I woke up with the sun this morning, trying to find some solace before my impossible day. I turned my Bible to Isaiah--to a passage I read at Amelia's service.  I was hoping the promises of the Father would comfort me again.

He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young.

Isaiah 40:11

The promise that He's leading me has always called me to trust. But this morning, I felt differently. This morning I was angry. This morning I didn't want to follow the Father, because I don't understand WHERE He's leading .. I don't understand why we're even still walking this forsaken path.

I reminded Him this morning that I didn't ask for another child. I didn't plead for more sweet baby cries and sleepless nights like I have 7 times before. I reminded God that this time - this child - this was His surprise. Remember, God, you chose to bless us this summer with a pregnancy we didn't even know was possible. This was YOUR IDEA!! So why, if all those things are true am I once again scouring the Scriptures for some sense of peace, of reason, for some tiny indication why God keeps allowing this heartbreak.

I continued on in Isaiah. It always brings me peace. There MUST be something for me in these lines.

I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God;
I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know, from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me; I am the Lord , and there is no other.

I form light and create darkness; I make well-being and create calamity; I am the Lord , who does all these things.

"Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation and righteousness may bear fruit; let the earth cause them both to sprout; I the Lord have created it.

"Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, 'What are you making?' or 'Your work has no handles'? Woe to him who says to a father, 'What are you begetting?' or to a woman, 'With what are you in labor?'

"Thus says the Lord , the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him: "Ask me of things to come; will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands? I made the earth and created man on it; it was my hands that stretched out the heavens, and I commanded all their host. I have stirred him up in righteousness, and I will make all his ways level; he shall build my city and set my exiles free, not for price or reward," says the Lord of hosts.
Isaiah 45:5‭-‬13 ESV

Today my Amelia turns 4. I should choose to stay quiet. Let the day and it's heavy heart pass without undue attention. I should cry alone over her grave but dry my tears and smile to the world. You know what? I'm not doing that. 

If I've learned anything in 4 years it's that I need GRACE. There are so many things I can't control - my feelings, my memories, my grief. For those things I need GRACE. But there are so many things I can control - my actions, my words, the way I spend my time and my money. And I choose GRACE. 

Today, in honor of Amelia Grace's 4th birthday I'm going to give gifts.  Gifts that I can afford.  Gifts that I can choose.  Gifts of kindness and blessing and joy and grace.  Today I've prayed for 4 specific moments where I can choose to be kind, to give abundantly.  


I hadn't left the hospital 4 years ago before it dawned on me that I'll never have new photos of my girl.  She will not age before my lens.  However, I've come to realize that I can have glimpses of her...the joy she brought me and a wealth of kindness.  She taught me and changed me more than anyone I've ever met shy of Jesus.  I will capture those moments where I choose to be different, kinder, humble, encouraging and I will cling to those as her legacy.  

Today, in honor of Amelia, will you give a gift of grace?  Each time I speak of her, my amazing friends and family support and encourage me in such beautiful ways.  But today... today will you give a gift to someone else, speak Amelia's name and then share THAT with me?  How can you choose Grace today?

Just 3 blocks from my picture window, down that gravel road, nestled next to a grand oak tree lies my second child. We didn't move here last year to be near to her, but we couldn't have gotten any closer this side of heaven.

My soul feels settled in this little brick home around the corner from Amelia's spot. It's due in part to time, I'm sure. She would have turned 3 this month, and each day has a way of smoothing the rough edges of grief.




And then there's these two. That curly haired girl who's wiped her mama's tears on more than one dark night. And that boy...oh THAT BOY! With his shy small and gentle nature he reminded this dry, lonely family that God redeems.

There is still a box left unopened on a shelf in the corner, it's contents all a mystery. A lock of hair I've never seen, inky prints of feet and hands who's tiny size I barely remember and other treasures tucked away by sweet nurses who knew we'd need memories someday. Some day. But not today.

Today I followed behind that curly haired girl as she rode her bike around the corner from our little brick house. "Look, Mama at Amelia's spot! Isn't it beautiful?!" Today God lowered the sun just beyond Amelia's oak tree and my soul felt peace. Our family is whole here.

I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.  -Isaiah 41:18

Today my heart knows joy and my soul knows grief.  My second Mother's Day since Amelia was born and my first with Boone, I would be lying if I let you believe that it hurts less.  Sure, tomorrow I will celebrate with abandon.  I will pick flowers with my sweet Eleanor and try to look at the world in a way only her 4 year old eyes can see.  Tomorrow I will cradle my newborn son.  I will kiss his cheeks and giggle at his noises and show him off to anyone who will glance my way.  Tomorrow I will praise God that He did not forsake me.  Tomorrow I will chose to know only joy.

But today, today I know grief.  Today I dread Mother's Day and it's 2 hugs, 2 kisses, 2 "I Love Yous".  Today I will convince myself that I'm ok with Amelia spending Mother's Day with the Father, but He and I both know that's not true.  Today I will prepare my answer for some well meaning waitress or store clerk or church member who asks, "How many children do you have?"  "Two that will run and one who can fly," I've decided to say...

Amelia Grace

Today my heart is heavy not just for me, but for the other mama's like me.  Sitting here watching my precious boy sleep, I can't help but think of all the women I know who's babies grew wings before they grew feet or the mamas like me who know the weight of their newborn in their arms but not the color of her eyes.  My heart hangs heavy for mothers who didn't get to plan more than a first birthday party and for the dear, sweet mamas who kissed their gray-haired son good-bye.  It doesn't matter if all the memories of your child are contained in a single ultrasound photo or a home full of scrapbooks - YOU are someone's mother!  And tomorrow is for you.  Cry today, grieving mama, but tomorrow walk proud.  Tomorrow, know that however brief or to whatever bitter end, you know the love only a mama knows and that is worth celebrating.

At our church, our new church, we're going through a series entitled Dear Me.  The heart of the messages revolve around 4 individuals from different age groups who pen letters to their older or younger selves.  I find these letters riveting, revealing the heart of an individual which is often so guarded.  But as I sit in the rows each Sunday thinking of what I would say to myself, I find I have no words.

I know Susan in her white wedding dress, clinging tightly to her daddy's arm, would have had no words to comfort the me who sits clicking these keys, nor would I dare whisper to her the tragedies that will mark the first decade of her marriage.  And with the same certainty I can assure you 50 year old Susan will not remember the depth of sorrow we trudged through.  Time has that effect.  It numbs.  It fades.  It scars.  But it doesn't pass quickly.

I want to write to that silly happy mama of one year ago, the one who giggled all the way to the hospital and tell her to sit in the car for one more minute.  To hold Eleanor for one more minute.  Savor that side for one more minute.  I want to write to Susan at 23 and tell her to call her dad on Tuesday morning.  Just because.  I want to write to that stupid newly wed who prayed for a few more childless years of selfish fun.  Her, I don't have kind words for. 

But mostly I don't want to write to myself at all.  I spend so much time in my head and it's not even me I long to talk to.  It's her.  Amelia.  I want to speak to Amelia.  I keep a journal for Eleanor, I have since she was born.  Updates, memories, things I want her to know when I'm too old to remember.  I started one for Amelia too before she was born.  I wrote the last entry 1 year ago Sunday.  The thought of marking down pointless anniversaries and celebrations she would miss seemed cruel and belabored.  So I ended the journal and tucked it under E's.

 But I long to speak to my daughter in a way I never understood.  I want to know her.  I want to know that she loves carrots and hates the color brown.  I want to know what makes her laugh or smile or cry.  I want to know that she feels safe and doesn't miss us, but that she longs for me.  Because I long for her.  All the pain that I felt that rainy Saturday morning when my daughter died, has changed, evolved.  I no longer cry for what I lost.  I rarely cry at all.  Instead my soul longs.

When Amelia was born I felt I could have reached out and touched the face of God.  He was so near to my broken heart.  But time, it numbs, it scars and it turns within.  Each day I feel stronger and further from the face of the Father.  But still my soul longs.  It longs for my Amelia and it longs for the intimacy of God that I felt on that day.  Amelia will celebrate her first birthday with Jesus on Sunday.  The thought of it breaks my heart.  But the hope of someday sitting with her, held tight in the perfect arms of the Father and recounting a lifetime of memories... that hope makes these days bearable. 

Psalm 42

It's been 6 months since I've written.  All my eloquent memories have been penned already.  Everything I have left to say is ugly, unspeakable.  I began to share our news of a new pregnancy in January, but before we had the chance the dirt of a shallow grave was beneath my fingernails.  We lost another baby.  Around 10 weeks, this time in horrific fashion.  Rather than running to the hospital we laid this little one to rest beside Amelia's tree.  We barely whispered a prayer before we turned to go inside. I despise how jaded I've become.  I tell myself it's strength.  Independence.  Tough as nails!  But I am really just numb from life's punches.


We told very few people about our loss earlier this year.  At this point I just feel pathetic.  I have 5 children.  FIVE! But only 1 shares a bed with me on stormy nights.  I can't explain it to my friends.  I can't justify trying again... just one more time... for another little one. What are they supposed to say when they look at me?  Do they even understand how empty my arms feel?  Do they know that I'm not as broken as I seem?  Surely they think I'm stupid.

I want to tell them about the doctors I've seen, the tests I've had, the sins I've confessed.  I want them to know we TRY really hard.  We do everything right.  But I fear only my desperation is heard.  They just see my broken heart.

I imagine the bleeding woman described in the book of Mark felt like this.  For 12 years she was plagued by an unexplained condition.  She was lonely.  Misunderstood.  Separated.  She saw the doctors.  She tried the treatments.  She did everything right.  But it didn't work.  She had faith, but it didn't work.  This woman felt so pathetic, so ashamed that she couldn't even ask the healer she believed in for help.  Instead she brushed his cloak as he walked by.  She was healed before he even turned around.  He didn't reveal to her the reason for her suffering.  He didn't prescribe something to mask her pain.  He didn't explain her condition so she'd have a clear understanding.  He simply healed her.  By faith. And told her to suffer no more.

I want to tell my friends every detail of why we have lost so many babies, but the truth is I don't understand it one bit.  I want to have an answer.  A guarantee that when (please God, WHEN!) we are blessed with another pregnancy I will feel safe.  But that's not Jesus.  His answer is the simplest.  Faith.  Grace for our sins and faith for our souls.  The bleeding woman had faith while she was still bleeding.  I have faith while the dirt of grave sites is still fresh under my nails.  I have faith that Jesus holds Amelia and faith that some day, hopefully soon, I will hold a baby again.

Amelia Grace

I remember a night just a few weeks after we brought Eleanor home from the hospital.  She had colic and screamed for hours on end.  This particular evening she had been wailing since long before I set supper on the table and as night fell there seemed no end in sight.  I bounced her and swayed and paced and sang every praise song I knew twice and there was still no respite from the noise.  As the last chorus of Sweet Hour of Prayer passed my lips, I broke.  I cried to God, "Please just quiet this child." The noise was too much; it had been almost constant since she was born.  Between tears and screams and lullabies and the vacuum that we ran in a desperate attempt to soothe the baby, my head ached for quiet, for peace.  "God, please let my next child be quiet..."


It was sunny when we rushed to the hospital to have Amelia.  We were laughing at a silly song E was singing.  Dave called his sisters.  I called my mom and Adrienne and the hospital.  We rushed into the labor room in a loud, chaotic whirwind.  E's ipad game whizzed and buzzed in the corner.  The nurse scurried about giving orders and trying to work around my incessant, nervous giggles.  I, of course, talked too much.  I always talk too much.  I jumped into the bed as she strapped the monitor around me and the first hint of silence fell.  There was nothing, no familiar swoosh, swoosh, swoosh.  Just the silence.

It's been there, the silence, since that sunny Friday.  It was masked at first by my loud, uncontrollable sobbing.  It was hidden behind the chorus of prayers and sweet concerns of friends.  I drowned it with ESPN because it's the only station I could be confident wouldn't play a Pampers commercial at 2 am.  Each card or visit or phone call helped hide it, but I knew it was there, waiting.  I dreaded the day it would move in for good.

The silence lives here now.  It hangs in Eleanor's room, mocking me when I check on one quiet child at midnight.  It lingers in my car as I hold my breath past the cemetery straining to hear ANYTHING that might bring peace.   It swells with every friend that hesitates to utter Amelia's name.  The silence is comfortable in part - a quiet, undemanding friend.  But mostly it's stifling.  I long to be able to walk back into our church sanctuary without feeling so obvious, so incomplete.  On Sunday mornings I can hear the band's praise music drift up the hallway toward my safe Sunday School classroom and my feet turn to enter.  But the silence wins.  The fear grips.  The panic overtakes and I run.  I run to my covers, to my seclusion, behind the doors, behind the walls, into the closet.  And I wait. I wait for the world to win.  I worry that Satan is proud.  Proud that he's kept me from church one more Sunday.  Proud that I'm not healed yet.

But silence is impressionable.  Deep in it's midst, wallowing in self pity, covered in shame, I remember those evenings of rocking E and begging for silence.  I remember rising at midnight and singing praise songs.  And the songs come back now.  Not out loud just yet, but lyrics swirl around my head....