I'm gonna just stop promising to blog. I obviously get caught up in other things (like life) and let 11 months go by. woops.
It's been a full 11 months, that's for sure.
We have had a really wonderful time living life to its fullest, the best we can. We have done well at not taking things for granted and soaking up the joy of every second, hour, day, week, month.
It's ridiculous how much joy one moment can hold. really.
Since my last post I quit my job to stay home with Mason (absolute BEST decision ever!), I home-schooled Mason for preschool (which basically means we played nonstop because that's what preschoolers do best), and sadly we lost 2 more babies bringing us to a total of 6 miscarriages.
One thing I know for sure is that I'm going to be a very busy mommy in heaven.
I've learned so much and have grown tremendously through the ups and downs. A sweet friend of mine, Kim Detwiler, recommended a book to me last August called 'One Thousand Gifts' by Ann Voskamp. It was crazy good, and deep, and overwhelming...I basically highlighted and underlined the entire book. It's something I will go back to time and time again. It's why I started my own journey of gratitude in the smallest of things. It taught me to slow down in the moments. To be grateful and joyful even in the chaos. In the last 3 1/2 years, we have had more wonderful things happen in our lives than I could pretend to count, but in reflecting on the chaos, all I can do is learn and move forward and handle it all with more grace each time. Something not everyone is pushed to learn, but I'm grateful for it, among other things.
I'm thankful to God for wrapping His loving arms around my family and carrying us through the valleys, and for Time. The time I have learned to slow, stretch, let heal and savor.
I'm thankful for my husband who is my solid unconditional rock, always. He helps me keep life full and rich and fun even through the tears...what more could anyone possibly ask for? What we've experienced in our marriage so far would, dare I say, drive some couples apart, but we are closer than ever and to say God blessed me with him would be a major understatement.
I'm thankful for my sweet angel Mason for saving my life every day with his JOY. He is pure JOY and I see Heaven in his eyes each time he looks at me. For all the TIME we get together, one on one, thousands of moments to soak each other up. He really is the coolest kid. ever. for reals. I'm incredibly humbled to be his mommy.
I'm thankful for our incredibly supportive family and friends who have walked on eggshells right along with us through each loss. Living that crazy balancing act of staying hopeful and praying for the best, yet prepared to catch us when we fall when things don't happen the way we want them to, again. For loving us enough to give us space when we need it, but right there to help us pick up the pieces again, like we always do. Gratitude just isn't a big enough word.
I'm thankful for my mentor from church. She's a wise woman with a beautiful heart who knows all too well the pain I've carried and the wounds my heart and soul are constantly healing from. She's the only person who has been able to validate my feelings because she's had them too...even the awful ones. I'm thankful for all that I've learned from her about God, prayer, myself, and so many other wonderful things that we share and talk about regularly. God is good, all the time and I know He brought her specifically into my life in a season that I would need her most. A season where my heart was growing big time and was most open to learn and grow closer to Him.
I'm thankful that we live in such a beautiful place where parks and the beach are our backyard, and that we are able to give Mason the life we are giving him.
I'm not making any promises this time but I hope I can make the time to document my journey in the coming months.
"Time is a relentless river. It rages on, a respecter of no one. And this, this is the only way to slow time: When I fully enter time's swift current, enter into the current moment with the weight of all my attention. I slow the torrent with the weight of me all here. I can slow the torrent by being all here. I only live the full life when I live fully in the moment. And when I'm always looking for the next glimpse of glory, I slow and enter. And time slows. Weigh down this moment in time with attention full, and the whole of time's river slows, slows, slows." ...."full attention slows time and I live the full of the moment, right to the outer edges." -Ann Voskamp
