I don't plan to blog about the miscarriage forever, but I do plan to be honest about how I feel.  To find peace in what God's teaching me.  There is no other source of peace that I can find and believe me, I've been looking.

Everything I have, everything I do, everything I am  is a miraculous gift from Him.  I have no claim on how blessed my life is, except that I get to live in the blessings.

When God first really opened my heart to this, it didn't ease the pain of the blow I'd received.  Really, God?  First this, and now you're telling me even what I have isn't mine?!?!?  JERK!  But the more I walked that out, the more freedom I felt. The more freedom I'm learning to feel.

In early August TJ and I walked smack dab into the worst day in our lives so far.  The doctor's appointment that was supposed to be full of excitement and anticipation went downhill in an instant when we asked our OB nurse if we could get a quick ultrasound to see how far along we were.   Turns out we weren't... anymore.   There was no itty bitty baby heartbeat where they had once been.   There is nothing, NOTHING, that can prepare you for the feelings you have when you find out you've had a miscarriage.  And honestly, no one EVER talks about it.  Maybe because the words aren't ever enough, they never do justice to the pain, to the heartache, to the self-betrayal you feel.

We seriously had no idea what to do.  We left the office and went to the mall for some odd reason.  We walked around in a daze, bought some unnecessary items, and went home.  Zombies. Walking dead. That's exactly how I felt.  With no signs or symptoms, I had a dead baby inside of me.  How the %^(%# did this happen?  Just the night before Faith had prayed and asked God for a baby with no prompting from me at all.  One of my very close friends had confided in me that God had given her a picture of me pregnant.

In the two days between our doctor's appointment and the procedure I felt "un alive,"  not dead, just not alive. Three days later a coworker told me she was pregnant within weeks of our baby.  Not even a week later my close friend (the same one as above) miscarried.  Everything I thought about how God works was in question. I hated myself and my body for not doing what it was made to do.  People bring food to your house like there's been a funeral, which is kind and stinging at the same time.  I was so sick of people giving me sad faces, of people rubbing my arm and telling me it was going to be alright.  I told TJ that if one more nurse gave me the "poor you" look I was going to punch them.  And I was NOT kidding.

But God continued to speak to me in those dark places.  He told (and tells me, still) that everything good is a huge present from him.  And that nothing I do has anything really to do with me, but His goodness, His grace, His unending Daddy love that wants a heaven-on-earth life for us. At first I kinda took offense the whole notion because I felt like if was playing "backsies" with me He obviously breaking the freaking rules of gift giving.  But then God began re-revealing truths to me about himself.  That he takes ashes and turns them into beauty.  That only he can take sorrow and turn it into joy.  That only God can take my inferior ideas and plans for my own life and turn them into TJ and Faith and our friends and family.

I don't know that I'm getting over the miscarriage at all. I still think about it every. single. day.  When Faith sees a baby and asks if it needs a big sister it crushes me.  Just today she told me that when she's a big sister she will take care of the baby and push them around in the cart at the store; crying in Lowes isn't on my bucket list, but there I was.  I'm just trying to not let Satan have the last laugh.  He comes to kill, steal, and destroy.  God wasn't playing backsies, but He promises to take Satan's most cruel plans and come back with something Satan can even fathom.  I feel like a little kid getting antsy waiting for a parade to start- for God to come down the street with His big booming band and to stop in front of me with some amazingness that's going to knock Satan's socks off.  It might not happen that way, but however it does I can't wait to laugh in Satan's face.

More Prayers

Today Faith was sitting in her carseat talking to God.  We didn't know it at the time, we could just here her talking.  I turned down the radio to hear her talking about an upcoming party for a friend and the rain.   She told God that the rain could stop now because all the flowers were watered so they could grow.  She went on with her conversation with Him.  TJ and I were obviously floored that right there in the backseat Faith felt comfortable talking with God; He is her best buddy.

I just wish I could hear God talking to her.  I wonder if was telling her to stop bossing Him around.  :)

Thankfullness

This morning I woke up to... silence.  Faith spent the night with my parents and TJ left at dark-thirty to go hunting.  I woke up and it was immediately on my mind.  Thankfulness.  And two people kept coming to my mind- not TJ, not Faith although they are friggin' amazing.  But two of the most amazing friends I have.  They are so inspiring and every time I'm around them I feel so encouraged by just being with them.  The cruddy thing is that they live out of state (two different states) so I only get to actually see them when they come home for holidays.  Amanda and Corrie.  They don't even know each other, but I honestly love being around them so much.  If all three of us every got together... whew, it seriously blows my mind to even think about that.  

Corrie's emails- sometimes I want to make a book out of them and read them before I go to bed every night.  They're pure gold.  And like she says, when we connect it's like a "soothing balm."  Corrie never backs down from what she really want to do, even if she has every reason to.  She loves other people's children like they are very own, taking them into her home and giving them a family, what they've never had before.

Proverbs 27:9 

The heartfelt counsel of a friend is as sweet as perfume and incense.

We sat with Amanda and her husband last night and ate dinner and I seriously was in heaven.  They are amazing parents, honest about EVERYTHING, and hilarious.  I miss them and their boys, our incredible god sons.  Amanda is awe-inspiring and a hot tamale.  Just ran her first 1/2 marathon and seriously could be a pin-up model ;)
Proverbs 17:22
 A cheerful heart is good medicine.


TJ and I drove home in silence most of the way home.  I told TJ, "Well, I guess we could just make more friends, but I don't want to."  "But they're not the same," he said.  

And he's right.  Because true friends are hard to come by.  And I feel so incredibly blessed to have a handful.

Love you guys!

Talking To Daddy

Faith prays like she's talking to her daddy.  I love it so much and I can just imagine what God is speaking back to her.  She has actually started her prayers out "Daddy..." before.  I just love that she has such a close relationship with both her dads- TJ and God.  Well, tonight she was praying at dinner time and she started on her first loooooong prayer.  She was just praising God and thanking him for all the things He's done and things He's blessed her with.  My favorite part went like this:
"And God, I just thank you for taking the bad dreams away. And when you do, just go in with Mommy next for her bad dreams.  But You have to give her privacy when she's pee-peeing kapuz that's what we do."
Both TJ and my shoulders were shaking and we were covering our faces to keep from laughing.  How in the world does God stand the cuteness He encounters everyday?!?!?

P.S.  God, I know You've already seen it, You created it for heaven's sake,  but I actually would like some privacy when I pee-pee so thank you in advance for turning the other way when I'm doing my business.

Resolutions? What Resolutions?

This is the real life story of a girl and her resolutions. Please do not shake your head sadly when you read these. I still have two months, right? Ha! 

1. Make something and give it away once a month. I honestly do not even know.  If I have, it hasn't been intentional. 

2. Learn to knit and/or crochet. This is my Thanksgiving break goal. 

3. Work out 3 or 4 days a week. FAILURE 

4. Get our pictures into scrapbook/albums. The hard drive on our computer died a painful death so now I'm just trying to gather up what pictures that I can and I've been pretty successful at finding all the ones of Faith since she's been born. 

5. Contact every immediate family member on their birthday. Actual success here. 

6. Continue losing weight until I reach/go beyond my goal then maintain my goal for the remainder of the year. This one I don't really want to talk about. As you can imagine I gained some this summer. I also decided that my give a dang was busted when the thing happened so I gained back a lot of the weight. I'm working on it again, but I won't even begin to consider this a success until I get back down to where I was before. Then I'll work from there. 

7. Enroll Faith in some kind of MDO. We love our school. We love our teachers. Ms. Andrea is the only teacher I've ever met that you can see at Sam's Club and she kisses my baby and tells her she loves her. 

8. Read more. I've read a lot of books than I was reading. And I'm in a book club. This is just a funny aside- I was talking to a woman this week telling her how one of the only resolutions I'd kept was reading more and she said her too. That her goal had been 100 a year and she was going to make it. I felt about an inch tall. I've read maybe 10. Every person's victory is different huh? :) 

9. Engage somehow (read Bible, journal, sing praise, etc.) with Christ on a daily basis. Fail, and it shows. 

10. Scout out and purchase some kickin’ furniture for our living room. Found a sectional for $50 on Craiglist! $50!!!! It's red, but we're going to recover it. Total it will be about $150 and I'm hoping to have it done before the first of the year. Next goal- large square ottoman or coffee table.
 

Small Revelations

Last night TJ and I were having an important conversation when an earthquake interrupted us.  The conversation was the typical mom conversation about not having enough time in the day and never getting anything done and the treadmill analogy over again.  He asked me what I thought needed to change and I told him that I thought it had a lot to do with not being rooted in Christ daily.  I just feel like I don't have an extra minute to sit down, much less crack open my Bible, turn on worship music and soak. 
After the earthquake we went to bed, but I was still thinking about our conversation.  I grabbed my phone and opened the Bible app on it.  This was the verse I had stopped reading at last time. Matthew 13.  The parable of the sower: 
²⁰The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. ²¹ But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. 
I could immediately relate the the seed on rocky ground.  I am not deeply rooted right now and I was getting all worked up when trouble came my way.
This morning we went to church and God spoke to me again.  The passage this time- Mary and Martha.
³⁸ As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.³⁹ She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. ⁴⁰ But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

   ⁴¹ “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, ⁴² but few things are needed—or indeed only one.^[f] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

God is definitely telling me to stop and choose the most important.  Maybe my house won't get vacuumed.  Maybe my desk at school will always be a heaping pile of junk.  Or maybe if I choose first the kingdom of Heaven all things will be added unto me. 


Maybe the treadmill won't stop because I haven't reached out and tried to turn it off. 

Rapunnnzellll, Let Down Your Haaaairrrr!

Faith was sick the entire week before Halloween and pulled out of it just in time to Haunt Main Street and Trick or Treat with some friends of ours.

She refused to wear her wig,  but she still looked adorable!  Her costume was MADE by Grandma Hope.

Let the sugar rush smiles begin!

We haunted Main Street in with our cousin!

You would not believe how hard it was to get this picture, but I love it so much it was worth it!

Perpetual Treadmill

Sometimes you've gotta put your past behind ya, right?

This past season of my life has been a painful one.  The entire summer was a blur, a horrible blur.  My family imploded one sibling at a time.  I could go through the gory details, but it would be one heck of a long blog.   It ended with a miscarriage of TJ and my's second baby.   We told almost nobody when it happened and haven't told many people since.  Not even all my siblings know because their lives are too crazy right now to add that pain to.   (If you know them, PLEASE respect my sincerest plea to not pass this along to them. I will tell them when I'm ready. Thank you so much.)  And saying that it ended with the miscarriage would be a lie- that is where it really all began.  To go downhill, that is.  

Everyday it feels like God is shoving round-bellied women down my throat.  I feel like I'm bumping into them, stepping around them, crawling over them everywhere I turn.  It is an emotional roller coaster every day- I'm happy for them, jealous of them, sad I'm not them, guilty for being jealous of them, sad that I'm selfishly thinking of me instead of them, etc. It's hard for me to rest in the peace that God cares for His children right now.  I know He does, but it's just hard.  Because sometimes God feels like love.  And sometimes He doesn't.  But that doesn't change the fact that He IS love.

The only way to describe how I feel is like being stuck on a treadmill that is going just a few paces ahead of where I am.  And it won't stop.  So I can't stop.  And I'm sweating and doubting and running and crying and making dinner and teaching and cleaning and... but it's still not stopping.  So I'm still not stopping. 

God, either please make it stop soon or pick up my pace a little.  Because I'm dying here.