Please forgive the quietness on the God Blog - we were on vacation to Tennessee with our best friends for the last 5 days. It seems fairly impossible that there is still ANY place left on this earth without an Internet connection, but we managed to find one! And although I was yearning to check email, to blog, to make some digital scrap kits, or to just mindlessly web-surf, I was blocked by the angry, red, Intel Wireless icon blinking "NO WIRELESS CONNECTION." Of course, this was probably God's reminder that this was a family vacation, and I wasn't supposed to be spending it on the computer, anyway. :) We had a wonderful time: swimming on Lake Norris, tubing (WOW! What a rush!), hiking (Okay... that was my husband, his friend, and all of the kids... I don't really like "nature..."), or just lounging around laughing. We are blessed to have such good friends with whom we can spend a week and not kill each other (the kids whacking each other with pool cues doesn't count, does it?!) :)
But when we returned today, I was anxious to power-up the laptop and check email (846 emails!), check my groups, read comments from the blogs (Whoo-hoo...there were some!), and pop in to all of my favorite web spots! In a Christian scrapbooking group I belong to, someone posted a link to an amazing blog called Bring The Rain. I wasn't familiar with the group, Selah, but apparently the wife of one of the singers has started this blog about her family's journey through a pregnancy that would not result in a baby to raise on earth.
Now I've mentioned before that my sister-in-law & brother-in-law lost their beautiful baby daughter, Julia Ellen, after only 6 days of life. She was born in April 2006 with the genetic abnormality called Trisomy 18. The complications that arise from the extra chromosome at the 18th place makes the chance of even a baby surviving delivery a long shot. But our Julia persevered, and her parents at least had 6 days to meet her, and hold her, and sing to her, and know her.
It has been 2 years since we attended Julia's memorial; and in that time, I have seen my in-laws' faith and love of God grow stronger - even in the face of the greatest loss they could imagine - the loss of their child. I read somewhere that "pain of that kind of loss never goes away; rather that you slowly become strong enough to bear it." I think that strength comes from one slowly releasing the reigns of control and handing over all of their worries and concerns and wishes and dreams to God. From what I've read so far (and I'm only in "March!") Angie, the author of the Bring The Rain blog, has truly done this as well. For a woman who is writing about the impending death of her child, Audrey Caroline, she has found God working miracles already in Audrey's life... even if that life only exists within Angie's womb.
If you are facing something so huge that it seems to eclipse your ability to think, to plan, to reason, to be - then please stop by Angie's blog. It is a story of hope - not of death - and I think it will bring you perspective and comfort.
♥Mags
1 comment:
I hope you will get familiar with Selah's music. I love it. I have it on my IPOD and listen to it when I need to get through tough things like when I am totally panicked by claustrophic feelings on long airline flights and most recently when enduring painful trigger point injections for chronic pain. I realize, of course, that these are nothing compared to the death of a child.
Their music is great when you're not in pain and focusing on it helps me focus on God when I am in pain.
I read a quote recently, unfortunately I don't know who originally wrote it and you may have heard it a million times but I like it - "Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass...it's about learning to dance in the rain." I thought of it right away when I read the blog title, "Bring the Rain", you write about.
Selah's music is one thing that helps me try to "Dance in the Rain". Perhaps it might appear someday in "Karaoke Tuesdays" :)
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