About Me

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Kirkland, Washington, United States
I am a child of God. I am a follower of Jesus. I am a wife, momma, daughter, sister and friend. I love good conversation and hearty laughter. A good cup of coffee is always appreciated. Most of all, I desire to bring others into an experience with Jesus. One that will shape their lives and rock their souls for Him. Geoff is my best friend and amazing husband. Parker is my handsome boy who lives in Heaven. Norah is my bright star and bringer of joy. Tori is my overcomer and peaceful warrior. I live to show Jesus' love to each person He places in my path. I pray this blog strengthens you, comforts you and encourages you and that it MOST OF ALL causes you to want to get to know Jesus in a deeper level.

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Becoming a Warrior with His Help, and His alone

Grief is a strange beast and anyone who has been through grief knows that. There are moments, situations, comments that cause your grief to come rising to the surface. There are images, sounds, smells that evoke the feelings from those moments of tragedy that initiated the grief. And when you hear those sounds, smell those smells and see those images, you are thrown right back to the first moments of your tragedy.

These situations happen at the most inappropriate, random times. They occur while you are out shopping, eating dinner, or chatting with friends. You'll see a piece of clothing or hear another customer at the restaurant. It will stop you dead in your tracks. Everything around you moving at warp speed, while you simply stand there, stunned.

Your mind wanders to that moment of tragedy. You linger there for a moment, reliving it in your mind. Remember the emotions of the tragedy. In your mind, you want to memorize every thought, word, image of that moment. You don't want to forget. You want to remember every detail.

Then, when you are snapped back to the present, it's as if you have to catch up. You feel separate from reality. You feel as though you are covered with a veil, like a bride. Your emotions are guarded, even hidden at times, which is OK, but this one time, just this once, you want to scream. You want to scream because you are so sick and tired of being jerked around by grief.

Grief doesn't control you any longer, you are through with it. You've had it. You want to jerk grief around like it jerks you around. You want to slap it in the face just as much as it slaps you in the face. You are JUST SO SICK OF IT! But you know, full well, that if you try and run from the grief, it will catch up with you and it will demolish you.

So, just this once, you allow it to jerk you around, but you know that you will work with it. You will allow those moments, situations, and comments to come. You will endure those images, sounds and smells to overflow your mind, but you will not let it take over. You will allow them, endure them and move through them and you will become stronger.

You have to remember that you are a warrior. You have allowed and endured this much and you can do so much more. You are a survivor...

You and Geoff endured the silent doppler and ultra sound. You and Geoff endured the heart breaking news of your son's passing. You and Geoff experienced the pains of labor and made it through his delivery. You and Geoff lived in that hospital room while you held your son who was gone already. You and Geoff walked into that funeral home and passed all of those people who came to say goodbye. You and Geoff sat at that graveside and let go of those three blue balloons. You and Geoff picked out that headstone for your sweet baby boy. You and Geoff packed up his bedding, clothes and you two survived...YOU, Rachel. You and Geoff are survivors. YOU and GEOFF are warriors.


***

Sometimes I have to remind myself what Geoff and I have been through, what we have endured, at such an early time in our lives. So many people will never know what it is to bury their child, and I am thankful for that. It is a grievous task, but let me say this, Geoff and I did not do this alone. Here is how that paragraph above really goes...

Geoff and I are survivors and warriors who made it this far because we serve a God who has gone before and who walks beside us every step of the way.

We serve a God who endured the silent doppler and ultra sound with us. We serve a God who endured the heart breaking news of our son's passing with us. We serve a God who experienced the pains of labor and made it through his delivery with us. We serve a God who lived in that hospital room with us while we held our son who was gone already. We serve a God who walked into that funeral home and passed all of those people with us who came to say goodbye. We serve a God who sat at that graveside and let go of those three blue balloons with us. We serve a God who picked out that headstone for our sweet baby boy with us. We serve a God who packed up his bedding and clothes with us and gave us the strength that helped Geoff and I survive...

We are warriors, because we follow a GREAT and SOVEREIGN God. And because of this, we know that we will not be controlled by grief, but rather we will endure, allow, and move through it with God's strength and his alone. For he has helped us become the warriors and survivors that we are today.

PRAISE GOD!!

***

2 Corinthians 12:9

Thursday, February 12, 2009

One Year Ago

I want to start off by saying thank you to everyone who responded to my "Opening the Vents and Letting it Out" post. I appreciate all of the wonderful words of wisdom. It truly helps to know that I am supported and understood.

***

The second reason for this post is to share with you all that I'm feeling sort of...weird. I am feeling weird because it was on this day, one year ago (February 12, 2008) that Geoff and I found out we were pregnant with Parker. That day is a day that I will never forget. We were so scared and so excited all at the same time. SUCH a range of emotions on that day.

So today I am feeling weird, but I will not allow today to be a sad day. Today I will remember, with fondness, how we were blessed to become parents one year ago. I am a little sad, but I am going to do my best to be happy. I am going to do my best to remember how excited Geoff and I were on that day.

Plus, I will take today, to pray for our next little one. I will pray that God will keep our next little one safe, whenever we are blessed enough to become pregnant again. If you all could pray with me, I would GREATLY appreciate it!!

***

Have a great Thursday and HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mom Harmon and Sarah!!! LOVE YOU BOTH!!!!

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Opening the Vents and Letting It Out

Geoff and I have started grief counseling. We've been doing this for about 2 weeks now and it's been wonderful. Every Monday night we go to Lifeline Pregnancy Center and meet with our counselor, Willie. She's wonderful, a beautiful Christian woman, inside and out. We sit, for an hour, and discuss how we're doing. We cry with her, laugh with her and move closer to healing. It's such good therapy.

At our first session she gave us a book, a Bible study, on grieving. This is the book that we will use during our nine sessions with Willie. The Bible study is written by two moms who both lost babies at 19 weeks and 25 weeks. This is why I'm writing this blog. The Bible study takes an odd look at our loss, and gives a silly reason for why it happened. This is something that has really bothered me lately and I feel I need to vent here.

***

The Bible study starts with a story about a grandma who makes quilts for her granddaughters and gives them the quilts when they turn 20. She gave quilts to her two oldest granddaughters when they turned 20, and her youngest granddaughter was so thrilled to receive hers. She waiting for so long for her quilt, she planned for it, prepared for it and dreamt about it. She was thrilled to receive her quilt. This is how the Bible study story goes. On the day that the youngest granddaughter turned 20 her grandmother came to her house and instead of giving her a quilt, she gave her pieces of fabric, a frame and thread to piece the quilt together. The granddaughter was devastated. She sobbed for what felt like days and days. She tried to talk to her sisters about it, and they were sympathetic at first, but eventually lost interest. Why did she not get a quilt? She had dreamt of her quilt, planned and prepared for her quilt and all she got were pieces to put together. One of her sisters had lost their quilt and the other one didn't even care about hers. Do you see why this story is annoying?

To make a long and irritating story short I'll just jump to the ending, which there really isn't an ending, but anyway. The "end" of the story says that the grandma kept coming back to the house and waited for the granddaughter to meet with her so they could start piecing together the quilt. The story says that the grandma had chosen the youngest granddaughter because she was special! UGH!!

***

Ever since Parker died I have had to hear from people that this was all in "God's plan," that maybe we were chosen because God knew we could handle all of this. This irritates the living crap out of me! I know that I have blogged about this before, but I decided that I've heard this enough and need to get the word out there that in no way is it even remotely comforting to hear that the God of love, the God who protects us would take my baby!!!

Geoff and I, from the moment this happened, realized that God did not do this. We knew, in our hearts, that God did not take Parker. He did not plan for this to happen. I do believe that he allowed it, simply because he is all powerful and could have enacted a miracle. I do believe that, but I do not believe that he took Parker because "it was his time". People that say such things, I believe, have not experienced a loss as devastating as the one we have. Anyone, who can look me in the eye and say that God planned this, is someone who has never buried their child. They are someone who has never had to plan a funeral instead of a dedication.

I cannot understand how it would be even slightly comforting to tell a grieving mother or father that God planned to take their baby. It just doesn't make sense!! It would be like knitting a scarf, only to burn it (rough analogy I know, but still).

***

This past Monday we discussed our views on this quilt story with Willie. We told her that we do not ask God why. We do not ask God why because what is the point? Why wallow in the unanswerable. I will never know why here on this earth, ever. And I am OK with that.

We also told Willie that we have never blamed God because we know that God did not do this. We have never blamed him, because to do so would mean that we have turned away from him in anger and we cannot afford to do that now.

The day we got home from the hospital, Geoff was working in our bedroom with our wireless internet. My brother-in-law Brad came in to talk to Geoff and asked him if he ever felt angry with God and this is what Geoff said, "To be angry at God and to blame him would be the worst thing that we could do at this moment in time. Because we need him now more than ever before."

Here is how the God I know and love works; Romans 8: 28 says, "And we know that God works all things for the good of those who love him, those who have been called according to his purpose."

***

Please understand, I do not mean to sound as though I am scolding those of you who read this, in fact, I hesitated to write this blog, but ultimately decided it was something that needed to be said. This is simply something that I have become very passionate about, so passionate, that I could not let it slide.

I hope that those who read this blog will do so with an open mind, to maybe learn how to better approach those who are grieving. I hope that maybe we can all learn how to better comfort those who have experienced the tragedy of death and in so doing, together we can all become people who offer words of true comfort, rather than words that stab the heart and potentially cause a person to become angry with God.

***

Thanks for letting me vent :)

Monday, February 2, 2009

Grateful Am I

It's been a week since my last post, and not a lot has happened. Life is pretty much, hum-drum normal and that's perfectly fine with me. However, after saying all of that, I am reminded that grief reared it's ugly little head this weekend.

On Friday Geoff and I came home and relaxed on the couch for a bit before going out and grabbing a bite to eat. For some reason, we started sinking into a bit of sadness and sorrow and began to deeply miss our Parker. We cried on the couch together, and talked about him. It felt good, by the end, but it's always hard during. Then, on Saturday morning, Geoff and I woke up and found ourselves deeply missing Parker, yet again. We laid in bed, held each other and cried some more.

I am not sure what triggers these ugly episodes, but they are not fun, during. It is only after, that we see the benefit of acknowledging our feelings, facing them head on and moving through.

I know that it's not even been 5 months since Parker died, so I have to realize that there will still be hard days. I have to realize that there will still be moments and situations that will remind me of what we don't have. I have to acknowledge that, face it head on and move through it.

We serve a good God who has stuck by our sides since day one and I am forever grateful for that. We serve a good God who has fought off Satan and his team of hooligans who try to bring us down, and I am grateful for that as well. We also serve a good God who continuously brings hope, healing and a bright BRIGHT future and I am TOTALLY grateful for that.

Thank you Lord.