What I Want Them To Know.

     As a very young girl my struggle with self-esteem began. My parents separated when I was very young and at times my sister and I were but mere pawns in a game of “who could hurt who more” between them.  It wasn’t long after that I was shifted back and forth between the foster care system and my home before being permanently placed.

   My understanding of love was warped. I didn’t know exactly what it meant to be loved. To be really loved. I wasn’t raised being told that I was good or that I was even worthy of it. Worthy of anything for that matter. In fact most times I was told the total opposite. At the age of thirteen I stood in a brightly lighted office building while my mom spoke the words “take her. I cant do this anymore.” 

   That summer I was placed for good and that fall I started grade eight. I struggled with forming relationships, I struggled with trust. I wanted so desperately to feel like I was a part of the crowd. To be worthy of being the same as everyone else, but as we all know Middle and High School can be some of the most cruelest of places to be.

   I lived in a Foster Home, my bottom was not covered by jeans with the Silver label on the pocket, and my body circumference was a lot larger than I would have liked.  My feet were resting in <insert gasp now> no name Crocs because I couldn’t afford to have the real ones. ( They were all the craze during that time okay?) All that seems like silliness now, but to the fourteen year old broken and “unworthy” me it was just another sign that because of who I was and the circumstances I was in, that I would never be as good as everyone else. 

   At the age of sixteen, my bigger than I would like body circumference became even larger as I now walked the hallways of my school not just “croc-less” but pregnant. 

   At the young age of seventeen I birthed a tiny eight pound, ten fingered, chubby cheeked miracle and I was absolutely terrified. I will never forget the days, and months, and even years that followed, where my own feelings of “unworthiness” took away from allowing my self to see Gods greatness for the very thing that it was.

   See I sat in the very church seats I still sit in each Sunday today and asked God why in the world he would give her to me. A child myself, unable to love her the way she needed.  That she deserved more than a high school student Mom, and an Sobeys working Dad. That more than anything I didn’t want her to become me. 

Then I truly met God.

Not in one particular big bang of a moment.

But in the ordinary moments when he chooses to reveal extraordinary blessings.

A God who began to ask me just why I was unworthy of love, of happiness, and of being someone other than a statistic I had labelled myself of.

 My eight pound, ten fingered, chubby cheeked miracle is now almost twelve years old. She is a year and half away from the very age I stood in the lighted office building and allowed my mothers issues and illnesses to define my own worth. Its been an age I’ve wondered that if I was gone tomorrow,  that if the love my own daughter knows from me was suddenly stripped away…. Would she continue to know the most important love of all?

That although my entire identity as a mother has been to express my love and my children’s worthiness to me… have I done enough to allow them out of my mother knows best bubble  to see His?

I continued on to have three other precious girls after her. Then two sweet boys after that.

My biggest and greatest prayer for them is not that I get everything right but that I am able to prepare them for when I disappoint them, that I am able to continue to raise them up and lead them to the very One who won’t. 

I want them to not only know they are loved by her father and I, but by a God so much bigger than anything they could imagine. 

I want them to know that their worth is far greater than a label on a clothing or a wink from a prepubescent teenage boy.

I want them to know that they live in a world where they will be judged by the way they look, by the partners they choose, by the people they help, by the people they don’t, by the way the speak, by the way they live, by their parenting, by the cleanliness of their homes, by their newest car, by whether they have the highest paying job. I want them to know those other opinions aren’t the ones that matter.

I want them to know there will be times when society will tell them they should when they shouldn’t and not to when they should. 

I want them to know they will mess up sometimes. Most likely over and over again.

I want them to not strive to be anyone but their amazingly beautiful sometimes-messy selves.

Because the truth is whether sixteen or twenty eight we are all a hot mess loved by an amazing  self-less God. 

….and so will they be too.

Because of that God….. in the here and now, and long after I am gone they will be forever be loved.

They will never be alone.

They will be given opportunities to rise up above struggles.

They will be welcomed back with opened arms when they are led astray.

I want them to know that above all, that although this world is extremely warped…. Gods love for them isn’t anything but crystal clear.

Because it is Him that shows us extraordinary worthiness in our seemingly ordinary lives.

…….and I want ever so desperately for them to know just that.

 

 

 

Lessons At The Kitchen Sink.

Hey you.

Mama.

The one standing at the sink washing the never ending dishes while staring blankly out the window.

The Mama in your own world for just a moment while peices of your family runs around your home.

I know what you’re thinking.

It’s funny isn’t it?

Maybe funny isn’t the word.

But isn’t it crazy how life just goes on?

How in a sometimes feels- like- yesterday, yet in another feels- so- distant time…. that your tummy contained a life that is no longer.

It’s little moments like these ones that remind you of  the missing feet running around and the absent giggles around the dinner table.

How did we get here?

From that dreary hospital chair to the kitchen sink .

Because there was a time we could barely stand.

Because there was a time where the pain was so immensely present that just existing was difficult.

Because there was a time where our other children’s laughter was not seen as a blessing, but as a breathtakingly painful reminder of the childs we would never hear.

Because there was a time when I placed my once alive but now lifeless baby in my husband’s arms to hand over to the coroner.

Because there was a time  I thought life was over for me too.

But it wasnt.

……And minutes turned in to hours and hours in to days.

…. And days in to weeks and weeks in to months.

…And then months into years.

YEARS.

And one day you wake up, and can thank the ever present never left your side God. The One who you battled with in the kitchen one stormy morning while your daughter laid breathless on the floor.

The One whom ultimately had the ability to “save the day” …..

……but didn’t.

And you look back at that not so distant time where you could not see any point in living any longer. That time when your other children was not even enough of a motive for you to live through this pain.

Then you remember the moments He showed up time and time again.

The moments where he put just a glimmer of light in the seemingly never ending darkness and just the smallest bit of joy in the forever feeling pain.

And you realize that although he may not have saved that day, He did save your life.

Then one day years from now you’ve emerged from the middle of the storm and you’re staring out your kitchen window….and not only are you remembering that precious child that once was, but you are thinking about the life thereafter you’d never thought you’d have.

The life you couldn’t even see in the midst.

A life that has had so many moments of pain and family shaken hard times. But a life of healing, of blessings, and of change.

But back then we couldn’t see it.

….And that’s okay.

We wouldn’t have believed it if we could.

Because back then all we could see was death and pain and the unfairness of this world we live in.

Back then all that we could see was the pink cold hospital chair where we last held our precious baby.

Until one day we didn’t.

I never would have thought that this journey would bave been and continues to be, even more than I could have ever imagined.

That I could feel so abudantly blessed and loved in a life that has contained so much pain and death.

But I am.

And He continues to be.

Our grief doesn’t stop.

But neither does our God.

And because of Him, today we can stand and be thankful for the veiw.

And for tomorrow we are filled with hope.

I don’t know how we got here.

But I am so very thankful we are.

Thankful that while our tough tierd hands  were created for cradling sweet babies and washing these very dishes….that His…

His were made for healing.

 

Sarah

 

 

 

 

 

 

To The Mama Who Feels Like She’s Failing…….

  ” The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail.” ~Isaiah 58:11

      

 

      Last night as I was driving in to head to bible study I would like to be able to say that I was feeling good…but truth was that an hour before had been a total nightmare.

     See, My girls were also going to the church for a end of season pajama party for their youth group, but when the time came to get ready to go….what seemed like a quick easy thing turned in to total chaos in the matter of seconds. My toddler was screaming because nothing felt right on her body, my oldest was annoyed that she was going to be late and honestly I cant blame her…I felt the exact same way.

     I threatened to leave her…..you know…the empty threat that your never going to do and I don’t know why we do it because it never works anyways. My quiet calm voice grew louder and louder until everyone was screaming, frustrated, and exhausted from the battle of coats and boots.

    We all made it in the car with not a minute to spare. But that Mama, the one with Casting Crowns blaring in the background. The one heading to bible study. The one with their kids dressed in matching pajamas in the backseat….the one who looked like she had it all together…did not. In fact she felt like a total failure.

How many times have we all felt that exact same way?

How many times have we entered somewhere with a smile on our face and self doubt in our hearts? How many times have we hidden who we are or mistakes we’ve made just so that can measure up to the Mom besides us?

How many times have we handed over the power to judge us to the wrong being?

Truth is, the last couple months , ten years….I’ve been struggling.

      Since the moment that a tiny eight pound, beautiful, slippery body was placed on my chest I immediately entered in to the world of Motherhood. In to a whole new world where self doubt, comparison, and the ability to mess up lingered around every corner.

     A world where the beauty and excitement  of new life was so very evident but the hidden pressures and inadequacy’s surround your every being as each day passed and the realization of just how big, just how important the job…..this whole Mom thing….. was going to be.

     As the world has advanced I’m not so convinced that we have. While we’ve pushed for acceptance of differences those very things have given us even more oppourtunities to fail ourselves. The world has seemed to emphasize our differences, and has even given us labels. Labels where Soccer Mom, Granola Mom, and Helicopter Mom suddenly are something we put in an order of better than….on a scale between the mom we want to be and the mom we don’t. Glorifying some more than others. Oblivious to the fact that not only are we individuals….not only has God made each one of us uniquely, but that every Mom  we have labeled from the moment we laid eyes on them are not just that.

    I have spent seasons yearning to be “that” mom. The mom that has it all together. The mom whos home you visit without cheerios on the floor and last nights super dishes in the sink.

I have spent years missing out on the blessings that was given to me because I was spending so much more time trying to be someone else.

I tried so desperately at times to fill material needs instead of spiritual ones.

I doubted my choices, because they were not yours.

I downplayed by abilities and strengths because they were not the same as others.

I’ve let Facebook hide the truths behind the pictures.

I have kept my eyes focused on becoming “mother-like” and not “God-like.”

I have spent years putting woman on pedestals for doing the exact same thing that all of us are doing…..

….raising our children to the very best of our abilities.

See, we may all parent differently but we all have the same goal.

We all love our children deeply and want what’s best for them.

….and I am learning(Sometimes the hard way) that God’s best and my best may be two different things and that if that is the case then I am going to fail at mine every single time.

    So to the Mama who feels like she’s failing…I’m here with you, fighting the same battle. Sitting hopelessly on the kitchen floor, feeling discouraged as I walk across my living room and cheerios crunch between my toes, and as I walk away from what seems like a fun family event only to have crying children and a doubting heart.

No one says it was going to be easy, but we can stop being so hard on ourselves….on each other.

You are not a failure.

You are a mother.

A beautiful and blessed being of God’s that sometimes needs a reminder that not only are you raising warriors, but that you already have a Warrior leading you through every battle you face.

We got this.

….and hey, when we don’t. He does.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When He CAN…..But He Doesn’t.

“And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them. – Romans 8:28 “

 

I remember the breath-takingly surreal moment I found myself desperately waiting in the small room in back of the Outpatient Department. The nurse in me was anticipating the moment the emotionally and physically drained doctor would come in and tell me that my baby girl was gone. After all, it had been too long. Far past the appropriate amount of time we give someone in a code. A code? My baby was being resuscitated in this very moment? How in the world did we get from  a nursing, smiling, sleepy baby… to this?

But the Mama in me…..the God believing part of me begged Him to save her, pleaded with Him to show my church family in the waiting room…. that He was bigger than all of this. That if only He would perform this miracle, He would enable the physicians, the nurses, the staff involved to see just how mighty He was.

I tried to reason with Him in my final moments before the words of my new reality would be spoken. In my last desperate attempt I told Him that He could use this moment to change lives. That He could perform a miracle that would be talked about throughout this community….one that would ultimately lead people to Him.

Then moments later It happened.

…..and as the physician entered I immediately began to scream no. No to what he was going to say. No to God because this was not in the plan. No because this was not happening, not my life, not my story. I refused it to be. The doctor did manage to say the words. That all attempts of resuscitation had been unsuccessful. But I had already knew that part. I knew that part when twenty minutes had gone by and there were still no more signs of life than when she had left my home. I knew that when one of my co workers who had checked in gave me the look to get prepared for what was next.

My faith had never been in the science.

My faith has been in God, but with the stipulation that He was going to go along with my plan. The miracle. The saving her part. The breathing life back in to my breathless  baby ending.

Yet there we were. Small baby girl in my arms, proof of the attempts to save her still stuck in to her body. A white fleece hospital blanket and tear filled kisses that could not cover up the fact that time was causing her to become colder and colder.

Surrounded my friends and family and questions and whys?

Encapsulated by a God bigger than it all.

He could have saved her.

He could have changed the outcome of my story that early July morning.

He could have performed a miracle,

……but He didn’t.

Or so I thought.

Audrey’s survival wasn’t my story changer.

Her death was.

As painful as it was, it was our family’s survival that became the miracle.

The never ending prayers for healing from our amazing church family, My pastors gracious ability to love like Jesus, and every single day thereafter He gave me to go on.

The community watched as we wept, trusted, and healed. They became enveloped in our story…..in Gods strength and watched closely and questionably as He carried us through.

Audrey’s death ultimately led people to God.

All things I begged Him for that morning.

All outcomes I prayed would come from my baby girls life.

Assumingly unanswered prayers; answered.

His way…..not mine.

Still a miracle….just one that took longer to see.

He’s here. In all of it. Working behind the scenes. Healing,transforming, preparing, saving, carrying…..

Writing your story.

A story that may be unlike anything you would have written.

…..but with an ending that is ever so beautiful.

Because ultimately its not the miracle we really want……….it is the God that makes it all possible.

 

 

 

When From Death Comes Beauty.

 

 

“Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. ~Ecclesiatstes”

 

Audrey’s viewing day.

I remember getting ready as it was yesterday.

The black dress. The gold earrings. The mascara that would run down my face before I could even fully apply it.

The emotions. All of them. The desperation, the despair, the torture, the anger, and the inability to accept.

Most prominently I remember the feeling of wanting to see my beautiful baby girl again, but came with it, the sickening fear that seeing her would indefinitely show the proof that death had consumed her fragile tiny twelve pound body.

I feared she wouldn’t look the same. That death had taken her for too long. That the sweet baby that lay cold in a wooden white box would trick my mind into believing that there was just no way that it could be the pink chubby-cheeked one who filled my arms only days before.

I arrived to the front doors of the church and anger filled my every being as I questioned God for the ten thousandth time. Why? How could you? Why me? Why now? Why her?

All questions I have still never received the answers to.

 I remember looking to the front of my church, the box sat out just steps away from the staging where my pastor spoke Gods greatness into my very ears just a week and a half before. Where he spoke Gods greatness into my church families ears the Sunday morning I held my lifeless baby in a hospital room only days prior.

 

To tell you the truth He didn’t feel too great to me right now.

To be completely honest I felt He was mocking me as my beautiful baby girl lay still in a casket to be seen for the last time.

I refused to accept that ANYTING even remotely good could come from this.

That if my daughters death had anything to do with glorifying him there was absolutely positivity no way that I was going to be okay with that.

Maybe because a part of me felt like I was being punished for something….that I had failed terribly.

Perhaps a piece of me was convincing myself that if I had have done things differently or had listened to Him better, sooner that I wouldn’t have been standing bare footed at the alter holding her hand and counting fingers for the last time…..

That if I acknowledged that anything good could come from her death that I was somehow approving of it happening.

I don’t know.

But I do know one thing.

My precious Audrey was beautiful even in her death.

That Gods love intensified in that over flown room filled with friends, our community, and my church family who loved me unconditionally and without judgement.

Her death was not great.

But my God still was.

That death did not consume her.

But God did.

The same God who formed Audrey in my womb, who calmed me during my pregnancy, whom rejoiced with us in her birth, and who wept with me at the alter………still was.

Two years later I can confidently say that whether I refused or not, Audreys death has glorified God.

That Gods greatness shone even in her death.

She has impacted more lives then I could have ever imagined, and she was surely an amazing piece of my story that belonged to Him no matter how badly I selfishly want her.

For some reason I was chosen to walk this journey. A journey that has introduced me to opportunities and women who have added a substance to my life I never knew could exist.

Her death led me to a God that defeats it.

That very God led me to a beauty that her death….that this world, had been blinding me from.

So this month of October I remember her.

I remember my other sweet girl Alexis.

I acknowledge that I am 1 in 4.

That I am one face in the many of mama’s who walk this very same road as me.

 

In Alexis’s death I became a Hope Mom.

In Audrey’s death I became fully His.

Because of that I can look at my baby girl and see Gods presence.

I can look at her and not see death, but life.

….and that right there…in Him……is where beauty can always be found.

 

 

 

 

 

Because I Could Never Be Fatherless.

 

“Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.” ~Psalm 73:23-26

    It was Monday morning and my day was already up to not the best start. My oldest child had missed the bus, my middle one had been crying for ten minutes over wanting to wear her flip flops to school and the baby…well, need I say more.

   I packed some very unimpressive but quick lunches and loaded up the car with everyone and everything I needed for the day….a normal everyday occurrence in our household….but little did I know in a mere hour this Monday morning was going to be one that I would never forget.

   A few drop offs later and I had finally arrived at work just seconds before my scheduled time. I smiled as I seen a co-worker arriving the same time as me and was steps away from her when my phone begin to ring.

I pressed answer and shear screams pierced my ears.

“Dad’s dead”

“Dad died”

…..and in two words, in seven simple stomach turning letters… the world as I knew it had changed.

     The missed busses, the wrong pair of shoes, the cars that had drove to slow in front of me while not so nice thoughts filled my  mind. None of those things mattered. If anything I had wished they did. That I could just go back to my Monday morning being defined by the mundane everyday things that went wrong.

But it couldn’t.

Because in that moment.

   On that overcast, overly cranky morning of September twenty-sixth….in a cold wet parking lot…….

I became fatherless.

Or so I thought.

   See, I sat on my Fathers bed that morning and desperately clenched my Dads cold hard working hands, I studied them and traced each wrinkle and line with my fingertips, and I sat hopelessly in his death.

This time there was nothing to pray for…..it was too late.

The evidence lay still and breathless beside me.

Oh how I missed him already.

    Anger filled my every being as I began to ask the very God I needed so desperately the why questions I knew I would never get the answer to. I didn’t want to need him. I didn’t want to want him. In fact, I demanded him to restart this day over and breathe my Dads life right back in to him.

    But as I watched my Dads earthly home be carried out in a black bag and placed in the back of the coroners car, I was too desperate…too angry…..too immersed in the sudden grief, that I missed that my Dads life had already been restored and that the very life I had demanded had already been breathed back in to him.

Not because I had asked.

But because he did.

    So this morning as I awoke to the aftermath of the storm. As I laid in bed staring out at the beauty of the world in front of me, and as thoughts of memories of a man who truly loved like Jesus filled my mind.

   I was reminded that although my Dad is not here, he is alive. That even though I can not see him, his eyes are on the one that matters most, and I am so very thankful for the moments this past week where he has shown me small glimpses of Heaven.  Whether in the sighting of a butterfly or in the power of Gods word.

    I will forever think of the missed opportunities with my father. The words that weren’t spoken, the times I got distracted and didn’t take the call, or the last hug I gave without saying goodbye. All the chances I may have missed.

See my Daddy didn’t miss his.

But my Dads death showed me just how quickly we could.

    Because in an instant. In a single heartbeat, the every days of this world could be taken. The houses, the cars, the dance recitals, and the very people that filled them.

Me.

You.

And all that will be left is a Father that would have never left us Fatherless…..

……and the missed opportunity to make that so.

So today I sit saddened, still angry, but ever so confident in the truth that I may have lost my father, but luckily for me I am not left without.

…..and it his Him that will carry me through the coming days…weeks…months. It is because of Him that I will never be…

……..Fatherless.

How about you?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Truth About Christian Women; and why we’re failing miserably at it.

“The things you wish were most removed from your life are often the very things that God is using to shape you and make you into the believer of character He wants you to be.” ~ Unknown.

Chad came home around six that night. Just in time for me to head out the door to a bible study I had just begun to attend. We greeted each other quickly as he entered the door and I exited it. I had had a crazy day and I sighed a sigh of relief as I closed the car door and sat in complete silence for a moment.

    I entered in to the bible study and was greeted by smiling faces and cheerful glances. My evening was spent eating yummy food, catching up on worldly issues, and being filled with truth. I left feeling a fuller woman then the empty-tanked one that had walked through the door only hours earlier.

    I walked through my door expecting to kiss my girls goodnight, and spend a few quiet moments with my husband.. but instead my house was in chaos. In an instant my desire for order and routine caused everything I had heard about that night to fly right out the window.

    My anger towards my husband completely blinded me from the fact that my husband had left work and walked in to our busy household while I had walked out of it. With both of us feeling unappreciated for different reasons and our tiredness from the day, our anger escalated quite quickly in to an argument.

   In a moment I had gone from a Christian woman into a full fledged “monster” on a war path. What had I done. Why was I like this…..and as I climbed in to bed the regret and embarrassment of what had just happened in my household consumed me entirely.

    I may have been able to hide what happened between my husband and I that night from the world. I may have expressed to the world on social media that I was attending a bible study or post a picture of our family helping out the community… but I am least likely to plaster the walls of my Facebook page with family arguments, marital troubles, or misbehaving children.

Why?

The answers simple…

Because its easier.

    Now that being said, in no way am I encouraging you to use social media as a way of expressing your struggles openly to the world. (That would be a whole other problem.)But I am saying we only see half of peoples lives….the pieces that they choose and allow for us to see, and in todays world social media is one of the biggest influences on how we not only view…but compare ourselves and lives to others.

But see, this is exactly where we are failing.

      Not only are we being tempted on a momentarily basis to adapt our lives towards other families morals and values off what we are able to see, but we are also hiding our own troubles.

      In todays time where Christian women are struggling so hard to raise their family in an un-godly world, we are being watched more than ever. Eyes are looking to us not just in judgement but also in a non-understanding…..and by continuing to show only our accomplishments and triumphs and hiding away our challenges and struggles we are pushing people…women…just like us away towards the world because they feel more accepted out there.

     Pretending to be good doesn’t mean that we are….it simply means we are good at pretending.

     Truth is….I am a Christian. I believe in God. I pray with my children, I attend church, I try to regularly read the word. I attempt to help others in need. I believe in life after death, and I try to love on everyone regardless of circumstances.

……But I also sin. I mess up. I fall down. I struggle in my marriage. I become frustrated with my children. I sometimes find myself caught up in gossip. I worry about what others will think about my beliefs. I struggle with my weight. I am afraid of death. I am insecure, and sometimes I find myself judging others in ways I would not want to be.

     Sometimes I doubt God. Sometimes for seconds and sometimes for days. I struggle with every single worldly issue as any other woman the only difference is I believe in a God that is there to help guide or haul me out of a hole I sometimes place myself in. 

    My life is far from perfect. I think that as Christian women we spend way too much time trying to hide our brokenness when in reality it is through that same brokenness and mistakes that God uses to encourage others. To offer hope, and love, and truth that we are all in the same fight together. There is something so beautiful (and scary) in being forced out of our comfort zones and being vulnerable.

    Our ugliness can turn in to such a beautiful story of faith and redemption if we could just allow ourselves to let go of the fear of being “exposed.” So why can’t we just be real and lift one another up as we relate to others circumstances. We are currently raising the next generation of woman who is watching us with curious eyes,  and who is going to need this even more than we do.

    Choosing to become a Christian didn’t give me a stamp of approval to walk the rest of this life free from struggles and in perfection. (I wish it did.) It came with a stamp of responsibility to allow my life…every single part of it to show Gods love and presence in it. Being a Christian meant here I am…broken, lost, hopeless, struggling, imperfect, and un-whole. Here I am a mess, messing up…sometimes over and over again. But there he is loving me whole-y in my imperfection and guiding me to be the best that I can be. It’s about always having a cheerleader by my side.

Isn’t it time to be each others?