March 24

Today is March 24th, 2013. I first laid eyes on this date, when I typed my conception date into a due date calculator, when I was just 4 weeks pregnant at the end of July 2012. Never would I have dreamed that on this date, I would open the bag of my daughter's cremation ashes, rubbing just a tiny bit of the fine powdery dust between my fingers in an effort to feel nearer to her. I am in the middle of the most nightmarish storm I have yet undertaken in this life.  I want to go back to the innocence of never knowing the pain of losing a child.  I want to go back to when due dates were happy days. I want to have my pregnancy innocence back. These desires will not be granted, and I don't know why. But I move ahead, choosing to trust Him in this storm. 

When I got up in front at Abbie's service and spoke of the impact of her brief life, I talked about how I have prayed the same words about each of my three children, "God, please don't take this child from me." I spoke of how His answer was "yes" with Isabel, "yes" with Josiah, and "no" with Abbie. I often play the series of events leading up to her birth and death over and over again in my mind, and I feel like my brain, soul, and spirit is being wrenched between two opposing and fiercely strong winds. Each is like a gale, whipping at my body, threatening to pull me off my feet, forcing me to completely surrender to the sheer power of it. The first gale is the absolute, unwavering assurance that God is good. He is good all the time, even when I don't understand Him, even when I sit on my couch for hours, unable to stop crying, months after the death of my child. The opposing gale is the one that wants to drag me down into the endless depths of the question "WHY?!?!" I still feel myself asking this question multiple times a day. Do I believe her life will have a legacy, a meaning, a purpose? Yes. But I struggle with the question of "Why?" because I don't yet quite know exactly what that legacy will be. I don't know how her life will touch others lives just yet. And that's hard for me, to not have it all lined up in a neat little row, to make some sense out of the chaos. I know I want to join with other grieving mothers that I have met on this journey to help break the deafening silence around child loss. And I know I want our story to help spread the balm of Jesus' love to other hurting hearts. I don't know exactly how or when this will take shape. But I am waking up each day and living my life, the best I can, for my family here on earth and for my beloved daughter in heaven. It is all I can do, for now.

Trusting Him in the storm,

Kristy