I stayed...

"Sometimes faith is the absence of fear. Other times faith may be choosing to believe God even when your heart is melting with fear. Perhaps, then, faith is tested by what we do with fear, not whether or not we have it."

Found in "Breaking Free by Beth Moore".

By nature I like to think that I am gutsy and when things get hard I stand firm in what I believe and do what needs to be done regardless of how hard it might be at the time.
No regrets right?
At least that is what I would like for people to believe.
But, that's not the truth.
It's been something that God and I are working thru...leaning on Him when I am afraid or fearful instead of turning to myself.
I got my first big lesson this week and boy was it a doozy.
I have someone I want you to meet....
Actually there are three.

But for now we are going to focus on the big orange tabby.
My lovable Jinx.
The cat who I am convinced thought that he was a dog.
When he came into our lives (and stole our hearts) he was tiny enough that we could fit him into a Barbie car and could fit his whole upper body into his feeding dish to eat.
He loved to scamper up the screen window in hot pursuit of a bug and would gobble it down without a second glance.
Trust me.
He more than earned his name!!
There is so much I would love to share with you about him but that's something I will save for another day.
Where to start?
Saturday was supposed to be a good day.
A "date night" for me and Big Daddy and it turned from being a good day to a terrible horrible no good very bad day.
After yet another unsuccessful attempt to go and see the movie "Avatar" we settled on purchasing tickets to the movie for the next day and we grabbed a bag of popcorn for the road on the way to the fights.
We decided that instead of paying an outrageous amount of money for a drink we would swing by the house and fill up our water bottles instead so we did.
We were there around 4:30 (everything was fine) so we headed out to the fights.
literally a block away from where we were heading to Niffy Nunu calls to tell me that Jinx is in a LOT of pain.
My heart dropped and I started shaking....
She said that He was crying and panting and his tongue is hanging out of his mouth so without a second thought we turn around and head home.
When I come into the house she tell me that he has moved himself over by the litter box but now he can't walk and is dragging his legs so, I scooped him up and race him upstairs to put him in the loaned cat box so I can take him to the vets.
In true Jinx fashion he shared his displeasure with not only the car ride but being "trapped" in his box.
The rest pretty much was a blur but I was told that he had "thrown" a blood clot and that's why his legs weren't functioning and that he probably had "thrown" a blood clot to his lungs so they recommended that I put him to sleep.
Heartbreaking.
Absolutely heart breaking.
I wanted to run and be anywhere but there...
Sitting back now I am more than glad that I didn't run.
That somehow I pulled it together enough to show him the love and friendship that he had unconditionally given to us while he was here.
I stayed with my friend and scratched his head and petted him well after he passed into Jesus's arms.
Was I afraid.
Heck yeah.
Of getting hurt.
Of the loss...of the heart break.
Of being so close to death.
again.
But, I stayed.
Learned a lot about who I am and what I believe.
There was no way that I did that in my own strength...I leaned on Him and he gave me what I needed when I needed it.
Isn't he amazing....

do you have the map?

"You may not always end up where you thought you were going but you will always end up where you were meant to be."

That's my status on facebook today.
Kind of fitting I thought for where I am right now.
probably where you are too.
I was never given a map.
Were you?
Hard to know from day to day where God is going to send me or what he has in plan for me to do that particular day.
Exciting and frightening all at the same time!
Actually, I don't need a map.
I have a book.
You probably have one too.
it's the Bible.
Everything I need to know about life here on earth and how to get ready for where the next stop is.
I just grabbed mine off of my dresser and brought it down stairs.
Bible study tonight.
So excited and I can not wait to see what God has in store for me tonight!

..I got nothing.

Startling I am sure seeing as there are times when I am sure that Big Daddy or my msc would love me to just BE quiet and enjoy the moment.
But, seriously, I got nothing.
All I want to do is curl up in my bed with my book and read the morning away.
But no, I get to go to my dreadful ultrasound this afternoon that deep down I know is good for me but I really would rather not go.
wouldn't it be a hoot if the doctors at the hospital was wrong.
That I didn't "really" miscarry and this was all just a huge misunderstanding?
yeah, I know.
I live in the real world and not on a soap opera.
That's not the case.
There is no bun in my oven...yet.
I am going to be shuffled quickly into a cubical so I will not have to see all those swollen bellies of women who are anxiously awaiting their first glimpses of their unborn babies.
Nothing more heart wrenching then knowing that I should be pregnant but something went terribly wrong and now they are wondering if I am "retaining product" hence the importance of this "Emergency ultrasound"
Forced to wear an unflattering gown that makes my legs look even whiter than they normally are.
I wonder if they plan it that way?
I mean, honestly, my dignity is going to be flying out of the room once they begin but couldn't they spare us the horrific gown?
At least I get to wear my socks...and a cute pair at that.
There is power in a simple pair of socks...and no one is going to change that!!

What is this new normal?

**sigh**
I apologize now because this is going to get ugly but unless I spill these words they are just going to eat at what is left of who I am.
All I want to do is curl up in a ball and sob my eyes out.
Or lock myself in a closet and scream until my vocal cords burn and there is nothing left to say.
I don't want to be going thru this again, why did I have to go thru this at all?
I just want my baby back.
I want to wake up in the morning and not be greeted with thoughts of dead dreams. I don't want to think about the little one that I never got a chance to hold in my arms but for a moment I held in my hands in utter agony. knowing that this was the only time I would hold my precious little baby.
A baby I don't even have the chance to get to know.
It's just not fair and I am angry.
I want to stamp my feet and clench my hands into a fist.
Angry that my hormones are still all over the map.
Angry that instead of learning my beta hcg numbers weren't at zero but are at 82. This has been going on for so long now.
How long does it take to get back to "normal"
What ever that new normal is.
Angry that I have to have yet another "emergency" ultrasound.
How is it an emergency if I have to wait the entire weekend before I get a chance to even get in?
I wish with all my heart that the next ultrasound would be a joyous one and not one filled with heartache and pain.
The empty womb.
Angry that the people I love the most feel like they have to walk on egg shells around me when I "thought" that I was doing O.K. with all of this.
When will this be a bad dream instead of my new reality?
Livid that the "medical community" describes a miscarriage as "retaining product" you want product...go to the damn drug store and buy a bottle of hairspray. There's your product.
God where are you in all of this?
I can not go on and I can not stay where I am?
Please lift me out of this pit!

A new Year...

I have spent a decent amount of time the past few days thinking about resolutions and goals for 2010 and beyond, both for my life at large as well as for my blog.
When I first started blogging, years ago, I did it as a replacement for pen and paper journaling. I did it to share photos of our children with faraway family. I did it because it was fun. I discovered that blogging was a great place for me to find my voice.
I used it as a tool to help me muddle my way thru my first miscarriage.
But have remained silent thru my second loss.
A way of protecting myself I guess but that too will become more in focus in the new year as we begin the journey into "the why" of it all. I will warn you. I am going to be brutal honest in that journey because I believe that somewhere there is a woman who will read this down the road and she will need to hear what I have to share.
I am going to be real and authentic and sometimes that will be a little uncomfortable.
For both of us.
I am, however, telling you here and now that in 2010 I will blog boldly .

Have you ever struggled with the temptation to come across, perhaps via your Facebook status or what not, as much more together than you really are? I know, unless I am deliberately bringing my will in alignment with God's, I am tempted much more often to Tweet "I just made homemade sugar cookies with my children!" than I am so share, "I just got so tired of being with my children that I sent them to their rooms for nap an hour early just so I could have some blasted time alone."
It can be scary to think about sharing boldly, blogging boldly, Tweeting boldly, Facebooking boldly and just living boldly. If all your friends have social media updates like, "I'm on a date with my adorable husband!" it can be a bit fear inducing to update with the truth of your moment, if it's anything like moments I've experienced in my own marriage: "Big Daddy and I were supposed to go on a date tonight, but we got into such a wretched fight that we called it off and he went upstairs to play PS3 instead."
Indeed, I think God sometimes uses our fear (of being ridiculed or of looking worse than others or whatever) to move us out of our comfort zones. And He wants us out of our comfort zones so He can refine our character. To guide us towards conforming to His character. You see, sometimes when I blog, I find that my human nature causes me to care about my comfort level. But God doesn't.

God cares about my character, not my comfort.

I have decided that this year, I am going to be making a concerted effort to try to blog boldly, paying less attention to my comfort and more attention to just plain doing the right thing, whether it's comfortable or not. In fact, when what I am doing is not comfortable, those are sometimes the things I should be doing, in my life and with my blog.

Today I would like to encourage you to blog boldly. too. Or whatever. Live boldly. Parent boldly. Work boldly. Love boldly. Blog, live, parent, work, love according to your beliefs. From your core. Because you value your character and not because you want to be comfortable. Take no heed (or at least as little heed as you humanly can) to what others say or to what you think they are thinking. After all, God does not care about our comfort level. Nor does He judge us by what others say. He judges us by His standards, regardless of what the world thinks of us.

Listen to what your heart says, be sensitive to what God wants you to do with your life in 2010 and beyond. And then, just go out and do it. Blog boldly, live boldly, parent boldly, work boldly, love boldly, and forget the naysayers.

An unwritten chapter in my life waiting for the words to be written by me....boldly written words.

'tis the season

For baking cookies...
For years I have said that I would love to dedicate one day and just get all of my Christmas baking done.
So far.
My track record is a little **cough** off.
But, I did take a step in the right direction this year!!
I purchased a package of the ready to bake snowmen thinking it would be a fun baking activity for my children.
Also, I was thinking about myself and how much time we would save in not having to clean the kitchen after they were done.
Who knew the biggest challenge would be getting everyone home at the same time to do them!!
Niffy Nunu took on this task with the two little ones.
Here they are getting ready.




Niffy Nunu explains "how this was going to work" to the little ones.




All done!!

He knit me in my mothers womb

Isn't God amazing!
Only He could turn a unfortunately normal every day event into a teaching moment!
Turning the words found in scripture into a something that I could grasp and understand the meaning.

I was curled up on the love seat beside the fireplace with my knitting needles, my pattern and a ball of yarn enjoying the laughter of the two little ones playing in the living room and I was using the time I had between chauffeuring Niffy Nunu to get some of my knitting done. It can take me awhile to get much progress as my hands fall asleep more often that I would like them to so, it's harder to actually get a substantial amount done at one time so you can understand my horror yesterday when I was about 14 rows in when I discovered that I was a missing stitch. Somewhere along the way I had dropped a stitch and because of the pattern there was no real way I could work my way back and correct the mistake. I would have to unravel all of it.
All.Of.IT!!
So, as I began pulling the stitches loose this scripture came to mind.
"you made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb."
Unlike me in my humanness God doesn't have to go back and unravel anything.
His stitches are perfect.
He isn't distracted and the pattern he follows is flawless.
Perfect, each time.
Just the way he designed.
Now isn't that cool...