Blessed are those who mourn...

One of the things that people have said a lot to me this year is, "It must be really hard to grieve with your children."  And yes, it is very hard.  There are two reasons for this...
1. Every day you have to get up out of the depths of despair and awake to the reality that there are wonderful and amazing little people who depend on you no matter what your emotional state is
2. Your children are grieving too which is beyond heartbreaking and it is your job to lead them through it

So how do you do it?  Well I think it depends on the dynamic of your family.  You do whatever it is for your family that keeps you together as much as possible.  You talk about it when you need to, you cry when you can't fight it anymore, and you "just be" who your family is, TOGETHER.  For us, we all love projects and being outdoors.  We love to make things and to give things new life.  We love to be in God's creation together.  Here are some pictures of what that looks like. (obviously, lots of before and after pictures will be coming!)

A new red dresser, as Boston requested for himself

A log cabin, in the works, that the boys requested Daddy build them

Breaking army men out of ice on the driveway (thanks to an awesome homemade game from LG 65)

The log cabin coming to life!

The water park in Parker

Lego building, we have done lots and lots of lego building

The Summer Library Party

We have had plenty of movie nights after long hot days outside

 We also began tracking our blessings in the midst of our pain.  Because our family as taken this huge leap of faith and sacrifice in recent months, we both felt like it was important to record all that God has done during this time.

This is our family thermometer...it tracks how much money we have saved towards the goal we are trying to reach.

These are our family thankful journals where we write what we are thankful for each week

 
And as for me...I took Matt's beloved map (if you know Matty V, you know the one) and I turned it into a Wall of Strength.  Remember all the words I said I was going to need when I came out of shock?  Well, here they are.  This week may have been the toughest I have had yet.  My mind has finally begun to let my heart feel what I have so badly not wanted it to.  If you have sent me a prayer or a verse or a word of encouragement, they are on the wall.  I read them and I let them soak into my heart each day.

Raw to Real

For those of you who go to Vanguard, you may remember a sermon series titled Raw to Real in 2010.  You may also remember how tragic and raw that year actually was for so many of us.  As we have had time to process together in the past week that is what I told Matt this year feels like for me.  It feels like my own personal Raw to Real year.   In God's infinite timing, sweet Candice had the boys over this morning to give me some extended journaling time.  In that time, I looked back at my 2010 journal entries and compared it to 2012. The connections were surreal in a way that could only be ordained by HIS truly.  RAW to REAL girls. 

 I can see the light at the end of the tunnel but it is so dim.  As my cousin, who has walked this journey, said to me the other day, you are going to come out on the other side changed forever; I will walk out of the tunnel but I will never be the same.  God has begun speaking to my heart about what some of the ways I will be changed are but it is going to be a long journey.

You already know that we have been praying for 2 years for God to take our family on an adventure.  So far it seems that whole journey has involved loss.  We have sold our home in a bad housing market which you can guess the loss that entailed, we lost a little boy at 9 weeks along in January, we have moved out of the city which involves losses of its own, and now in the midst of holding on for dear life and believing God is bringing joy and adventure to our precious family for sacrificing, we have lost our second little boy, this time at 15 weeks, an unthinkable sacrifice.  

I am in a place where I can’t even bring words together to share with you how I feel.   How do you describe how it feels to go into an ultrasound room and find out you have lost another baby this year after being assured that wasn’t going to happen,  how it feels when the doctor has tears in his eyes when he tells you and explains that this happens 1% of the time in the second trimester, how it feels to be told you will be going through labor and delivery at that point in your pregnancy, how it feels to be in labor watching houses burn on the mountain from your hospital bed, how you feel when your two closest friends and mentors who always have the words have none and weep on the phone with you while you are in labor, how you feel when the doctor announced it was a boy after wanting 5 boys since I was a little girl, how it feels to leave the hospital early so that you can evacuate your family, or how it feels to be in the process of finding out whether you can ever carry another baby again.

Right now we are clinging to one another.  We are embracing and kissing our boys.  I am currently editing this post and sitting at the table helping build a Lego 4-wheeler.  We just made some cookie sandwiches to eat on our rainy day.  We are “just being”.  That’s all our family can do right now.  We can love, we can pray, and we can “just be” together.

We are being held up by those who are praying for our hearts and our family.  We are being oh so greatly blessed by those who are showing up, in what seems like small ways to you I am sure, but great ways to us.  Matt was holding Moses at the back of church on Sunday.  I looked back and saw Dave standing right next to him.  No words, just showing up.  I was sitting next to Laura crying at the same time.  No words, just showing up.  LG 65 brought us a big bucket of fun games last week and a couple gift cards.  No words, just showing up.  My other Laura got me a coffee and took me out on the trail last week to hear my heart.  No words, just showing up.  Ellen met me at the water park and we sat and tanned our legs together.   No words, just showing up.  "Because there aren’t any words", as Ellen said.  Mary again showed up on my doorstep from 1,000 miles away to take me to coffee and make sure I had a new pair of 3 inch heels.  No words, just showing up.  Jessica picked us up, got us all out of the house, and took us to the pool.  No words, just showing up.  Mama makes me afternoon coffee every day and just sits near in case I need her.  No words, just showing up.  My dear husband holds me every night as I go to sleep crying.  No words, just showing up. 

There aren’t words right now.  That’s the honest to goodness truth.  John Marshall is gone, I held him, I said goodbye…I am waking up each day reliving it, my husband praying over me for strength before he leaves for work, and me braving the day with three smiling faces waiting for me to answer the question, “what are we doing fun today?”   

Here’s what I know in my heart though. I know that I have all the words that have been sent to me recorded because once my body comes out of the shock, I am going to NEED them.  I know that I am loved and every time someone shows me that they love me right now, I start crying.  I know that I serve a powerful and amazing Jesus who is going to turn my mourning into dancing and give me crown of beauty for ashes, even if I can’t see it right now.   

Thank you for journeying through our adventure girls.  I can’t wait to share the beauty with you as the Lord restores the brokenness…it’s coming.

“To all who mourn in Israel, he will give a crown of beauty for ashes, a joyous blessing instead of mourning, festive praise instead of despair. In their righteousness, they will be like great oaks that the LORD has planted for his own glory.”   Isaiah 61:3

For your afternoon reading...

My cousin, Rickelle was asked to write for a special blog series on Gypsy Ink titled "Women in the Trenches".  This sign pretty much sums up how I feel about that girl...

 We spent many a summer at Grandma and Grandpa's ranch swimming in the lake, watching movies way too grown up for us, playing games, and becoming sisters. 
I always looked up to her and I still do.  One of my favorite memories is watching her put on mascara when I was about 14 years old.  She has the longest, most beautiful eyelashes of any girl I know and I wanted to be just like her.  She is a woman after the Lord's own heart and she inspires me daily, literally.
Rickelle lost her first baby when she was in her third trimester about two and a half years ago.  The way that she chose to walk through that heartache with the Lord and speak into the lives of other women because of that is powerful and has blessed me beyond words.  Her and I have been in constant contact for the past couple weeks as she has held my hand through the emotions of grief and tragedy that we have been walking though.  
Go here and read Kel's post, she's amazing and you will love her!

www.gypsyink.com

A Celebration of Lives

It's a...

It's a Boy balloons

A Double Birthday Party 

We began our night by ordering pizza and cheese sticks.  As we ate, we went around the table and talked about how the loss of our brothers has affected us.  We told of our feelings and the pain of that loss.  Matt and I shared the keepsakes we had been given at the hospital of our little boy.  We also talked about the joy and anticipation that God has given all of us as we "keep our eyes on Jesus" and look forward to meeting our brothers in heaven one day.  I was so proud of Jack and Boss.  It was incredible to hear what God has done in their hearts this year through these experiences and how they genuinely look forward to seeing their brothers in heaven one day.  Then we had a birthday party and sang Happy Birthday to our brothers and ate cake and Blue Bell.

Balloon sword fight

 Balloon Release
 Each boy was given one balloon.  We all wrote notes to our brothers and sent them to heaven.  Matt and I had a bundle of 5 balloons that we released with our notes.  5 balloons for our 5 boys.

A Dedication

God drew Matt and I to the perfect prayer bench while we were on a date last night.  After our birthday party tonight, we wrote in our family thankful journal.  We then dedicated our new bench to our two little boys in heaven, knelt as a family, and we all prayed together.  We thanked the Lord for the gift of the two boys that He entrusted to us for such a short period of time.  We are so grateful for all that we have been given even if "His ways are not our ways".

Thank you

 I spent some time this afternoon on the back porch watching these precious guys.  So incredibly thankful for the beautiful boys God has given us and yet mourning the two little boys who are with Him now.  Thank you for your prayers, kind words, and love.  I have no words right now, only lots of tears.  Your prayers are being answered and your kind words are encouraging my broken heart.  Thank you for loving our family so well.

Before & After

BEFORE

AFTER

Father's Day

Our Father's Day weekends are kind of unique in that Jack's Adoption Day also occurs on that weekend each year.  Matt adopted Jack two days before Father's Day, three years ago.  So on Saturday, they spent the whole day together celebrating and talking about "guy stuff".  They told me that guys don't take pictures so I don't have any for you.  I do know that they spent most of the morning at their favorite spot though...

Yesterday I decided to give Matty V a free day.  I didn't plan any activities except a Father's Day meal and dessert for him with his presents.  And what did the man decide to do?  Spend the whole day working outside with his boys.  They planted grass, watered the lawn, helped me refinish a cabinet I am working on, and rode bikes.  Quite contrary to Mother's Day when he gave me free afternoon and I journaled and read a book. :) 

We had his favorite meal, chicken pot pie and he asked for a Boston cream pie for dessert this year. Every year we make our Daddy a collage of our favorite pictures of him throughout the year in black and white.  We are really hoping to have a wall to fit them on one day as he now as 5 of them!  The boys also write in their book to him which they do on his birthday and Father's Day.  They answer the question "I love my Daddy because..." which is so sweet and so funny to see each year.  For instance, Jack said I love my Daddy because he taught me how to fish, ride my skateboard, and he's the best dad in the world.  Boston on the other hand said, I love my Daddy because then I get to put stickers on this Father's Day page if I tell you I love him.  He did go on to say he loves that he plays with him and watches movies with him.

Happy Father's Day darlin.  We love you dearly and think you are the best Daddy in the world!

Keeping our eyes on Jesus

“And I realized something, as I tried to untangle my sadness and anger and confusion.  I had believed that the miscarriage was an open wound that would only be healed by a healthy pregnancy.  So I’ve been waiting on a pregnancy to move me out of this terrible season of loss.  And I’ve been weighing down a pregnancy that doesn’t even exist yet with truckloads of expectation and pressure.  I realized that I need to close the wound now and that it’s unfair, to me and to an unknown future, to leave it open any longer.”  Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet

I said to Ellen about a month after we lost the baby how I just wanted to be pregnant again because that would make it better.  She responded in true Sue Ellen fashion with, “I know your heart well enough to tell you that one life will not replace another.”  I cannot even begin to explain how true those words are.   I wanted to be pregnant again so bad because then it would all just go away.  A baby would be coming again, the pain would go away, and we could move on.  That’s not the way it works though.  When you bury the hard parts of life, they always come back, believe me…they always come back.  It was not until God completely broke me down to the point that I had to let go, that He brought us another baby.   My close friends who had had a miscarriage kept telling me that there would be a moment when God would take it away.  Now that is not to say that I would forget, but I would feel a peace and be able to move on.  I told every single one of them that I didn’t believe that was ever going to happen for me and then I was completely caught off guard when it did.   It was Easter weekend and God just broke me down.  BROKE ME DOWN.  It began at Good Friday Service as I was worshiping beside my dear, dear friend who had lost her baby two weeks before me.  We raised our hands and we worshiped amidst deep, deep pain and loss.  Then the clips from The Passion began.  I could barely even watch them.  I don’t even know how to describe what happened in my heart during the following 9 minutes of that movie but God just broke me.  He also freed from a lot of bondage that I didn’t know was still there. 

The Lord wanted me to go through that, He needed me to go through that.  He needed me to be released.  Once I was…on Easter Sunday we would find out we were pregnant. 

“Nine months ago, the world was so different. I was so different. The concept of pregnancy was so different to me, so innocent. Of course I knew women who had miscarried: my mother, my cousin, my friends. But like anything, when it happens to you it’s like waking up to a conversation you’ve heard before and only now grasp, and you realize entirely anew what they were talking about, what they were trying to find the words to describe.” Shauna Niequist

 I was not at all prepared for how losing a baby would change my life.  I didn’t realize that it wouldn’t go away.  I honestly thought when we miscarried, “okay this hurts like hell, but I am sure in two weeks I will be fine.”  Its 5 months later and the pain has subsided but it has not completely vanished.  I still have every email and text message that was sent to me on the day that we lost the baby and the weeks that followed.  I cannot bare to delete them.  I am going to carry this pain for the rest of my life.  That is the part I wasn’t prepared for.  We are not going to welcome a baby into our home in two months.  He got to go HOME sooner than I expected.  I just don’t know that those words will ever come from my lips without tears in my eyes.

I also wasn’t prepared for the emotion being pregnant again would bring.  We have had 3 ultrasounds in the past couple months and I have not looked at the screen until Matt has seen the heartbeat and told me to look.  I have literally felt a weight taken off of me in the last week since the doctor told us we are now in the safe zone.  I have finally begun to think and dream about a nursery.  Miscarriage took away the innocence of pregnancy to me.  Before, I always assumed we would have a baby in 9 months because that is how it has always happened.   Surely after being a single mother and encountering all the loss that entailed, God will not take a baby away from me.  That is not the way that it works…that is not the way God works.  How can He make us stronger people if we never go through anything hard, excruciatingly hard?  The family verse that hangs in our living room and that we pray over our children every night is, “Let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.  We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith."  Matt read that to me on our wedding day and we truly believe that is a calling that God has placed on our lives as a family.  It doesn’t say we will run the race til we don’t get what we want and then we will quit.  Because then it would be easy wouldn’t it?  The race isn’t easy, I didn’t sign up for an easy race so I could collect my trophy and go HOME.  I signed up for the hard race, the race that is worth running, the one that you have to run with endurance and keep your eyes on Jesus to finish.  Because we are choosing to run with endurance I now have two more eyes in heaven that I can keep my eyes on. 

Vacation Bible Blast 2012

This year we set sail upon the Dawn Treader to learn that we are EXTRAORDINARY in Him, MIGHTY in Him, and we are CHANGED by Him!!!

Set up Day

Boston and his buddy, Judsen "helping" set up while eating M&Ms and coloring

Jack and his friends putting together dragon gliders for the Preschool Game Room

 My Daring Dragon

Worship was incredible...absolutely incredible!  300 kids with their hands up worshiping to 

The Great I AM!  I got goosebumps every time!

VBB blesses our family every year.  I am so privileged to still be able to lead over the Preschoolers each year and see how God works in each of their hearts as He speaks to them throughout the week.  I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that. 
Even more so, I LOVE watching how the Lord works in my children's hearts.  It was Boston's first year to be in VBB and he had a blast!  It was hard for him to be away from Jack so long but he eventually settled in with his friends in class.  And Jack looks forward to this all year long...he loved it!  Thank you Vanguard Church for yet again impacting our children's lives and teaching them how incredible their Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ is!

Jack's 1st Spiritual Birthday

Yesterday we celebrated Jack's Spiritual Birthday!  What is this you may ask?  It is a celebration of the day that he was baptized by his Daddy!  Of course we began the day with a water celebration because what would a baptism celebration be without water!

Jack requested that we all just spend the day together at home.  He wanted to play outside, ride his bike, watch a movie, and eat dinner and sundaes together.  So that is exactly what we did!  Daddy even got him a card and a new cross... a standard military issue cross (obviously a guy thing.)  

We are so proud of you sweet boy!  What an honor to celebrate what an amazing young man you are and who God is shaping you to be as you follow Him.  I love how when Daddy prayed last night he thanked God for all the ways that He has spoken to our family through you.  Your heart is so open to the Lord and I pray that it always will be.  We love you Jackson!

We aren't in Kansas (or the Springs) anymore...

One week in, we are finding that we really love being out of the city. I had mixed feelings at first, with Sunflower Market not being right down the street, almost all my girlfriends living in the Springs, and the first day we were here I had three appointments in the Springs and had to figure out not driving back and forth every time!  However, these things are outweighing all of that...

 A pond with ducks behind the library.  The library gives you free food for the ducks! 

The boys and some of their buddies at the pond

Jack wanted to go to the Farmer's Market.  We could walk there!  He rode his bike and I walked.  He was amazed when we went shopping afterwards that he could park his bike outside the little shops downtown.

Jack and his kettle corn from the Farmer's Market

The latest in log cabin building.  Apparently it has a restroom inside because little boys have been saying that they have been able to use it.  However, I am a little afraid to ask or enter in.

The lake is 5 minutes away instead of 45 minutes! 

 There is lots of wildlife (and bugs!)

Our favorite mentors, friends, and babysitters The Schwarz Boys are closer than before!

Caleb and Moses


Water Gun Fights have become all the rage!

So gross!  We are going to have to better explain how water gun fights work to Mo.

The ship the boys made to watch the rainstorm.  It was appropriately called The Dawn Treader.  According to Boston, there was also "dawn treasure."