Rise and Swine

 Written 2/18/21 February - I would be delighted if this month never existed. In reality it’s the shortest of the year, but each day can feel tormenting to walk through...this week in particular.    2/18/10 was the day we found out those 2 little ones we planned to adopt would never be ours.  The room we had made in our hearts would remain empty.  The crib empty.  The clothes newly washed and hanging were packed back into tubs. Closet and drawers empty. Dreams lost.  Hearts shattered. 2/16/17 was Miriam’s due date. Instead of snuggling and breathing in a fresh babe our perfect girl lay cradled in dirt.  She would have been 4 this year...4.  It’s the first year Kai didn’t remember...didn’t ask to make her birthday cupcakes or take her flowers.  I didn’t remind him.  His little heart needs to heal and move on.  As her mom, I’ll never forget. Even though I move forward a part of my heart was lost, and I will never be the same. 2/1...

Buying this farm has been an adventure...a long awaited dream come true...we've been given our hearts desire...and I don't take it for granted. Everyday I wake thankful for what God has given us, but it requires a ton of work and most nights I fall in a heap of exhaustion from it all. In our 25 years of marriage we've called four places home. When we got married we lived in my grandparents basement for exactly five months. Dreaming of a place of our own, I brought my man to a 1890's farmhouse. It had charm galore. A beautiful front porch with columns, moldings, attic rooms, a winding staircase to the second floor, claw foot tub, root cellar, floor to ceiling windows, and of course a horse stable. I was in love! It was perfect. Except - it was trashed! My man took 2 steps up that winding staircase and his foot went right through. That claw foot tub was about to crash through the kitchen ceiling. The electrical was in conduit on the outside of the walls. "Why ar...

Psalm 23 was the first passage of scripture I memorized. I remember I was four, and I had both the honor as well as the terror of reciting it in front of hundreds of pastors. My grandpa had worked with me for countless hours to not only memorize but understand each word. There was one part that no matter how hard I tried I mixed up...to this day I still stumble at the same place. However, that morning staring into the sea of faces every word rolled off my tongue perfectly (Well, except for the fact that I couldn't say Lord so it came out Lerd.). My grandpa was a precious man. I miss him everyday but I still feel him with me. For the things he taught are engraved upon my heart. I feel like God may have given him special insight into all that I would face. Through the dark seasons my heart has been shattered, searching, angry, confused but when God's words come to remembrance they have always breathed life, healing, clarity, and peace. I've taught my children scriptur...

Wednesday, September 5, 2018 at 3:04 a.m. I sit - alone. The earth weeps and so do I. Oh, how my heart aches! August 3, 2016 we cradled your sister, Miriam, in dirt. August 3, 2018 we found out we were having you! For 734 days we prayed for you. No. Begged God for you! He gave us what we ask..but we were not ready to give you back so soon. Your delivery was agonizing and exhausting. Still, I'm grateful to have felt every contraction. Those were the last hours I had with you...the special thing only you and I could share. And in some odd way the physical pain helps my heart make sense of it's pain. When my water broke, I knew losing you was inevitable. I hoped and prayed to deliver you at home but after 8 hours the rapid blood loss sent me into shock. Your dad managed to get me in the car and race to the ER were we spent part of the night. The one place I didn't want to be. Yet, every person we encountered was so kind and compassionate. Every. ...

I hear her dancing in the wind...beckoning me to come outside...feel the rain upon my face...but do I dare? I've watched from the pane as she stood ablaze in autumns glory - slowly letting go of each brilliant hue. Watched while her limbs bent low through the long winter - burdened by the very thing that sustained. Watched while pops of green unfurled - life once again. I've surveyed from the window, but to go and meet her? The soil that she feeds upon cradles my child and I can't bring myself to go there. It's been a year since my baby opened her eyes and looked into the face of Jesus...while I held her tiny frame here on earth. Miriam Grace. She has a name. My name. The name I was given while in Israel - what my grandparents and family always called me. Miriam: Bitter, Sea of sorrow, Longed for or wished for child. Grace: God's favor. She was God's favor to me. Losing her has been bitter. My heart has been filled with sorrow and longing but...

When your baby is curled under the barren tree and your soul resembles that tree more than you would like to admit...too many needing...wanting...there's nothing left to give...It becomes easy to drown in the darkness. When it's Christmas Eve and the house is a mess, there's still shopping left to do, Christmas dinner to prepare, and Gingerbread Men to bake with that chubby little boy who's growing too fast. It's easy to buzz right through the days - through Christmas - and miss everything. But when I slow down I hear it: His love and blessings for me Bedtime tickles The way she pulls me close and smothers my face with tiny kisses Fairies on pj's... and all the small ways He answered my prayers and brought her close this season Glass birds Hugs from that tall one Knowing he is right behind me...always The clanging of dishes late in the night - even though he worked all day he's doing the dishes for me at midnight Truck rides and coffee runs...ho...

This post is about when I lost Miriam but it's in honor of all the babies I have in Heaven. Alexandria Joy - February 1995 Jeremiah Michael - September 2012 Hope Isabella - October 2014 Miriam Grace - July 2016 The flowers they brought sit on the counter. Untouched. They're beautiful, and I'm grateful, but they're not for pleasure they're for the dead. To touch them somehow means to accept that she's...dead. For two days they sit. Finally, one by one the stems are arranged and into that corner of my darkness they bring the beauty I needed. I know tomorrow is the day - so I curl into the cushion as if it's a mothers embrace. Lap heaped with a mess of cream and I weave a blanket for our baby to be wrapped in. Buried in. With each stitch my heart is torn right through. The loss of dreams. Nights I'll never have to hold her close. No tickles. No laughter. No kisses or prayers or bedtime stories. No unruly hair to brush in the morning. No tea pa...

I journey down country roads, beholding field after field sprinkled in sunshine petals.  Cornstalks stand to attention in perfect rows.  We're still in the last days of summer but there's this waiting - waiting for a new season, a new breath.  Autumn is crouched around the corner; I can feel it. I wash the plates from dinner while that tall one dries and I listen to his plans for the future and they don't line up with what I want.  I'm proud of him but my heart worries.  Lights go out, beds turn down, and in the black I'm left with his suffocating words. No one told me when I became a mother the hardest part would be in the letting go. The dawn greets us.  We open books, devour their contents, and I look at these faces knowing my time with them will all to soon come to an end.  So we laugh and pile on the couch and read about an ordinary woman who really was an extraordinary women.  She went from one Jewish mother to the next pleading for th...

Last week, our family received an answer to prayer. Not the answer we had hoped for.  My pregnancy had some complications. Our baby... Miriam Grace... is in Heaven now...she was so wanted and loved already. Our hearts are broken. I don't usually understand God's plan. Many times I don't like His way of doing things... I would like to write the story differently. Yet in the end I know He's God...I'm not. I know He's good... even when it doesn't feel like it. And I know He loves me and hurts with me. This song played in my mind for days before that dreadful morning.  And when the time came those four words were once again all that could be said. Maybe it will help the heart of someone else today too. I was ask by someone "why the miscarriage was an answered prayer." Some of you may have the same question. I don't believe God is a genie in a bottle. I don't believe prayer means - I give him a list of what I want and demand h...