A God Who Attends To Me

I just spent most of the last hour crying out in the stillness of my house. It is rare for me to have this quiet time in the morning but obviously God knew that I needed it this morning. There are just these days where I feel like nothing has changed, no good has come out of Brinley's loss. I question and fight, "Do I want this change? Do I want to be refined?" Thank you very much God, but NO!
I read voraciously the stories of people who have suffered great loss and come through it changed and somehow better than before. I guess that part of me just longs to skip over the hard parts and get to the part where I am somehow better than before.
Psalm 66:10-12
"For You, O God, have tested us;
You have refined us as silver is refined.
You brought us into the net.
You have caused men to ride over our heads;
We went through fire and through water;
But you brought us out to rich fullfillment."

There it was right in God's word for me this morning. He is testing me and I am promised that I will be refined and brought to rich fulfillment in the end. I will get there I guess it just feels so very far away and out of reach. Sometimes I feel like a part of me started this blog so that I could encourage others that they can get there. How naive I was because truly I just need that encouragement myself.

When Seasons Change

The leaves are turning here Brinley, our first Fall without you. We are taking family pictures next week in these lovely colors and you will not be in them. I feel like God just spoke to me in this moment that the colors will be lovely in the pictures and they will serve as a reminder for us of you. I have been hoping that the trees will be beautiful. Now I have my confirmation. Looking back I can see how God has been faithful in those confirmations to me. Nathaniel was a boy just like he told me. The Spring was beautiful to remind me of the beauty in your life and that I would have beauty in my life even after your death too. And now I feel like I have been promised beautiful Autumn colors to grace our family pictures to remember that your life goes on Brinley. I miss you girl. I love you and as much as I wish you were here I know that God is using this to prepare our family for eternity just like He promised me shortly after your death.
On a different note God has been revealing to me lately that as bad as I think my circumstances might be at any given time there are still others with fresher pain, with harder trials, and some who don't even rely on the Lord to be on their side when the bottom falls out.
If you haven't found this blog: www.confessionsofacfhusband.com
I hope that you will check it out. They have been heavy on my heart lately.

Would I Change?

I was looking over old photos this weekend and found a collection which I like to call, "A Photo-journalistic View of Brinley's Life." Pictures taken courtesy of her big sister Haley. Haley somehow figured out how to work our camera and snapped these shots instead of alerting me to the fact that her sister was coloring. It seems that along the way she has learned to take better pictures than I do.
At any rate, after coloring all over her face, Brinley stood proudly for a photo shoot such as in this picture...


Then in a flash her modeling career took a turn for the worse as I quickly became involved and shut down the production entirely...




First of all, I would like to say that I am certain that these photos are doctored in some way. I would never harp on my kids when it is obvious that I was being inattentive! You can even see that the tv is on in the background and it doesn't look like children's programming... but let's get back to the main issue here and that is the rule in our house that we color on paper not on ourselves!
Secondly, I would like to share that when Brinley first died and I was finally able to look at our pictures again I was heartbroken that I had yelled at her EVER much less to have it captured in snapshots. I think that that is the adversary's way of making me feel like a bad Mommy. Does he ever get to you in that way? He makes me feel just plain awful over the things that I would chose to do differently now that she is gone.
BUT here is where I see Jesus stepping in for me in a mighty way! I can look at these pictures now and smile at my girl remembering that she put such passion into everything that she did. O.k. maybe that is just a nicer way of saying that she was bull headed, but boy does it make me proud to be her Momma. I can look at these pictures and say that I gave her a beautiful little life while she was here... because we loved her to pieces and, yes, we even disciplined her too. Everything that we did made her who she was and I wouldn't have wanted her any other way.
Would I change the way that I was her Mom looking back... maybe, but I am choosing to focus on now. Those pictures spur me on to have more patience with my other babies. They remind me to enjoy the "messiness" of life instead of getting all worked up when things are not perfect. And they invite me to focus on how Jesus is working in my life rather than on my circumstances.

Not Me Monday!

I did not just sit on the couch watching my children dance to an exercise workout program on t.v. that just wouldn't be me!

6 Months

I don't understand how some days I am so much stronger than others. The 13th of the month is quickly approaching and it will have been 6 months since I last heard her sweet voice. My husband and I both notice that images of her are slowly fading and we are left with the most vivid memories being those that were caught on videotape. I can't close my eyes and hear her voice as well. I have to turn on the video to refresh my mind and hear her call for her mama. I am thankful that at least we have that. My husband relayed that someone who claims to be a "video editing expert" once quipped, "Who would want to watch unedited video of their children?" Maybe just those that have lost someone dear. We could sit and soak up hours of her on the screen grateful that we didn't edit out a laugh or a whine or the way she would twirl in dress-up clothes. Yet a strange part of me hates the videos and the cedar chest in my room full of her clothes and favorite items. I hate them because it is all I have left of my baby girl.
So some days I wake and all day long she is on my mind and I think of how lovely it must be for her in heaven. I think of how I can't wait to be there with her. I think about how I can live my life to please the Lord just so that I will hold her in my arms again. Some days I think on these things. And some days I can only think of how I miss her so.

A Little Bit of Learning

I have always been one of those people who spend a good deal of time looking forward to the future, anticipating what will happen with my family... how my kids will grow, what vacations we will take, what kind of a house we would raise our family in. It wouldn't be far-fetched to say that I would often remark, "Won't it be nice when..." I look back now and think that maybe it was a little bit of a control issue. I truly liked to have everything planned out. I must have driven my husband nearly insane with revisiting our five and ten year plans over and over again. Sometimes I am surprised that he puts up with me, but I'm extremely thankful too!
So one of the hardest things through all of this has been getting a grip on not being in control at all. Completely recognizing that I am no where near in control of life's circumstances has changed me in more ways than one. I won't lie and say that this is the only reason that I tend to shy away from thinking about the future now. Of course I miss Brinley and a huge part of me has had a difficult time finding anything to look forward to after her death. I struggle daily with anticipating a joy filled life and yet knowing that she will no longer be a part of it. However... and here is the good part... I am realizing that the less I long for, or worry over, or try to envision what the future holds for me the more content I am in the moment. I am so thankful that I can sit with my children and love the time that we are sharing together in such a different way than I did before.
Enough of the heavy stuff... my family is going camping this weekend for Labor Day. I am beginning to wonder how we managed tent camping with three wee ones so many times last year. I did miss going this year but I didn't miss someone waking me because they had peed their sleeping bag as I had just dozed off to sleep. And of course it never fails with another one screaming halfway through the night because they aren't sure where they are. It always gives my heart a workout because I am certain that the high pitched alarm indicates that there is an animal of some sort that has made its way into our tent. For some odd reason it is awkward to face the rest of the campers the next morning when your children were the sole reason that the entire campground didn't get any rest! This year we have flashlights and I have explained that they are to be used to check out where they are if they wake in the middle of the night. And as my five-year-old so boldly describes, "So we don't freak out!" Yes this year we don't want anyone to "freak out."
Truth be told I am just grateful to get a chance to hang out with some friends and be away from the routine for a few days. Let's hope that I can enjoy "being in the moment" with my family this weekend... especially when I have to take a little one to pee in a portable toilet in the middle of the night!

A Sweet Day

Today I had a wonderful glimpse of hope for my family's future. Just fyi during the grieving process it is almost impossible to think that one day you will look forward to anything ever again. Somehow the world becomes this bland place and you feel completely apathetic about everything... from what to have for dinner to who the next president will be. So when God leaves an impression on your heart and gives you something to look forward to once again you just cling to it. I have been praying that the Lord will give me a heart for adoption once again. After Brinley died and I delivered Nathaniel six days later, I can remember telling my good friend in the hospital room that Brinley made space for another child in our family. I was convinced that it would be the child that my husband and I always had intentions of adopting.
It didn't take long for me to feel completely apathetic about this life long dream. How could I expect anything more out of myself having just lost my love? I have been crushed feeling like things that were always so important to me meant so little. Today as I was driving my family home from an outing I just felt the Lord pressing me to think about what I might like for the future of my family. It didn't take long for me to discern that He was telling me not to fret so much, that He would light the fire again somewhere along the road of healing, and that adding to our family by way of adoption would be such a wonderful tribute to my sweet Brinley. So tonight I am just clinging to what He has promised me for the future and that one day I will be excited about it again.