Swing!

This weeks challenge at Trendy Treehouse is "Swing". This is one of my favorite pictures of Peanut. She LOVES this coat! It will be interesting to see what happens when she outgrows it ;-)


For more great "Swing" pictures, head over to The Trendy Treehouse.

Blessings,

iheartfaces - Anything but a face!

This week's theme at iheartfaces is "Head, shoulders, knees & toes........Anything but a face". This was a self-portrait that I took for a project I was just working on. I thought it fit the theme quite nicely :o)

For more great photos, visit iheartfaces.

Blessings,

LEM Photo Challenge - Blue

So Live Every Moments challenge this week is blue. So, of course, I immediately thought of all my Hawaii pictures. Blue skies and blue water everywhere! But, oh, how to pick just one! I finally decided on this one of my oldest. I don't feature her here as much, her younger siblings tend to hog the camera, lol. But she is starting to turn into a beautiful young woman and I just think this picture of her is so precious.


For more "Blue" shots, head over to Live Every Moment.

Blessings,

Dimples!

And another photo post for ya'll this morning =) The theme this week at Trendy Treehouse is Dimples. Unfortunately, my kids don't really have dimples. But Little P has one that shows up every now and then, especially when he's being goofy!


For more fun dimple shots, visit The Trendy Treehouse.

Blessings,

Sweet Shot Tuesday 2/21/11

Wow, I haven't posted a sweet shot in a long time! My life has been rather crazy. If you are so inclined, you can read more about it HERE. Otherwise, here is my "Sweet Shot" for you to enjoy =)

This is a self-portrait that I took for a project I was working on.

And this is another shot for the same project.

For more "Sweet Shots" visit Darcy at my3boybarians.

Blessings,

The Lord is my strength

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.
He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;
but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.
~Isaiah 40:28-31

This verse has been my security blanket for the last few weeks. Why, you may ask? Well, it's the same reason I haven't posted in a while.

Life has been difficult.

Back in December I posted that we were expecting again. It was a bit of a shock. Our youngest was one in January and Hubby is still unemployed. But we looked at it as a blessings and embraced the excitement of expecting another child.

And then my world fell apart.

The first week in February I went in for my 12 week OB check. The doctor and I chatted for a few minutes about how things were going and he told me everything looked great. Then he got out the doppler and...........

Nothing.

I tried to stay calm as he went out to get the ultrasound machine. "This happens all the time," I told myself, "He'll see the heartbeat with the ultrasound."

He checked with the external wand first and..............

Nothing.

I was shaking as I undressed to prepare for the internal wand, but I was still trying to convince myself that everything was fine.

After a few minutes with the internal wand, he looked at me and I knew. My precious baby had been taken to heaven.

Somehow I made it home to cry on my husband's shoulder. And then we faced the painful decision of what to do next. We decided to go with a D&C. It was scheduled for the following Monday morning (this was Wednesday evening). I spent the next few days in a daze desperately trying to come to terms with the fact that my baby was no longer living.

And then it happened.

Late Sunday night I miscarried. And hemorrhaged. Which resulted in an ambulance ride to the hospital and two units of blood. My grief got put on hold as I dealt with my medical emergency.

Now that I'm starting to feel better physically, I'm once again facing my grief. It hasn't been easy. But....the Lord is giving me strength and, slowly, peace.

And tonight.....comfort.

As I was sitting on my bed knitting, I was reminded of the verse:

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
~Psalm 139:13-16

And it reminded me of what some of my family members had said about God taking an incomplete fetus. As I thought on it some more, I looked at it from the perspective of a knitter.

"You knit me together in my mother's womb."

How many times had I ripped out rows, or even an entire project, because it wasn't quite right? I would imagine God is a perfectionist. If, as He was knitting my baby together in my womb, He looked at it and thought "this is not quite right", why wouldn't He "start over"? I would.

"But," you may say, "God is perfect, he doesn't make mistakes."

And I would agree with you wholeheartedly. But, while God is perfect, he is working with imperfect materials. I am a sinner. My husband is a sinner. And our baby, while it would seem perfect when born, is a sinner. Given that, I find it amazing that He can create a baby in the first place.

Think of it this way. As I said earlier, I'm a knitter. And I've gotten pretty good at it. Not an expert by any means, but I can follow a pattern and turn out something that looks good. However, if someone were to hand me a pair of chopsticks and a whole bunch of shoe laces (in different lengths and types) and tell me to create a sweater to be worn on the popular fashion runways in Paris, I would struggle. I could probably eventually come up with something, but I can't imagine how many times I would have to "start over" in the process.

So, as I said, it's amazing that God can create something as wonderful as a baby with the imperfect materials that he is given without having to "start over" many times first.

I am still sad to say goodbye to my baby. I wish I could have held him and told him how much I loved him. But I will take comfort in knowing that God is the Master Knitter and that He knew what was best for my baby. And I will trust, that when the timing is right and the stitches are "perfect", I will have another baby to hold.

Blessings,