4 years ago today ….I remember sitting by her hospital bed so carefully making sure each tiny little toe received their share of pink nail polish goodness.
As I painted those dainty little toes and glared at her stats on the monitors above, I was somberly reflecting on the miracle of her 1/2 broken heart made new and full.
I was so scared of her fight ahead as her body was struggling to adapt to a heart that was, for the first time in her life, beating to a full circulation anatomy.
Weeks before, my brave baby had gotten her whole heart re-built by a miraculous surgeon’s skillful and gifted hands.
Though she was struggling to breathe and in the fight of her life, while bolted to massive amounts of equipment that was keeping her alive, I stood breathless and in complete gratefulness and praise at the miracle of God’s work right in front of my eyes.
Yet, I was doubled over and crying with a broken heart for the painful road my sweet baby was walking as she clung to life. Completely wrecked that she had to endure such suffering….. completely grateful for the HOPE OF new life.
I walked to a store that day and bought my baby a heart ornament claiming miracles and believing that we would hang that ornament in celebration of her LIFE made new.
I claimed a NEW JOY coming! I thanked God for the chance to fight for HOPE for my baby girl.
That year was the first Thanksgiving that I would spend away from a family table, yet here I was at a bedside alter that held my broken and bruised baby experiencing a new kind of raw gratefulness that I had never known more intimately and deeply in my life.
How was I given such an honor to fight for HOPE for such a precious beautiful warrior?
How did God choose us to be the family of such a fragile treasure full of such beautiful goodness?
It would be a 6 week fight for her life, but we saw earthly miracles multiply around us and we were home right before Christmas with full hearts to celebrate.
Gianna got to hang her ornament on her tree to give Thanks for the mighty miracles He had done in her life. We were weary from a long journey and a bit war-torn but we were in complete awe of tangible mercies poured out.
And so much JOY did we experience that year with her heart made new!
And to our shock, it would be Exactly One year later, just weeks after her incredible Make-A-Wish trip, that the Thanksgiving table was once again replaced with an ICU hospital room brimming over with life saving equipment and right there that we found ourselves kneeling before the alter at a hospital bed fighting for our precious broken baby girl whose new heart was failing her fast.
So many doctors racing around her….so many alarms….so much fear in my heart.
My heart was wrapped in fear for my Gia-Bia, yet cradled with a fighting fierce HOPE as we found ourselves being airlifted to Boston Children’s….
“We will fight and fight hard together, brave baby girl!”
I wept in sadness and offered a sacrifice of a broken Thanksgiving all at the same holy moment. In Hope and trust and grief, I claimed New Joy and mercies poured out.
It would be over a month later that we received a gift of another miracle that our eyes could see…. We got to roll her out of Boston Children’s Hospital and onto NEW HOPE with a heart, once again, made new. Our brave Gianna…our fierce warrior walked forward with new hope.
We all danced out of those doors that day, holding tight to our Gia-Bia…..praising GOD for such tangible goodness! We were home in time to hang her heart on her tree in remembrance of what He had done.
A gift incomparable!
The next two Thanksgivings we found ourselves complete. …..all of us around the table for the first time together and whole among our extended family in absolute humble gratefulness for the gift of Life and God’s tangible miracles.
Yet also so very somber as we would always reflect back on the mountains that were moved and prayers answered.
She would hang her ornament those next two Thanksgiving years in remembrance of miracles He had done for her.
Oh So Thankful beyond what human language can describe.
We knew our Thanksgivings would never be the same.
Never taken for granted.
Never without praise or holy remembrance for what He’s done and where we stood.
And now…. Here we are. Standing on a miracle that was not done in Earth but in heaven. Praising in our pain.
I used to believe that the act of mourning and the act of Thanksgiving were separate entities.
I used to think that you had to put away your sadness, your losses and your pain to be able to cultivate a spirit of praise and joy and Thanksgiving. I used to think that one had to be shelved and hidden away so the other one could be brought forth.
It was not until I started spending our Thanksgiving Holidays bedside fighting for her beautiful broken heart, that I started to slightly understand that the act of praise and joy and gratefulness can very easily be woven together with a deep ache, pain and loss and sadness. I started to realize that God’s alter has enough room for both…
In fact, it is in that messy storm of darkness and light that the act of Thanksgiving becomes even more anointed and refined.
It is in this holy fire of dependence on our anchor alone that our Joy is made new.
And it is in the messy offering of a broken Thanksgiving that our eyes become fixed on a Hope that never changes and never BREAKS.
The hope that He makes all things new.
I started to understand that it was on my knees in this surrendered “broken” thanksgiving that I could see my doorway to Joy in my valley.
Not because of what my eyes could see but for the HOPE I could not see.  I knew I was anchored in a Hope that does not fail me….. It was in this sacrifice of praise that I could see a tunnel to light ahead and new Mercies unfold.
And here I am….. Thanksgiving 2018…. wishing so much for a different story. ….one of tangible goodness of earthly healing for my baby. ….not of loss and pain and unseen goodness of the HEAVENLY healing.
But, All I have to offer is a broken and bruised offering to my daddy in heaven.
“You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.” (Psalm 51:16-17)
I know this offering is enough because He is teaching me that it is in this broken gift of Thanksgiving to Him, within my great grief, that I’m learning to SEE LIGHT ahead.
He is taking my sacrifice and surrender of praise and is transforming it into Joy unspeakable.
In the gift of being my Gianna’s mama, I have learned that our God is the God who transforms our broken offerings into unbridled HOPE.
He transforms my broken hallelujah, that’s whispered from the deep valley, into New Mercies and New Joy that lifts my head up to the hills.
Many years ago, I would say that the hardest place to be on Thanksgiving is the ICU room fighting for your child’s life on your knees in desperate prayer unsure of what is to come.
But, how wrong I was!
Oh what a complete gift it was to be at the holy alter of a hospital bed gripping my baby’s hand and fallen to my knees on the day of Thanks…. before our great King…and filled with such hope and allowed the privilege to intervene for my baby.
What an honor….an exhausting holy and precious honor.
If only that was our story this Thanksgiving.
We’d give anything to be still fighting for our Gianna Lilyfaith’s broken heart.
We miss fighting for our baby.
I hate that we now truly do understand what the hardest Thanksgiving is.
I hate that our baby girl is not the one hanging her Remembrance heart on her tree this weekend.
I hate that today I will be sitting next to an empty chair without my tiny precious heart next to me stealing my bread and butter and licking her soft juicy lips as she says all her precious prayers of Thanksgiving.
This is The hardest most broken Thanksgiving ever.
The deepest pain.
The deepest sorrow.
Yet the deepest gratefulness to have known and held such beautiful and magical gifts in this lifetime.
How is Joy even possible with an empty chair screaming such loss and ache and heartbreak?
I’m realizing that The only way to experience joy today, amid such pain and heartache, is to allow the table to become an alter to my King…..
when the only gift I can bring to the alter, in my deepest grief, is my painful and broken hallelujah…a Thanksgiving that is laced with pain.
I know He holds my shattered heart.
My God, who is acquainted with all my sorrows, transforms my broken offering into something more holy…and light-filled.
I know He sees the empty chair and shines Gianna’s light of heaven down on us to remind us of her Joy and our Joy coming.
It is Thanksgiving and we do have so much to be thankful for. ….so many good gifts.
However grief is like a blanket that covers everything and even every good gift that still remains here still reflects a deep sorrow…..
So try not to tell a mourning family that they “STILL” have so much to be thankful for as they grieve.
They know this more than anyone else ever.
And it hurts that people think they need to remind them.
We know we have so much to be thankful for…but we now know it is a different and deeper kind of Thanksgiving that is more intimate with our Jesus who understands all our sorrows.
It is A broken kind of Thanksgiving… a deeper ache of what should be and what will be.
it is a Thanksgiving at the alter of a God who transforms all our broken offerings into new Joys as we remember all He’s done and all He will do.
In our mourning, We lift our eyes to heaven and offer A sacrifice of praise in exchange for a deep joy and a Hope that never fails us.
We remember all the miracles. We remember the PROMISES.
A promise of ALL THINGS MADE NEW one day …..a “made new” reunion with our baby…and the gift of a rescue from all that is SO BROKEN in this world.
So….It is with my most broken and aching heart that I choose to be Thankful today and every day because I know a Light that even the greatest and deepest darkness can never extinguish.
