dear adddison,

One year baby girl. It has been a year without you. It does not seem that long since I met you and held you.
It is amazing that despite how hard of a day it was to know your life with us had ended, I was still in awe of you.
Researching your amazing parts. Claiming, "those are my toes!" proudly. Daddy's nose was clear to see
on your sweet face. Seeing pieces of your sisters faces was sweet and precious, just how a first meeting should be. The sting of your death did not take that away. How proud we are of you. Every bit of you. I held you with eagerness and such joy. Your Nan and Popa were there the first time I saw you and I just could not stop smiling at you. Daddy and I were beaming with love and joy for you. Look what the Lord created and you are beautiful in every way addie. I know I have millions of those fun nicknames for you too.. Adds, a june bug, ya know stuff that I do with your sisters. My love for you has only grown and will always be.
It has been sweet and hard to see ellie put words and tears to her pain in not having you here. She is precious in her processing and thoughtful ways that she brings you into our days. Thankful for that.. love her for that. Now Graceyn is just a walking party most of the time. I was crying today and telling her why.. She said " don't worry mommy she will come back. She is talking with God." Yep you are so right gray gray. Her love for you is sweet and fun-loving. This is refreshment for my heart.
My heart is heavy with the thought of how this is a forever pain of loss that will be present.. it won't ever be absent from my heart. But you know how God is, He is always peeking around the corner with some comfort to share with me.
I have added to the gospel in the past 32 years. I have cried out to God and He showed up almost always to redeem, save, or protect. This day was the day I was deeply hurt by God not showing up and protecting. Am I promised that He always gives and never takes away? No sadly not. He didn't promise me a full long life with you. I am only promised my faith with God. All around me is only gracious gifts of friends and family.. not promised to fill me up and make life contented. As hard as it is to say.. . God is certain that we need his powerful hand in our lives to help us remember the difference. Just the gospel.. not plus a big healthy family... not plus a healthy 3rd daughter... I think I deserved you to be here and for God to bless your little life and that is apart of the deal. That is sadly what I believed, I mean truly believed.
It is rough to now be on the other side of that false belief but trusting that God is gluing my heart back piece by piece.
I love you addie and it warms my heart to write to you and think about you and cry for you. Your life has changed me and your family more than I could ever imagine. We are on a journey of truly trusting the gospel, the plain and simple one. Not the warped control freak momma version.. My heart is totally on you today and I am striving to celebrate your little precious time on earth maybe with some cupcakes, pink ones.. all my love.

A few words...

"You have redeemed my soul from the pit of emptiness you have redeemed my soul from death"

"I was a hungry child, a dried up river, I was a burned out forest, and no one could do anything for
But you put food in my body, water in my dry bed and to my blackened branches, you brought
the springtime green
Of a new life
And nothing is impossible for You"

We sang this in church on Sunday. My heart strings were pulled and my heart raced.. Spring time is redeeming.. green instead of darkness and cold. My heart wants more of that redeeming grace. He redeems my heart daily, if not hourly or maybe by the minute. So thankful that nothing is impossible for Him. My heart sometimes feels impossible. Good to know that since he knit me together he knows full well what seems like an "impossible heart". Thank goodness he knows the pain, my sin, my inability to do anything without Him.

It's a NO barbie day here

Life can be much harder than you think when it comes to taking away barbies.. Well, it happen today!
Oh yes.. ellie was with a sitter last night during our community group and she ended up causing most to all the problems last night. Not usual for her but not surprised, ya know? So anyway... I told her last night that there would be a consequence for her behavior. So the result, NO BARBIES! Ahhhhhh No Momma, not the barbies! Her response was so theatrical, but also sad for a mom to see. Its that deep mom thing that we have, where for a split second I wanted to say ok.. I am now showing you grace like Jesus showed us grace, so now go play with your barbies, but the mentoring from elder moms kicked in and it was a done deal. It was like I picked the perfect thing to prove my carry through, but from her perspective it could not have been worse. At times it was so dramatic that I had to turn my head and chuckle but as the day carried on we are more stable. Afternoon snacks have been handed out and a little PBS kids is always good for the whole house. So it felt good to follow through, it really did... Proud of me. Maybe this will give me an edge will my elle belle this week...Obey momma or she will take all the toys away forever.. ha ha....

A rock & a hard place

My heart was hurting this morning and thankfully I was able to grab a few minutes of peace and time in the word. This needs to happen for me each morning but like everyone else, it is so easy to go quickly to the things that you can clean, fix, or get a little numbness from life for a few minutes. Not that there is anything wrong with a little personal check out time. I am all about it of course, just have to watch my moderation. :)
Bryan and I got the girls down earlier than normal on Monday night so we could have a little ice cream cone date on our front porch. It was not even dark as they laid their little heads down, so we were really able to take advantage of some long and uninterrupted talk time. We talked about that very thing. Time in the word. I was trying to piece together my answer to his question, "how are you doing?" Which can sometimes be such a big question and other times easy. Monday night this was hard. So as I began to word vomit, :) which he is very used to, I put the pieces of my aching heart together.
I told him I felt stuck spiritually. Not at all running from God, or not numb from his prompting, just stuck. I have mentioned this before but it still is present in my heart and mind. Moving on from losing and not being rescued is new for me. in my 31 years God had always answered my desperate cries in scary previous pregnancies, health situations, relational turmoil, you name it He was there and I was ok. More than that, I had a one dimensional confidence when I got emails from friends in distress. "Oh, God will deliver, He is answer your cry and hurt. You wait. " Maybe even slap a verse on there feeling all spiritually confident. This thinking is so far from me now. I can't respond that way anymore. I feel stuck to know how to pursue a God that is not safe but oh so good. What am I left with here a year later after losing my daughter? I am left with lifelong pain and a heart that is desperate for healing, but the only thing I can be confident in is a few things. My faith. My God. His love is steadfast and he is indeed a refuge. As I was reading the Psalms this morning, these attributes of my God, were easily highlighted in my mind. Almost like God answered my question of what do I have left? Where do I go from here? What am I confident of? Those things are it. I know God has me in process and where I was a year ago was exactly where He wanted me to be. But I do feel like my heart is multi-dimensional , God has made it so deep. My response to friends in distress or pain is so different than before. No fixing it here. No magic verses or a magic God that will always make troubles disappear. He might and he is awesome like that, but not always. My cries with them are from a deep place of hurt and I can feel that overflow and pain with them. But being reminded of why I can move forward is what I need today. A year out and I want to have these answers. I want more reasons to trust an unsafe God, so bring it Lord. I know you have more for me.

good friday

I have never attended a Good Friday Service. A year ago last year I was not feeling well and missed an incredible service at our church which was also accompanied by a tremendous thunderstorm that people are still talking about today. It was literally completely dark and scary as everyone left. I think the darkness of my sin and pain hit my soul in a unique way last night. I was overwhelmed with his sacrifice and love. I think also seeing and facing pain and loss in my life now makes me grasp another side of pain that Christ died for. Christ knew the brokenness of this world and that so much would go wrong. So much would be painful, hurtful, and leave us devastated. Christ entered into the mess that we all live in today but to give us hope. Thank goodness that even though our world is still so flawed, we have hope, grace and deep sacrificial love.
Off to hunt East Eggs with the girls. Lets hope they can at least get a few so they won't be devastated..
much love..

I want an Un-Complicated Heart.. please.

I have longed to be sitting here writing but just have not brought myself here to do it. Maybe it is just that there is too much to say lately and oh where do I even start or the thought of further processing can also make my head spin. I don't want to be a complicated woman. I didn't ask for that. Lord knows I didn't want complication. I wanted my plan neatly wrapped up in a nice package with a brilliantly clean bow.. The End.. that is all.. Man, don't we all want that?
I have noticed in the past several days that crying and anger have been close to the surface. Even when gently scratched you are getting either emotion from me. I was on the way to publix yesterday and just poured out anger.. why is it when asking for what seems like an easy request, God doesn't see it fit to allow what we want? I am finding the process of trusting the Lord as a new person now so complicated and hard. For so long I think I trusted Him fully for protection and not harm, that he has delivered us from situations such as those so many times before. Now, I am left trying to trust a God regardless of the outcome. Regardless of the times we are left vulnerable and God doesn't show up and protect. I think it devastates me to know that God sometimes just allows the pain to stroke only a line in the grand masterpiece he is painting with our life story. This is not comforting in the short term nor is it really wanted? In the most honest of times.. I don't care about that.. my heart just aches and I want it to stop.
God created us to feel and he also brings us to the end of that to the foundations of our God-given theology.. I can't live in that place of not caring.. but desperately taking stabs at trying to see the world as God has called me to see it. Hardest job yet.
So let me un-complicate all of this.. probably too late now. :) to simply say that easter is here. Spring is here and all of this storms my heart with memories of a year ago.. My heart is hurting with so much reminding me of last April. Making baskets for the girls will always remind me of being so pregnant and finding it hard sitting on the ground to arrange their baskets. Shopping at michaels talking to other pregnant moms, easter sunday.. just the day before we started the journey of pain and grief. What we were wearing, feeling, doing... My head is full of these sweet and hard memories. I am bringing these complications to the Lord. Oh what to do with this messy heart Lord. Hurting in a different way today because everything around me is like it was a year ago.. this pain is different. There will be much more to say this week. But for now, this is all. I have two chicks that just made up a fairy dance show that they gave me tickets to. So, I must go. My sweet little fairies..

swim-suit bottoms are good underwear, right?

So when your house get the upper hand on you, you are then subject to your home. Case in point. I am sporting bikini bottoms right now. I have 3 large mountains in my laundry area that are not at all diminishing in the least bit. The girls have clothes and underwear and even my husband has actual boxers to wear.. Me on the other hand sadly fall short of an ensemble today... Realizing this I totally connect this to a larger issue. Heavy week.. heavy heart, pushed aside duties, trying to deal.
I am continuing to journey in my grief over my addison. As time passes one thing I have noticed is I have a huge bucket in my heart. Quick thoughts of her, memories of my pregnancy with her, seeing her bear, her perfect face, how it felt to kiss her face, whatever it is.. These thoughts and feelings get put in that bucket and over time it gets full and as you see where I am going with this, it has to be dumped out. The end of this week especially was a dump out. Crying, hurting, missing what could have been, all the personality stories I want to have to tell of her, sweet pictures, videos of crawling.. I feel the approaching one year mark of not having her here in my arms, bryans arms, my girls arms, and it has stung.. continues to sting, never enough tears to cry over my precious addison june. My heart relives it often and breaks a little more each time. Each time it breaks apart, I see the beautiful hand of christ and the gospel in this process. I feel the Lord pick up the pieces and in return give me the peace needed to go from balling my eyes out to helping gray put an outfit on her doll or ellie spell a word. Life has moved on but my heart will continue to drag it's feet for her. So here I am today.. sort of naked :) naked heart...thankful to be writing again.