Monday, May 8, 2017

Anticipation...

   Hey y'all! Seems like it's been too long...maybe it has. Life has been incredibly busy and taxing but beautiful too, if that all can be in one run on sentence. We've celebrated, we've had hard conversations, we've had tears and misunderstandings, we've had so much softball LOL. All to say, we've been here, living life and making memories and mama just didn't get it together to write it all down like I once did. Funny now that I'm staring at this blank page through blurred tears, the words seem to pour out of me faster than I can type. It's therapy really. I miss seeing it all in black and white...it's borderline validating along with your feedback and comments and thoughts and prayers. I've missed that. We've had admissions...not many and nothing crazy serious. We've had crap days with crap neutrophil counts. We've had amazing days with beautiful people and feel good days with appropriate neutrophil counts. I can't promise that this post will even make much sense....if you've gotten this far, thanks for hanging in there.
    This weekend we celebrated Brelan and Mileigh turning 11 and 9. Their birthdays are actually in March and April but softball came first. They don't always choose to celebrate by having a traditional birthday party because they love to travel almost as much as their mama, if that's possible. Often we will do a weekend trip or whatever and that's their "party". This year was at a trampoline park. For those that are neutro family, I cringe too...but it's our life right? You plan the party, you give the shot, you sanitize, you change clothes and you move on. I love celebrating my girls. All of them. On their actual birthday days we did do small things so the anticipation has been building for some time now. Mileigh was first in March and chose a day of shopping and good food...that's a girl after my own heart. Brelan chose a make up day at Merle Norman that the weather put on hold but we decided on a sweet friend, good food, and a movie. Funny how as we sat at each dinner there was an unsaid and unexplained empty chair.  You know where I'm going here. She should be here. She should be celebrating with her sisters for their birthdays and planning to celebrate this weekend for mother's day and then bombarding me with whatever it is that an almost 14 year old wants to do for their upcoming birthday. I should know what that's like. We should be preparing for high school and driving permits and dealing with braces and zits and periods and everything else...I should already know about all of this. I know that she would take pride in celebrating her sisters and her mama and her daddy and those who loved her so very much. I know how big she'd love because she loved me that big. I can only imagine that Jesus sent her here to teach me just that. How to love so big. How to love in such a way that when you go people say "that must be what Jesus smells like".  Maybe that phrase doesn't make sense to some of you. I am one of those people who have a thing about smells...I've always sniffed my babies up and still do. I notice how people smell...not in a weird way but just in a "them" way. People smell like their lives, their homes, their clothing, just them. I think back on times when I'd sit and hold Joeli and sniff her sweet head and I imagine that's what Jesus smells like. I hope one day I can leave folks with a tangible sense of Jesus regardless of which one it is.
   This post is starting to feel a bit rambled...sorry. Again, it's been way too long. I don't care for the anticipation of holidays and birthdays. I'd rather just wake up on that day, smile because we are here or have been here, and move on. I adore Joeli, Brelan, and Mileigh and I adore celebrating them and am honored to be their mama. I will never have the words to describe an upcoming mother's day with 2 of my 3 girls at my side. NEVER. It's not natural, it's not ok, it's not happy, and it shouldn't be. We live in a fallen world where hurt and tragedy are far too real. I don't get it all right and I don't say the right things probably more times than not but I know who holds my baby and I know who holds us all. He will fight my fights and He will do so without me having to say a word. I think of 2 different places in the bible when I think of these things. I'll post them below and then I'll probably go...


        "For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you declares the Lord, and I will restore your fortunes and gather you from all the nations and all the places where I have driven you, declares the Lord, and I will bring you back to the place from which I sent you into exile."  ~Jeremiah 29:11-14


    "The Lord will fight for you, and you have only to be silent." ~Exodus 14:14


Honestly...I don't think there's anything left to say. He will bring me back and He fights for me. He can and will do the same for you. I hope your Mother's Days are filled with joy even if that comes without a smile, closed wings, broken halos, cried out amens, or arms and laps overfilled. Love Big! Be so close to Him, that we walk away and smell like Him! I pray through all my failures that this thread rings loud and clear to my sweet girls.


Joeli made me, Brelan saved me, Mileigh sanctified me! Be blessed and #SINGLOUD


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