Category: life & everyday

A Moment from this Week  7

This is the first summer that I can truly trust William and Kate outside without my immediate supervision.  They have been outside nearly every waking moment for the past few weeks and their skinned knees and brown arms are showing it.

This week I thought a tornado had hit the house.  Laundry, toys, dishes, and general debris was everywhere.   I took advantage of two outside-happily-playing children and tackled the mess.  I opened enough windows that I could hear them alternately chatting and screaming, chatting and screaming, chatting and screaming.

And then it was quiet.  For too long.

I didn’t see them in the usual places, so I got a little panicky.  I stepped outside on the deck and found this scene (Please look past the gangly dandelions.  If you look close enough, you will see my kids.).

It was so sweet to see them reading together.  But it got better.

“Mom!” William yelled, “We’re reading our Bibles!  Come out and read yours with us!”

I took one glance at the tornado house, had a mental argument with myself, and decided I would regret saying no.  Really, how could I refuse that offer?  So out I went and we sat and read our Bibles together, talking about our Annie, prayer, and things that concern three year olds and five year olds.  I love being their Mama.

Now lest you think that my kids are wonderful and spiritual and very mature, just let me tell you that in the fifteen minutes I spent outside with them, Kate had a meltdown because William told her that her Bible “wasn’t real because it had pictures.”  She then decided to rip the spine off of hers so it matched William’s worn Bible.

William is beginning to read.  He is SO PROUD.  And so naturally he wanted to choose a verse and read it out loud.  He chose 1 Kings 1:1.

For those of you who don’t already have this verse memorized, let me refresh your memory (as you read it, read it in that s-l-o-w sound-it-out voice of a five year old):

“When King David was old and well advanced in years, he could not keep warm even when they put covers over him.”

This is the point in the story that I decided to look ahead and see what came next.

“So his servants said to him, ‘Let us look for a young virgin to attend the king and take care of him.  She can lie beside him so that our lord the king may keep warm.'”

And thus ended our devotional thoughts for the day.  I think we’ll just stick to the Picture Bible from now on.

An Unintentional Break  6

There are times when I have a lot to write.

 There are times when I cannot think of one thing worth mentioning.

And then there are times when my head is swelling with things that I don’t necessarily want to spill to a world of people I may or may not know in real life.

No offense.

After Annie died, I was so desperate to grow closer to Christ.  People were sending us books right and left and I’d read a few pages, but they just brought me more grief.  And finally, I found HOPE.

I found someone who was pointing me toward Jesus, not just dwelling on my sorrow.  Have you ever read a book and thought, “She speaks my language!”?  That was me.  I haven’t been able to put any of her books down.  I begin almost every morning with my Bible, with a little help from Nancy.

And two weeks ago Peter and I were honored to spend the weekend with Nancy and her husband, David, along with eleven other couples who had also lost children.  What a blessing!  It was good.  Good, good.  Great, actually.  Little by little they’ll leak onto this blog.  It may take me a little time, though.

Until then, you can know we’re doing just fine.  Hopefully this will be the last break for awhile.  Because not only is God teaching me something new and wonderful, but my kids are just too funny to keep to myself.

Birthday Thoughts  3

What a wonderful birthday present you all gave to Annie!  Have you read the Scripture comments from the last post?  It provided us so much encouragement on a hard day.  We continue to lean on the TRUTH no matter if our day is hard or easy.

We ended up celebrating Annie’s day more than we anticipated.   This was mostly due to the fact that there are two little kiddos who couldn’t imagine why a birthday would be sad . . . to them it was a happy occasion.  So we went with the flow.

We spent the weekend in Ann Arbor, the place where Annie spent her last days.

Our first stop was Mott’s Children’s Hospital.  We put together a basket of goodies for the doctors and nurses who took such loving care of her and us and delivered them on Friday afternoon.  It was hard to face the flood of memories that met us with each step, but it was something we felt we needed to do as we heal.

As we pulled into the parking garage, Kate piped up, “Are we here to get our Sweet Girl?”.  Oh how I wanted to tell her yes, that our life would very soon be happy and normal again!  I hadn’t anticipated that question, but as soon as she asked it,  I knew that in her little three-year-old mind it made perfect sense.  After all, it was the last place she saw her alive.

William took note of the room where we had told them Annie would die.  I remembered his reaction, “It just can’t be true!  She didn’t even get to live very long!”

We didn’t spend a long time there and that was okay.  Little by little we’re wading through everything.  Finding ways to celebrate others was a tangible thing we could do to honor Annie.

The rest of the weekend was filled with swimming, a Children’s Museum, hours in bookstores and exploring.  We had a great time.

Do you remember the phenomenon of swimming in hotel swimming pools?  I guess I had forgotten it until I had my own kids.  It was the BIGGEST DEAL EVER.  They dressed especially for the occasion (not to mention it was the only time I actually remembered to grab the camera).

We arrived at the hotel and minutes later it looked like a tornado had hit our room.  The kids were rummaging through bags, finding swimming suits and goggles, tossing everything else aside.  We were at the pool within 10 minutes of arriving.  And that’s when disaster struck.  They were closed for maintenance . . . for the next four days.

So we checked out.

I started repacking the tornado, Peter started calling other hotels, the kids started watching the Disney Channel and turning up the volume whenever they didn’t think we were looking.  It got a little chaotic.

But the story has a happy ending.

We found a hotel– with a pool– and the Disney Channel– and proceeded to take over there.

Thankfully the back-ups (my parents) arrived the next morning to help us with the constant cries of, “Can we go swimming now?  Is it time to go swimming?  You NEVER let us go swimming!  We haven’t gone swimming for SO LONG!  We just keep asking because we’re SO EXCITED to go swimming!”

So Annie’s first birthday wasn’t what we expected.  We wanted balloons and a face messy from cake.  We wanted birthday ice cream and an overstimulated baby from all the fuss.  We wanted presents tossed aside because of the excitement of the wrapping paper and older siblings getting in trouble for not letting her open her own gifts.  We wanted to fill in another page of her baby book bemoaning the fact that our baby is turning into a toddler.

But nothing is as we expected it.  Except that God is still God.  He has promised to see us through every step of our lives– good and bad– and He is faithful.  And He gives such good gifts . . . flowers from friends on an especially hard day, notes of encouragement from strangers, funny kids that bring a smile to my face when I feel like giving up, a reminder of Scriptures that were written so long ago yet speak to me so perfectly.   Without Him, I know I could not survive this journey.

Praise the Lord, I tell myself; 
with my whole heart, I will praise His holy name.
Praise the Lord, I tell myself,
and never forget the good things he does for me.
He forgives all my sins and heals all my diseases.
He ransoms me from death and surrounds me with love and tender mercies.
He fills my life with good things.  My youth is renewed like the eagle’s!
Psalm 103:1-5

Happy Birthday, Sweet Annie.  24

. . . . . . .
I know the Lord is always with me.
I will not be shaken, for he is right beside me.
No wonder my heart is filled with joy, and my mouth shouts his praises!
My body rests in safety.
For you will not leave my soul among the dead or allow your godly one to rot in the grave.
You will show me the way of life, granting me the joy of your presence and the pleasures of living with you forever.
Psalm 16:8-11
. . . . . . . 
Would you do something for me?  I want to know a verse that reminds you of the Presence of God in your life.  A verse that comforts you and reminds you that in the midst of all the grief in the world, God is still in control.  A birthday present, of sorts.   I’ll be back to let you know how we’ve celebrated Annie’s life this week, but for now, let’s leave comments of encouragement!

Writings Part II  0

Remember this?

For Kate’s birthday, Uncle A decided to make a notebook for Miss Kate.   Kate was so excited and has been busily filling it up.  I need to send it back to Uncle A, but wanted to share Kate’s story first.

“Once upon a time Snow White went to the wicked Queen’s castle.  Snow White fell on the ground when she ate the poison apple.  The Dwarves said, ‘Hi-Ho, it’s off to work we go.’  The seven Dwarves were scared.  Dopey sneaked into there.  Snow White was awake.  The prince sang for Snow White and kissed her and then she woke up.  She said, ‘And you must be Grumpy.'”

Hmmm . . . for some reason, I don’t know if that response to MY Prince Charming would’ve resulted in a “Happily Ever After”. . .  but whatever.

🙂

Boy Thoughts  0

William has had some first rate thoughts lately.  I have to write them down before I forget.

One:
“Mom,” he said at lunch, “What if someone drove all the way to Kentucky and they were ‘crossed eyed’ the whole way down even when you stopped and even when you slept?  Not the man driving, but the kid.  Would that be interesting?”  Then he shot me this look:

Two:
“I am SO FAMOUS!  Even Jesus said my name.  You know, ‘Not my WILL but yours be done’.  Everyone says my name!”

Three:
“Jesus sneaks the sadness of Annie and it catches us and then we cry and we are sad.”  This was at breakfast this morning and we were talking about what he and Kate remember about the day Annie died.   At first I didn’t understand, but then I thought about my day yesterday, when I thought everything was going better and then all of a sudden the enormity of what we have gone through the past few months hit me.  Of course!  I couldn’t have explained my feelings any better. Well said, Son.  He may have a hard time making his feelings coherent, but he is definitely trying to work through them.  Another reason he is “Wise behind his ears”.  I love my boy!

The Fisher Price Jesus  8

Today I am thinking of my sweet Annie.  She is never far from my mind, actually.  I think of her a million times a day, from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep and even during my dreams at night.

But today, as I often do, I’m thinking of her reality right now.

Some of you have seen these pictures of Annie, taken on August 5th, just a few weeks before we knew she was sick.  She was five months old.  I had just started putting her in her high chair and would give her little toys to keep her occupied.  She loved it.  We had always laughed at her during meal times because we would put her in her little bouncy seat and she would start crying every time.  That is, until Daddy would take pity on her and put her on his lap.  And then she would start laughing and smiling because she loved to be with us.   She wanted to be at the table, not stuck on the floor in her seat!  So, I got the high chair out.

I’d snapped these pictures of her ‘just because’.  It wasn’t until after she died that I took any notice of them.  And then I realized how profound they were.

She doesn’t need a little plastic baby Jesus any more.  She has the real deal.  She’s not living in our temporary, broken, evil filled world.  What a perfect picture of her ‘then and now’.

“The day you die is better than the day you were born.”
Ecclesiastes 7:1

 Kate says, “Why would I be sad?  Annie is with Jesus.”  And yet I am sad, and that’s okay.  But in the midst of this grief, I am choosing to take that string of hope and wrap myself in it.  She is with Jesus.  Not the cutesy, plastic, Fisher Price version.  The real, living, powerful, eternal Father.

“We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  
For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” 
2 Corinthians 4:18 

P.S.  I miss those chubby kissable feet.   They were my favorite.

Using Rice to Make Clean Water  2

I have been struck with a harsh reality.

When Annie was sick, we did what we could.  We didn’t stop to ask the cost of anything, we just did it.  We had insurance, sure, but even without it, we would have done what we needed to do.  When the bills started rolling in, we were shocked at the cost of her short stay in the hospital (which have been miraculously taken care of!).

Then somewhere in the blur of those first months, I realized something.  Of course I knew it before, it just had never slapped me in the face before.

There are millions of Mothers in the world who lose their babies simply because they don’t have the basic necessities.  Namely, clean water.

They don’t love their babies any less than I love my Annie.  They’d do anything to keep their babies alive, just like me.

Now, giving money is one thing, but I wanted to do something that would impact my kids.  I found this post on one of my favorite blogs and I was hooked.

On New Year’s Eve, we had both sets of Grandparents at our house.  We decided we’d start our new tradition with them.  We made rice and beans and put it on a big sheet in the living room.

Everyone had to find a dollar to put into the jar before they could eat.  It represented money that we would have used to make our meal, but instead will be sent to dig wells.

And then we talked about those babies and kids.  Kids who die simply because they don’t have clean water.

To say it made an impact is an understatement.

We plan to regularly have these meals and make it a practice to do something about it.  William and Kate can hear from our lips that we give money, but it doesn’t mean a thing to them.  Making it tangible to them, though, has brought it to the forefront of their minds regularly.

Out of the blue at dinner the other day, William said,
“Dad, why wouldn’t God use one of His miracles to give everyone in the world clean water?”

Oh my.  I love how that boy’s mind works.

And so, though I would do anything to get my sweet baby back, I am thankful that her absence in our lives is reminding us to be more thankful.  To face hard truths.  To force us to tell our kids that there aren’t always easy answers.  To wrestle with the “whys”.  And to choose to use our loss.

P.S.  I wrote this blog post a few weeks ago and hadn’t gotten around to publishing it.   Today as I was flipping through Newsweek and saw the horrific pictures of Haiti’s earthquake, I was reminded that I still needed to post this.  Now,  more than ever, we need to be moved to compassion and giving.  There is so much hurt in our world.    Come quickly, Jesus!

A Pain Healer  7

Today I’ve been having lots of thoughts.  Not long, coherent thoughts . . . those aren’t allowed with the frequent interruptions of a brother and sister who need to be constantly reminded not to tattle or whine.  My thoughts are usually little snippets that add up to approximately one thought that can be finished when I’ve kissed them for the millionth time, made sure the closet doors are exactly as they should be (cracked, with the light on), and put the last load of laundry in the dryer.  Some nights I let my mind wander, some nights I firmly turn it off.  Today I am wandering . . . wondering.

I’ve had something rolling around in my head lately.  It may make sense to you, it may not.

It started a couple weeks ago when a dear, sweet, kind lady prayed with me.  She had the best intentions and it meant the world to me.  But one line of her prayer– a line I’ve prayed for others countless times– struck me.  She prayed that God would take away the pain.  And as she prayed that, I surprised myself by disagreeing.

You see, in some strange way, I’m afraid that if the pain goes away, then I won’t miss Annie so much.  When I look at her crib, when the kids talk to me about her sweet smell, when I put away a too-small outfit of Kate’s and realize it won’t be passed on to Annie, it brings me pain.

. . . I think about how the kids have their tiny Legos spread all over the living room floor and I’m not worried about them making their way into a curious mouth.

. . . I look out the window to see Peter pulling the kids in the sled and I notice there is just a little space left on the sled.  It’s just big enough for a crying ten month old who would rather be inside with her Mama.

. . . I find a diaper in the glove compartment of the van.  An emergency diaper I stashed there a long time ago.  What do I do with it now?

. . . I see someone in the grocery store who looks just like the ER nurse who took such tender care of Annie.

These moments are constant and they hurt . . . and I’m not ready for them to go away yet.  All I have left is the ache of remembering.  And if I cease to ache, well, then won’t I cease to remember so clearly?  And, more importantly, if I cease to ache, won’t I cease to need God like I need Him right now?

Phillip Yancey has a book that I’ve read on and off for lots of years called Soul Survivor.  He writes about Dr. Paul Brand, an incredibly distinguished and gifted doctor who chose to live among the lepers.

“As a young doctor in India, Brand had made the ground-breaking medical discovery that leprosy does its damage merely by destroying nerve endings.  People who lose pain sensation then damage themselves by such simple actions as gripping a splintered rake or wearing tight shoes.  Pressure sores form, infection sets in, and no pain signals alert them to tend to the wounded area . . . ‘I thank God for pain,’ Brand declared with utmost sincerity. ‘I cannot think of a greater gift I could give my leprosy patients.’ . . .  Most people view pain as an enemy.  Yet, as my leprosy patients prove, it forces us to pay attention to threats against our bodies.  Without it, heart attacks, strokes, ruptured appendixes and stomach ulcers would all occur without any warnings.  Who would ever visit a doctor apart from pain’s warnings?”

 I watched Oprah the other day.  I can’t even remember the last time I watched Oprah, or why I decided to turn it on the other day.  Her commercial breaks, among other things, drive me crazy.  Can she not talk for more than two minutes without taking a break?

Anyway.

A mom was on the show, addicted to pain killers.  Not only was she ruining her life, but she had been supplying her 20 year old son with pain killers for the past five years.  Her entire day– her very existence– revolved around finding more pills to take away her pain.  At one time her pain had been legitimate.  But somewhere in her healing, she found it impossible to be healed.

So it forced a question on me.  Do I want a pain killer?  Or a Pain Healer?

“The pain turned you to God”
2 Corinthians 7:9

C.S. Lewis says, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks into our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”

I’ve never been here with God.  I am depending on Him for more than I ever dreamed.  Never have I had more questions for Him, never have I felt His presence so closely.  It is an awful place to be and a safe place to be.  I did not have a choice in Annie’s death, but I do have a choice in my life now.

And so today I’m struck with the paradox of pain and healing . . . and how God uses both to bring Him glory.  Right now, I welcome the pain.  And I also welcome the Healer.

Since we are His children, we will share His treasures– for everything God gives to His Son, Christ, is ours, too.  But if we are to share His glory, we must also share His sufferings.  Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will give us later.
Romans 8:17-18