This week marks six months of a journey as a family through deep mourning and suffering that we have never known before.
Yet, these labor-pains of grief have birthed a deep seated Joy that has revealed a GOD who aggressively pursues and cradles our broken hearts in the darkest of seasons.
I am not sure I could have ever said that we would still be standing … crawling…. walking… dreaming… believing…singing… dancing or even smiling months after having had to walk our beloved Gianna Lilyfaith to heaven.
But, we do experience all these things….however, we experience them as a new people with new perspectives and with changed hearts.
Dance parties happen in our home, but so do the weeping parties.
Both are embraced.
It is messy ….but it is US.
180 days ago our world came crashing down around us and it felt as though our sunshine was torn from our universe as her precious beautiful frail body was taken from our screaming arms.
The deepest assault on our hopeful hearts and a crushing despair of unanswered prayers collided with a literal face to face encounter with our God of the universe that supernaturally and simultaneously filled us with an unexplainable peace and light within our darkness.
There is really no way to adequately detail such a juxtaposition of realities.
A crisis of faith yet a strengthening of faith happening at the same time. I am convinced this phenomenon happens only because of the fact that HE DOES NOT LET us go, even when we can not hold on.
His faithfulness is ENOUGH even when our faith waivers.
PURE crushing heartache that was lifted before the Lord while HE was pulling back the veil and allowing us to peek beyond the bend to the future glory that awaits all believers who claim Jesus as their Savior.
We felt LOVE and we felt heartache like never before in the presence of our KING while He welcomed our precious baby girl, and all her delightful sparkle into HIS light -filled KINGDOM
Falling to our knees, yet lifting our hands in worship.
How is that possible?
My small feeble mind can not hold or process such wonder and awe within the deep hurt of earthly loss. Words are not adequate.
But, I do know that HE IS REAL.
Heaven is real.
Heaven holds a LIVING HOPE.
A future home beyond this world that inhabits PURE JOY….and we knew we were releasing our baby girl to this SAFE HAVEN where her broken and bruised and suffering- body would become brand new.
Comfort, in the intensity of pain, that was magnified on this HOLY GROUND of SURRENDER.
For a brief powerful moment, time stood still and the earth stopped spinning and we were convinced that even the stars above us sang praises with us at the pure beauty of a miracle called “redemption” happening before our eyes.
Her chains were broken. His healing touch on her broken body,
MADE NEW.
My baby girl, alive forever.
…JOY IN THE MOURNING……
But then we had to leave the hospital and be forced to keep living in a world that felt like it had totally lost it’s sunshine.
Pain and suffering would now become our earthly companion and be a consistent reminder that we were not made for this world, but rather our hearts were created for the promises of heaven.
We now live in a land where JOY and PAIN run parallel to each other and at times also entangle and weave in and out of each other within the fibers of our aching and expectant hearts…and it is now seemingly impossible for one to exist without the other.
Joy and pain are now forever intertwined in a tangled web called…… HOPE.
It is a messy and unfamiliar existence. Like a new planet.
you wake up each morning to a harsh reality yet a new opportunity to celebrate and choose LIFE on this earth as a survivor who awaits a promise…. all the while also deeply mourning a precious beautiful life that is gone too soon.
A deep mourning.
a deep joy.
It is a challenge to reconcile the two opposing forces. But somehow, they mesh together,
It is a leaning in….a choice to LIVE within the pain and to allow for new growth around the immense pain.
To let the grief grow you is a brave surrender of trust.
Each day we wake up to a holy invitation that can not possibly be answered in our own strength.
It is a surrender to press into my Daddy’s heart and trust in His character and to choose LIFE and allow HIS strength to be perfected in our weaknesses.
however, it does not come without a wrestling match or two. It is not an easy surrender.
But, my God welcomes my wrestling heart. He invites all my questions and all my anger. It is in this holy lamenting intimacy where an anointed relationship is deepened.
Have you read Pslams? take a peek…David (the man after Gods own heart wrestled with God)
This is the language of a RELATIONSHIP.
Where RELIGION is rejected
see…its not a religion that saves despairing hearts. religion is a “burden” and an endless striving….
Religion screams “performance” and “duty” and a chasing after acceptance.
I’ve thrown and rejected any part of my life that has resembled “religion” because religion does not save you nor bring peace or joy…only relationship with the true LIVING GOD can do this.
Religion saps joy and enslaves you and says you have to think or be a certain way to be “acceptable” before God.
But Relationship says “I will never leave or forsake you” (Is 42:10) and that “NOTHING can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus” (Rom.8:38).
Relationship says
“Come just as you are” (matt. 11:28)
He promises to draw near…I’m free to just sit in His presence and bring all my “yuck.” He loves me just as I am. He knows me. He holds me. He carries me. He sent His son to die for me. I’ve never understood this painful sacrifice more than now. This is love…even when I can not feel the love.
I’m learning to be still.
To allow space to just be with my daddy in heaven. To reject the world’s distractions and to sit at His feet. He is my greatest counselor.
That’s where peace is unearthed.
We are purging clutter physically and mentally to create more white space. It’s so therapeutic. I’m discarding and rejecting social Media in this season and pulling my family closer and focusing on their hearts alone.
Together we wrestle with truth and together we mourn and together we learn how to walk the wilderness.
In this holy space, There is a craving for privacy yet a yearning to not be forgotten by the world.
We use our set-apart homeschooling time to dream about world travel and to read accounts of great missionaries who walked suffering but witnessed miracles as they trusted in a God who overcomes and did the impossible. Heroes of the faith.
We don’t sugar coat pain or avoid it…we try to embrace it together. We read stories of how God uses pain for good. The Bible is filled with them. The Bible is filled with messy redemption.
Grief is messy…. everyone grieves in a family in different ways. We are learning to make space for each other’s hearts. There is no wrong or right way to do this. We make space to remember and we make space to distract. We make space to fail. We make space to forgive. He has stripped us of all appearances of “having it all together,” and that is okay. It is okay to not be okay. But, it is also OKAY to be okay
……There is just no understanding this journey, unless you have walked it. It is incomprehensible.
I’m realizing that this season is such an anointed and holy season for our family and I’m finding great peace in tuning out the world and tuning in to my home and pulling my tribe close.
Turning inward is necessary.
I still blog because I want to document our journey. That is important to me and my family.
The phone does not stay too close….so I have room to bring my people closer to me. I miss more texts and emails but I try to be more present in my home like never before. I take pictures to capture our season, but I do not share so many as before. They seem very personal and holy to me now.
We love learning about the world together and dreaming about big family destination trips.
Our favorite past time is gazing at maps and planning voyages and missions trips across the oceans. We dream as though money were no obstacle to God, as we know it is not.
We have a heart for the lost world across the ocean like never before ….normal American dream life just annoys us. We see beyond the white fences ….pretty facades and traditional worldly successes to something bigger and deeper.
LIFE has a deeper meaning.
We know life is short.
See, when you are able to face down and survive your greatest fears together and get a glimpse at heaven together and understand the brevity of life together, a freedom for the Lord wells up deep inside which unbolts and unhitches you from this earth, together, like never before!
Passions are deepened like never before…..visions are being casted together. God is showing us small glimpses towards a story that brings beauty from ugly ashes. There is excitement and expectancy in what ONLY God can do with all the pain in the land of the living.
That is HOPE.
There is Something about loss that just unbolts you from what is acceptable and normal and you crave life outside of the box of normal. When you encounter the Living God, you live differently. You are changed forever. Nothing is the same again. Peace reigns in the storms.
JOY in the mourning….
We make space to “chase joy”….and especially to do “family dates and get-aways”.
This is so important for healing and bonding. We free ourselves to belly laugh and dream big together. We know grief has no rules. We go at our own rhythm. Freedom to grieve is a beautiful thing and a messy thing. You can laugh one moment and cry the next.
Grief demands freedom.
Grace is so necessary.
There is great comfort in just “being” and putting no expectations on ourselves and not allowing the world’s or other people’s expectations to burden us either. There is great comfort in accepting the mess of loss.
….GRACE wins.
Each day is an invitation, as a family, to draw near to each other and together lay it all at His feet and to choose JOY IN our MOURNING…
Sometimes the joy is just distant glimpses into the future because grief’s fog can be so heavy…and sometimes joy is more palpable and up close in the now.
This past weekend We went to the local Fall Farm with the cousins. This is a favorite Autumn tradition in our home and Gianna always loved to welcome it with squeals and skips of delight and anticipation!
There we were, surrounded by pumpkins, corn mazes, baby goats and apple cider donuts yet without our baby girl to laugh with us and choose her special pumpkin and chase us through the hay maze and lick her sticky chin from her sugary donuts.
They picked a white pumpkin for our Gia-Bia.
I know she loves it.
But Sometimes I want to scream. Sometimes I do scream.
It just absolutley sucks. There is no other way to describe the new reality.
IT IS STUPID AND IT SUCKS TO LIVE WITHOUT your baby on earth…..it’s just so very broken. WHAT THE HECK!!?? We should be whole.
It seems so unfair that every holiday will especially scream of such earthly void. Such an empty hole.
So day by day…..
Each day is a new exploration into a land we didn’t want to go to. we navigate this strange wilderness that is called grief, child loss, and sibling loss….and we try to chase true joy …
But, It is a land that brings new loss with every new and old experience we walk through.
Loss did not just happen 6 months ago on April 22 at 12 am. Loss continues to emerge and reveal itself with each brave step forward.
Life does not get easier the further you get from that “moment” of loss.
Collateral Loss happens anew and fresh every day. This is something that people don’t always understand and some people think that time makes it easier but that is the furthest thing from the truth. You just learn to live within the sting of the pain.
we are learning how we are given an opportunity to choose LIFE within the pain and loss.
I know that growth is still happening in the dark cold places of our hearts. I know HIS light reaches there.
“The people who walk in darkness Will see a great light; Those who live in a dark land, The light will shine on them.” (Isaiah 9:2)
It is a new surrender every day to a story that we did not choose. But there have been gifts of starlight within the darkness.
The act of surrender opens my eyes and the doorway to thankfulness which then reveals glimpses to new chapters of LIFE and light and goodness to come.
These hopes and dreams become our private family dinner time conversations that we hold dearly. We cherish these secrets and dreams.
It seems suffering brings with it an invitation to a deeper joy that is just not comprehendible when life is comfortable and easy.
…at the farm, I would just gaze around at this beautiful tribe in a bit of awe and laughter. They make me laugh.
There were many giggles, and smiles and shine among all the kids and their interactions with each other as we toured the farm petting baby goats and running through the corn maze and gorging on apple cider donuts.
It made me smile.
There was LIFE and joy beaming in front of my eyes despite the feelings of loss that also followed closely.
I am witnessing how life, Love and laughter can still bloom and grow around deep loss.
But this revelation doesn’t stop or ignore the pain.
Pain can’t be ignored. It must be acknowledged.
when I got home… I let my tears fall. Brian and I both wept. I have found this to be so cleansing. Tears are a necessary part of healing and growing.
Jesus weeps with us.
The tears wash my soul and allow the seeds of hope in the wilderness to be watered.
My heart knows that there are blooms underground waiting to explode…..
So, I wait in the winter of my soul and I toil and I wrestle in the dirt of a cold barren land expecting and believing for beauty to come.
I already see glimpses. That is God’s grace.
To celebrate Gianna’s 6 months HEAVEN-versary, the little kids and I ran out to her victory garden and planted spring bulbs under her tree.
There are so many object lessons learned in the garden.
Faith can be illustrated for a child with a small seed or bulb, a tiny willing hands and a lot of brown dark dirt.
I gave my children pictures of these gorgeous daffodils, tulips and crocuses (all Gia’s favs!) and told them that THIS is what will explode under Gianna’s tree this upcoming spring!
They were excited!
I love their smiles so much.
Then I opened their willing and accepting hands and placed an ugly round brown bulb in them and told them that those beautiful flowers will arise from what looks like a ball of dust.
And they excitedly jumped up and down … needing absolutely no convincing and they believed without a single doubt that by planting the bulbs in the brown dark dirt, there would be bright blooms to arise in the future. No doubting. A sure HOPE.
An expectation of goodness.
THIS IS FAITH.
They teach me more than I teach them.
It does not make sense does it? How can such beauty come from something so “not beautiful” at all. How can beautiful life emerge from such darkness among harsh conditions where no light seems able to reach.
nature has a way of revealing God’s story. His goodness.
He is growing life out of the secret dark places of our souls.
His light reaches those dark places.
He is the one that REDEEMS and brings beauty from ashes.
I went on to explain to my sweet babies that in order for these bulbs to explode with beauty, a harsh cold frost will have to hit them hard. They need the frost because it is the dark season of winter that will strengthen them and forge new life!
They’ll have to be patient.
and my kiddos are just so super smart.
They understand how the seasons can be such a picture of the seasons of our souls.
Looking around we see the leaves turning brown and falling off those once lush full green trees that now show brown and bare.
They won’t stay this way ….
We know death brings life in God’s kingdom.
Tolly and Hudson were excited with me as we envisioned all the beauty that would welcome Gianna’s one year heaven anniversary next April in her garden, right around Easter….the season of redemption.
….JOY IN THE MOURNING….
Looking at her garden, we spoke of how the colors and new life of Spring would sing with us and celebrate with us within our grief.
It is a holy conversation that brings with it an almost immediate reflex to just LOOK UP at hope instead of looking down.
To look up is to expect JOY.
I practice looking up with my little kids because they are more natural heaven-lookers than I am. I let them lead me. They usually see the butterfly love notes from heaven before I do.
They are always looking.
I suppose that’s why Jesus says to come to Him with the faith of a child. They do it more naturally and it’s so beautiful.
Looking UP shows expectancy.
Looking up brings life and yet still acknowledges the deep pain while also recognizing the treasures that are found in the dark places.
Gianna taught us to always look for beauty.
She had an eye and love for all things sweet and shiny.
She found beauty and brought sparkle with her wherever she went! oh how I miss all that sparkle. 🙁
Even in our sorrow, her light shines so bright from Heaven…. The land that our hearts were all created for and ache so deeply for.
The glorious place where the sun never sets. Light forever.
In honor of our Gianna Lilyfaith, we look up, choose Life and reach for the light and STILL dream big….even amidst the tears.
In fact, we dream Bigger than ever before.
She taught us that.
Life is a vapor. We miss our baby girl so much.
In our depths of mourning, we know her life reflects a DEEP HOPE that never fails.
there is an earthly void that reminds us of a forever JOY that is coming…..
“Truly, truly, I say to you, that you will weep and lament,
but the world will rejoice;
you will grieve,
but your grief will be turned into joy.”
(John 16:20)