Missing our baby girl at Christmastime...

This Christmas is totally different from what we had anticipated last year at this time.

Instead of having an almost 11-month-old baby toddling around the house and enjoying the excitement of her first Christmas and the anticipation of seeing aunts, uncles, grandparents, and cousins, we have memories of the 9 months that she was inside my womb and the 6 hours that we held and cherished her in our arms.

We have 4 different ornaments on our tree in memory of our baby girl.

This is a ornament made from a picture that I took of Alethia's hospital bracelet, her footprints, and the little booties that her great-grandma made for her.

A reminder from my friend Sarah that baby Alli is safe in the arms of Jesus. Her name is engraved on the back.

We love you, baby Alethia Joy!

We miss you so much and wish with all our hearts that you were with us.

Merry Christmas in Heaven.

Love, Mommy and Daddy

Christmas with Family...

We celebrated Christmas with some of Tony's family last Sunday...

Tony and me with Grandmama

My Husband, the Seminary Graduate!

Last Friday, Tony graduated from seminary with his Master's of Divinity with Biblical Languages.

I am so proud of his hard work and dedication!

With one of his professors

Tony with his mom and grandma

And the question that everyone is asking...so what are you going to do now?

The answer is...we don't really know yet. We are definitely praying about and considering a few different options, but Tony will continue working this next semester and I will continue my school year teaching and we hope to make some decisions in the next few months.

Prayers for wisdom and direction are greatly appreciated!

A Heavy Heart for a Friend...

Please be in prayer for my friend Melissa, her husband Scott, and their families...

I just found out that Scott's brother Luke passed away in a tragic climbing accident this weekend. Two more climbers are still missing. Click here to read more of the story...

My heart is so heavy for this family. Please be in prayer for them as well as the families who are still waiting to hear about their missing loved ones.

A Baby Secret

Yesterday I was going through many of the cards, poems, and books that were given to us after Alli's passing, and I came across this poem that someone [who had been through a very similar situation many years ago] passed on to me...

A Baby Secret

I'm just a little feller

Who didn't quite make it there;

I went straight to be with Jesus

But I'm waiting for you here.

Don't you fret about me Mommy,

I'm of all God's lambs most blest;

I'd have loved to stay there with you,

But the Shepherd knows what's best.

Many dwelling here where I live,

Waiting years to enter in

Struggled through a world of sorrow

And their lives were marred with sin.

So, sweet Mommy, don't you sorrow,

Wipe those tears and chase the gloom.

I went straight to Jesus' bosom

From my lovely Mother's womb.

Thank you for the life you gave me,

It was brief but don't complain.

I have all of Heaven's glory,

Suffered none of earthling's pain.

--J. C. Bramfield

10 months

It has been 10 months since our baby girl's "home-going."

Today my heart felt as fragile as it was the day we left the hospital empty-handed.

I needed a good cry.

Sometimes I just feel mad at the world...at the unfairness of life (though in reality, if life was truly fair, the grace and mercy of God would be void and I would be destined for a lost eternity),
at the way so many people seem to have no respect for the sanctity of human life ("...as [America is] sung to sleep by philosophies that save the trees and kill the children"--While You Were Sleeping by Casting Crowns).

It's tough to see every day the way my physical body has been effected by a pregnancy and childbirth with no sweet little living baby to show for it.

I was glared in the face today by the words "not pregnant" from a Clearblue Easy.
And we continue to wait.

Suffering doesn't make sense to me. I am confident that God has a plan in all of this...but my finite brain has a hard time grasping that in the midst of the struggles of daily life.

So often I seem to forget that my Savior suffered in a much deeper way than I ever have or ever will. And through that suffering on the Cross, God revealed His amazing, awesome, powerful plan of redemption for our souls. OUR souls...the lost, wicked, despicable, undeserving sinners that we are.

I will let Nancy Guthrie (One Year Book of Hope) articulate what I want to say in a much better way than I can...

"There's only one thing that enables me to accept what I cannot understand about my suffering and the suffering of this world: the Cross.

I look at the Cross and the enormous suffering it represents, and I am humbled and ashamed that I think I could know better than God what is good and right and purposeful.

I see that there is a larger plan at work that my heart and my mind can barely comprehend. But mostly I see that the Cross is the ultimate example of God's ability to work all things together for good--even the most wicked deed darkness ever conceived.

And if God can work together the cruel death and enormous suffering of his Son on the cross to bring about the greatest good of all time, then perhaps He really can do something good in and through the suffering in our lives
too."