Rejoicing In The Remembering!!..........Part 2

I'iiiimmmm Ba-a-ack!! Oh and just to clear things up, i WAS NOT discussing paint colors and choices all this time :) I won't even try to justify myself here or come up with excuses of why i waited so long to come back and finish this... you'll have to be satisfied with....i'm in the middle of life..this is life....life happens....I HAVE A LIFE (believe it or not) and life gets in the way......so other things in life sometimes need to take the back burner.........

anyway back to our topic at hand....friends of ours got together an evening of family, friends, and food....an evening to remember/celebrate Devin's 5 years of life with us and now 5 years an Angel. it was beautiful, they played his remembrance dvd, and we left chinese tissue paper lanterns off into the clear night sky, and even a few fireworks...but the best part of the whole evening was the being supported and loved by these dear people. people who were willing to "feel" and be "real" with us even though it might have required them getting emotional. my heart went out to those who don't have a loving Saviour to lean on in these hard times or no dear friends and family and are carrying all this sorrow and hurt alone...and i was thankful all over again for the blessings of these dear people in my life!!

so back to the rejoicing in remembering part, one of the things the last couple months that i have really been thinking about is how blessed we were to be allowed to say good-by to Devin. no loving parent would choose for their kids to die. it's the hardest thing in the world to be told its only a matter of time until they're gone, but we were so blessed to have the support of our doctors in our wish to take him home and keep him comfortable and enjoy him to the last breath. even though it was some of the hardest moments in our lives knowing it would be soon, we were blessed to be able to say our last i love yous and he heard and replied back, to have time for goodbyes, to whisper it's ok to run to Jesus. we didn't have to witness agonizing days and nights on end of painfilled crying and suffering and wasting away. one of our prayers when we found out it wouldn't be long was that we would not have to watch him suffer, and our prayers were answered, so we are blessed we can remember without the horror. this week i especially had to think how thankful we can be we had goodbys, there was a tragic farm accident in our area of a 19yr old boy ending in a gruesome death, and a friends father gone in a flash while hunting, my heart broke for those families that had no time for goodby, there world was changed with no warning.

when i think of only having our Devin for five years, it seems sometimes like what was the point?? what good was five years, but i know our world would have been missing a huge blessing, without him their would have been a ray of brilliant beautiful sunshine we would have never felt the warmth of, he left an impact on many people through his little 5 year life while sick and healthy. and i thought of my God creating someone so amazing and trusting us with his life.....even for only 5 years that was huge!! i can't imagine creating such an awesome masterpiece just to hand it over to someone you know is gonna take it for granted, mess up somewhere along the way while caring for it. so when i think of the way God showed His abundant love for me in trusting me with this beautiful soul He created just for US! I guess in all honesty.....even though some days are still hard.....i would have to say...Five years was enough!! i know if it was me creating something so amazing i would selfishly keep it all to myself, especially if i could know as God did that he was taking them from a perfect Heaven and giving them to imperfect humans in a very imperfect world!! Yes! life has been so hard at times but i'm blessed over and over!!

this song i just saw on another blog i follow:  

http://patrickandashley.blogspot.com/2011/10/beautiful-heartbreak.html 

and i had to share it here.....thought it was beautiful!!

Rejoicing In The Remembering!! part 1

today is the day......today is the day of so many lasts......yet the day of so many firsts!! today is 5 years since we heard our last I love you, from Devin, the last we saw his beautiful smile, the last we received one of his squeeze ya with all his might hugs, the last we were a complete family in our own home. 5 years ago was the day we realized there was going to be an unfathomable amount of firsts, it was the first day of a start to an all new normal.

I've been reading and re-reading One Thousand Gifts, by Ann Voskamp (amazing book by the way if ya haven't) and in there she says over and over about finding things to be grateful for no matter where we find ourselves in life, and that has been a huge impact on me over the last 9 months or so. then yesterday while driving i saw a sermon title on a local church sign......Rejoicing In The Whatever! it kinda stopped me in my teary depressed tracks.......i thought you know, (psst..right nows a Strong moment :) in the midst of all my grief and tears i got a boatload of things to be grateful for, a ginormous mountain of blessings at my doorstep.  i have an amazing hubby that comes home to me every night (even tho I'm sure there are days he walks in takes a look at my thundercloud expression and wants to walk back out) he loves me unconditionally, doesn't ever raise a hand to me and is faithful, i have friends who can't say that, friends who would love to be married and aren't. i have 2 beautiful healthy kids to get up and go on for every morning, (i trust they remember their moms good days ;) i have friends who would love to have just 1 of there own!
OK so I'll have to close this and go meet the painter dude @ our new house and pick out colors so I'll be back to finish this in another post cause in spite of it being a day I'll never forget my heart is full.....maybe it's the dreading this date more than the day or the memories of all that went on and emotions or something but it seems when this day actually gets here it's not as bad as the few days preceding it... i know weird, but that's me, all basket caseish or maybe its that the tears all got over with last night when my hubby says after a delightful Olive Garden dinner, lets catch a movie, so we did and guess what?, yup it was a new release on a guy finding out he has........CANCER!! so i bawled the whole way thru it.....was a great film with some excellent points in it, waaaaaayyyyy to much profanity, but turns out well, the guy lives and beats cancer.....yaaaayyyy!! anyway gotta run............

I'd Do It All Over Again!!

today 15 years ago i married my best friend!! it has been a roller coaster ride unlike any i've ever known or dreamed of experiencing!! there have been many unexpected bumps and curves along the way and in a few of those times my head screamed jump off!! but when i stopped and thought about it and really pondered the whole trip asking myself if i would have known then all i know now would i still choose the same path for  my life, with the same man, for 15 years and counting???? and i knew in my heart it's a ride i'm buckled in and ready for, no matter what tunnel were asked to go through or mountain looming before us we have to climb, and the only man i want strapped in the seat beside me is the one thats been my best friend for these last amazingly terribly beautiful 15 years!!
i always loved the time of our anniversary and remembering the gorgeous fall day we joined our hearts and lives surrounded by family and friends, but 5 years ago it became bittersweet as we were celebrating our 10th we were also bringing our 5 yr. old son home to die. so once again we were blessed by being surrounded with family and friends only it was a celebration of immense differances, that time we were celebrating the 5 years we were blessed with in Devin, and we were also celebrating the fact that he was soon to be pain free, cancer free in Jesus arms. its ironic how in the midst of celebrations tears come, i remember crying when it hit me after our vowells that i was indeed finaly married to the man of my dreams, those were happy tears! and in the midst of tremendous relief and happiness that soon Devin would be healed and home the tears were flowing for all we would let go and go on with out. but in spite of the bittersweetness our day has turned into over the years, i thank God for the wonderful soulmate he has given me to lean on, through the sadness, the celebrations, the goodbyes, and quiet moments of just being together!!!

Carry Me!!

This time of year i struggle extremely hard to put one foot in front of the other, i have to constantly remind myself there is something to smile about, and literally push each body part out of bed and be mobile and strong for the kids and hubby.......and with each mental urging of you can do this, keep going, be strong, my mind wars with it self saying but what if for just a little while i stop being strong? some days i think I'm so tired of being strong, i just want to curl up in a remote corner or under a nice rock somewhere and sleep and cry, and dig out long enough to slurp down a frappe' and bavarian cream filled doughnut and hide away again til i'm sure i'll be able to move because i want to not because i'm forcing myself to. (sorry i know to some it probably sounds like a kid with a tantrum, sorry but if ya never lost anyone close , ya just wouldn't get it, and thats ok :) but its in these moments when i feel myself being carried, and as hard as the days are and even though not much might still get done, it's always an amazingly peaceful feeling to know that know matter what i can rest my Heavenly Fathers arms and be carried over the rough spots. five years ago we were in the hospital with Devin and his little body was beginning to shut down and he was put on oxygen full time and one of the nurses came in and said we're so sorry there just is nothing more we can do, but keep him comfy as possible. He opened his beautiful eyes and said, mom i hope this stay isn't long, but the doctors and nurses are doing what they need to do! then he quietly said, i'm so sleepy i didn't have a very good night last night i'll just have a drink then rest awhile! And it was another one of those moments where you made yourself be strong for the Dear child laying there dying, you held him and smiled and sang cause he asked you to and you kept on. a few moments went by and opened his eyes again and said, dad, when are they gonna fix that road??? daddy says what road? and Devin says, the one over there, thats broken?? We stayed strong until he drifted back to sleep, then we sat and cried, knowing it wouldn't be much longer we would be blessed with the prescense of this precious son, feeling sure the broken road he was seeing was a gap in His path from earth to Heaven. it was in many moments like these when the poem... when you saw only one set of footprints it was then i carried you became very real. it was times like these whn a dear friend would call and say, hey, I love you. another would call and say I'm praying, and i would say good, cause right now i can't, and it would become real to me again that my God was truly lovingly carrying me! our paths may not always be easy but He never leaves us to find our way alone! I love knowing that whenever i get that i wanna hide unde a rock feeling, My Father quietly steps in and carries me!