I Will Think On These Things

This continues the moments that made up our lives for the weeks following Hannah's birth.  We are doing so very well now, but I wanted to share what it was like in the days and weeks after we lost our girl. Here they are.

If you'd like to read more about the story of our Hannah Grace click here.

January 8, 2014

Yesterday was a hard day. By the end of the day I looked very similar to how I looked when I first returned home from the hospital and encountered my reflection. In that same mirror that had all the best lighting when I was pregnant, now my reflection looked like death. Not in the way that people get too few hours of sleep and wake up with messy hair and say they look like death. But I looked like a soul that had been trampled by death over and over again and barely survived or was barely surviving.

I looked like that for days after we returned home. I did my best the day of Hannah’s funeral to not think about her before the service. I didn’t want to cry that morning. I iced my eyes so the swelling would go down. I carefully put on makeup to hide the bruises under my eyes from crying so very much. I didn’t want people to look at me and think I’d lost all hope. Because we have a great hope.

But the first time I saw my reflection, I saw my empty belly and I saw my body the way it looked like death and I scared myself. But I knew the truth of my hope. Others who may not know my hope, they would have seen only despair.

Yesterday, again, that’s what I looked like.

Yesterday I thought about my sweet girl all day. My soul longed for her. I told Kyle that it was strange that I could miss someone so very much who wasn’t even here a year ago, who we didn’t even know about yet last new year. So strange how we grow to love our children with our very soul before we even hold them in our hands. And so my soul called out for my sweet girl.

It was good to cry. It was good to remember.

But I remembered a verse spoken to me just a few days ago in a crowd of one hundred.

Phillipians 4:8-9
Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me – practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

So today I choose to think about the truth. The Word of the Lord. Whatever is lovely, oh how our baby girl was so lovely so beautiful so perfect. Worthy of praise is the joy the Lord gave us with her, the kicks, the things about her that made us laugh so much, the time we reveled in her existence, the bragging about how she was growing so well, so healthy. Worthy of praise is the time I sat at her funeral smiling ear to ear because I was and still am so very proud of my sweet girl. So proud of the lives that she touched and is continuing to touch because of her story. That the Lord would choose my girl to use to bless others, to draw them closer to Him. Oh, the glory of the Lord.

Still tears come to my eyes because I miss her, but the tears drip down my face over my smile. The joy that my sweet Hannah Grace brought to us is worthy of praise. I will think on these things. No need to replay the moment when the doctor told us we lost her over and over again in my mind, but instead the proud moments replayed. We will think on these things.

For I feel like the Lord has called us for a very special purpose because of her. As one very beautiful song says; the Lord has called me deeper than my feet would ever wander, my faith will be made stronger in the presence of my savior.

I need to be ready for the works of the Lord.