Open Hands

I realize that I seldom write serious blog posts and that most of my blogging content isn't in any way life changing, unless you learn lessons about sitting on flags, but I have recently been processing through some things and I hope you'll allow me the opportunity to share my heart.

Last night, after a wonderful date with my sweet husband, we picked up Penny from my in laws house and brought her home. As I started putting her to bed she woke up and could not have been sweeter. She wouldn't stop smiling at me as I changed her diaper, put her in her pj's and rocked her and fed her a bottle. She just kept looking deep into my eyes and then would give me the sweetest smile. I swear if she could have spoken she would have told me she loved me. It was just one of those moments.

When she finally stopped smiling and fell asleep, I tried to put her in her crib but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't let go of her. I brought her into my bed and laid down next to her and just repeatedly kissed her soft cheeks and her perfect little lips. My heart was so full of love for her, I thought it would explode. All I could do was thank God over and over again for her.

Back when I was pregnant with Penny, in the middle of those several long, sleepless nights, I would look for blogs to read to help pass the time. For some reason almost every other blog I would find would be written by a mother or father who were processing through the death of a child. There was something about their stories that would grab a hold of my heart and not let go.

I read about a mom who lost her twin babies to a rare disease when the babies were 4 & 6 months old and her amazing testimony through that time.

I read about a mom who's precious 3 year old little girl accidentally drowned in a swimming pool while on a family vacation.

I read about a precious young family who lost their adorable 3 year old little boy to a horrible sickness.

I know that it sounds morbid, and I'm sure that you would like me to get to my point, but I had to try to understand how these people could try to work through this unimaginable grief as something so precious could be ripped away from them.

Apart from the blogs, even in everyday life there were people I knew, some very well, who were having stillborn births and miscarriages and heart breaking struggles with infertility. It didn't make sense to me why I was allowed to have a baby and I was almost certain that she would be "taken" from me. I started feeling guilty that I was pregnant and even felt as though God had made a mistake.

I remember at the beginning of the pregnancy when I should have been 7 weeks but nothing was appearing on the ultrasound. I was bleeding heavily, and thought for sure that we were losing our first baby. It seemed to me at the time that it would make sense if God would take her because I wasn't spiritually ready to be a mom. All the same, I begged God not to take this little life that I had already come to love so deeply. When I hit 13 weeks I thought, "thank goodness! She's safe". I soon realized, through other people's loss, that there really is no such thing as safe and I resumed my pleading with God to let me keep her.

After she was born, I became even more surrounded with other people's heart crushing losses and I would weep over their pain & hold Penny even tighter. I made it a point to think of every second as important and precious. When I begin to get impatient, remember that I have been given a blessing that could so easily be gone in the blink of an eye. I don't think that I lived in fear, it was and is not in my nature to worry, but I was determined to attempt to be so thankful for every moment.

Randomly, I decided recently to read in 1 Samuel for my devotions, not even thinking about the book's beginning. I was reminded about Hannah and her vow to give her son back to God if He would bless her with one. That's when again it was made clear to me that PENNY IS NOT MINE.

She belongs to God.

She exists to bring God glory. He can't ever take her from me because she was never mine to begin with. You may be rolling your eyes at how long its taken me to figure this out, but to me it was kinda life changing in the way I view the gift of children. It takes so much pressure off knowing that she belongs to God and He will do what is perfect for her and for me.

I can't begin to imagine the pain of losing a child and I still pray that I won't have to see that day, but if it does happen, I hope that my heart remembers that she never belonged to me, I was just chosen to point her back to her Creator. To feel guilty is literally to say to God that He doesn't know what He is doing and that He made a mistake.

I love this verse when Hannah says "'Therefore I have given him to the Lord; as long as he lives he shall be given to the Lord.' So they worshiped the Lord there."