Nothing is Wasted

Jason Gray - Nothing Is Wasted (Official Lyric Video) from jason-gray on GodTube.
I've heard this great song on the radio several times over the last few weeks and it has really been an anthem for me.
I highly recommend the above video - but if you don't have time for that - below are the lyrics.

 "Nothing Is Wasted"
 The hurt that broke your heart
And left you trembling in the dark
Feeling lost and alone
Will tell you hope's a lie
But what if every tear you cry
Will seed the ground where joy will grow
 And nothing is wasted
 Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
 Nothing is wasted
 It's from the deepest wounds
That beauty finds a place to bloom
And you will see before the end
That every broken piece is
Gathered in the heart of Jesus
And what's lost will be found again
 Nothing is wasted
Nothing is wasted
In the hands of our Redeemer
Nothing is wasted
 From the ruins
 From the ashes
Beauty will rise
From the wreckage
From the darkness
Glory will shine
Glory will shine

In light of everything that has unfolded this week, and my own personal struggle, I thought I would share this.  I  had the privileged recently of working with a couple clients at the counseling center who were facing bereavement issues over their own personal losses. 
I've read about the stages of grief and heard various counseling theories about coping with grief, but sitting with other people in their pain and letting it be okay, somehow helped me accept my own.

I don't know what stage of grief I am in -  I don't really care.  Because I don't think it ends after stage 5.  I don't think that it gets packaged up and 'dealt with' enough to put it away so that you won't feel it anymore.  This week I have struggled with my own grief, but God gave me this beautiful vision of Himself 'working all things together for my good.'  God was sewing together this giant tapestry with pieces making up my life - joyful and painful pieces all together - creating this beautiful masterpiece that he lovingly wrapped around me like a blanket of peace and comfort. 

Nothing is wasted.  Shattered dreams are not wasted, acts of terrorism are not wasted, terrible accidents are not wasted, death is not wasted.  Because we have a Redeemer, we have a Father who lovingly and miraculously makes beauty from pain.  August 5th will come soon - and even though there won't be a baby - I find myself grateful for God's kindness, because that very day will be baby Mary's 1st birthday.  She is the daughter of my dear friends who are in Taiwan right now waiting to bring her home.  I have prayed for Mary for so many years now that my heart is full of joy for her and for her parents - so it will be a day of rejoicing, even if there is pain, I know it will not be wasted.

yikes!

Things have been more than a little crazy around here the last few months. It has been something like - illness, event, illness, tests/papers, event, illness, event, prepare for oral exam, illness, event, illness, apply for new job, illness, event, 5 WEEKS UNTIL GRADUATION and H and I are both sick right now! I've got a major test and paper waiting to be written right now, but promised my Dad I would put up some pictures! So, the end is near, I have already applied for a job and I'm working on my application for licensure as a psychologist! Whew, it has been a wildly, exhausting ride - but I'm so glad I decided to go back to school and pursue psychology. Hopefully I will be posting this summer that I've been hired as an LSSP-I (Licensed Specialist in School Psychology Intern) and can begin my 1200 hours towards licensure. Here are the pics Dad! =) This is the cookie cake H and I made for Jeff's birthday - he worked the ENTIRE day (and several days surrounding it) so we didn't actually get to celebrate his birthday until yesterday (2 weeks later - that is how busy things have been) These pictures are from the Easter egg hunt at Church. H hates taking pictures these days - but loves to make funny faces for the camera! These were our family picture attempts on Easter. I have a feeling this will be as good as it gets for a while! These are pictures from the Easter egg hunt we had at our house. It has been really cool to see H get excited about Easter - not because of a mythical rabbit, but because of Jesus! Explaining the cross to a 3 year old helped me regain a sense of marvel at what Jesus endured and how great God's love is for us even when we seem unlovable. Below is a video of H on Easter singing his favorite Easter song. He loves to sing and it makes my heart so happy to hear him worship and to know that these songs "are worship for God!"

Thank you

Just wanted to thank you guys for your comments, text messages, phone calls, facebook messages and e-mails communicating your care and support. We have really appreciated your care for our family during this time. We are doing okay - some days are better than others, but it has been really amazing to see and feel the care and love of Jesus for me and my family. I was praying the other night and happened to look back at a journal entry from a few months ago (October) after we had started trying to get pregnant. This is what I wrote: Lord, I just feel the need to bring to you my fear and be with you. Trying to get pregnant has already been and emotional journey and as much as I want to trust you, believe the best and not live in fear... I am finding that such a hard place to be right now. I just want to be real and tell you that I am scared that I won't be able to get pregnant. And I'm scared that if I do, I will have a miscarriage. I don't want to live in fear. Please help me to trust you. I know that fear is not from you and that you are for me and not against me. I know that you are working all things together for my good. Jesus, you are victorious over fear and doubt. Get behind me Satan! Help me to choose trust. I know these things are true about you Lord, even if healing doesn't come, even if my worst fear comes true, I want to be strong and fight to live in the truth instead of being consumed by lies. So, I will put my hope, my trust, my joy, my pain, and my future in your hands. I know I cannot change what will come - certainly not by worrying about it. Jesus, I ask for your peace to be my constant companion over the coming weeks. I love you and trust you Jesus. " The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; indeed, I have a beautiful inheritance. I bless the Lord who gives me counsel, in the night also my heart instructs me. I have set the Lord always before me, because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore, my heart is glad and my whole being rejoices; my flesh also dwells secure. For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption. You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore." Psalm 16: 5-11 It was really good for me to go back and read that and remember the work of the Lord. I was really struggling with fear last fall when we started trying to get pregnant, but once I found out we were pregnant I really wasn't afraid anymore. It helps me to remember that as much as it scares me right now to think about future pregnancies, God has already given me the grace to not be afraid - and I know if I let him, He can do it again. I still have hope - I still have joy and I still believe that God is good, no matter what. To have my worst fears realized and come out on the other side experiencing the fullness of blessing, peace, and joy that comes from God's hand - is nothing short of the grace of God. This was the word of the Lord to me the other night: " O Lord, be gracious to us; we wait for you. Be our arm every morning, our salvation in the time of trouble... The Lord is exalted, for he dwells on high;... and he will be the stability of your times, abundance of salvation, wisdom and knowledge." Isaiah 33:2,5.

The Healer

I have found this song really comforting this week.

the truth

Post Disclaimer... This is our real life, and my pain is pretty fresh. I process things deeply through writing about them and I assume that the only people who actually still read this thing are the real thing - those people who love and care about us. So, this is the truth. I found out today, just 3 days shy of 10 weeks, that our baby has no heartbeat. I really had no idea that anything was wrong and was completely blindsided by this. We have been wanting another baby for quite a while and it took us a few months to conceive. In fact, the same month I went to the doctor to get tests run to find out why I wasn't getting pregnant was the same month we found out we were pregnant. I have been having flashbacks since last night when the bleeding started to Iraq and miscarrying there only to find out that we still had a healthy baby, but had lost his twin. This time there is no miracle, I am scheduled for surgery tomorrow to remove the baby. It is over. We are devastated, even though I struggled with fear when we found out we were pregnant, I truly believed that everything would be okay - it isn't. I can't help being reminded of those days in Iraq, grieving and coping with our loss. It feels different this time, I guess in part because we have been here before, and partly because I know the ending will not be the same. Shortly after we found out we were pregnant, I remember reading the story of Hannah and Samuel and being struck again by how difficult that must have been for Hannah to trust the Lord enough to be obedient with His gift to her and take Samuel back to the temple to be dedicated to the Lord, forever. There would be no bedtime stories, no morning cuddles, no boo boo kisses or anything else this Mom had dreamed about - it was over. In 1 Samuel chapter 2, it says: Hannah prayed, “My heart rejoices in the Lord; my horn is exalted high because of the Lord. I loudly denounce my enemies, for I am happy that you delivered me. 2 No one is holy like the Lord! There is no one other than you! There is no rock like our God!... 6The Lord both kills and gives life; he brings down to the grave and raises up. 7 The Lord impoverishes and makes wealthy; he humbles and he exalts. 8 He lifts the weak from the dust; he raises the poor from the ash heap to seat them with princes and to bestow on them an honored position. The foundations of the earth belong to the Lord, and he has placed the world on them. 9 He watches over his holy ones, but the wicked are made speechless in the darkness, for it is not by one’s own strength that one prevails." I prayed that night that God would give me a heart like Hannah, a heart that rests in the holiness of the Lord and can rejoice because of it - no matter what. Even today, I am reminded of God's great love for me, for my family, and for my future. There is no good reason 'why?'. Sometimes life is just tragic, but if we will look to the throne, we will find that God is still there speaking over us with love and blessing. I've never been a good secret keeper, and I'm especially bad at pretending things are okay when they aren't, so, this is the truth, where we are right now and why the blog has been silent for a while. We would appreciate your prayers as we grieve this loss and figure out how to move forward. We haven't told Haydn yet about the baby, but he's pretty smart and has been asking me for a while "Mommy, do you feel better?" - pray for us to love him well in our grief. I ask that you would pray for me specifically that the Lord would guard my heart to hold on to hope and joy. I'm not sure I'm with Hannah yet, able to say my heart rejoices or know my hope rests only in the Lord - but I really want to be. I guess if having children has taught me anything it is that I am not in control. As Hannah said, "It is not by one's own strength that one prevails." There is no amount of worry, striving, or strength that will allow me to control this. Being a Mom is a risk, you will love without being able to protect, you will worry without being able to control - it is risky. But it is also so amazingly, wonderful and I am so grateful for the opportunity to love this baby - even in death. This is risky business, being real, being vulnerable, being out of control and being so in love... but, 'the foundations of the earth belong to the Lord and he watches over his holy ones.'

advent calendar

Yikes! I know it has been a while - there are lots of pictures to post, stories to tell... but that will have to wait until after finals! I couldn't pass up the opportunity to break from my massive paper writing and post some PDFs for you that I made for H this year. It started in October when we did our annual shoebox trip to fill up a box for Operation Christmas Child. This year H got very excited about it! He wanted to pick out every item and for weeks afterward would continually ask about the 'little boy'. He wanted to know if he was awake or asleep, did he get his toys yet, does he go to school, how is his mommy, etc. We began praying for this box and our 'little boy' at night as well as praying for some friends of ours who are in the process of an international adoption and were just placed. I was really surprised how much he seemed to understand about these children on the other side of the world and what a joy it is to pray for them. That gave me an idea! I recently bought a sweet advent calendar on etsy and wanted to add something else to it to make it a little more 'reason for the season.' So, I went to the Operation Christmas Child website and looked up where they distributed the most boxes and then started searching for pictures and maps and prayer requests. I assembled this all into documents for one side to be the pictures and name of the country and the other side to be the prayer requests. I'm going to put these slips in his advent calendar everyday and we will take one out talk about the country, pray for the country, and then use little mini clothespins to pin them on our tree. I might buy him his own little tree for his room, we'll see. I'm excited to start the tradition though of celebrating Christmas through praying for the children of the world. Hope you can use this with your families this Christmas season!

back to school blackboards

I kind of accidentally made this chalkboard for H the other day and he liked it so much and it was such an easy project I decided to make a cute little back to school blackboard for all of the kids in H's class. All you need for this project is: construction paper, hole punch, yarn, chalkboard paint, and felt. These were all things I had on hand, so it was a super easy and FREE project. All I did was paint the construction paper with a few coats of chalkboard paint and after it dried (I did have to lay books on the edges to keep them from curling) I used the hole punch to make a border. Then I wove yarn around the border and left enough string to tie a bow with a long end from which I could tie a piece of felt that would become the eraser. I used a little snack size zip lock bag to put a few pieces of chalk in for the kids and stapled it to the top of the finished chalkboard. Here's the finished product. The kids were super excited about them and it was a really easy project that even H helped me with!