Happy 13th Birthday, Jennie

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It’s your second birthday in heaven. We miss you. There seems to be no way around it, no getting done missing you. There are days I think it should be better, that missing you shouldn’t hurt so badly but then I think that would mean your life here wouldn’t have mattered and that’s not true. You were important; your life did impact people. There was a reason for your short life here on earth, even though I think it was too short.

 I wonder- what would you look like? Would you have started putting your hair up and wearing a veil? I tend to think you would have because you had already started asking questions about it. How tall would you be by now? What kinds of goodies would you have learned to cook and bake? What would you be studying in school? The other month at co-op, I saw your friends, sitting there singing so beautifully, so young and pretty, so alive. And it was like a hard kick in my gut, that’s were you should be sitting singing too. But you’re not, instead you’re in heaven, so young and pretty, so alive. It hurt to not see you with your friends. I cried. I wondered if they miss you, if they remember you, your smile but their life does go on even though at times it feels as though my life has stopped. That is one fear I have that people will forget you lived, forget your smiling face.

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We again went shopping and filled a shoe box of goodies to ship to another young girl. We decided since we can’t buy you birthday and Christmas gifts we will buy for another young girl.

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Not that it really eases the pain or makes it better. But even in our pain to somehow show some little girl somewhere that God does love and care about her and us.

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I would like to thank you for your prayers and to ask you to continue remembering us in prayer over the next couple of weeks. The holidays are an especially difficult time for us. Missing Jennie and what could have been.

 

Empty

Some days I feel empty, tired, not wanting to dance in my storm. I’d rather sit in the mud puddle. I feel like Jennie’s memorial garden looks. Empty. Nothing appearing to be growing or changing. Nothing good or beautiful happening.

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But I also see in Jennie’s memorial garden the names of our living children. And that speaks hope to me. There is life. There is growing. Yes, it will take time, lots of it, to see what is taking root in their lives but even now I can see some good things taking place.

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And I did plant some spring bulbs so I wonder what is happening underground where I can’t see. What are the bulbs doing? Reaching out for life? Dreaming of what they will be someday? It is my understanding that some flower bulbs need the cold of winter to be able to bloom in the spring. And I wonder do I need to go through a cold winter to grow, to bloom in the spring? Do I need to feel the emptiness of myself so I can better experience the fullness of my Father?

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 I wonder what is happening in my heart that I can’t see. I wonder what God is trying to teach me about Himself. I wonder what God wants me to be aware of about me in the emptiness I feel. Do I really believe: That God is enough? That God is there for me and not against me? That God loves me passionately? That as empty, dead and ugly as everything looks or feels like now, God is working and in His time He will reveal the thing of beauty that He is making? And just as I need to have faith and believe that come spring I will have beautiful flowers; I need to believe, to choose to trust that God is doing something beautiful and in His time I will see and understand. Although it may take a lifetime, not till I reach my Heavenly Home that I will be able to see the beauty that He making. And can I be ok with the mystery- that I don’t have to understand what is happening? Can I rest in Him, trusting that He is in control and He really does know what is happening in my life? I wonder if dancing sometimes is sitting quietly and pondering? Thinking about what is in my heart and asking God to help me know what is in my heart and to be brave enough to put words to what I’m feeling. I invite you to sit quietly and ponder what God is doing in the emptiness, in the cold of winter.

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