3 steps forward...one step back.

In many ways we are moving forward. Our family has been busy, it is always that way at this time of year. End of the year parties and field trips. Soccer and getting ready for swimming lessons. Planning camping trips and BBQ's.

I feel like we are moving forward but every now and then I take a step back. I went to a baby shower 2 weeks ago. I really did not think I would have any issues but I did. Clearly some denial. First off the girl was someone from a past bible study and I had not seen her for a while. She had her little boy the same week we lost Caleb and she did not know I lost the baby. I knew when I saw her she did not know because she looked at my stomach. At some point in the shower someone told her, but it was sad. I was happy for her, her little boy was so sweet. I held him and just stared at him. I did not feel sad. But there was a time in the shower where the new mom read blessings that people wrote to the baby and it just broke my heart. I did not cry but if I could have slipped out a back door I would have. They all prayed over the baby and again it was so sad to me. I don't want to make it all about me but I know people could tell it was hard for me and nobody knows what to do or what to say.

I hear these prayers about how this baby was a gift from God and how he was created for something special. I feel the same way about Caleb. He was a gift from God but who is going to know that, other than me. He was created for something special too, his time was short and we did not get to hold him but he was created by God. Life does not just happen, life is created. Caleb had a purpose in this world. And he surely has a purpose in eternity. For one thing he made me realize how much I have come to trust God. His time with me reminded me how this life is not just what I think it is going to be but so much more than we can imagine. I am sad that other people may not be touched by the life of my boy who went to heaven so quickly.

I was listening to this interview on bible talk radio (I listen to it when I drive for work) today and this man said something that I knew but in a way that felt new to me. They were talking about that question "why do bad things happen?" "why do some babies die and others live?". As much as I try not to go there, it is hard not to wonder these things at times. The man said that nothing happens in this world without God's knowledge and permission. When you are a baby/child or a Christian and He decides you have fulfilled your purpose, He brings you home. Those who remain still have work to be done for the Kingdom of God. As short as many of my babies times were in this world, they each had a purpose, they did not happen by accident and they did not die by some "plan of mother nature" as the doctors seem to say. There was a reason. Sometimes we see the purpose for their life on this side of heaven and sometimes we don't. But it changes my perspective to think about the purpose of their life, their creation instead of the purpose of their death. Their death was to bring them home to heaven.

Most days I feel happy and content in where the Lord has me and our family but I still have those moments of grief, where I miss the thought of having those babies in my arms.

I also listen to this other show with Pastor Paul ( I cannot remember his last name but he is from a church in California). I love this man, he totally cracks me up and convicts me at the same time. Today he was talking about adversity in our lives and how we never can see the purpose in it at the time but later we often can realize we would have never arrived where we are if some of those trials and tragedies did not happen. He talked about Moses and how he was sent down the river away from his mother, but later nursed by his mother and raised in the Pharoh's home, he needed to be there to be where God was going to use him. And if Joseph's brothers never hated him and sold him into slavery, he would have not ended up in Egypt and rescued the Jews from the famine. I came to Christ because of total brokeness after my first husband left me for another woman. I recieved deep healing after losing my fourth baby and sinking into a deep pit of bitterness. I have seen the blessings in my life, the times when due to my pride and false attempt at control only deep tragedy would bring me to my knees. These are some of the things that I needed in my life to help me understand God's love and mercy and grace. I would not trade that for anything.

I just commited to train for a half marathon with 4 of my closest girlfriends in October. I am excited and motivated to do something for myself that my body and my spirit could really use. I have started walking and running a little after 5 years of no running, ugh. It is good time with God, good time alone with my thoughts.

God is good, even when we can only see the yucky things, God is good.