From Riches to Rags, and the Glory I Found There

Sometimes we just need to remind ourselves how faithful God is. Because He is. He is  Faithful .     The things He has shared with us through His Word are not empty promises. His words can sustain us and uplift us even in our darkest moments. The promises in His word are something to cherish. His faithfulness endures forever and despite our own failings He never fails.  Because there are days, and we know we all have them, that everything seems so horribly horribly wrong. Days when loss is overwhelming and sadness seems to have no end. And, in the moments of completely confusion and uncertainty we must lean on Him and trust that this too shall pass.  So, when your days are hard and seemingly unbearable praise the Lord for who He is, because even in the darkest most uncertain times, He is always worthy of praise.

Let me start off this post by saying that last night I wrote an entire blog about grief and grieving and then suddenly it all disappeared. POOF! Even though it should have been saved somehow it wasn't and it was all gone. And, for some reason, I wasn't even upset. One of my first thoughts was even "well I guess God didn't want me to post that". But, I did feel like I was supposed to write a post. And what I am about to share with you I really feel like God has laid on my heart. Because I wonder these things, and I struggle with these things and I have hoped that someone would come to me and tell me that I'm normal for thinking them. And I have hoped that I didn't have to speak them out loud because some of them make me feel ashamed. So I am here to confess them first, so you don't have to, and so that you know you are not alone, and maybe so that I know I am not alone either.  So please, read, and try not to feel alone and remember that the One wh...

Changes.....sometimes changes can be completely wonderful things. It seems though, like a lot of things, changes after losing a child can be pretty terrible. But they are inevitable, we go through changes throughout our life and we cannot stop them any more than we can stop the seasons from changing.  We worked extremely hard on the nursery for our first child. And it was so beautiful, and fun...and full of  love. Some days I would just sit in the nursery rocking in the rocking chair holding the little stuffed fox John had picked out especially for the baby. I would rub my stomach and just dream of how wonderful our life was going to be in just a few short weeks.   In some ways it was easier that the nursery was set up for a baby girl and we had a baby boy. Not every part of the nursery reminded me of Kimber, but that didn't take the pain away, for 4 1/2 months after we lost Kimber the nursery just sat there. All the baby items were stored in there, evicted from their pla...

Fairly often, particularly on my rough days, I find myself missing all the things that Kimber never got to experience. Regret is a slippery slope...I do not want to fall into bitterness over "what if"s and "should have"s. So, today is a "Blessing Blog" - of sorts. Let me share with you some of the places that we went with Kimber and some of the experiences we were able to have as a family. Words could not express our pure joy over Kimber. When we announced him to the world their joy was overwhelming. Friends and family cried happily for us, men gave John heavy slaps on the back and hugs. So many people rubbed my belly over the months, greeting him and talking with him from the moment they knew he existed. He brought so much joy, so much happiness, so much love. My sweet Kimber experienced the snow...so much wonderful snow in the few winter months he was here for. I'm sure he knew how much his parents love the snow (especially his Mommy!). We play...

Hello to whoever happens upon this blog post...stay and read a bit...learn something new, or at least something different. We've officially welcomed a new member to our family, an adorable little Labradoodle who we've named Franklin (to go along with the Peanuts theme all our animals have: Schroeder, Belle, Lucy,  Linus). We were on the fence about bringing him home so, thankfully, our friend let us bring him home for a week trial (during which he completely won over my husband, who was against him too begin with!). I, of course, loved him from the very start!  At the end of our week we went away for a weekend and we had a very serious conversation about keeping Franklin. It seems that, after losing a child, even getting a dog is a very difficult thing to do. I definitely struggled with that fact that if we kept Franklin it really closed the door on what our life "should have been". We would never have gotten a puppy if we had a newborn but the harsh reality...

Well it seems that we survived the first round of many holidays without Kimber here. And it was quite an experience,  It started with my 25th birthday on November 23...I hated it. Turning 25 without my son here was terrible. I waited three years to finally have our child and suddenly he was taken from us. The acknowledgement of the year passing by yet again just felt like a slap in the face.  I have wonderful friends and family and amazing husband who planned some wonderful events for me. And they truly helped me through a hard birthday. But, unfortunately, no amount of love and support could take away the hurt of being 25 without my baby in my arms.  But I survived, we got through it.  And then, 5 days later, we experienced our first Thanksgiving without Kimber. Our entire family was in town for the event and everyone seemed to have a wonderful holiday.  I watched my nieces and nephews run around and play together as Grammy and Grumpsy and all th...

My husband, John, and I tried to conceive our first child for over two years. During this time of infertility we struggled with the pain of desperately wanting to be parents but not having a baby of our own. It hurt, it felt like in our hearts we were already parents but we just kept waiting for our child. For two years we struggled with negative emotions that kept trying to dishearten us. We had to learn to fully rely on God, and with that come the acceptance of whatever He had planned for us, even if it meant we wouldn't have children. When we did learn to lean fully on Him everything else fell into place. We did not feel bitter about other women's pregnancies, and we could still find joy in every wonderful baby. It hurt not to be parents, but we woke up every day and made the decision to trust God, to trust He had a plan for us and that our struggles were not in vain. We did this for two years, so we had a lot of practice by the time that we actually became pregnant. It wa...