Your birthday is tomorrow.  You’d be six.  You’d be playing with your siblings and chasing and catching alligator lizards and snails.

It’s hard to believe you’d be six.  It’s flown by so quickly and it’s gone to slowly all at once.  You’d be right smack in the middle of it all if you were here.

We’ve been on the road now for 10 months.  You’ve been along with us too.  I couldn’t help but bring the urn and your memory box with us on this long journey.  If anything ever happened to it, I’d be really really sad.

I can’t help but smile when I think about how you would’ve ran with your brother and sisters at the Petrified Forest. Played on the rope each time Dad put it up at the different locations we’ve been at.  Grinned so big when we showed up at Legoland without the kids knowing.  Shot at Zurg with a venegence on the Buzz Lightyear ride at Disney World.  Loved and kissed and hugged on at the multiple friends and relatives we’ve seen.  Played right along with the P’s and the Luces.  Joined in on the pretend pirate ships and lava jumping.  Screaming with delight on the Technic Coaster.  Smiling at the birthdays of your siblings.  Laughing along with Daddy and the other kids at “Rio”.

It makes my heart warm.  Picturing in my minds eye.  What would you look like?  Like Josiah maybe.  Would you laugh like him too?  Laugh so hard you can’t breathe when some farts or burps too loud.  Would you guys push and shove and love each other so much and play Legos together?  He’d be a good Lego teacher.

It makes me sad too thinking about how much you’re missed.  How much we long to have our family complete.  How we long to be with you and to hold you and to love on you.  If I think too much about that, I can’t function.

Your short life has brought us down to the mire.  Into the pit and full of saddness and loss that for awhile we didn’t know if we’d get out of it.  But as time went on Jesus brought us out.  Your short life was full of Jesus and we’ve seen Jesus work here through it.  We’ve seen His glory through it.  We’d selfishly prefer you here, but you are safe.  You are free from pain.

I am grateful for you, my son.  I’m am grateful for the time we had with you.  To hold you.  To love on you.  I’m grateful for how our Sovereign Lord has used your life to make us broken and have mended hearts with scars.  I’m grateful that you are in Heaven and that you have friends there too, although selfishly us mammas would like our babies here, but as mammas crying together and loving one another we have sweet, strong frienships.  I’m grateful for how we were wrecked and how we’ve grown.  I thought for a long time that those words would never come.  But they did.  Slowly.

If you were here I’d throw you a party.  Maybe just our family, but we’d have a fun day.  If you were here I’d smother you with kisses.

The smothering will have to wait….

I love you.

Happy Happy Happy Birthday!

Love,

Mommy

At some point, I realized that I really couldn’t live in anger forever.  I’m not really sure what changed my heart.  It was probably a series of events that I may not even be able to pinpoint.  Has that ever happened to you in your grief?  Like you’re healing and you don’t even realize it?

At one point in my heart, I knew that I didn’t have a “God” answer for everything.    I didn’t know why Mike’s mom died so quickly.  Why Tullie was born the way she was.  Why Eli died.  Why Tullie was on oxygen FOREVER. Why we got pregnant with Ellison so quickly.  Why the pregnancy was so difficult.  Why. Why. Why.  My list could go on forever.  There are simply answers that I won’t get.  It’s just the way it is.  It doesn’t mean that Jesus is less present or less sovereign.  He just means I won’t have answers.  That’s ok.  It took awhile to come to terms with that.

One day I stripped my theology.  I went back to the basics.  Jesus was born of a virgin.  He died.  He died for my sins.  He rose again.  He lives in heaven.  He loves me.  Then I started rebuilding from there.  I have to say it looks different then before.  More mature.  More put together.  More my own.  More Jesus.

I cannot say that I am thankful for what my family has walked through, but I can say that I am thankful for Jesus.  I am thankful for His death, His resurrection.  His salvation.  It is so much more then I deserve.  I’m thankful that He hasn’t let go of His grip on me.  Because without Him, I would not be where I am.

I was thinking about this today.  How even through my anger and frustration, my saddness and my grief, Jesus was so loving and patient.  Sometimes I felt pushed with Christian-ese and pressure to heal, like I had to be where someone else thought that I should be, because it’s been a certain amount of time. Jesus isn’t really like that.  He pushes us sometimes and we don’t even realize it.  We’re held in His loving grip. For that I’m thankful.

According to the dictionary, advocate means to speak or write in favor of; support or urge by argument; recommend publicly. 

We see advocates on TV.  Some advocate for pets to get adopted.  To save the whales.  For everyone to have equal rights.  For everyone to have health insurance.  We all know the hot topic issues.  Some I roll my eyes at and others I can agree with. 

People spend money and time supporting and adovocating for their cause.  Grassroot causes are formed.  Committees are formed.  Protests in the streets.  Folks love to be stepping up for something.  To be FOR something. 

I’m not saying by any means that we don’t need advocates in our world.  Some folks need a voice that don’t have one.  Folks need to know about children who need to be adopted.  Folks also need to know about lives that need to be saved.

I’m not really an advocate by society’s terms.  I have my husband and my kids.  I’m travelling on the road with them.  We’re homeschooling.  We’re just kinda living.  Day to day.  Not really doing anything really over the top special. 

We have a daughter with Down Syndrome.  Sometimes I feel pressure (which I totally put on myself) about advocating for her.  Going to the rallies and taking this huge stand for Down Syndrome.  Letting people know what it’s really like.  How great my kid is!  Educating people on Down Syndrome and letting them know that it’s not all that bad. 

Because I’m not a huge advocate in society’s eyes, I wonder if maybe I’m not giving  my daughter all that I could.  What else do I need to give her?  What is it that she needs that I’m not speaking up about?  For all the world to hear?

Our daughter, Tullie, is an active member of our family.  She helps to entertain Boston.  She is the first to help to pick up.  She’s quick to forgive and love on siblings who are hurting.  She’s learning to read and write.  She’s excelling in learning her numbers and simple math.  She loves her friends and she’s very well behaved and loved by just abour everyone she meets.  She’s an absolute joy to be around.  I’m not totally sure what more I can do for her.

As I started to think about this I started to still feel unsettled about advocacy.  It’s just not me.  I don’t want a lot of public attention and all eyes on me and my family.   I don’t want to be the one rounding up folks and being taken away from my family for meetings and rallies and giving money for more awareness.  I have a lot to do at home and I have responsibilities to my husband and my kids.

Then it hit me.  I am an advocate.  I’m an advocate for Jesus.  My only job.  My only really important job is to advocate Jesus to my kids and my family.  All the other groups and causes can go by the wayside, unless for some reason Jesus really stirs a fire in my heart  for something. 

When my kids are fighting with one another I need to advocate Jesus and their little hearts need to soften towards Him.  When a child is being disobedient, I need to advocate Jesus.  It may not be world changing right now, but eventually I hope that it’ll change their world.  That their world as grown ups will be centered around Him.  My hope is that one day our children will love Jesus.  That He will be their strength in the times of need.  That He’ll display His goodness to them through the painful times.  That they will recognize His sovereignty in the darkness and that His light will shine in their hearts. 

I guess really this is all I need to be concerned about.  Concerned about my family.  Concerned about the hearts of my children.  It’s advocacy in a more simple sense of the word.

Before we even started packing for this trip and getting ready, I asked, Mike if we could bring Eli with us. I asked almost hesitantly. Somehow thinking that it would be taking up too much room to have the urn and memory box with us. Mike looked at me and said, “Of course.” I could pack up my wedding pictures. My furniture. My old college pictures. Yearbooks. Sentimental keepsakes. The other kids “special items.” But I couldn’t pack up Eli’s urn and memory box.

I’m so glad that we didn’t.

Over the last several months some of our friends have “met” our son through the pictures and keepsakes in the memory box and I’m so grateful that we were able to share that with them. But with all of those moments, nothing was as sweet as yesterday. Sharing Eli with our other children.

I was folding laundry yesterday, and Ellison went to a cabinet that Mike and I had recently cleaned and opened it up. She saw Eli’s urn right there and it was easy to grab. She grabbed it and said, “This is my brother! Can we open it so I can see him?” I said, “We can’t open it, but I’ll show you his pictures when I’m done with this laundry.” She said, “Ok!” While she went skipping away to the table showing Josiah and her Daddy, her brother, I thought, “So wasn’t ready for this today.”

As she came walking back to the bedroom, I was finishing up the laundry. The three older kids, meanwhile, have already started a conversation about seeing pictures of Eli and talking about where Eli is at that very moment.

As I pulled out the pictures, the kids looked at each one. We looked at prints of his hands and his feet. We looked at pieces of hair from his head. We looked at the bracelets from the hospital and the blood pressure cuffs and the smallest, ittiest, bittiest littlest diapers that you’ve ever seen. The kids marveled at how tiny he was.

The kids were so matter of fact. “That’s my brother.” “He’s with God.” We’re going to be with God and him one day.”

Boston even army crawled his way in to the conversation and while I held on to him, looked at pictures of Eli and looked at the three other children standing around and looking at what was in box, it struck me that I was surrounded by all five of my children. Each one a blessing. Each one in Jesus’ grasp. One with Jesus already. Four here that we can touch, hold and wach grow and mature. One who has Jesus as his Savior and three who we pray that their hearts will soften toward Him each day.

That moment was so incredibly teachable and there were three of the softest hearts right there that it was overwhelming. One moment we were talking about how God made Adam out of dirt and then the next how Jesus died for us so that we can be heaven with Him when we die if we accept Him in our hearts.

These are the moments we look for as parents. The times where are children’s hearts are pliable and soft and we as parents are raw and honest with a really painful time. That’s when our children see us as real and vulnerable. That is when Jesus is glorified. When we can show our children where our hope lies.

I’m glad that we brought Eli with us even if it’s just for that conversation with the other children. Now we all look forward to our turn to come when we get to heaven. To be with Jesus and be reunited with our son and brother. Our tears and pain will be washed away and will be no more. Instead there will be rejoicing and dancing. It will be a sweet, sweet, wonderful and perfect moment.

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.  2 Corinthians 4:16-18

In Christ Alone

Stuart Townsend, Keith Getty

In Christ alone my hope is found,

He is my light, my strength, my song;

this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,

firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

What heights of love, what depths of peace,

when fears are stilled, when strivings cease!

My Comforter, my All in All,

here in the love of Christ I stand.
In Christ alone! who took on flesh

Fulness of God in helpless babe!

This gift of love and righteousness

Scorned by the ones he came to save:

Till on that cross as Jesus died,

The wrath of God was satisfied -

For every sin on Him was laid;

Here in the death of Christ I live.
There in the ground His body lay

Light of the world by darkness slain:

Then bursting forth in glorious Day

Up from the grave he rose again!

And as He stands in victory

Sin’s curse has lost its grip on me,

For I am His and He is mine -

Bought with the precious blood of Christ.

No guilt in life, no fear in death,

This is the power of Christ in me;

From life’s first cry to final breath.

Jesus commands my destiny.

No power of hell, no scheme of man,

Can ever pluck me from His hand;

Till He returns or calls me home,

Here in the power of Christ I’ll stand.