lessons...

i was up until 2am last night...i read my new book, start to finish, and also my copy of C.S. Lewis', A Grief Observed i got for a buck on amazon...weird to be so excited to be receiving books in the mail, considering their content...but i was hungry for someone else's insight to this personal hell i have been living in...to hear a believer's quest for answers in their angry rage against their loss...echoing my questions towards a God i have felt separated from and far away...

i relished every word...while i know the bible is the first and foremost place we should go to for all the answers, that book seems like a foreign language to me right now...my heart and mind have not been ready to peel back it's layers of pain to try and "study" and search and dissect. the author seems a being that i question and don't want to talk to right now. so, for me, to get my feet wet and dive into these personal accounts of grief journey's was safer for me right now, i feel they speak my language and can put it in plain speak for me...no energy is required, just my experience and that i have, an experience in grief...i know, there is king david and job and many more examples God gives us, but i needed a modern day example that felt more tangible at first, someone, especially a woman who has lived in my hell...i feel these authors have opened my heart and mind a bit so that i can connect with the true Author and start that dialogue back with him about my story, about his plans for me, about my purpose.

the pages of these books opened up many doors in my mind that had been slammed shut since the day we lost her heartbeat...the words opened up other doors that had never been opened...i can't explain what happened but i feel as if the 8-10 week haze i have lived under has lifted a great deal...brokenness has never been the problem...i was broken the minute i heard those painful words...in a million pieces my heart and spirit broke and scattered about....to reveal a world and self completely unrecognizable to me...one that didn't make sense anymore to me...life moved on, commerce kept on, wars kept raging, people kept moving while i stood still, stuck in my pain-filled void...broken i have been but it is grace that i have longed for. mercy i have cried out for...

it will take months and many posts for me to regurgitate all the grace that was gleaned from my reading last night but i feel as if my heart is lighter...the hurt is still there but it's purpose seems to have changed for me...i wonder if my weeping at her picture yesterday, looking at it differently and feeling something happen, was the angry me saying goodbye to the daughter i lost...preparing me for me a space in my soul for her presence and gift of life to rest instead....i still have questions that will never be answered until i can ask my creator face to face but somewhere in between yesterday and today, the anger and rage, melted away and there seems room now for something "Else" to reside and an opening of arms to mercy that i have pushed away since i left her that day, to come home without her....

this book i read, of the mother's journey, it opened my eyes to how i want sydney's legacy to be one of purpose, beauty, and Grace. i want to make sense of her short little life and i want to get to the other side of this grief to see her eyes opening in heaven and full of life...i want to know my daughter and love her in a beautiful way that teaches me things, not in a bitter way that leaves me on the kitchen floor enraged....

the day i started this blog, i had another title in mind....but as i said it aloud i knew i didn't really feel it's meaning, it didn't ring in my heart like i wanted it to, i didn't feel ready for that to be where i was at...it was a goal for sure, it was my hopeful landing spot for my heart, i prayed....i wondered how long it would take for me to get to the place where i could whole-heartedly, proudly and purposefully rename her blog to reflect a more peaceful season, one that was far in the future from the hurting place i sat almost 3 months ago...where all i could think of was how many pieces my heart was in on the floor, how i didn't know where they landed and if i would ever get them back....i wanted so badly to be able to bring her blog to a place of peace and enlightenment but i knew i had to be there as well for that to happen, my heart had to be in tandem with my mind....

i honestly feel like something heavy was lifted last night from my heart...i will still get angry from time to time, i will still feel sadness and be forever aware and mourn the void our sydney left us with..i will still have my hard days where i feel her absence and mourn my dreams for her..i will still cry and weep and wonder why...i will still cringe sometimes at pregnant woman and newborns for a while longer, that is still painful...i am not done. i have not arrived. i am only feeling pulled back to a place of peace, that surpasses all understanding....i am sure that will change, day to day...my heart and my spirit will fight each day to win out over my emotions, and somedays i will lose....but i feel my attitude has changed, my vision has been restored, the blinders removed...

the best way i can explain it is that i was pushed off the road abruptly with her death...all the while watching all around me, those still walking and progressing, moving down the road, going on with life...i can't say that i am in the moving along state, just not the stagnant one. i am back on the road with you, not ready to go at the speed you are...not ready for it all to make sense and be joyful that i had to be pushed off like that...just ready to feel like "wanting" to look forward to a place where the thought of her brings me joy, brings me peace, brings me gifts of blessings and lessons....

so, now, today, i feel like i can rename her blog and bury the broken pieces season away. my heart is still in a trillion pieces but i want to love our daughter from a new place in my heart, one that is forming slowly...with His grace, your prayers, patience and work and mercy...even so, i still can't promise sunshine and roses all the time from here on out and i will still be brutally honest with all the places my heart lands and am still very entrenched in this grief process...but i am now ready to be a student in it and not just a vicitm....

i have no doubt, that with the absence of our own prayers, our silent voice and broken heart...all of your prayers offered up for me and and ian and liam have been very fruitful and like a balm to our spirit...when we couldn't lift our voice, yours spoke loud enough and pled on our behalf...thank you so much for the many beautiful prayers whispered, cried and spoken for us....the body of Christ has carried us and will continue to do so as we get our footing....we still covet each and every prayer for our family as this is a process that is ever changing and on going....

i want to give this site the hopeful name it is has always been in my mind, where it was birthed in my heart as a prayer, one that i couldn't say back then but is fitting today, where i am at....i want my life to be reveal a portrait of our daughter's legacy, i want her footprints on our lives and others who know us, others who don't even know us at all but have come to love our little girl anyway, to show a beautiful purpose and meaning...i want her name to be said with beauty and life, not sadness and death...i want to learn what our daughter wants to teach us, what God wants to teach us through our love for her...i want other's to learn that as well from her and walk away changed...if i can't live here on earth with her, i want to begin to live in Sydney's Grace.......