How We Are

I want to start this post the same way I ended the last one-God is sustaining us by His grace. He is working in our hearts and He is healing them. We are grieving and grieving takes time. So we will go through the grieving process (however long that takes) and we will trust Him with our grief and trust Him to continue to heal our hearts.

This year I have been praying Psalm 105:4 into my life. It says "Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face continually." I originally started praying that for several reasons 1) I often look to my own strength to get me through the day and I wanted to be reminded that I need the Lord's strength 2) I usually do my Bible time in the morning and by the end of the day I can't remember what I read so I wanted to be reminded to always be seeking Him all through my day 3) I was struggling in some parenting things with Kaleigh and I didn't want to parent in my own strength, but in His. God had other plans for how He was going to use this verse in my life. It has been so good for me to remind myself of this verse as we have traveled this road of grief. I need Him in a way I haven't felt in a long time. I need Him to be my strength because I just can't do it. I need Him to continually remind me of who He is and what the truth of His word says, because there are many times I question.

When we first found out and for several days after I just could not stop crying. It was interesting though because at my very heart of hearts I knew God was being good and faithful to us in this. I didn't understand what He was doing (still don't and maybe never will) but I was trusting Him. That night when Heath and I were talking I said (through tears) "I am so so sad, but I trust God." He said, "me too." I am so thankful that through this, we have been given the grace to trust God.

My goal for the first week was if everyone in our house was still alive and had been fed three meals then it was a victory. I couldn't talk about it. I cried at every text message, every voice mail, every Facebook comment or message-every single one. Every morning when we get Kaleigh up we sing her a song that says "Good morning God, this is Your day. I am your child. Show me Your way." On Friday morning I went to get her and said "Good morning God" and immediately lost it. I was trying to get her dressed and couldn't even see because of the tears. Heath was downstairs so I called up for his help because I just couldn't do it. There were lots of neighbors that we aren't connected with on Facebook and I cried every time I had to tell one of them. I say all that to say that there is just an unimaginable sadness. And it isn't just sadness for ourselves, it is also a sadness for the boys. We don't know for sure what kind of lifestyle they will have, but from what we do know, they will probably grow up in poverty and without stability and it just makes us sad for them. I am not saying that their mom will not be a good mom to them, I think she will be, I am just saying that we are sad that they will have to struggle through life. (I hope that makes sense and doesn't sound like we are condemning her for her choice to keep them)

About mid week last week I hit the angry stage. I just don't understand why. Why did we even get chosen if she was just going to change her mind? Why is is better for them to grow up in poverty than with us? Why did we have to go through infertility and now this, when it's so easy for others to have children? The list of why questions goes on and on. At the end of the day I just have to be okay with not knowing the answers to those questions. My prayer is "God, I don't understand, but help me trust you."

One thing we realized through this is that Heath and I grieve very differently. I go into survival mode-just trying to make it to the next day. He goes into work mode-just stay busy. He kept asking me about landscaping and I was thinking "I don't care, I just want to survive." We are learning to communicate and let each other know what our needs are during this time of grieving.

For now, we are just taking it day by day. Most days are better than they were last week, but most days still contain tears. We are continuing to just walk with God and asking Him to help us believe Him. We are slowly expanding back out to our social circle.

We are so thankful to all of you who have prayed for us, sent us messages, brought us food, brought me sweet tea and are grieving with us. We are thankful to be surrounded with such an unbelievable community of family and friends. We haven't responded to most messages, but please know we have read them and are thankful for your encouraging words. Please continue to pray for us as we continue through this process of grieving. Pray that we will continually "Look to the Lord and His strength; seek His face continually." I said this in a Facebook post but want to say it again: We don't know what the Lord is up to in this, but we know He is in it, and in that we take great hope. Thank you for walking this journey with us.