.Thoughts on her.

It's quiet outside.  

The sun set a long time ago,
Gabe is asleep upstairs,
the neighborhood kids are all inside for the night
and I am sitting on our comfy little seat on the porch as I wait for the overwhelming thoughts to pass.  

Even though I have one darling boy sleeping upstairs and two others waiting for me half a world away, 

sometimes it's impossible for my thoughts not to go to her.  

Especially when it's quiet.  

Especially at night.

As her first birthday approaches, I think of her more frequently.

Instead of just every morning, her sweet face graces my thoughts through out the day.

How big is she?

Is she walking?

Does she sleep well? 

What does her laugh sound like?

Surely she's much bigger than the 7lbs I can still feel in my arms when I think of her.

Is she safe?

Is her tummy full? 

Is she loved well?

Those are the thoughts that are even harder to think about...  

The little boy sleeping upstairs hasn't asked about her in months yet he always stills when he hears her name on one of the shows he watches.  Thankfully his heart has recovered from her loss and now just patiently waits for his brothers to come home.  

Hearts are resilient like that; healing is hard but with time, faith and grace it happens.  

Time for your heart to heal, for the pain to ebb and life to slowly move forward.

Faith to remember you're not in this alone and when you feel like your stumbling the blindest is when God is shining the brightest. 

And grace, well that's the funny one.  

Grace from your family and friends to grieve a loss they don't really understand.

Grace for yourself to wallow when needed, to fake it until you make it and to live fully even if something is missing. 

Grace from our Father to fully heal, to fully redeem the loss and to be our constant reminder that love wins.  

Love always wins. 

Love wins.  Redemption comes.

It sometimes just looks differently than expected.

For us; it's in the extraordinary privilege to be the parents of three amazing little boys and have part of our heart always with the little girl God asked us to love.  

To love deeply and fully no matter the outcome.

For reasons I'll never fully understand we were asked to love our sweet girl; to love her and not keep her.  It's a precarious position to be in; to be called to love and let go; to love and not know the outcome. But to have our little girl would mean we wouldn't have Thomas and Samsel and that is unfathomable.

So tomorrow like everyday since we drove away from Atlanta last July 15,
we will think of our girl.
We will think of her with love...
with joy mixed with sorrow...
with wonder...

Birthdays are days to celebrate the beauty of life and tomorrow we celebrate her.
Her life, her future and the beautiful blessing that she was for us. 

"Children are a blessing from the Lord" Psalm 127:3

No matter how long you hold them,
no matter where the Lord takes them,
no matter how hard it is to let them go...
She is a blessing from the Lord.
To us. To her family.  To the world.