June 28th 2017

When does the pain stop she asked…. that is the first thing that sweet mama asked… a few months ago I was matched up with a woman who lost her son. I know it is difficult to initially feel comfortable enough to just unload the emotional baggage you suddenly are carrying to a complete stranger..or it was for me.. now I make sure when I chat with these moms that all is kept between them and myself (I did ask said mom if I could tell this short story).. because we are talking about our deepest and rawest of feelings, most times even those closest to them do not know… So She says again…when will the pain stop.. I responded, I don't know..mine is still going..BUT it is not as raw as it once was. It won't consume you the way it does now and that although it is hard to imagine..you will laugh again smile again enjoy life again..but give yourself grace and time. She says to me "i can't even imagine laughing, in fact I can even smile!!!"… it brought me back to the first REAL laugh I had after Tommy passed away.

About 12 days after Tommy died, our sweet dog Bishop (my first "baby") was vigorously shaking his head… as he has done for years before, I swear that dog had some sort of nervous tick..anyway, all of a sudden, his ear swells up, like massively..all that flooded my mind was 'oh no no no..he better be fine, we can withstand loosing that crazy dog too..'.  After a loss you (or rather I) was on constant death patrol~ if someone wasn't feeling well I'd have to fight the crazy out of my mind and remind myself I was being a little trigger happy by jumping to the conclusion that someone or something may die…. So in our various states of mess and grief and no makeup (questionable if I had even tackled brushing my hair) and sweats and general dishevelment we take him to the vet… Well he's got a hematoma and if he doesn't shake his head or itch it and rock the cone until it is reabsorbed… so we get home, a giant cone for our giant dog- that is when the laughing began… Bishop CONTINUALLY ran into stuff, walls, every single piece of furniture.. ran into people..always came in from outside with it filled completely with snow…you name it he ran into it..but the best part was he'd groan, this belly groan as if he was so disappointed in himself for running into something… maybe it wasn't really that funny, or maybe you had to be there.. but it was my first hard laugh..and it felt so good. To know that through the tears and heartbreak there was a glimmer of hope that joy would creep in… Joy in Suffering..

There is such restoration in God. Trusting Him with all that you are.. trusting that He will hold you up when you cannot stand on your own… Trusting Him that He knows what is best for you…
As I say all the time….That sometimes when we are faced with something that requires us to make the decision as to if we are going to fight through the hardest of times or allow them to swallow us up whole.. Time after time my decision has been to fight, to find joy, to enjoy the trial as a blessing and to love the trial I face because it is a gift…a gift from God. Treasuring it as I know how it will shape and mold my character. It isn't easy per say BUT i will say it always ensures that the trial becomes a blessing, the tears become hope and the heartache becomes a testimony to my deep faith.

June 26th 2017

When a person prays for courage…does God just give him courage?

When a person prays for patience…does God just give him patience or gives him what he wants?

When a person prays for their family to feel close..does God just give the family warm fuzzy feelings of closeness?

When a spouse prays for the mending of a relationship..does God just take away every wrong that was done and make it perfect?

When a person prays for mending or healing or change or happiness…does God immediately mend…does He take away the thing that hurt us? does He immediately change our circumstances to make us happy?

No…When a person prays for something, God gives them the opportunity for it…the opportunity for courage, a opportunity for growth..opportunity for healing..the opportunity for change..the opportunity for happiness.. God doesn’t give us exactly what we ask for, He gives us a way to find those things…He wants us to find it all through Him and with Him… He does it all to make us better equip to serve Him. So that His light shines through us that others see His light and come to Him! And in the end He gives us far more than we deserve, far more than we asked for…far more than we could ever imagine for ourselves.

Every trial, every stumble..every rock bottom we have in life is not to crush us and leave us broken…but rather to have us reach for Him~ He arcs us from who we are to who He designed us to be all along. Every trial is a blessing in disguise…it is God’s way of speaking to us, molding us, growing us.. My greatest trial was my greatest loss but it was also my greatest blessing… I know God in a way many do not, I’ve physically felt His peace filled embrace.. I’ve heard Him speak to me in the depths of my despair.. He has heaved me out of fierce waters to save me…and He has shown me miracles that could only point to Him.. 

I’ve lived in full trust with Him.. Nothing absolutely nothing in our lives happens with out passing through the fingertips of God..Time and time again~ I’ve prayed for so many things and God’s answer was no…not now or at times He has been silent…when there was silence I knew what He was asking of me.. PATIENCE. He was taking one of my weakest and shortest attributes and growing it into one of my strongest. The Bible is peppered with stories about prayer and requests..and each one speaks of prayer, patience and trust in God… all of those put together is our life breath, it quenches our thirst and feeds our soul…

Ask and you shall receive… seek and you shall find… knock and the door will be opened for you… sometimes you can’t save everything, you lose a lot, and you can’t make everything perfect the way you want it…because God has prepared and planned for us things far better than we could plan for ourselves…. its like God allows things to pass by us so that when what He has prepared for us comes by… we are perfectly prepared for it.

Blessings.

June 20th 2017

From out of the fire…you will come forth more refined than gold. 

(But He knows the way I take, when He has tested me, I shall come forth as pure as gold. Job 23:10)

It has been nearly 6 years since Tommy passed away. That makes my heart sink…SIX years… So much has changed.. I used to count the days..and now I count the years in which I have walked through life without my sweet son. If someone had asked me all those years ago…in the very beginning, when loss was raw, emotions were weary, sleep was elusive and my part of my soul was so newly shattered…. So in 5 years what will your grief look like? what will it feel like? will you walk it alone? will your marriage survive? will you ever find peace? will there be joy? love? laughter? will there be life again? 

I would have said I cannot imagine what it will look like or feel like….I was so scared to think of the “future” and far too afraid to review the past.. the stagnant lingering of the present is all I had back then. Holding on moment to moment… Now life looks a lot different, time surely doesn't heal, God does…I was blessed with another daughter.. Not many people know why I was so hell bent on naming her Elizabeth..I knew it was Her, Elizabeth.. from the moment I found out I was pregnant….it is a name that was softly whispered into my soul. The name Elizabeth is Hebrew, meaning oath of God or God in satisfaction… her middle name is the same as mine…Esther.. also Hebrew, meaning Star.. Both names hail from the Bible, two strong women… one in old age bore a son, John the Baptist that paved the way for Jesus and the other was a Queen that faced her King and saved the Jew’s from death. Both women revered for their strength and their dedication to their faith… So this sweet daughter of mine, strong in name and strong in wilI embodies both of those women.. It is not lost on me..I know every day, every kiss, every hug and every Mama I love you is never taken for granted… Elizabeth by the grace of God is healthy, perfect in all the ways she is intended to be…she is precious. 

I’ve not written (on the blog) for years… been busy soaking up life, healing…and learning. When you hear about grief most people mention the “stages” of grief… some of that may be true, there is a natural progression to grief but it is most definitely not uniform, it is unique just like the loss~ it varies person to person.. And honestly I think it sets people up for not succeeding at life after loss. Grief isn’t something you strategically go thru, completing stage after stage until you are done…because in my opinion one is never done grieving the person they love. I’ve heard more and more about how someone feels like their not “getting thru” the stages.. I assure them it doesn’t mean they are failing or not working thru their loss…I make sure to emphasize that we are all unique, that a couple can lose a child and grieve soooo differently.. I’m a open book when it comes to all I experienced and that I didn’t go thru all the “stages of grief” because I’m pretty sure there’s no stage of grief included desperately crying in the shower, falling to my knees and saying “GOD i surrender, I surrender every inch of me, of my life to you… have it, take it.. I’m done pressing thru life on my own…I need you, I trust your plan…” and I’m sure there is no “stage” for being a parent to a child who’s lost their brother and having to comfort them and explain to them why it will be ok… it simple isn’t found in a book… It is ok to grieve how you need to, on whatever timeline…. 

In all these years my grief has not subsided..but rather evolved..just like the ocean, it ebbs and flows…sometimes the water is placid, glass like..and other times it is fierce, a force to be reckoned with.. I know it will never swallow me whole, God ensures me of that..but I’d be remiss if i didn’t say there were moments where I wandered too deep being sucked into the rhythm of life because it was easier to do that than to sit and miss Tommy. It is also hard being a parent of a child who’s lost a sibling… Estella old enough to remember all that happened, the fear in my eyes, me rushing him into the ambulance..and the frantic movements of all the adults around her~ sheltering her until the morning..when I sat and told her, after her pleading to me as to where Tommy was…those words leaking out of my lips..that Tommy was in Heaven..I still remember her little body, on the bed, me kneeling down to utter those words which were still so foreign to me.. He passed away. I think it is one thing to shoulder your own grief, but to feel weight of your childs grief is something else. Estella talks about that night..I listen and what I see is a kid…who is constantly digesting all that happened and her own grief..it’s as if the older she gets the more she grieves because it changes for her…she understands things deeper than she did at the time..it evolves. She also likes to bring up the olive story, when I told her we’d be burying Tommy’s body~ she was so confused..”how can you put him in the ground if he’s in heaven!!”…… by the grace of the Holy Spirit, who literally put the words into my mouth…. I said~ you know how you love olives, we are like olives… the green ones where we need to eat around the pit is like us, our pit is intact, just like our soul.. the black olives have the hole where the pit was, but it was removed..like when we go to heaven, God removes the pit, just like the pit our soul is the seed of life and God brings it to heaven when He whispers our name.

Estella and Elizabeth.. my little loves. One has seen so much and the other seeks to see. They are the before and after. I daily surrender to God and His plan for me..for us. Some days it is easy to do that…other days, with clinched teeth to I say I TRUST YOU. I trust in your promises your hope your love your truth…He never lets me down, I get distracted and wander but always return…eager for His presence…thirsty for His peace. 

There is no road map to grief, no google maps to avoid the traffic or hard times… the only way is through. If you surrender and allow God to help, if you give yourself grace and time… the loss becomes a blessing, the healing becomes a journey, the pain gives way to joy and the hope is that one day, whatever your trial, tragedy, loss can be used to help another person… we were never meant to experience life selfishly, every thing we learn is meant to be passed on. When we endure life’s hardships it is never just meant for us to learn from, sometimes we are chosen to endure a loss so that someone else chooses God…that His light shines through us and changes another life.. The lesson is never just for us. 

All in all, God has tested me…and with HIS help.. He refined me and I came out not scorched or burned..but rather healed saved and grateful. 

Blessings Always. 

Brie