He Has My Heart!!

A storm brewing on the horizon that we never dreamed would reach us, hit with hurricane force 6 years ago today, leaving irreparable damage in it's wake.....Mr. and Mrs. Diem.....your son has Cancer!! And so began a heart wrenching journey of insurmountable proportions.
Every year as school starting time rolls around and we head into fall melancholy and depression tends to roll in right along with it. And i know it's my subconscious remembering the stress, heartache, pain of those fall/winter months that hit us 6 years ago, and then 14 months later our son Devin's passing. Well, this year we found ourselves stressed for another reason, we were selling our home and property, the one where we lived for 8 years  the one we raised 3 little darlings in, where we laughed, made precious memories, where we held Devin's hand as he lay dying on the couch and whispered it's okay to let the angels carry you to Jesus, the one we watched helplessly as it went up in flames, then we rebuilt, picked up the pieces of our lives, started over, made new memories and lived for the last2.5 years. Along with selling our home we are building a new one. The last week or so the stress level has been at an all time high, the settlement date got pushed off a time or two therefore holding up getting started on the new house then what we thot was an ideal situation of staying here and renting back till ours was done got messed up a few times until the Lord dropped a rental at very reasonable price and immediate availabilty into our hands and we decided that we would pack up and get out asap, which gave us two weeks to pack and relocate. And so this where we find ourselves to date, the new house being started, packing up the one were currently at in a handful of days and in the middle of that school starting, my mind, emotions, body was on serious overload, but over the weekend as i struggled with living in this whirlwind i found myself being handed a heavenly peace and calm. A dear friend from church called and said she was taking care of getting people from our church to bring in suppers so i could continue packing through the day and also get my kitchen packed. 6 other friends called and scheduled a day to come help pack.....talk about Earthly Angles, gifts straight from the Father!! I found myself pondering the whole situation and I had to smile, hugely.....cause i know one of my best friends had no idea that today, the day she scheduled to come help is the 6th anniversary of Devin's diagnosis. And i thought you know as stressed out as i was about this mountain in front of me that seemed unmovable, my God knew all this, and i know He caused these things to be planned out just like it is, i would be engulphed in love and care from friends over a time that is extremely painful and most times sends me to my bed to curl up in sleep and bide the time away until the time is past, but this year He said what looks like a mountain you can't climb, you will be carried around with love by Me and the loved ones I've put in your life! Wow!! what a blessing!! It's so comforting to know My God has my heart, He sees and cares desperatly for every ache, for every need, every step in my life! It's daunting at times to even attempt to fully understand His great love me, His daughter, the girl He'll pursue and care for and never walk away from for life!! Thankyou Father for your everpresent love and mercy to your daughter that takes it for granted way to often!!

Patched Amputation!

We were hiking through dense woods, enjoying the scenery all around, taking in the lush moss covered rocks and beds of crisp green ferns, as we wondered along, hubby kids and i we felt as though we were in our own world, as though this place was made especially for us. we were loving every minute of togetherness, making memories to treasure for a life time however long or short that would be. i remember stopping and giggling cause the youngest darling son was lagging behind and i ran back and caught him and said, hey little man, you need to keep up we don't want to lose you, and then i held him oh so tight, my cheek pressed to his and he giggled again as his long dark lashes brushed kisses on my face,as i breathed in the softness of his skin and the smell of him and i smiled and thanked God with  a full heart for this precious son so soft, warm, alive squeezing me tight. we walked on hand in hand catching up to rest  as we emerged into a meadow filled with flowers and ferns and birds singing and flitting around and butterflies gliding about, and the son lifted his hands and twirled about dancin and laughin and my heart was filled with wonder and joy at this the beauty of creation and this moment and the look of childlike awe on his face. as he ran about chasing butterflies i yelled remember stay close we don't want to lose you, and he bubbled up with laughter and waves. i strolled after hubby picking wildflowers and breathing deeply this pure mountain air thinking life is good, is perfect, then i turned to call my son to come and as i turned to look for him and his bright smile again........................I WOKE UP!!!

Ahhhhhh the let down feeling when you wake up from something amazingly wonderful and real only to be smacked in the face with the stark reality of a life that we  knew being over, done, ended!! The gaping truth of a little family no longer complete, like an eternal smile with a missing tooth! i lay there in the predawn silence frantically wiling my body to resume slumber in hopes of picking up where i left off and enjoying a few more moments of the bliss we once knew, but the harder i tried to concentrate and go back to dreamland the further out of grasp it became, so i resigned myself to reliving the dream over and over and remembering our Devin's angelic face with his big dark eyes and lashes his nurses all told him they would fight for. i could still smell him and feel his soft warm body in my arms with his chubby arms circling my neck and i longed so much for the ability to turn back time and freeze it right where we were all together and healthy and life was perfect. These dreams don't come very often but when they do i always find myself struggling to get up and make something productive out of my day, the depression and sorrow and ache of what was and now isn't threatens to send me running right back to my bed to frantically grab covers and dive underneath and hide from the world, but life moves on other bodies in this household need tended to, food needs made, clothes need washed,and the never ending list remains front and center, mockingly stating the fact that although some things have changed theres also some that haven't, so i put on a brave face suck up the river of tears the begs to be let loose and i start the mundane duties of life.

As i went about my day i thought i about a book i had just read about a wounded soldier girl that was struggling with a prosthesis, and i thought how we both had suffered tremendous loss. but then i though that you know the death of loved one is like having an amputation of the heart, theres always a giant piece of it missing only there is no prosthesis available. yes more kids can come along but that never replaces or even begins to take the place of the one that is gone. so as an amputee has to adjust to life with a fake limb we have to go on through life making adjustments to our world with a loved one thats absent, we learn to find a new normal, we try to patch up the torn pieces of our heart and reconstruct a life that wasn't before. and along the way God puts in our path patches we need to help us mend our torn and broken hearts, he gives us friends and loved ones and soulmates and soulsisters and bestys and coffee chats and kind deeds, and outta the blue hugs and flowers and all these wonderful amazing things are knit together and soon the wound isnt quite so glaringly raw and aching, and yes we always remember, and yes sometimes the tears still flow, and the arms still ache, but we have hope, and love, and so many wonderful memories!! And i know my angel is waiting with arms raised and dark eyes shining, with a huge smile on his face to hug his mama and welcome me to Heaven!! 

What we have once enjoyed we can never lose......All that we love deeply becomes a part of us!!   

To Push Or Not To Push!

Summertime has arrived in full array, of colorful flowers, fireflies, camping,VBS, and along with all that, canning season!! Last week i canned a vegetable casserole in a jar and carrots!
It's just  a wonderful feeling to stand over a hot canner anxiously awaiting the birth of the first canned bounty of the season, then to lift them out steaming and brilliant and line them up on the counter like soldiers at attention.
As i go about chopping, washing, slicing, dicing, and prepping the next batch to refill and start the process over i subconsciously tune in for that first delightful ping of fresh canned goodness sealing! and with a smile, and mental fist pump and a YES! they took, they're sealing, i continue the process till the last batch is in and timed!
The day wears on, and I continue to watch and listen as i finish everything up and get my work area cleaned up and back in order. Before i retire for the night exhausted but beaming with my accomplishments, i peer over the rows of gleaming jars one more time and suddenly realize there are 2 jars that stubbornly refused to seal as of yet. I stand there glaring at them tempted to give them the slightest push in the direction they should know they need to go, to gently tap the centers of their golden crown downward so they seal. Then I rethink that whole theory and with a sigh walk away and put myself to bed thinking i need to be patient, i canned them 3 hours, in their time they'll do their thing some just take longer than others.
The next morning i came down to find my canned soldiers standing in a straight line just as I'd left them.....and there as stubborn as ever was the 2 that still refused to seal.
I pondered this whole scenario in my head through out the day, and i wondered if my Saviour ever felt frustrated with me like this. I wondered if He ever looks down at me and says, I would just like to push my daughter a bit, she's just not getting it, it's not sealing in her heart the way it needs to be,. If He throws up His hands and says but she knows, she's heard the truth for years, she knows I've called her to myself, to share me with the lost, hurt, dying, and lonely and yet she sits in her own world. I think how often does He look at me and long for me to just be real, to stop sitting around like a "canned Christian" we look good, say the right things, but refuse to seal it in and get out and share what we have preserved in our hearts with those around us, instead we sit on a shelf in long beautiful rows doing no one any good, least of all our God who does so much for us daily!
An unsealed jar doesn't last, it looks great at first,  but it's only good for a few days........I pray I would be a daughter of His that is real, not someone just going through the motions!

Our HUGE God......Our Tiny View Of Him!!

Whenever we take a vacation by the ocean, I tell my hubby many times, "I feel like I'm coming home!" To walk the shores looking for sea shells, smell the crisp ocean breeze and feel the mist roll in with each changing wave to me is invigorating and refreshing. To sit on the dunes and watch in awe as each giant wave rolls in and flows back out again leaving behind foamy sea treasures to me is amazing and never wearisome. I laugh cause every year my faithful companion (my camera) goes along on another trip, another beach walk, capturing yet another wave, it used to be somewhere along the way my sweetheart would mention that I've taken pics of this before, he'd say, why so many?? it's just another wave of the same ocean we've seen before, now he just smiles and lets me have my fun, and usually loves looking through them later. I'm not sure who came up with the quote, " when by the ocean, I feel next to God" but I agree wholeheartedly with them. It's my heart, why I feel like I've come home, like I'm in a place of awe and wonder, surrounded by peace, in His presence.
 I sit entranced watching the the sea oats sway gently in the breeze, taking in the sights around me,  my kids splashing and yelling and then taking a break to build castles, dolphins just out from the shoreline gracefully arching through the waves, ghost crabs, silently and hurriedly scuttling through the sand, sandpipers searching for tiny morsels of lunch and trying their best to nab them before another wave crashes to the shore to wash them away, and again I marvel at the amazing perfectness of it all and the details of the whole masterpiece of an ocean scene.
And then my mind is drawn to a song that has blessed me so many times, How Great Is Our God, and I stop to think about how so many times in life we blithely go about our lives in our own world not even taking the time to really see all the wonders and blessings and miracles that are given to us on a daily basis, and I think how sad our God must be that we keep Him in such a tiny box with a tiny window where we only venture occasionally to peer out of with a quick glance and then once again be on our way. I have to think too how much time and detail that God put into each individual creature , plant, body of water, grain of sand, child, and how each and every thing was fashioned and designed from His heart with love for us to enjoy and explore and I'm in awe again of all He has done for us and given us and the vastness of the miracle of every item and the workings of it, and I'm ashamed once again to realize the many times there is a work of art from His hand and heart at my fingertips that He placed there wanting me to grasp and notice and glorify Him and I walk by, I busily move on, in my own world keeping Him in my tiny box where i so carelessly place Him only peer into that box and out that window when i find it convenient or have nothing I think better to do.

And maybe I've been thinking about this and becoming more aware of this over the last few years more because of some tragedies we've gone through in our life, but it has seriously sunk home that each day is a gift to be unwrapped straight from our Father, to be enjoyed, to be cherished, and that all around us are details of creation that God has put in our path to make us smile, to make us glorify Him and recognize that wow, my God created this for me, and that each moment is a treasure, and that Yes, no matter what we go through, He is GOOD and Amazing and He Loves us with an endless, unboundless, unconditional love if we just let Him outta the box we cram Him and give Him our entire world and sit back and bask in each amazing detail. I guess what got me to really come awake was the details that He has "handed" me personally, one such one was 3 months after our son passed away we took our kids and went with friends to Florida over the New Year. While we were having an wonderful time there was still that huge black cloud of sorrow following us everywhere we went, and one morning we got up ealy to walk a particular beach that was known for sand dollars, and while walking and searching I was crying and thinking how sad it was Devin couldn't be with us and how  much he would have loved being by his beloved beach, and I found myself inwardly screaming for God to please help us be ok, to please comfort me before I fall apart and one of the next steps I took put me beside the most beautiful and perfect sand dollar I ever saw, and peace came with along with the reassurance that God was there right by my side caring, holding my hand and letting me know there was hope. It was the only sand dollar that was found on that trip, I felt I was handed a love letter from my Father.

My Pot Of Gold

These past few days we've been havin' alot of sunshine peering through the raindrops kind of weather, which in turn got me peering around for rainbows. Rainbows have a special place in my heart as they have at various unexpected times showed up for me as a gift staight from my Heavenly Father. Along with rainbows my mind somehow always ends up thinking about those "pots-o'-gold" that some people think surely they'll find if they search diligently enough. I used to find that theory rather amusing, until one particularly horrendous day God handed me a brilliant rainbow WITH a "pot-o'-gold attached!
After having 2 precious sons God blessed us with a beautiful, lotsa red hair, baby girl......soon i began feeling like thats where the preciousness stopped. Unless mama was carrying her around on a worn path through living room out to kitchen around dining table and back again Little Emily let whoever was around know that she was not liking this big wide world she was brought into. Mama would walk and rock and bounce and sing but more often then not the child still wailed. Daddy would arrive home to no supper, teary mama and yelling daughter and 2 little boys somewhere in all that mess.
Well as I had mentioned one parrticularly horrendous day when baby girl cried non-stop, wash was piling up, supper still unfinished and little boys wanting mamas very frazzle attention, this mamas tears started pouring down like Niagra Falls and there wasn't any signs of the river running dry any time soon. I remember taking my baby girl and sinking into my rocker and just sitting there sobbing while she shrieked in my arms and i frantically whispered God please do something i can't take anymore. Then, not being able to handle the shrieking any longer i took baby girl, dried my tears and went out onto the front porch, and there out across the my railing at eye level was the most gorgeous full rainbow i had ever seen, and it was mine all alone, you see we live in the middle of woods, were surrounded on all sides by many trees, there are no neighbors 'cept if ya part the bushes and trees and the only blue sky and sunshine is straight up. anyway, i just held my screaming daughter and began to smile, here was this gift sent straight from the Glories of Heaven to me, and it WASN'T EVEN RAINING. to this frazzled, sleep deprived, mama of three it was a sign of HOPE. this season of life i was in would move on, and as long i was in this season I had a Heavenly Father that was constantly with me traveling these rocky paths step by step.

So now 8 years later as i thought about rainbows and the POT-O'-GOLD thing came to my mind again i thought you know what??? I have that Pot-o'-gold. I was handed it 8 years ago when i felt like i couldn't take one more shaky step. yes! i might have had a little girl that seemed to have an over stimulated water works system, but i was RICH.....I STILL AM RICH!!!!! And i had to stop and smile ank my God for the amazing POT-O'-GOLD he gifted me with, a husband who is still after 14 years the LOVE of MY LIFE, 2 handsome sons,(yes 1 we only had 5 years with but still ) a beautiful daughter,(that still knows how to use those lungs, thankfully mostly for singing, and can still turn on the water when she deems it to her advantage :) but i have plenty of food, clothing a warm house, family, friends and love so much love. I had to remind myself that ya know, them POT-O'-GOLDS really aren't that hard to find after all if I just take the time to look, and sometimes it doesn't even take a storm to bring them about, i just need to choose each day to see the rainbows and we'll strike it rich every time!! 

Singin' In Spite Of The Storms!

 

Walking out onto my porch, it was with awe i peered into our little evergreen and saw a nest with 4 perfect blue eggs nestled there. Wow, i thought, this is great, we'll be privileged to get an up close and personal encounter wit new life. It was like being handed and unexpected gift.

 

We watched in fascination over the next few days as another perfect little egg was delivered to the nest, as of yet we had not seen the feathered mama that was blessed with these 5 new lives, though our suspicions said probably a Robin. One day however we walked out to check for any changes in our little hatchery and to our horror all were gone, there was smashed pieces of dainty blue eggs hangin' haphazardly from evergreen branches and scattered carelessly on the earth below. We were left with an empty cold hatchery and endless questions of who could have been the culprit behind such cruelty, was it a hungry snake, or one of the many cranky Blue-Jays or the pathetic looking orange Tabby we had seen wondering through. it was a question we had no answer for at the moment and probably never would. well that's part of the chain of life I guess, we thought sadly as we turned from the empty, sad looking little nest.

  

Thinking over all this i had to think in terms of my life and the similarities there were between these feathered friends life and mine and the attitudes of each of us. I thought of the faith of these small, but amazing creatures, how I have never witnessed any one them ever sitting on my wash line with a grimace over what life had handed them. They have always been up and about the next morning with the same cheery song, that goes on endlessly through out the day.

 

I thought, you know here was this little mama painstakingly caring for these precious little unborn 5, making sure they had a cozy, sturdy little home to welcome them into, only to then one day have them snatched away and never getting to meet those little blessings, and yet.........SHE SANG. And then i thought back a few years  in my own life, when i was so ecstatic over the new life growing inside, and dreaming who this little blessing would like like and how much we anticipated meeting this tiny little person, only to one day wake up and realize, wait, somethings not right, and then to have that precious life snatched away before it ever really began. and then i wondered, through that, could anyone look at me and say, wow, through the pain, she kept her eyes on the Father, and,..........SHE SANG!