An Unexpected Journey

The wind whipped through the girl’s hair and the sound of waves lapping on the beach filled her ears.  She held tightly to the red, shiny coke can in her hand.   In a moment her foot stumbled and the bright aluminum slipped from her grip.  The can rolled on the beach and all the sweet contents poured out into the sand.   A dark puddle in the midst of all the bright white.  Feeling frantic now, the girl bent down and tried desperately to push the brown soaked sand back into the coke can.  Her fingers shook.  Her efforts were futile.  The coke was gone and the can was empty. Then I woke up.  The girl was me. I had a certain life of joy and sweetness.  Completely untouched by pain or death.  And then in a split second it slipped from my hands and everything that filled my heart and life was gone.  Poured out and soaked up by the thirsty, unforgiving ground.  And my life was empty after that.  For a tim...

Today is Mother's Day and the sun is just creeping up when I sneak out on the porch.  Whispy white vapors blanket the neighborhood so thickly I can barely see the trees across the street. It is foggy. And I think it should be. Exactly eight years ago at this very time, I was checking into the hospital and filling out paper work for labor and delivery. Eight hours later Makiah would make her grand entrance and I would become a mommy. And there are so many things I don't understand. So many things that are shrouded by a foggy veil. Alena asked at lunch today where Makiah's birthday present was. A few short weeks ago I was tucking her in for a nap on the afternoon of Easter. I told her to sleep good so we could hunt eggs when she woke up. Then she exclaimed with such excitement "And Makiah will be here!" I asked why she thought Makiah would be here, and she replied "Because we have her Easter basket." Of course, what child would leave...

Sometimes its the little things that let us know God loves us. Early on the morning before Easter I managed to sneak out on my porch for a little coffee and a quiet time. The words I read began with, "I have called you out of darkness into my marvelous light..." Oh how true that has been for me! Not just out of spiritual darkness through a relationship with Jesus, but out of the darkness of pain and grief. He has pulled me out a pit of despair whose dark, slippery walls were at one time strangling me with the lie that I would never experience light in this life again. "I delight greatly in the Lord; my soul rejoices in my God. For He has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels." Isaiah 61:10 This was the second verse at the end of the reading. It took my breath away that it would be this verse. And suddenly I was ...

So I took a road trip with just my girls for spring break to visit their grandparents and family in Alabama.   It's  barely lunch time and already the adventures have begun!  It only took Abby about twenty minutes to get her hand stuck in a mouse trap at her great grandmothers house today.  Thank goodness it was only the kind the mouse sticks to and not the metal one that breaks fingers! So it took us a lot of hand washing to get all the sticky poison off those little fingers and especially that thumb she still likes to suck...  Never mind that I am a speech therapist and I can tell this thumb sucking is doing bad things to her mouth! But the one that takes the cake was when mom and I were dressing the twins this morning and Maddie Grace, who had only left the room for a minute, comes walking back in with her face stuck down in the bottom side of a plunger!!  Ughhh!  Oh the things I will have to tell them when they are teens!  You should have se...

"Mommy I'm poopy. Change me." I sigh and start to change my now three year old's diaper. We just can't seem to conquer this potty training thing. We are trying everything... sticker charts, m&m's, wearing panties for days, setting a timer to keep our potty times regular, watching potty time Elmo dvd's over and over. At a friend's suggestion, I have even tried making the twins wash out their own poopy panties in the toilet! They were grossed out, but obviously not enough to bring change. So when I open this kid's pull-up, I am surprised. It is clean and empty except for a small Winnie the Pooh toy. I pull it out and say, "Baby, you aren't dirty, this is just a toy in your pants." To which she responds with uproarious laughter, "But Mommy, I pooped a "Pooh!" Oh. My. Surely if you are old enough to be this witty, you are old enough to use a potty!!! I admit I did get a good laugh though... If ...

This session of the conference was titled, “The Agony of Defeat.”  The speaker talked about praying for God to heal people.  Most of the time we hear the miracle stories, but this time he only told stories of when God didn’t heal.  He didn’t offer platitudes or try to explain away the irony.  He simply said Christ says we must take up our cross daily and follow him.  This speaker believes that the cross we must carry if we are willing to pray in faith for people to be healed is the pain and disappointment that comes inevitably when some are not healed.   Many of the stories he told were of children who continued to suffer or even die after receiving prayer for healing.  In every story I was the parent.   Because I am that parent.  I had believed for a solid hour with all my heart after the accident that God would raise Makiah from the dead, if she was indeed dead.  I just knew all the healing stories I had read were in me for faith ...

A dear friend sent me a photo today of a bubbling brook and peaceful rushing waters.   She texted me “as I watched the crisp fresh water bubbling from that spring it reminded me of Makiah, and I grasped my necklace of her Living Water Well that I wear 99.9% of the time.   It made me smile as I remembered all the sweet little girls that are now able to go to school and live somewhat normal lives because of Makiah’s dream.   This photo makes me happy and helps me to remember her beauty.   It has no filter or editing, simply God’s creation in all its splendor.”   Tears sprang to my eyes.   Happy tears that Makiah still comes to my friend’s mind.   Joy that the money Makiah gave from her piggy bank shortly before her death to help build a well at church has multiplied into many wells.   And amazement that this text came today, when today was the day I planned to blog about all the new wells! Yes there are more!   There are elev...