Josie said the part of the movie where the mother fish died just brought back to many scary feelings from the day that Marie was called home. What can I say? How do I ease that pain. She's only six. How can I tell her that day, that morning, that phone call, that ride home, those are my own nightmares.

I just told her that I love her so much and Jesus does too. And I love Marie so much even though she doesn't live here anymore. It makes me so sad that Josie was so upset... we seem to just be getting hit by aftershocks lately... What can you say to a little girl missing her sister so much? What can you say to explain that we are so far outside of normal? What can you say? Sometimes, a lot of times, in my life lately there just don't seem to be words...

Josie in July... looking so very small...