Broken and Mended

How could this week have been so mentally challenging. I am not sure why this week all of my grief came to a head, and why my scars, figuratively, began to bleed a little. I am usually a glass-half-full girl, with rose colored glasses on, and that is who I love being. I enjoy finding "joy in the journey" - I absolutely thought I was fine: BUT,

I am extremely hormonal. So worth it, I would want these hormones all over the place, because it means I just had a baby - whom I adore!

I went back to work, which was an unexpected blessing, but going in I absolutely didn't know how I was going to feel.

I realized how much I miss my "old" life. Yet, knowing I am in the best place possible to live in obedience to the Lord and enjoy the reality I get to give my children a legacy of faith and family because we are so close to experience our families faith in our daily lives! (I just got this tidbit of truth put into me this morning at church and I needed it)

I don't know how to word this last challenge - Jackson is so valued to me, because of the time and loss we endured before he arrived. Yet, he doesn't replace what we lost - and feeling as though I suddenly can't hold onto my loss so tightly, because I have a child to celebrate, is tough. For the past two and a half years, the loss became a part of me. The broken part of me from that time in our lives, I still feel the impact of that pain. Now, I felt healing before Jackson came, but it is a scar; a scar that is tender to the touch. I felt healed in the waiting and it wasn't because I had any assurance of a child to come. In fact, many days I tried to accept that Elizabeth could be our only earthly child. Yet, when I prayed I knew God wanted obedience in my faith, and for me to know He didn't have to fulfill His promise of another child by my standards. I just knew He wanted us to have another child, whether it was a child to keep here or there. Today, we are on the other side of that obedience, we have a child and I don't feel that God has in any way "rewarded" me with a baby, but by making me obey Him, and His having our best in His sight - we have been given Jackson, for the glory of His kingdom.

Whew, okay I re-read those words like three times, I want this written right..
My prayer has changed for our family and for our children, I see them as purposed for God and His glory more than ever. I see our story, Gods plan, as purposed for His kingdom, for His glory - to stand beside the wounded (those who will have a scar like mine in time).

This week God put me face-to-face with each of my pains, I was not ready to face them, but there they were to remind me of when I was broken. To remind me what being mended feels like, how scars feel. I most definitely can't go back, but I have been broken and mended, I have scars!

There are struggles to come, and they are for other reasons then life and loss. I will break again, be mended again, and gain new scars. I pray I won't forget God faithfulness in my past, so I will live in hope during the times of trial. I will remember to walk with those who hurt and bring them to Hope!

Psalm 116 I choose for Jackson - it is two blogs below this, great reading. In addition, Chase and I are memorizing scriptures each month and I think my next will be this:
Deut. 6:5-9 (my thoughts, for reflection)
"⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children (show them your scars). Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads (remember what the Lord has done for you).⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates"