Eve

This, the eve of the anniversary of my beloved daughter's death.

This the last day she spent on this side of heaven with us, her family. The last night I would hear her sweet voice sing.

My husband and I had taken a bold step that day and we ordered a natural remedy that had lots of promise. So much so that I remember sitting on the floor next to the couch and telling her about it. I asked her which part of her body she thought she would be able to use first, totally expecting her to say the last thing she lost use of....
her arms.
 "I'm going to walk, mom!"

Her boldness in faith never ceased to amaze me, not then on the eve of her death. Not even today as I remember her precious eyes lighting up as she proclaimed her desire six years ago.

That night her baby brother, my last child, spiked a fever with no other symptoms. Since my oldest son had left with my family to visit everyone back home in Oklahoma, I had decided to sleep with the baby in his room so as to not add a virus to my daughters plate. She had been sleeping with my husband and I in bed so we could tend to her throughout the night. I let my husband take her as I kept the baby and any germs he & I may have away from her.
 I cannot tell you how many times I have wondered at this.
Was I being spared something that would have scarred me for life? Was it something special God wanted to give to my husband?

I wonder because my son never spiked another fever, he never developed any other symptoms.
 Just that night.

Have I mentioned I don't believe in coincidences?

She didn't die that night, she didn't die until 7:30 AM the next morning. A whole world of happenings went on between the night we all went to bed and the morning I awoke to Rob's yells that erupted into a scream ripping from my body before I was even fully awake. There was only one reason he would be yelling and I registered this in my mind before I was completely concious.

I don't know if I will be able to share all those events in detail. It's a wound in my heart that has an abilty to bleed still.

I share all this because today I had a conversation with a coworker who has experienced great loss as well and is a fellow believer. I asked her if God had shown her anything about death after her husband passed, and long story short the answer was no. It has been longer that my daughter's death and even though she stressed that she never got angry with the Lord and undoubtedly stayed loyal to her God, she could barely hold back her tears as she let me know that she longs to know her loved ones were still "here".

Looking into her eyes I knew, just knew that I need to share what God has given me.
I dream of my daughter, I have my beautiful memories of her, and I ache for her on certain occasions. If not for everything the Lord showed me, the revelations, the eye opening rhemas, the love, grace, mercy, comfort and mostly His Neverending Faithfulness. I would've never made it. Even when my daughter passed from this life into the next, maybe even especially then. I don't state this lightly.

She needs to know that God didn't fail, (we would never admit this but I promise you we all think it ) she didn't fail, the devil didn't take him away and faith didn't come up short.

How much faith does it take to heal cancer?

 A mustard seed

I couldn't immediately recall the wonderous details of my journey with the Lord after Bri's death as she poured out parts of her heart. The fine points can't sift through the dense emotions I am experiencing right now, but this solid fact I hold true like a torchlight....God is Faithful, God is Good. In this I find my rest.

He is True Respite.

  8 He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream.

It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought

and never fails to bear fruit."

Jeremiah 17:8 NIV

Hanging In There

I'm doing well, considering. I so have a long way to go in my recovery, burdening others with my 'stuff' is one of the areas I really need to work on.

When my memories started bombarding me on Saturday, I told NOONE,I just didn't think it would do any good to bring someone else down with me.
By Sunday I hardly wanted to get out of bed, so that's when I posted what I did. I then shared it on my FB wall so that if someone was so inclined to join me in my grief, they could just read my posting without my shoving it in their face.

The outpouring of mercy was just more that I could've ever imagined.

What's more, I felt so incredibly better after I posted. Even before 1 single comment, my weight was lifted. The well wishes and prayers were the absolute icing on the cake!
There really are a whole slew of wonderful people in this world, and I am especially proud to call them my friends.

I felt so much better, in fact, that I painted a couple of tassel topper last night after work.

This little fellow was my favorite by far!! I tried to reproduce a frog my dear friend painted in a much larger version for a craft show in April.

I took the pic with my phone, thus the high quality detail you see above...

Thank You All,

My Annual Countdown

For 5 years now on the anniversary of my sweet daughter's death, for some reason I am emotional the week leading up to it. She died on July 22, 2004 and like the original date, it falls on a Thursday again this year. 

I haven't shared my anguish with anyone until now. Everyday I remember. Her last Sunday, for example, we went to church in the morning and got to meet personally the pastor's wife for the first time. Later we went to the zoo with my family who was in town visiting, then shared a meal at a BBQ joint close to our home. She has no more appetite at this point and we had just convinced her to let us put diapers on her because it was so painful for her to sit on the toilet even though she was on a pain pump. She was 6 years old so she was incredibly embarassed about the whole thing. I think some of her organs were beginning to shut down by this point because she was having trouble trying to even go to the bathroom. She was no longer walking at all, in fact it was to painful to even put on shoes since her legs just dangled off her wheelchair, so we covered her feet with pretty socks that didn't weigh anything. She could still move her arm at this time, but she had started feeling a burning sensation in her hands and we would gave her some baby washcloths soaked in cold water for her to hold and alleviate a bit of her discomfort. I still have one of her washcloths tucked away in my bible to this day.

This is my little girl giving my brother a big kiss. Her face lit up when my family showed up. At the time they lived 400 miles away. You can see her holding one of the washcloths in her hand there.

 She slept alot, laughed alot and cried out in pain whenever she needed to change positions and we had to physically move her ourselves since she was unable to do it alone. We read scriptures over her constantly, i sang songs of worship to God with her, she loved to sing, and we watched ALOT of movies.

There was a breathing machine that we had to ocassionally put on her to help her a bit. It was huge and heavy so it was kept by either the couch or the chair she spent most of her time in. Despite her pain, her spirit was always so sweet and mindful of everyone else's needs. She must have been loaded most of the time because she was on a morphine pump, but all i noticed was that it caused her to doze off every now and then.

I also remember a waitress bringing her a milkshake at the BBQ place when she didn't want to eat anything, and my little girl just went on and on about how nice that was of her. It really touched my daughters heart and after she passed, I took her a card to let her know how meaningful her act of kindness was to my girl and how she died only 4 days later.

 This was at the zoo that day. She wanted her picture to be taken with the white leopard in the background.

We sat her on a pillow and rolled up a towel between her legs to keep them stable to keep her pain to a minimum. You can see she had full use of her arms and hands still, and she smiled.....

Thanks for letting me share a little of my pain with you, it has been especially difficult since my husband and I separated, and he's not speaking to me right now.

Therapy Going Well

Retail therapy that is....

Oh my it happened again! Went to the Habitat Restore and this time I came out with this:

The valance do-dad.

 I want to put it over those three windows you see in the back there. I already have the fabric for the cutains I was planning on putting up. It has to be cut down a little first, but fortunately the valances have enough fabric to recover the whole thing.

the best part is that it only cost me $4!!

You can't even get the wood for such a project for less than that.

I promise not to make anymore purchases until the current projects are all completed.

Maybe.....

Projects, Projects Everywhere

Ever buy more stuff for projects than there is time in a year to do?

GUILTY

If I didn't buy a single bit more of trim or toppers or fabrics, I would still have plenty on hand to keep myself busy at least until the end of this year. This is what I tell myself when I am tempted to even look at more stuff.

Sadly,(for my budget) it doesn't always stop me.

Take last week for example, I was talking to my best friend on my cell when I decided to go to my local Habitat For Humanity Restore. Just hoping I would find a pretty bathroom vanity, instead I stumbled upon something I just had to have right then and there.

I couldn't get off the phone fast enough as i rushed up front lugging this beautiful chandy eager to wheel and deal!!

Sure there are a few ornamental pieces that need to be epoxied back on which I pointed out to the clerk as i asked how much they wanted for it.

Guess how much I got it for?????

$5

can you blame me for throwing out all my reservations and whipping out my debit card faster than you can say, "I'll take it!"??

and the best part is that every last one of the swirly broken off pieces were inside it!!

I think this could be considered an important part of my recovery....

retail therapy!!

Time for God

The last couple of weeks I have been caught up in a whirlwind of starting projects, finishing bible studies,

 visiting with distant loved ones,

and in the midst of it all still walking out my recovery and restoration with God.

 I have made great strides in my healing, any I am truly enjoying the day by day "Aha!" moments as well as the mudane 'breaks'.

Then last week I started waking up 30 minutes before my alarm was set to go off. Not that I actually got up, I just was awakened and talked myself into going back to sleep. After the second day I started getting hip to what was going on, Someone was wooing me. Sadly I was WAY too tired to get up...I make really bad choices when I'm half asleep.

Today however, I got up and I really felt the urge to pick up in Ezekiel where I had left off. Not that I had given up my daily readings, I've just been following one of those handy dandy read the bible in a year lists that has me jumping around the bible. Yet something magical happened when I started in Ezekiel again. Right now it is one of my favorites. I have at least a dozen 'favorites' ,they change more often than the seasons.(pun intended).

Am I glad I did just that. There is a marvelous beauty when what the Lord has been showing you in your everyday life is confirmed through His precious Word.

 It takes my breath away.

To think I chose sleep over that!