After lots going on the past couple of months I am brought back to a single moment tonight. The moment our daughter was born and I knew our precious little family was going to be so much more complete with Miss Kennedy DiAnn. She was adored from her first breath just like her big brother but it was something so different. I fought so hard during both my pregnancies with doubt and my ability to mother not one but two gifts from God. However, were here they are still alive so the world keeps turning. Most recently I have fought especially hard with one central thought, "How can a parent ever not be a parent?" What would it take to keep you from your children? In my case it would have to be death before I stopped fighting for my babies. I have buried one parent already and I knew into the depth of my heart with her last breath in my arms that I was deeply loved. It is that love that has carried over into my parenting. We teach our babies how to talk, to feel, to love and to soar but do we ever teach them how to hurt. I wish more than anything there was an instruction booklet on hurt. Each hurt is grossly different because it builds on top of another or even worse triggers one that you maybe did not deal with entirely and BAAAM here you are fully grown, ugly crying about something that hurt you when you were 6. Do we shield our babies from pain or are we so optimistic that we believe they will never need crisis management and go right back to singing the abc's at the loudest volume possible. I wish we could shield those we love from hurt but that would rob them of the Lord's journey and that NEVER works out. WE repeat over and over "the sky is limit" but we never say "but when that fails and you fall back to earth you will get up and do it again just a little broken." I wish that would have been a lesson. Like, "yeah this is prob going to hurt really bad but you should do it anyways." Oh well then let me do it 23 times... I really feel like the words "Man, I just don't know what to say" are not a good sign. Like at that point outlook not so good. I do believe God challenges and tests in many ways. Knowing the outcome He is prob like "yeah go ahead do it your way, it will one less time before you hand it over to me and we can do it together." In a moment of pure reflection that is my greatest challenge as a Christian is my surrender to the Lord. I have always had to run around like the sky was falling so I am used to running with the reigns. After hitting my head against the wall for a bit I finally wake up and turn it over to the Lord with a massive headache. I feel horribly selfish writing this or having this hurt because I know there are so many out there in worse off situations. I write this in hopes that just one single person will read it and feel like they are not alone. At the end of the day that's all we want is to have someone say "I know where you are coming from." It gives us reassurance that this to shall pass. I feel like everything that gives me strength has been drug out and called into question here recently. I feel like no matter how much I have overcome or the person I have fought to become it will never matter because he didn't love me and should have. In the midst of that thought this man who didn't have to love me at all comes in and saves the day as always. Thank God for Daddies that legally adopt you at 18 and raise you as their own. I feel incredibly blessed to have the people in my life that have loved me through the car wreck that was my life... (yall prob laughed at that one). I really feel like "yeah so what our relationship was not what it was supposed to be but I won, because I am more than I ever imagined was possible in life.) So, as someone who messes up often and makes a lot of really emotional decisions while singing John Mayer in the car with the windows down. I beg anyone who reads this to love everyone in your life like you have never been hurt before and let them know every breath because they may not know how to love or know His love. God bless.
