Will you join me...

in praying for my friend Courtney today?  Her sweet baby Ella will be born very soon.
The doctors are inducing her today.
Her sweet Ella has anencephaly.
She loves Jesus. And I am so thankful to know her.
It is bizarre how similar our stories have been.
We carried sweet, normal pregnancies until about 20+ weeks....when we started getting extra fluid.  She got hers a little after the time I did.  It was painful, uncomfortable, and we wanted it to be done.  But neither of us were ready to say hello to our babies...because we knew goodbye wouldn't be far behind.
I just hurt for her today.....while REJOICING that Briar and Sammy and Cale and all the other sweet babies lost will be there with arms wide open as she enters heaven.
I pray for his healing and her peace while I REJOICE that she is going to spend eternity with her savior.
I weep knowing that pain of saying goodbye to your child while I REJOICE at the opportunity she has to share Christ's love....sweet Ella will influence so many people in her short little life.
I can't tell you how amazing it has been to meet other friends who have lost babies or were going through pregnancies with me.
A friend that was a fellow Special Operations spouse reached out to me. She had lost a baby several months before me.  To know someone understood in the days following Briar's birth was SO AMAZING. To always know I have someone to talk to, because these women understand.  Don't get me wrong, my husband is AMAZING...but he didn't carry the baby, and he doesn't grieve the same as I do.  I met Melissa somehow through a blog connection.  Immediately I thought she was awesome. She was a first grade teacher also teaching through the end of her pregnancy. It turned out that we had mutual friends through Campus Crusade for Christ try to hook us up after our babies were born anyway. We were MEANT to be friends!  And then sweet Courtney. And even another friend who used to work at the school I currently work at...and I met her when she was pregnant with her rainbow baby (a baby conceived after a loss).  There is Amelia's mom, also Melissa, whose blog I also read.  And then there is The Macs.  She lost her sweet Cora a while ago, but I love seeing someone who is walking the journey and is a couple steps ahead already.  It is amazing to me to see her little boy that she had after Cora passed away.  She is continuing to honor her little Cora while moving forward. Not an easy balance.   It gives me hope for our future.  All of these people have been instrumental in walking this journey with me.
Of course, above all else, I know JESUS will carry all of us. I know it might sound trite or cliche...but it is the truth.  It is the only way I have been able to walk through the last couple of months. The only way I can continue to walk forward each day.  Because I trust in something much bigger than myself.

I know the one in whom I trust,

and I am sure that He is able to guard

what I have entrusted to Him until the day of His return.

2 Timothy 1:12

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