One Year

Today we will celebrate The Year That Gibson Changed Our Lives.

A year ago today was the most terrifying and yet one of the most joyous days of our lives.  
As we welcomed Gibson into a world that wasn't quite ready for him we chose joy because of the crazy treacherous waters we'd walked through to get there.  At that moment the sight of his tiny sweet face was beyond anything we'd ever experienced before.  
And we were hopeful yet fearful of the days to come.  

This week has been a milestone I've both dreaded and looked forward to.  It's the pain of remembering each detail and the hurt of my heart longing for that sweet one year old baby boy... meanwhile the peace we find in crossing the finish line with this year behind us.  
Nothing will change in a day, but it is another step in the walk of healing.  

I hate to run. I've hated to run since the first time in 5th grade I was forced to run around the asphalt track at florence black elementary.  Then to the beginning of tennis in 8th grade when coach sutton made me run the white lines of the court... it just got worse.  

In January I started running. Confession: I would go in the cold, dark cardio theater at the Y and run and ball my eyes out. One because it hurt; two because it was healing me. For something I'd always hated, I had a strange determination to conquer it, and it was somehow oddly therapeutic.  Like painting... but that's a whole other chapter of my book! ;)

When I started running my c-section area still hurt. With every step I could feel the pain of that precious child I bore; that sweet baby boy that was missing from my womb & my life. But somehow as the pain subsided in running, the daily walk through grief grew easier as well.

Saturday I will {try to!}  run my first 5k - something I swore I'd never do. I've always held to the opinion that running a 'race' was about the dumbest thing a person could willfully do. I go by the ecard that says, "if you see me running you better call the cops..."
But I'm doing this 5k this weekend because it was part of my healing. It was something to work toward... and conquer.  Something to do with friends on the milestone week of G's birthday- friends who've helped me conquer a lot of things I didn't think I could face this year.  
But I did. We did.

Gibson taught us so much about what we could conquer and walk through.  Before the moment he arrived, through the tender moments of the 108 days we had with him, and the many days we've walked through since- about ourselves, each other, those around us and most importantly about God.

Some days I find myself falling into the trap of guilt, of questions, of "what ifs."  But really I wouldn't trade what we went through this year.  As painful as much of it was, it was a journey God had for us and it's made us all a little bit more of who He intended us to be.

As I wrote one of those sentences in the first paragraph today I realized it's even more true now:  We choose JOY because of the treacherous waters we've walked through to get here.  We STILL choose thankfulness because we really truly are thankful for the year God has given us and carried us through.  And for all the people he's placed next to us to pick us up when we couldn't (or didn't want to) keep going.    

How one little baby & his less than 4 month on earth could change a lifetime of 'us' is beyond me, but that's how God's love works.  It's not a measure of time.  I mentioned to someone last week that we were anticipating the milestone of Gibson's Birthday and they very calmly said, "A life is not really truly measured by the time lived."

HAPPY BIRTHDAY sweet boy. I hope you are having a GLORIOUS heavenly birthday. A party beyond anything this party-planning momma could imagine.


We love you with all our hearts.

10 years!

10 Years ago today I married my love.  

We were young and starry eyed, having no grasp of what was to come.  

But I wouldn't change a thing.

I remember the first moment I saw him walk into the choir room and into my life.  I had no idea at that moment the journey ahead of us... I definitely didn't think I'd marry that kid!

Life has thrown us for some loops but we've clung to each other and most importantly to God and made it thus far.

5,334 days together

3 Houses

1 cross country blind faith move

16 jobs

3 beautiful kids

1 great loss

100's of fights

Just as many make ups

A LOT of faith

Many many joyous days  

I wrote this song for some friends before Daniel & I got married & we've sung it in several weddings since.  It could not be more true for our love and our life now...

In a glance I saw you, in a heartbeat you moved me

From my doubts, my fears & uncertainties

To a comfort beyond compare

You have taken my heart there 

And from that first moment I knew...

I knew it was you when I saw your face

I knew it was you when I felt your embrace

I knew it was you when you said always

Oh oh, I knew, I knew it was you.

You have shaped my world

To what I dreamt it would be 

You have shown me love unconditionally

From this day on

In your arms I'll forever be 

Cause from that first moment I knew...

I knew it was you when I saw your face

I knew it was you when I felt your embrace

I knew it was you when you said always

Oh oh, I knew, I knew it was you.

And I can't promise I'll make all your dreams come

But I promise I will be there for you

And I can't promise I'll always know what's best for you,

But I know I know this much is true... 

I knew it was you when I saw your face

I knew it was you when I felt your embrace

I knew it was you when you said always

Oh oh, I knew, I knew it was you.

I've loved you more every single day for 10 years.

Many, many more to come...

A loving Father

This morning at the end of worship Pastor Morgan prayed for a couple and he said to the lady that she was missing a "nearness" with God.  That she felt distant from God because of the actions and model set before her by her own earthly father.  As I listened and watch this woman begin to weep it hit me like a flood on this Father's Day why I so easily trust my God.  Why I so freely take Him at His word.  
So many women have deep rooted trust issues with God because they've not seen that in their Daddy.  They've not seen him come through again & again for them.

I trust because I've seen that in a father.  I've had the best example of a loving father a girl could ever dream of.  A father who has loved me through thick & thin.  Been my biggest hero & my biggest encourager.  My biggest fan & strengthening challenger.   My loving rebuker yet standing with arms of grace.  Grace... Underserved & unearned.
  
My trust in my gracious heavenly Father this turbulent, stormy year came so naturally because I had that modeled in my earthly father from as early as I can remember.  And he's never stopped.  
My daddy's love never gives up on me.  How much more does the heavenly Father love us and pour out his blessings on us? (Matthew 7)

We went on to sing the words to My Chains Are Gone, "The Lord has promised good to me.  His word my hope secures.  He will my shield & fortress be as long as life endures..." I reflected on singing those very words at my Papaw's funeral with my daddy a few short years ago.  Little did I know on this Father's day several years later he may be singing with my baby boy.  

The other day in the store Ryder asked about his other great grandfathers.  I reminded him Grandaddy, Papaw and Papa were in heaven.  He smiled and asked how we could get them a Father's Day card.  :)   After a few minutes he relented that being with Gibson would be a good Father's Day for them. 

Yes it would.

Get IN the party.

What did we do all weekend?!?  That is the question as I survey my house on Monday mornings.  Our weekends seem to be a blur of a mess after all that.  There are piles & piles of laundry & dishes all around and the kids are asking to go to the pool because it's now summer and that's what they expect everyday I guess.  We had a weekend of nothing and everything.  There was nothing really ON our calendar but I think those are the weekends that fill my needy heart the most.  After a long church day, staying up unexpectedly last night talking with girlfriends till the wee hours of the morning left me a sleepy momma this morning, but it also made me a happy one.  Because in the midst of the chaos around me this morning I'm better off.  I'm better because of those around me who help me to grow, encourage me to step out in what I'm walking through and challenge me to see the important things IN life.

I've been hard on myself lately because as I try to grow my business I just don't have time to blog ABOUT the parties I do because I'm usually working on the next one.  And I know that's really the way to grow in what I do.  So I usually just throw out an instagram and hope people like what I do and pass it along.  I was telling Daniel last week while we were setting up a party... I just don't know how all these party bloggers do it... telling him all the crazy pictures I see and the set ups they do.  I went on to tell him how many of them are paid by companies to style or rather "stage" parties.  Meaning... it's not a real party.  It's a FAKE party set up to give you ideas of how to use the products.  All well-intended and a good idea really.  But again, it's not a REAL party.  They are paid & receive unlimited resources to create an imaginative party for you.  I'd rather be in on the REAL thing, wouldn't you?  The real mess of it all.  The real problems of having a party are hard to deal with.  You set up a party in the middle of the life happening around you.  It's not just a pretty dessert table, set up on a lonely wall with a beautiful backdrop that looks unachievable & untouchable.
At the graduation party I set up last week the first guests started arriving and no one was touching the milk & cookies table.  They were all just standing looking at it...  Finally I said to some of them- "GET IN THERE... EAT SOME COOKIES!  DRINK SOME MILK"  A few minutes later a guy came over with an almost empty mason jar of milk and said, "Man, I'm lactose intolerant but that was delicious!!!" I laughed and his wife rolled her eyes and ate another cookie.

See that's why I wanna be IN on the party.  I want to enjoy the time & ones around me.  Last night as the moms I was with were talking about the pressures of life and feeling the need to just "checkout" sometimes one of my wise friends said that recently she read a devotional reminding her that God's resources to us are unlimited.  His GRACE is unlimited to us.  She said she saw it as an ocean.  Many times we walk over and scoop up what we need for the day and walk through our day carrying it as it seeps through our tired fingers until in runs out.  It runs out.  Then we explode.  On our kids or our husbands or our already worn down house.  But what we should be doing is realizing there is an ocean to dip from constantly.  His unlimited resources.  So when I feel like I can't stay IN the party... I can't keep up.  I CAN keep dipping into HIS resources.

The New Normal

5 months later.  

It's been almost one year since the chaos & turmoil began.  In May last year was when our world was shaken with one sonogram, and that was just the beginning... So as I heard the pitter patter of little feet coming to my bed this morning I smiled.  Those pitter patters are hard to hear in the wee hours of the morning – or the middle of the night, but today they were a sweet sound. 

Last week I walked by the refrigerator and glanced over to see what appeared to be “normal.”  A calendar splattered with different colored sharpie scribblings of new things filling our life- Tball, ballet, church functions, friends' birthday celebrations, company in town, things of spring & happiness.  The business of life has resurfaced... and I’m ok with it.  As January approached I dreaded the normalcy of life.  After months of chaos the monotony of it all was daunting.  I both longed for and feared the days of taking Ryder to school, going to the Y, going to Target & Chickfila and MOMs club.  How I would function in all the regular life situations after what we’d gone through was confusing.  How would I carry on without that extra little one that was supposed to be strapped to me in a baby bjorn?  But life has carried on.  Things have resumed and gotten easier. 

Last week when I picked Ryder up from the Y, he screamed that he'd left the picture he'd drawn (I thought to myself, great, another colored picture to carry home and put somewhere).   As they handed it to me tears filled my eyes... 

If you could see the pictures Ryder colored in the fall and winter you'd understand my ridiculous joy.  I don't even have one to show because I discretely discarded of them hoping they wouldn't look like that forever.  They were dark, angry lines that you can only make a crayon do with strong (angry) force.  Every picture was a dark black or blue and none in the lines, and none 'pretty.'  So this colorful happy pictures was so much more than a silly car that day.

In an effort of "newness" as I would call it I've been on a quest to paint.  Furniture, walls... whatever.  My dad texted me this morning and said, "The kids better not sit still or you may paint them too."  It's true.  So after a week of getting to know the man at Benjamin-Moore, this weekend my sweet, long-suffering husband repainted the house.  I needed fresh, clean, comforting colors.  And he did that for me- knowing full well it wouldn't fix my problems, but maybe ease the day to day pain along the way.   

Thank you Jesus for plucking us out of darkness... and into color.  For calling us, "Out upon the waters... where grace abounds... and faith will stand.  Letting my soul rest in Your embrace..."

So on this seemingly random Monday morning I find myself dancing around the {completely disastrous} house with Paisley to the blaring sounds of the new Justin Timberlake album. :)  Before I could imagine I am genuinely happy again.  And not feeling guilty for it.

I can still feel the “Tug of it”  There is still an ache for that sweet boy, but there is what seems to be forwardness and a new normal.

5 Years

Five years ago today I was given a gift like no other.  Along with the sweetest little 8lb baby boy I'd ever seen, I was entrusted with the gift of motherhood.  And man has it taken me for a ride in five short years!?!  Through the highest of joys and the lowest of tragedies it is the most noble job I have had or ever will.  There are days I fail miserably and days I go to sleep with a smile glued to my face.  There are moments each day I beg God for mercy & moments I thank Him for goodness.  It's taught me more than I could fathom and I've got a LONG way to go and lots to learn...

This sweet little stubborn son of mine turning five today came into this world butting heads with me one second and making me cry for joy the next and he hasn't stopped yet.  He refused to enter the world the way we wanted and he's had 'bigger and better' ideas ever since.  It doesn't seem possible that he's FIVE and starting kindergarten this year.  I feel like I just stayed up pacing the floors all night with him in my arms.
 
Ryder has literally SHOVED me through this past year.  I honestly don't know if I'd be standing where I am today if it weren't for him carrying me along.  The love he had for his brother from the moment he knew he existed was contagious.  And his visions & dreams of him now are astounding.  His hope, belief, & trust through this all continue to challenge my faith daily.  And his sweet smile helps me face each new day... and choose thankfulness.

So today as I clean his MANY messes, enter into his passionate heated debates (about something uber important I'm sure), feed his always hungry belly, listen to his constant humming and chatter I will remember how good God is.  I will remember how creative He is.  Because if this little 5 year old boy is just one tiny glimmer of how creative my creator is I'm still in for a journey.

And this year, celebrating this 5th year is just a little bit sweeter.  We've been given a glimpse of how fleeting life is and how much it means to celebrate it.  And I will joyfully wake him up and take him to get donuts, take cupcakes to his class at school, let him play a little extra on the playground with his sister, surprise him with a dinner trip to Chuck E Cheese (with that wretched mouse & bad pizza!), let him stay up a little late, and put together the biggest & baddest Lego party I can.

I will help him with his BIG plans, whether about Legos or how he's gonna change the world...

   

Our Valentines for G

I vowed from the day Gibson died we would find a way to celebrate him & include him in special days.  I've always loved Valentines.  Call it commercial or whatever you want, but a day to celebrate the ones you love?  I'm all about it! :)  So a couple days before we were writing Ryder's valentines for school and he so sweetly asked if he could make one for Baby Gibson.  I smiled, said that was sweet and made sure he understood we couldn't really send it to him.  Then I told the kids I'd think of some way to celebrate Valentines Day with him...

We decided to take them to a park and let them them release red & white balloons for Gibson.  They loved the idea.  They had all kinds of questions about heaven, travel time of balloons and the possibilities of attaching a cookie to the balloons for him as well.  ;) They asked if Gibson could see them, touch them, etc.  All to which we answer, "Well, we're not sure, but he knows you LOVE him!" 

That afternoon each of the kids colored a sweet little heart to attach.  

Paisley's was all purple of course, with a happy little sun in the middle.

When I handed Ryder his heart he said, "Can I make it a broken heart?"  A little caught off guard I said, "Well, yes I guess."  He drew the line down the middle and said, "Because I'm heartbroken about Gibson."  I don't know where he heard that, but of course it melted MY heart.

He wrote out "I LOVE YOU GIBSON" on the other side.

After Daniel came home from work we headed to a nearby park where we've taken family pictures before.  It was a beautiful crisp sunset.  I was worried it would be too emotional for my heart to handle, but like many things with kids the chaos overtakes some of the emotions!  :)  It was a very sweet time though.  

One day back in the fall while I was driving back and forth to the NICU the song 1000 Years came on the radio.  The words pierced my heart.  I pictured hearing it as I took Gibson home one day.  As the months went by I heard it periodically and it still got to me.  Then I heard it the day before Valentines and it had a whole new meaning for me.  A new meaning of how I loved him.  A new meaning of how I love Ryder & Paisley.  A new meaning of how I love Daniel.  A new meaning of how we love in general.  

Heartbeats fast

Colors and promises

How to be brave

How can I love when I’m afraid to fall

But watching you stand alone

All of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow

One step closer

I have died everyday waiting for you

Darling don’t be afraid I have loved you

For a thousand years

I’ll love you for a thousand more

Time stands still

Beauty in all it is

I will be brave

I will not let anything take away

What’s standing in front of me

Every breath

Every hour has come to this

One step closer

I have died everyday waiting for you

Darling don’t be afraid I have loved you

For a thousand years

I’ll love you for a thousand more

And all along I believed I would find you 

Time has brought your heart to me

I have loved you for a thousand years

I'll love you for a thousand more

One step closer