Birds

I like to think my daughter taught me to love birds. 

I never paid much attention to them until I was pregnant with her. 

Since she has gone I appreciate birds even more they're one of the reminders I think that God gives to me. 

Tonight there is an owl hooting right outside my bedroom window. I like to think God sent it there to sing for me a song of rememberance. 

A scattered, hard to follow post

I've been quite apprehensive about writing on this thing lately because I don't want people to only hear my down days but goodness... That's when I need to write. I hope you know, dear reader, my life isn't horrible and I do have positive days and even my down days are better than they once were. 

Sunday we sang a song at church and I honestly don't know that I'll ever be able to sing it with dry eyes again. It starts like this...

"Bless the Lord, O my soul

O my soul

Worship His holy name

Sing like never before

O my soul

I'll worship Your holy name

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning

It's time to sing Your song again

Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me

Let me be singing when the evening comes"

The part where I start crying is "whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me... Let me be singing when the evening comes"

 I used to so easily sing this song. Not that I sang it without thinking about what it meant but it was definitely easy to sing at that time. I still sing it but now I'm painfully aware that sometimes "whatever may pass and whatever lies before me" is not something I'm excited to be going through. 

It's so hard to know sometimes, why you're going through the trials that you are. Life wants so much to drag you down. 

But then the next line of the song pops up...

"You're rich in love, and You're slow to anger

Your name is great, and Your heart is kind

For all Your goodness I will keep on singing

Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find"

And it's true, I KNOW there are so many reasons to be thankful. He is good, He does have a plan even if I can't see it right now. But sometimes even though I KNOW it, it's hard to FEEL it.

I'm not an optimistic person. it's a battle I have to fight, to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And some days (like today) I feel like I'm losing the battle. 

There will be trials in this life, that is a guarantee, sometimes they feel like more than we can handle.

 Then the song ends...

"And on that day when my strength is failing

The end draws near and my time has come

Still my soul will sing Your praise unending

Ten thousand years and then forevermore...

Sing like never before

O my soul

I'll worship Your holy name

Jesus, I'll worship Your holy name

I'll worship Your holy name"

Good days

This morning, when I woke up, I knew it was gonna be a good day and you know what? It was! For the most part it was pretty uneventful. I went to my moms while husband worked (like I usually do) hung out with them awhile and then retreated to the craft room to spend a significant amount of time sewing. I made a few felt things, a gift, and a color matching work for baby brother (I've been trying to get him to learn his colors, he'd doing a great job). 

This evening I went to a Stampin' Up (I believe that's what it was called) party and made a beautiful card. Got to see some ladies from church.

Lastly I came home to a clean kitchen (thanks to my awesome husband) and we watched a few Dick Van Dyke episodes and then played trivia.

Like I said nothing extremely special or significant, but a good day just the same. Thank you God, I needed one of those (well I suppose NEED is a strong word... I desired a good mood day). 

Thanks for continued prayer.

Come on Spring!!! We need your kiss of new life! 

Today I was texting one of my best friends when all of a sudden my soul just started pouring out tons of stuff that has been festering inside of me. Struggles and burdens I've been dealing with. 

She challenged me (without even really meaning to) to find things to be thankful for. Some of you might remember I was doing that awhile back but in the past month or so stopped the "habit". I have a lot to be thankful for. So I'm going to try again...

Today I'm thankful for 

1-best friends

2-the mind that God gave me and the ability to use my mind and hands together to create things

3-my family making it home safely (even though in haven't seen them yet)

4-texting :) 

Winter

Last night the Internet was down, it was super cold, we had already played a board game, and husband and I were emotional. But since we couldn't escape to a show on Netflix we talked about our feelings, reminisced about Ember, and discussed how life is different than we planned/hoped. 

It was good for us. 

No we don't hide from our emotions all the time by watching Netflix. I just feel like we might have last night had the option been available. 

Today it's cold (for here) and I was complaining to myself thinking "it's been cold/winter forever!" [Midwest friends don't judge] but then I realized, it's been EMOTIONALLY winter for 7+ months THAT'S the issue. I'm ready for my emotional SPRING! And I feel like it's slowly coming. I'm thankful for that. 

Long post!

Here I go, about to pour my heart out to a blank screen because I just need someone to listen. I'm not looking for advice, or condolences, or well meaning words. I just want someone to hear my pain/my heart. And that's what this screen will do, listen. 

One of my favorite things about being pregnant is never being alone. Always having someone right there with me. 

The loneliness is overwhelming when that is taken from you. The emptiness, rather. 

Husband and I said goodbye to baby #2 last week.

Such a strange mix of emotions. Before I lost the baby I was sad and burdened for Ember at times. I wanted Ember to know I wasn't forgetting about her even though I was excited for a new hope. But I was excited and I was confident in this pregnancy, it was going great no signs of losing this one. 

But it happened.

Losing a baby so early on was completely different, I think my emotions are just now catching up with me. 

We knew better this time then to use phrases like "when the baby comes" instead we used "if this baby lives". But there was still a peace I had, this was my unexpected rainbow baby, I thought. 

I used to think it unfair that women get to be the pregnant ones, carry the baby, and then feed the baby. But after losing two babies I think it unfair that the woman has every physical task in having babies and even more unfair that some women have to be reminded daily, physically that there was a baby growing inside of them and then quite painfully and unexpectedly there isn't any more and you're left with a healing body, empty arms, and a broken heart. Each cramp of your body restoring itself to "prebaby" a painful reminder.

I'm sad this time too but it's different. It's even more dream like than Ember because this one was so early. With this baby we have no gender, no name, no kicks, no stories. Nothing tangible. 

But... In all of this, I'm ready to start "paying it forward". I had a great support team and so many blessings and tangible gifts to remember her by while in the hospital with Ember. I'm hoping  to put together care packages for hospitals... If you have any unique ideas of things you or someone you know received after losing a baby that was a great comfort to them message me and I'll consider putting it my care package. I'm excited to start! 

I heard this song today and re-fell in love with it... Something Beautiful 

        In your ocean, I'm ankle deep

     I feel the waves crashin' on my feet

       It's like I know where I need to be

     But I can't figure out, yeah I can't     

                       figure out

  Just how much air I will need to breathe

       When your tide rushes over me

       There's only one way to figure out

               Will ya let me drown, 

                will ya let me drown

            Hey now, this is my desire

             Consume me like a fire,

                 'cause I just want 

     something beautiful To touch me,                

               I know that I'm in reach

        'Cause I am down on my knees,

       I'm waiting for something beautiful

            Oh, something beautiful

                -NEEDTOBREATH-

Our tree

Today I took down our Christmas tree because it was sooo dry and dad had a burn pile going out at our place anyway. I had my brother cut a bit of the trunk off for me to save (husband and I did that with our first tree too). I didn't really pay much attention to it, set it aside to dry but then I picked it up to put it with my Christmas stuff and noticed something 

It has a perfect heart in the middle of it... Our tree gave us an empty nest for Ember and a heart stump for us to remember all the love we experienced this year and how our marriage grew too. 

What a blessing this tree was to me! Thank you, God, for another reminder from your creation just for me.