Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Can't get motivated....

Ok, so the tree is up, the lights are on, the pearls are on the tree thanks to my sister and the boxes of ornaments have been sitting on the fireplace for 5 days. The stockings are hung on the mantel....only 3 kids stockings and it hurts to look at that. I don't feel like doing any of this. We talked tonight about just letting the kids decorate the tree....all the ornaments on one low branch in the same spot. It would be fun for them and fun for me to watch. Maybe I am depressed.....I just have no desire to do any of this. I want to make some gifts, I want to get stuff for my stocking person and that is it. The mass of the mall does not appeal to me....maybe with a glass of spiked cider and my mom and sister waltzing through Nordstrom. I can do this....right? I need to get into the whole Christmas thing for my kids. I love Christmas....this is just not the Christmas I thought we were going to have. I am praying this Christmas we will really remember what this is all about. Jesus came to earth....left the place I want to be. He came because he loved us so much and wanted us to be with him in heaven forever. Because he came we will see our Pearl again. That should be something that makes me smile and want to go decorate the tree with my kids.....here comes Z asking again. I guess I better go with a smile on my face and maybe the smile in my heart will follow. Oh, I hope so.......

Friday, November 24, 2006

Now what?

Well, Thanksgiving came and went and I am still feeling like a truck drove through my heart. Seems as if the wound is gaping again instead of just oozing. I have even had a dream last night where I freaked out and started yelling at people because I tell them I have had control of myself for a few months now and I just can't keep it all in anymore. Both J and I were sad in a way we haven't been for a while. The reality that someone from our family was missing yesterday was almost to much for me to bear. I have been dreading Thanksgiving as well as the whole month of December for a while now and been pretty good at avoiding the whole thought of it all until yesterday....it smacked me in the face. We went to the cemetery in the morning yesterday to bring some flowers to Pearl and I didn't think I was going to be able to leave. I just sat down and sobbed. It hit me all over again that the body of my precious baby was here and that she was not going to be with us at the table tonight. How could I leave there? All the memories of holding her for the last time at the mortuary came flooding back and I couldn't even stand. I miss her right now in such a deep way. This time of year is all about being together as a family and damn it we are not all together. Yes, I know someday we will be, but that is not helping me right now. I want my whole family to be together sitting around that table and the tree laughing......my heart breaks when I see my husband with big, sad, brown eyes staring at me knowing there is nothing he can do to make this better. How am I ever going to get through this next month? I told J last night that I would give anything to be able to leave on December 20th and not come back until the 1st. But, once again I am running away with the thing that I am most sad about....my family that is missing someone. I know that time is making that hole not as big and my arms won't always be longing for a baby to hold. It's just that I am not sure how you get over the feeling that a part is missing. I guess God had to wait (that sounds funny!) for 33 years for his son to come back....did that feel like a long time to God? What is 33 years in the currency of time in heaven? I do know one thing.....we are being held and so is Pearl...all 6 of us by the same set of strong arms. That thought needs to bring comfort to my aching heart. Somehow I will make it through this next month. I am going to smile for my kids, decorate our tree, out Pearl's ornament on the tree as well as the garland of Pearls. I don't want them ever to forget. There is, "Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.....Great is thy Faithfulness!"

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

What is it?

I am feeling a bit anxious lately....the kind where your heart is pounding at 4am. I am praying for these ugly thoughts that rear their heads at that time of day will be gone. I am struggling with the question and definition of faith again. Why is that a battle for me? I want to believe that I have faith, but maybe I do not have enough or the right kind. I know that there is a sifting going on right now in the world of Christianity and maybe God is sifting some things in my heart too. I am wondering what it looks like to have the kind of faith in your heart to move mountains. I know faith is not something that we can conjure up on our own or just magically produce. I smile when I think of that because I remember a sermon Greg Johnson did on the Fruits of the Spirit....he was trying to squeeze fruit out of his body and always made some pretty great faces! Is faith a gift that God gives some and does not give others? I know there are days where I feel I have the faith of only a mustard seed and isn't that what the Bible says we need? I guess I struggle with all this because I feel that because God is sovereign is there any amount of faith that can change the course of what he has already planned? Am I so jaded that I have a hard time believing that my faith can change the course of things? I do know that God can heal, that he is good and trustworthy.....I do not struggle with those truths. I only struggle with the fact that there are times I feel like I did not have enough faith and that is why Pearl was not healed. Are there those that think we did not have enough faith for her to be healed and have we been a bad example for some of those around us? I know that is not true....God did heal her, it just wasn't in the place we would have liked that to happen. She is running in heaven with all those black curls flying around. I want there to be room in my life for a God that doesn't always do exactly as we think he should do. I want to honor his sovereignty and serve him with a whole heart, even when he doesn't seem to make sense. I think sometimes I feel disappointed with how things turn out, but then I am reminded that he does have us engraved on the palms of his hand and has promised to never, no not ever leave us. That is a promise I want to hang onto when I am questioning the amount of faith I have. Even in the midst of the questions my faith continues to be challenged and will grow. I am asking God to give me the gift of faith....not the kind of faith that treats God like an ATM who gives out what we want when we want it, but that kind of faith that trusts him with my whole heart and has enough faith to believe that he has only the best for me....no matter what that is.