CHOOSE HOPE

Some days are just harder than others.  Isn't that just so true for everyone.  One day is good, normal, even average or boring and then the next sort of blows up in your face.

I have been processing over the last couple of months.  Processing is the best way I can say it. Fighting what ifs, battling why, pushing back how comes.  It's hard to press into the Lord in all things.  Everyone has their "thing" too.  Could be money, kids, job, family, health - it's something. And if it isn't today it will creep in at some point.  I'm not trying to be a pessimist here I'm just speaking to my fellow humans who live on this side of perfect eternity.

So what do I know.  For me it always comes down to knowing because my head has been taught well.  I have had sound theology taught to me since I was a baby. I studied and studied AND do you know what is crazy sometimes my dang heart is so slow to follow.  I know truth but man it's hard to grasp faith and hope when their is disappointment, fear and pain.  Right?

I don't want to be sharpened... and yet I do.  The struggle is real.


My journey 4 years go on Oct. 18th ;)  My friend (acquaintance at the time) had a beautiful baby girl who lived on this earth 36 hours before meeting Jesus. When her daughter passed I was shocked beyond measure really.  I just didn't know babies died in 2010 in the United States of America. Then the Holy Spirit whispered to me over several weeks/months as I read my friends blog and story and convicted me to create her a logo for her and her friends that she had met with similar experiences as they got to know each other.  Just a little something they could have to rally around I guess it was I thought.  Of course, little did I know, her heart was also being whispered to by the Holy Spirit to step up and out about her loss and to start a group for women who had experienced this loss of a baby.

When I eventually obeyed and made the logo I saved it in my files.  Then convicted more I drafted an email... and then I deleted it.  Can anyone say Jonah?  Yeah well.  It's not so easy presenting someone with a logo when they didn't ask you for it.  Eventually I got the courage to send it to her and I think the entire email was an apology and disclaimer.  And permission to delete.  So maybe it wasn't really courage after all, begrudging obedience.... does that count?

And as they say the rest is history.  I've been serving as the Creative Director for Hope Mommies for the past 3 years officially.  And goodness it has been a blessing and honor to me as I have met some of the most amazing women with the most beautiful hearts.  Trials, pain,...Sharpening just has a way of creating those refined souls that radiate.

Over the years I have been asked why I'm involved in serving Hope Mommies and hopefully the last few paragraphs have somewhat answered that. I hadn't had a loss of my own but that isn't required to love and serve. It was really just the Holy Spirit prompting my heart and to use my design skills and talents in a way that serves the body.

Over the last few years though my hubby and I have been longing, trying, hoping, praying for a child. It hasn't been as easy as so many around us make it seem ;)  And then in May I found out I was pregnant!  Wait what?  Yup I peed on a bazillion sticks cause I didn't believe it, the doctor confirmed it with their own test only they also confirmed at the same time that I was having a miscarriage.  I was so disappointed - broken-hearted really.  I wasn't very far a long (about 5 weeks) like so many woman I know but it was real and it was loss.  It was a roller coaster of emotion. I'm ever grateful for the community of women I already had established who know the heart-break.

So I've been processing... what would my grief have looked like if I didn't have Hope Mommies? While the Lord bless us with a child?

And sometimes fear and disappointment just make you feel numb... until the next second when you are enraged and then sobbing and then depressed.  All our emotions are real; they are not a surprise or hidden from the Lord.  He made me, he made my baby.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

    his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

    great is your faithfulness.

“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,

    “therefore I will hope in him.”

Lamentations 3: 22-24

Along the journey of grieving I cried out to the Lord, while gardening one day, seeking an ebenezer (rock of remembrance). I wanted to have something tangible that I could use to remember this time in our lives as a significant not only because a life was created but because the Lord showed himself as good even in this and that is to be remembered, praised, honored. And at that moment I was asking for something quite literally I found a little pinkish rock with two white lines on it.

selah.

I knew it was from the Lord and so it remains in my kitchen in my Hope Mommies tea cup, proclaiming Lamentations 3 to me every morning.

So today is October 15, National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day.  We at Hope Mommies are joining in to remember our babies and our friends and families who have also lost a pregnancy or infant by releasing balloons.  Also, a wave of light will be happening from 7-8pm for those who can't release a balloon.  So if you would like to join in in honoring or remembering today please do and take a picture share with your friend of family and post it with the #hopemommiesOct15.