A Year

A year can be YAY
filled with birthdays and smiles

A year can be HEY
let's measure our adventures in miles

A year can be SAD
filled with pain and too many tears

A year can be GLAD
look, I am still here

A year is just TIME
measured in minutes and days

A year that is MINE
can be spent many ways

A year can pass SLOW
every second feels like a waste

A year can be like WOAH
slow down, what's your haste

A year should be MEASURED
by the memories you've had

A year should be TREASURED
both the good and the bad

A year should be used to GROW
learn as much as you can

A year just never KNOWS
what God may have as a plan

Each year is GIFT
and should be handled with care

Next year isn't PROMISED
and you may not be there.

The Wave Will Subside

It comes in waves
Both unpredictable and unsure

There is no right way
There is no cure

Sometimes it is loud
And you cry and you scream

Sometimes it is numbing
And if feels like a dream

It just is what it is
And it can't be escaped

So know that it's coming
But do not be afraid

Because He sees your tears
And He feels your pain

But He holds your loved one
He knows their name

With healing comes pain
And your light will shine again

Trust in your Angels
And have Faith in Him

Your breath will return
And your broken heart will mend

Turn your eyes to God
Take the hand of a friend

There is still love to be found
And a full life for you still

So find Peace when you can
And if you can't stand, kneel

Need To Move

Not everyone has a six inch triumph
Not everyone can touch the wound that caused the fight

Some only have wounds that others can't see
Wounds so deep, they never see the light

It is not true that time heals all wounds
Some are old but still hurt the same

I have scars on the inside and out
One fresh incision that still causes pain

I am proud of all of my scars
Because they have forced me to change

God sometimes needs us to move
But we refuse unless there is pain

So take all that is hard
And gather up all of the hurt

Use it as fuel and start your own fire
Hold your tongue just right and put in some work

For now this is your time
Don't let that pain go to waste

Tell your story in Jesus' name
And lean on His strength and grace

Questions of the Temporarily Injured

Why are toilet seats so low?
Why is the purse hook 4 feet from the toilet in a handicapped bathroom?
Why is EVERYTHING so far away from EVERYTHING else?
Why is everything in a separate room; can't we just make one big room?
Why is there no handicapped spaces when you really need one?
Why are there so many stairs?
Why are my underwear still in their drawer?
 I almost fell 3 times; do I really need underwear today?
Why do the kids want to eat so much?
Why is sitting down so hard?
Why is getting up so hard?
Why do I forget to put on my jewelry before I walk into the kitchen?
Why do I have to pee so much?
Why do so many things require both hands?
Why is every room now a life and death obstacle course...especially the boy's room?

Do we really need to shower every day?
Do I really need a shower today?
Did I shower yesterday?
Do I really need to eat today?
Who knew boobs and sports bras made such a good team; you can carry just about anything in there!
#haveboobswilltravel
When did standing become an olympic event?...this is challenging stuff!
No one really NEEDS to storm out of a room when angry anyway, right?
Where is everyone?
Where is anyone?
When did my feet get so far away; did my legs get longer?
What is comfortable again?...it sounds like a wonderful place.
Who knew you could actually get tired of watching television?
It hasn't been 500 years since I had surgery?...I could have sworn it had been.
Is this why toddlers are so angry?...because they can't do anything for themselves?
Am I a toddler?  I ask why a lot!

This Has Been Hard

     I definitely haven't led a charmed life, but I have had a blessed life.  I am old enough and have been through enough hard times to realize this now.  Having two surgeries a month apart, a scare of a malignant tumor with the unknown of what was to come while having 3 kids under the age of 12 and a full time job to worry with has been hard!  I have done some hard things in my life, but they usually involved me thinking of someone other than myself.  Let me just think about what I have endured over the past 12 years...
     I have had to come to terms with the fact that the baby that I was carrying may not survive the birthing process and would probably be seriously deformed.  I had to carry that baby girl for a month and a half after finding out that she would die either during or soon after birth, which involved feeling her kick and move inside my belly every day of that month and a half.  My husband and I then had to sign a DNR for that sweet baby girl who not only survived birth but lived for 3 days despite all of the doctors' predictions.  No one should have to sign a DNR for their loved one, but especially not their new born child, which was also the first born grandchild on both sides of our family.  I then endured the viewing and funeral of our 3 day old, which nearly undid me.
     I have been through a miscarriage.  I have been through two more labors of tiny babies that didn't survive.  I had to explain to my 5 year old twins that their baby brother was very sick and would not be coming home from the hospital with us.  I had to watch as they held him and deemed him an Angel.  We have a small graveyard of urns on our piano, along with pictures and tributes to our family lost, which in our home isn't strange...it just is.
   We have been through 2 very stressful adoption processes and the raising of premature twins that didn't sleep for months on end.  I have had to watch one of those twins struggle every day in school because of delays due to the cocaine put in her system by her birth mother.  I am the mother of a child on the Autism Spectrum, which comes with giant challenges, tiny victories, massive worry, much wonder, growing knowledge and thankful blessings.
     I am a wife, which takes position after mother as the hardest job on the planet.  Marriage is trying, marriage is fulfilling, marriage is a blessing and marriage is just hard.  It is hard when you don't have extenuating circumstances and it is hard when you don't have struggles, but throw in a few dead babies, sprinkle them with very expensive adoptions and then serve them with a side of depression layered with fibromyalgia and anxiety...and you have a recipe for disaster.  Our time together has required patience, love, strength, belief, forgiveness, anger, passion, faith, hope, faith, grace, help and did I mention FAITH?
  So now we get to our present situation.  This has been hard, painful, trying, expensive and most of all downright uncomfortable.  That is the best way to describe me at any given moment recently...uncomfortable.  But I realized something.  At every uncomfortable stage in my past twelve years has also been change.  Bad change, good change, debilitating change, transforming change, but all the same change.  Uncomfortableness (that is now a word) causes you to move, or stay still, or scream, or ask why and all of that causes you to learn.
     I learned that I could overcome grief, that I could change my physical self, that I could change our family's health, that I could follow my dreams, that I am strong, that I can become stronger, that I can learn more and that I can help other people through the knowledge of my pain.  So I have embraced the grief, the pain, the uncomfortable, the scary, the strange and the different that is our family.
     God has known every test that we would take and has prepared us every step of the way.  I have also learned that you can't take care of those that need you if you don't take care of yourself.  If I hadn't changed me, I never would have been strong enough to overcome this latest challenge.  I am not completely healed, but try hard every day, cry when I need to and am thankful for my support system.
     Keep getting back up, search for that which makes you uncomfortable and then show it who is boss!

The Lord Is My Song

You may see my cry
And my smile may fade

But I don't plan to give up
And my Faith it won't take

For God has lent me his Strength
And gives me Grace every day

Because this road will be long
And the pain Piper needs his pay

Pain is a familiar place for me
But usually of the grieving kind

So this pain can be Conquered
I just have to get right in my mind

For the Lord is my Strength
And the Lord is my Song

I will have Faith and will Fight
And I will be Healed before long

His Clock

How does He choose
what kind of mother you'll be

A mother who grieves
Or a mother of three

Maybe you are both
And lucky like me

Blessed to give birth
to tiny Angels above

And chosen on Earth
For special babies needing love

I've tried to come to terms
with what I did or didn't do

I've bargained and pleaded
for my dreams to come true

I've hoped and I've prayed
I've laughed and I've cried

I've felt my heart break
I've been afraid I might die

This life that I live is
fueled by my Faith

These choices are for Him,
but up to me to make

So I've learned that all things
come on His clock

But His love never ends
His love never stops

So keep believing and praying
and living for Him

For He is the way
and the healing within.