Last month, I spoke at the TPA homeschool convention in Wichita, KS on the topic of Homeschooling During Crisis.
Click the link below to hear that session. I pray you are blessed…
Homeschooling During Crisis 2011
Category Archives: The Grieving Mother
The Last Thing
3 years ago, a small metal marker was placed at the head of my child’s grave site.
For 3 years I have lovingly trimmed the grass away from the edges, brushed the dirt from the letters, and brought wreaths to decorate.
The only thing left to do for my little Emily was to buy her a headstone.
So final.
And how do you find just the right words. How do you put everything you want to say on one little block of stone…forever?
The April after her death, I dreamed of her stone. I dreamed of a cross with a lamb and the words,
From our arms to His
etched into the grey rock.
I was obsessed with finding that stone, but as time marched on, I realized what I had dreamed was not practical. I knew it had come from my walking through the cemetery and searching out all the old stones from children who had passed on a hundred years ago or more. They do not make stones like that anymore and even if they did, it would be much too fragile. It also wasn’t a reflection of us as a family.
It’s funny to me how we’ve needed her headstone to be a piece of us. We didn’t want to settle for just anything. We wanted it to be unique. And since the cemetery she is buried at had no restrictions on stones, we knew we could do just about anything we wanted.
So we searched.
I spent hours pouring over artisan stones on the internet, trying to find one that spoke of peace and hope. A stone that would tell others how loved this little girl was and is. A stone that would reach for the heavens with the same longing we feel as parents.
This is that stone…
No longer does her grave site sit bare. There is a stone that reaches to Heaven. There is a bench to rest weary hearts. There is a Bible verse that has become dear to us. There is a picture of our precious Emily and below her name are these words:
Final, but not finished.
For someday, Emily will have a new body and I will hold her again.
Until then, she is safe…
and loved.
~~ If you are looking to bless a grieving mother, one of my sponsors, Hope of My Heart, has some beautiful memory jewelry – the words stamped on them bring me to tears.~~
Dreams
Somewhere in the early morning nursing hours, I had a dream.
It was of Emily.
Her bright blue eyes and fuzzy head and chubby cheeks were intertwined with Garin’s bright blue eyes and fuzzy head and chubby cheeks.
I held her and rocked her and as with all my dreams of her, I knew she would not be with me long. However, this dream was different. This time I thought maybe we would defy the doctors who, in my dreams, always tell me she will not live. I thought maybe this time she would start to gain weight and be well. Maybe I would get to see her grow up. Maybe…
And as Garin slowly lifted me from the fog of dreams, I smiled.
I don’t get to dream of Emmy often. This dream came because only hours before, I had read of my friend Rachel’s little boy in this post and her words made me long for my baby daughter who’s condition was different, but who’s result was the same. The same…except my Emily was healed in death.
Dreaming of Emmy was a gift. I have been preparing for my session for an upcoming homeschool conference in which I’ll be speaking on Homeschooling During Crisis. Emily has been on my mind a lot.
I look at my two little boys who have been born since their big sister passed away and I catch glimpses of her and grieve in smiles.
I sort children’s clothes in their tubs downstairs, but Emily’s remain untouched. No little girl to wear those things. Tub after tub stacked high with things that were hers…things that would have been hers.
And always wondering if there will ever be another girl…
Just the other day, we pulled out the double stroller to take a walk around the neighborhood. Our two year old began rummaging through the zippered pockets near his seat. He found a toy. Emily’s toy. And I smiled…and quietly slipped the toy back into the pocket…for another time.
I never thought I would find pieces of her this many years and this many miles from the place where present became past. A new city. A new home. Two more children. And yet, there it was…a toy stashed in a pocket just in case she became bored with the zoo.
I can speak her name, I can tell her story without crying. I’ve had 3 years to practice. But, the dreams…they are fresh and new, unexpected and yet welcome.
Just like the toy in the zippered pocket of the double stroller, my dreams are zipped away,
counted among precious blessings,
saved for another day.
Tomorrow I will be At The Well speaking about my ebook devotional Psalms for the Grieving Heart. Thank you, ATW for helping to spread the word and comfort those who are grieving.
Affording Kids – Keeping Them Healthy
I’ll be honest with you, sick children scare me. And when there are fevers in the house, I can do nothing but beg God’s mercy.
That is why this post will not be a light-hearted one. It hits me too close to home.
What I have to say here will not be some comprehensive list on how to keep children healthy or how to afford healthcare. It will not be a commentary on the healthcare plan or a laundry list of helpful herbs. I could do all this, and probably will at some point, but not in this post.
This post is a story. A story of our family’s choice. A choice that works for us. Keeping YOUR children healthy is YOUR business. There is no ONE right choice. With that said, I want to share with you how we chose to think outside the box and the blessings that followed.
After years of using traditional insurance and even having insurance through my husband’s job (that we paid a pretty penny for), we felt convicted to leave the world of high premiums and numbers without names. We were introduced to a company called Christian Healthcare Ministries by some friends of ours. We liked what we saw and decided to drop our “safe” insurance and go with CHM, a Christian cost-share type program where members “shared” each other’s healthcare costs.
In many ways, it was a leap of faith.
In fact, I was pregnant with Emily at the time. CHM would not be able to cover the cost of her birth. I had no idea how we would pay the thousands of dollars it would be to deliver her, but my husband believed this was what we should do.
Leap.
And the Lord provided for her birth.
Then Emily got sick. As the bills rolled in, I wondered how we would ever pay for all of this.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Doing our part to help reduce the bills, we sent bill after adjusted bill into Christian Healthcare Ministries. CHM even sent someone in to help us get these bills reduced. Sometimes we felt as if we were knocking heads with the hospital. Sometimes we wondered if the money would be there to pay for it all. After all, we had only been members for a little over a year. We knew how the program was supposed to work. But would it?
And then Emily died.
And Christian Healthcare Ministries took over completely.
The hospital bill was reduced and finalized and taken out of our hands. The money began to come in from CHM and we paid off everything.
Everything.
Since then we have had 2 babies and several hospital stays. We have nothing but good to say about Christian Healthcare Ministries. As it turns out, Fox news agrees with us.
If you have ever wondered about cost-share programs or simply wanted a way out of the health insurance cycle, please visit Christian Healthcare Ministries. Tell them I sent you. My referral number is 112373.
It is a fact of life that children do get sick. Christian Healthcare Ministries gives this mama one less thing to worry about.
Affording Kids Series:
Introduction
Feeding Them
Schooling Them
Entertaining Them
Keeping Them Healthy – this post
I’m Pregnant, She’s Not – When Friendship Meets Infertility
She looked down at her shoes and muttered,
congratulations
My excitement over a new little one being knit within melted into dismay and frustration. I wanted her to be happy for me. Instead she seemed angry.
It was years before my heart would recognize the pain behind her quietly stoic congratulations.
And yet, I had been there. Once upon a time, I had been the one reeling as those around me announced new pregnancies while I was left empty and longing…eventually, bitter and angry. I was the one who had muttered congratulations to my shoes. But in my own pregnant excitement, I no longer felt the sting of that pain. The pain that comes when your friendship meets infertility.
I knew what it was like for me to be the one not pregnant, but I did not know what it was like to be my friend when I was pregnant and she was not.
So, I asked her.
This rock solid Christian woman spoke of her happiness for me, but her jealousy as well. As time passed, she wondered if God was punishing her for doing something wrong, withholding blessings from her because of something she or her husband had done.
She knew she was being spiritually attacked. She studied her Bible, diligently looking for peace and answers until finally, she handed the pain and frustration over to the Lord.
She told me that when my baby was born, the jealousy resurfaced, but she immersed herself in holding my little one, avoiding the pity parties her heart wanted to have.
It wasn’t easy.
But she grew spiritually…as did I when I was facing the same emotions.
So, what do you do if you are the pregnant one?
Be gracious. Be humble. Acknowledge her pain. Don’t be so caught up in your own joy, you forget she is grieving.
Let her have the space and time she needs. Love her through her pain.
Every time you have a baby and she does not is yet one more time she must deal with spiritual attacks. Attacks that say she isn’t a good mother. Attacks that say she doesn’t deserve to be blessed. Attacks that can lead to bitterness…gut-wrenching, depths of the pit bitterness. Bathe her in prayer. She will need it.
Those of you with first hand experience in dealing with this in a friendship, please leave your comments here so others can benefit from your wisdom.
Jewelry to Remember
I’ve spoken before about some of the jewelry I wear to honor the memory of Emily, but I wanted to write a post solely dedicated to this topic because from a grieving mother’s perspective, this jewelry was and continues to be an important part of the grieving process.
Shortly after Emily’s death, some friends of mine quickly pulled together the money to have a memory bracelet made for me. The bracelet had EMMY (my nickname for her) in block beads, amethyst stones for the month of her death (February) and white pearls as a reminder of the purity and perfection she now enjoys in Heaven. As a special treat, the artist added a tiny heart with baby footprints on it.
That bracelet is one my most beloved pieces of jewelry. I often find myself hoping people who did not know Emmy would take note of the bracelet on my wrist and ask. But even if they don’t, just wearing it makes her real…makes her still a part of our family. The fear of your child being forgotten is an ache every grieving mother must face. My memory bracelet eases that ache.
Another piece of jewelry was given to me by my dear La Leche League friends. It was a silver locket with Emily’s name and birth and death dates engraved on the back. Inside it I placed the picture that has come to be known as her memorial picture. That precious little china-teacup face next to my heart is very dear to me.
It has also become a piece of jewelry that has helped my younger children grieve and remember. Lia would open the locket whenever she needed to see her precious little sister. Keian, who barely remembers Emily, still opens the locket and talks of the few memories he does have. Micah, who never knew his big sister, will crawl up in my lap and ask for the locket to be opened so he can see “Emmy.” His little questioning eyes and eager heart knows the little girl he sees staring back at him belongs to our family as much as any of his living siblings.
Again, the locket, like the bracelet, keeps her memory alive.
And then there is the Widow’s Mite pendant.
This tiny pendant from Jerusalem, speaks of sacrifice. One woman gave all she had…willingly. That does not mean it did not hurt. But it was the ultimate gift…the gift of surrender. This precious pendant wears next to the locket on the same chain. My little Emily. My total surrender. A reminder that all I have is His.
When Melody at Hope of My Heart emailed about advertising here on Raising Arrows, I was honored.
Knowing how precious my Memory Jewelry was to me, I wanted to give my readers, those who grieve and those who know someone who is grieving, the opportunity to purchase a gift that is a balm to an aching mother’s heart.
Melody also offers jewelry for those who have lost children to miscarriage and those mothers struggling through infertility. These deeply poignant pieces of jewelry remember aspects of a woman’s life that are generally not remembered by those around her. I am so thankful there are artists willing to speak to this sort of pain.
And I am so thankful for friends who soothed my aching heart with wearable gifts. Gifts, filled with love and meaning and memories.