Skipping the dot

Through this whole ordeal with Samuel, our family has had many meaningful discussions. While I was still pregnant T1 (my 12 year old) and I were talking about our life...

I told him that our life just wasn't working out the way I had hoped. Papa and I had tried to serve the Lord since we were married and in my mind, somehow I thought if you are doing the right thing, life will be "good", or maybe it's just that what I thought was good wasn't really as important to God as it was to me. But our life has been hard in many ways of late. My husband was unemployed for most of 2009, we have a FOR SALE sign outside in the front yard...and we were going to be burying another baby. But as I pondered all of these things, I realized that what is most important to me, all that really matters is that we all get to heaven.

My son got really excited and told me that while he was reading this book, he started thinking about how loooong eternity is. It's mind boggling. He said, "Our lives are so short compared to eternity and yet where we spend eternity is all based on this short little period of time that we live."

Then he said, "When you think about it, who cares if our life is bad? Really Mama, WHO CARES?! As long as we make it to heaven. It's all that matters."

It's so true.

If you think of eternity stretched out as a never-ending horizontal line and our life represented by a small dot on this never-ending line, we realize how short our lives are. We can endure hardships for a mere 80-90 years can't we? Especially if we have an eternity of happiness to look forward to?

At Samuel's Memorial service they had an open mic for people to share. My friend's daughter (10 years old) shared that in her Bible study she was reading about how Jesus healed the blind man and how Jesus was the first person the blind man ever saw. Then she said, "Jesus was the first person Samuel saw."

A week after Samuel was born the kids and I were laying on my bed. I said, "Samuel has been in Heaven for one week today."

T1 said, "I remember when you said that about Isabel."

Really?

I did?

And you remember?

That was depressing.

I probably did.

I can't believe my kids had to hear me say that twice in 3 years.


So after I got over that, we lay there talking about what it must have been like for Samuel. We were daydreaming about it. He was in the womb, safe and warm and unaware of things, and then he was in heaven. It must have been like emerging, not as a baby hazily emerges from the womb, but waking up, fully conscious, fully aware...into heaven. That was all he would ever know in his life...heaven.

We lay there staring up at the ceiling, thinking of this concept in quiet contemplation when my son said,

"He skipped the dot."

"Samuel skipped the dot and went straight to the line."

We smiled together (me through tears) at the thought. We had just received a costly nugget of truth from God, something we had worked hard to earn.
We are living the dot.
The dot isn't important.
The line is.
Are you living your dot in order to get to the right line?

Wait in silence

My Soul Waits for God Alone

A Psalm of David.

For God alone my soul waits in silence;

from him comes my salvation.

He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress;

I shall not be greatly shaken.

How long will all of you attack a man to batter him,

like a leaning wall, a tottering fence?

They only plan to thrust him down from his high position.

They take pleasure in falsehood.

They bless with their mouths,

but inwardly they curse.

Selah

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence,
for my hope is from him.
He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress;
I shall not be shaken.
On God rests my salvation and my glory;
my mighty rock, my refuge is God.
Trust in him at all times, O people;
pour out your heart before him;
God is a refuge for us.

Selah

Those of low estate are but a breath;
those of high estate are a delusion;
in the balances they go up;
they are together lighter than a breath.
Put no trust in extortion; set no vain hopes on robbery;
if riches increase, set not your heart on them.
Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this:
that power belongs to God, and that to you, O Lord,
belongs steadfast love.
For you will render to a man
according to his work.

- Psalm 62


I listened to Joseph Morecraft teach on Psalm 62 today. It was good.

If you are down, if you are going through tough times, take some time to listen to his sermon called The Soul's Sole Hope. I subscribe to his Podcast called Chalcedon Presbyterian Church. It helped.

It helps to remember who God is.

Waiting your turn

I took this picture of my daughter today. She was watching the big kids play. She wanted to ride, but it went too fast for her. She stood off to the side and watched.

I thought it was sad.

As I looked at this picture, I saw myself, and probably every mother who has lost a baby. Watching other Mamas, whether it be at a baby shower, or in the grocery store pushing a cart around with a tiny newborn in it, is hard.

I remember for weeks after having Isabel, being fat, feeling sad, and seeing other new mommies. I wanted to ask them how old their baby was, swap stories with them, to tell them that I had just had a baby too. I went through everything they had, but there was no baby in my cart. To them, I was just a regular overweight gal, watching on the sidelines.

This is from one of my favorite books. It's called Welcome with Love. It's a children's picture book about home birth. In case you didn't know, I had our first three children at home and was planning on having Isabel at home too.

I bought this book for our daughter and all of us who were at the birth signed it to her and talked about the night she was born, sort of like a yearbook. It is a treasure to me. It has beautiful, colorful drawings and is tastefully done.

It was the pictures in this book where I first fell in love with the idea of handmade, colorful baby socks. To me they represent the hope of the baby who is expected. They are not your everyday socks that can be bought by thousands of other people at Target, they are one-of-a-kind, unique and handmade with love and anticipation of the little treasure who is coming.

I made a pair like these for a friend from church who is expecting baby Jewel. She loved these socks and told me she is going to put them on Jewel right after she is born.

I learned how to knit beyond scarves last year, after we received the news that Isabel would not live. I felt this obsessive compulsion to make her some special things from her Mama. I made these socks for her. *I* made them.

I can't tell you how it makes me feel to look at this picture. To see her little knee, her little leg, and her little feet being warmed by those special socks that I made for her, with her in mind. She has to know that she is special, she is loved and wanted.

She is ours.

A story of hope

A recent acquaintance told me a remarkable story the other day. It is a true story and I think it will give many of you hope. Hope for that day when we will see our child again.

This person's brother and his brother's wife had a baby girl born prematurely and she passed away in the hospital shortly after being born.

Years pass.

Fast forward, now he is at his mother's bedside. She was dying. She had been in and out of consciousness.

Suddenly his mom's eyes brightened and she said,

"Oh, look who's here! They've come to take me!"

And she referred to her mother and her granddaughter who had died a few years earlier by name. She would look at the people in the room, then back to the mother and granddaughter as if they were all there together. (which they were I guess) but no one else could see them. She went back into her sleepy state and died a few days later.

Now, how did that make me feel?

I guess it just made it seem real for a minute. Sometimes it feels as if it was all a bad dream. But to think of being able to see Isabel again, in truth.

To be able to express feelings and emotions, to KNOW that she knows how we feel.

I don't really know how to express how it made me feel. But it was definitely a good feeling. That she belongs to us, to our family. That when my parents or siblings die, she might be there to greet them because she is a part of our family. That gives me hope.