Reflecting

The past few days I've been sick and in a lot of pain. Which has left me to my thoughts. Which means the blog gets updated. I've been thinking a lot about Jack lately and especially today. Two years ago today was the worst day of my life. Two years ago, about this time actually, Jason and I were sitting in an ultrasound room at UAB being told that our baby did not have a chance of surviving once he was born. There is nothing that can prepare a person for a moment like that and no words that can adequately capture everything we felt in those moments.
I can not say enough about all of the people who have helped us emotionally, spiritually, physically, and mentally along the way. And I am sure with the birth of Hendrix and all the joy that has brought us it seems we have moved on. But there is no moving on from losing a child. Yes, we celebrate (even more so) the amazing things Harper and Hendrix do (no matter how seemingly insignificant) and yes we do have happiness and joy but the sorrow will always be there.
I think I can say we are in a healthy place of grief. We are able to talk about our feelings and we feel safe enough to FEEL those feelings. But we will always be grieving. There are a lot of thoughts I have that make me cringe and I love that I have a few people that I can say those to that I know won't judge me for them. Like how I think about if Jack had survived how different my life would be now. And there are things that I haven't been able to bring myself to do yet. I have a beautiful wooden box with a glass lid to put Jack's blanket, hat, hospital bracelet, etc in. Yet I haven't done it yet. And not because I don't like the box. His things are still sitting in the chair in the corner of our bedroom. They may always stay there. Or one day I will decide it is time to arrange them in the box. Each year I make a family yearbook so that our digital pictures will become physical. But until today I hadn't been able to bring myself to make our family yearbook for 2014, the year Jack was born. Looking through the pictures from that year was SO good. I looked at all of the things we got to do as we walked with the knowledge from January until April that Jack would not survive. I see the pictures of us smiling, really smiling, and celebrating moments in our lives all the while carrying such a heavy burden. And it is such a sweet reminder that God is so faithful. He does not leave us. He does not fail. He held us close during those agonizing moments and gave us strength to walk through life. To LIVE life. He gave us joy amidst such sorrow. I am so glad that (only 13 months late) I finally made the family yearbook. What a sweet reminder of God's grace to us.

Also, here is a link to a video of a sermon our church did on where God is in suffering.