A true Thanksgiving

A I am struggling with Elijah's delivery date approaching... and just have gone through Thanksgiving, I decided that I was going to make a list of the things that I am "TRULY" thankful for not just this weekend...but "ALL DAY..EVERYDAY".
That way when December 29th comes...I can reflect and get a true perspective of what is important.

Sorry this entry is more for me to organize my thoughts.

Things that I am truly thankful for:
*God's unconditional, never-ending grace, mercy and love.
*My salvation through Jesus
*Children laughing: the kind that makes your belly sore and makes you have tears roll down your face.
*Dandelions-I know they are a weed but I love them.
*Big chunky snowflakes that take minutes to fall to the ground.
*The smell of rain approaching.
*The sight of the Colorado mountains
*Snuggling with my children on a cold Saturday morning and watching cartoons.
*Being here for the little accomplishments that my kids do and seeing the happiness in their faces when I cheer them on.
*God allowing me to conceive my four children
*A warm, safe and loving home
*Food for our family to fill their bellies
*Having long heart-to-heart talks with my daughter "M"
*When my son "I" is crying, once in my harms he stops and lays his head on my shoulder
*Catching a glimpse of the Northern Lights
*Having a loving husband who has stuck with our marriage on this crazy road we are on
*Our pound puppy Shadow
*A bubble bath...alone
*Fountain Mt. Dew
*Good, true friends
*God's word reaching out to me everyday and providing for my needs

Psalm 147
1 Praise the LORD. [a]
How good it is to sing praises to our God,
how pleasant and fitting to praise him!

2 The LORD builds up Jerusalem;
he gathers the exiles of Israel.

3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.

4 He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.

5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.

6 The LORD sustains the humble
but casts the wicked to the ground.

7 Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving;
make music to our God on the harp.

8 He covers the sky with clouds;
he supplies the earth with rain
and makes grass grow on the hills.

Just Breathe

As December is approaching...I have to remind my self to breathe.
I recall the day that we went to the doctor for our "routine" ultrasound. As the ultrasound tech kept asking..."what are you here for again?" I knew something was wrong...but we could not led on, our daughter was right next to us...just breathe...I said to myself, hoping and praying that the little lungs and heart on the screen would move...breathe...God...help this baby breathe. As the terrible news was given to us, and as we prepared for a funeral, I had to remind myself many times to take a breath and...............breathe. The piercing pain in my heart hurt so bad that it literally took my breath away.
Even now as I drive out of town, I have to pass his grave and always look... I have often found myself holding my breath as we pass...I think my brain is networked that way now.

JUST BREATHE

I recently was listening to a interview of Steven Curtis Chapman talking about the death of their daughter...I know I am not going to get the quote right, but he commented on looking at her and praying to God to "breathe life into her body"

And that God did that, but not the way that he was praying for..not in an earthly way(which we pray for)...but in a heavenly way.
A breath of ETERNAL LIFE!

Some things are so simple and matter of fact.
As God did at the "beginning"
Genesis 2:7
from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

It is was so beautiful at "the beginning" I can't even imagine the awesome wonders he does for those joining HIM. Whatever he does or however it happens...I can only believe that is full of wonder, love, and beauty.

A tear and a toy

My daughter "M" and myself had our "date night" last night...we went for our bi-annual hair cut and went for a quick bite to eat after. She has been wanting to also get a birthday present for her brother "I". As we were in Wal-Mart...it began...the what ifs' and what could have beens'. Yes, I am truly thankful to God for the two children that are with me...everyday I am reminded that they could NOT be here with me. And almost weren't...I do also start to remember that I also am missing the memories with two that are in heaven. Not only to hold and tickle and laugh with, but to buy the fun birthday and Christmas presents and to share in the Holiday traditions. I am reminded as I look at all the toys in the aisle that I would be getting gifts for a almost 8y, 4y, 3y, and 2y. UGH....then it begins...my eyes fill up and I try to hide it...from the passersby that are doing there shopping and from my daughter. Though I am quite sure she knew what was up...she tends to feel it too this time of year.
Then God reminds me that all his children are just that HIS...they are not MINE...he allowed me to watch over them for the time allowed, that Elijah and Kate(as my daughter calls him/her)are in the presence of HIM at this very moment. They know no pain just an unmeasurable amount of happiness and love.
And though we are not able to celebrate the way we hoped...we include all of our children in traditions that fit our circumstances.

Somethings we have done to include all of our little ones are:
That every child in our family gets to have a special ornament on the tree each year.

We do special Birthday cakes for each birthday

We buy gifts for our children with us from our children in heaven.

We will buy gifts around the age of our children in heaven and donate to a local charity.

Though these are a few things we do ...I would love to hear of new ideas we can use as new traditions.

AND yes, by the time we got to the check out register...the tears we gone, until I say the family with 4 kids one aisle over...ugh...

My heart of clay

I see so many people around that have such a hard heart, angry and bitter with the way life has played out, giving them a hard heart and not feeling or seeing the pain of others around them. And their hearts filled to the top with despair(sp?) and hate.
When we are children we are full of wonder and innocence. Our hearts are soft to others and we tend to feel the pain that they are feeling, as we get older, life and sin consume us and it corrodes our hearts and tends to make them hard. At least that was what it was like for me...life corroded my heart and made it hard like stone. Once I found Christ and excepted him into my life...a tiny crack appeared, causing the rock like casing to slowly chip away. Love and peace started to fill into my heart making it soft once more.
If one has ever had a chance to work with clay it is quite tricky. Clay must stay smooth and wet to work the best, once dry it begins to crack and can no longer be molded. But the great thing about clay is that if it drys to a rock like state, it can once again be pliable if given the chance to become wet again.
Though my heart was once hardened by this life, I was given the gift of love to change my heart from stone to clay, but my tears though pain moisten my heart and made it pliable enough to be molded into what God wants my heart to look like.

Sometimes all I have to give are tears, no words, no prayer. JUST TEARS!

Tears not only for my pain, but the pain and suffering of others around me, guaranteeing that my heart will stay softened for the purposes that God sets before me.

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.-Psalm 56:8

The beautiful butterfly

NOTE...picture is not of a Monach butterfly, they were moving too fast. But this is one that landed on me.


I love to take pictures of sunsets, clouds, trees, flowers, children, butterflies almost anything. My favorite is to try to capture the beauty of something ordinary but in an unordinary light. I usually carry my camera with me all the time(nothing special just a regular small digital-though I prefer my old fashion 35 mm.) My husband got sick of me talking pictures of 20 trees and things and getting them developed, with the digital I could delete them-though I rarely do.
When you look through that camera everything seems more beautiful and vibrant, the colors pop and the item through the lens takes on its own identity.
I struggle taking pictures of moving things. I love to take pictures of my children, animals or butterflies. Butterflies are the hardest...so fast and delicate, it is difficult to capture this awesome creature.
Ofter my son died, people would send me poems with all sorts of "beliefs" that the butterfly, lighting bug or the like, in the poem was actually the loved one who had passed being a "sign" that they were right there with me. Though this is comforting I don't believe my son came back as a lighting bug or butterfly. I do believe that God created these creatures to show us true beauty, and just for a brief moment show us "HIS" beauty.
My daughter always asks me question(of course I seldom know the answer-thank goodness for Google). She wanted to know about Monarch butterflies, so I began to search. As I read the information, I started to get tears in my eyes, I was saddened to read that this beautiful gift had such a short life. I assumed that they lived for years, but I was mistaken.
The research varies slightly and depending on the source you find,most will say that the adult butterfly only lives about 2-6 weeks.
WHAT?????
How can something so sweet, beautiful and something that so many want to love and enjoy be taken away so quickly...aahh...yah...ok..ok...I get it, I get it. Thank you God for your grand and beautiful gifts, though brief, they are truly a small nap shot of your awesome grace and love and picture of what is to come with you for eternity. Thank you...Thank you!!
As a wise Forest Gump once said,"that's all I have to say about that"

Election Day

Election day is fast approaching....no matter who you are voting for I have some Election Day humor. It is a little naughty, but funny.
My daughter came home from school and was talking about the Election.
She continued to repeat what one of the girls on the playground was saying about the election...
Obama burns the American flag, and McCain wants to teach sex to Kindergartner's.

I really had to not laugh about this one.(at least where she could see me)
Thanks to this little girl at school we got to have a little teachable moment conversation about respect for the American flag and our country along with the liberties we have for others who died and fought for them...oh and the sex talk that was a good one. But I won't get into that one.


HAPPY VOTING!!!

The road less traveled

I often refer to our life with grief as a "journey" or on the "road" that we are on. I do it a lot. And people usually look at me weird, so here is a little insight into my crazy brain. When you are getting ready for a trip you tend to lay out the map and decide the best possible route to your destination. As we get older we are able to "map" out our plans for life, college/no college, married/not married, kids/no kids. The path of life is usually uneventful...like the interstate, many traveling the same way you are, but when you start to decide the next route...the road splits and you are down a different path. But, sometimes we get a detour...a route we did not plan on, which leads you down a totally different road...always with the intent that you will be lead back to the original road.
When we took our beloved trip to Colorado this year we too mapped out our trip...interstate to highway...highway to county road...county road to gravel road...gravel road to the road less traveled. Gravel roads in Colorado are rough...but the roads less traveled are even worse. They are full of rough terrain, rocks, loose dirt, mud, sometimes falling rocks. The worst is the one way up, you can rarely see what is around the next curve. All this builds to fear, uncertainty, concern, sadness, anger, frustration. Grief to me is like this road less traveled. Sometimes we choose this road through poor choices, but usually it is one that we would not choose for ourselves. The way up the road is full of emotion, helping me learn about myself and the person God is molding me to become from this traitorous journey. As we traveled up that road this summer...I kept thinking; "what" are we doing? We had been up this road in the past, but it seemed changed, almost worst than the last time we traveled it, and it was taking us much longer to get to the top. I felt trapped...not able to see anything but this terrible road and the tops of the trees around us...still we continued. At last, we neared the top of the road, but we looked and it was worse. How could the road be worse that when we first started, it seemed like many had turned around and headed back down, never getting to the destination. I can't blame them the road was terrible and how great could the top be? Would it be worth all this beating?
I won't keep you waiting any longer...we made it. Oh how awesome it was at the top. God had truly blessed us with a wonderful view of his majestic creation. The road led to a lake that was crisp and blue with what looked like gold flakes in it. The water appeared slick as ice except for the trout jumping high into the air trying to fill their hungry bellies. The air was so fresh and crisp but not cold. The sky was the bluest sky with only a few billowing white clouds that were so close I felt like I could touch them. And the mountains...what can I say about them...although we were "in" the mountains...there were still more amazing ones further in the distance topped with clean white snow.
Though we never would have chosen this road of grief...God has placed us gently on it, quietly walking beside us, guiding us up the road, knowing that the terrain is rough and sometimes painful. He gives us his encouragement though his word that we will not leave us alone on this road. As we work our way along the road less traveled, we are blessed with the sight of his GLORY at the top.
Remember "the road less traveled" is only there because others have traveling it prior to you, making the way up to grief and their way back down through it.

Matthew 7:14
But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.

Luke 3:5
Every valley shall be filled in,every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,the rough ways smooth.

Psalm 44:18
Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path.

Psalm 119:105
Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light for my path.