Project Honour

An anniversary date is coming up this week. A baby girl I had the privilege of being Mommy to from birth to 14 months old left this world way too soon.

In therapy (this is a much needed resource to help me through) it was suggested I take time to honour her daily. Please indulge me. I never want to forget the beauty of my sweet girl.

I GET to remember her. What a privilege. What a joy to have been her mommy. To know she knew love at such an important time in her life. To know she felt safe and nurtured for the majority of her life. To know she is safe and happy now in her heavenly home … this I take solace in. She is not hungry or scared. She knows no pain and has complete peace.

Thank you sweet girl for the time we had. You are engraved in my heart forever. Until we meet again. That reunion will be oh so sweet.

Project Skip Leap

I spent way too long last summer trying to talk myself into jumping off our boat into the lake. When did I become the fearful one? How can I be paralyzed in some ways and so free in others?

In fitness I have learned about muscular hyper mobility as well as impingements. How can one body be so free in some ways and literally/stuck/ frozen/limited in either strength or mobility in others?

I love the word ‘undergird’ .. mostly because it makes me think of girdles .. and I think ‘girdle’ is a funny word. In order to find freedom in my mind and body I have had to go to the core. The root of who I am. The core of my being. The part the girdle holds in place. 😜

My days are not my own right now. My life is not my own for this very busy season. But that doesn’t make me less ‘me.’ If anything, I am more ‘me’ because everything else has been stripped away. It has been stripped away by a pandemic, trauma and loss, our life stage with all of our children and the fact we are aging. Mid life crisis anyone??!

Life is full. Life is crazy. Life can be chaotic. It can be stressful. It is definitely tiring. But our core, the core of our family, of our ‘us’-ness is still consistent.

My core is strong, dysfunctional in some ways but stable in others. But as the plumb line of my life slowly aligns with truth and heals, I know that things will feel better and I will get better at the ‘more’ of life.

Fear doesn’t get to define me. I will not be held back by my body, toxic thoughts, toxic relationships or poor habits. These are things I can control. These are things we all have power over.

What method do you use to find your alignment in your life, your plumb line?

Project Canoodle

I can’t show you the images that are emblazoned on my heart. I can’t share the photos of *’our’ baby girl in heaven.

As I snuggle up with her big brother in the home he knows so well, my heart swells with love. But, each time I do (and it is often!) my heart eeks out just a little of the intense grief that I keep carefully tamped down.

You see, he has her eyes.

I cling to the image of that baby girl snuggled up in the arms of Jesus. Daily, her big brother is snuggled up in mine. She is HOME.

*in our home (as foster parents or otherwise) we don’t distinguish how we love. ‘Born into’ or ‘chosen’ for our family, we love wholly.