Share your heart, huh? My heart is a bit bipolar these days.  Every hour, sometimes every second it feels different.

It can burst with love in the same moment it feels shattered in a million pieces.  It can rage & feel peace together.  All I know is grief is awful & beautiful at the same time.

While my heart & my mind seem to shuffle through about a million different emotions each day, I've clung to one thing in these past 3 months.

I believe that God is good, that His plan is perfect, and He has a purpose for my life.

I don't say that lightly.  I say that as a woman who has sat crumpled on the floor, feet away from the ashes of my 1 pound, 1 ounce daughter, with tears streaming down my face as I've told my creator that I still believe.

I'm still getting the basics of life back on track right now.  And that's okay.  I hit rock bottom the moment that my daughter died, and it takes time to pull yourself out of a pit like that.

But I'm not doing it alone.  It's only by the grace of God that I've made it as far as I have.

I don't know what my future holds right now.  All of the plans that I had for the future included Arabella, and I'm just not in a place where I can move past them.  I've had to let them go, but I'm not ready to start dreaming again.

So I wait.  I wait upon the Lord in hopes that He will reveal some of His plan to me.  I wait as my heart continues to heal, bit by bit, little by little.  I wait for the time when it feels safe to dream again.

Until then, I will continue to believe that God is good, His plan is perfect and He has a purpose for my life.

 I started Seamless with two of my friends this week.  It is a Bible study written by Angie Smith, aimed at understanding the Bible as one complete story.  Obviously, it starts in Genesis.

Genesis chapter 5 is about the lineage from Adam to Noah.  There are two things that jumped out at me while reading it.  One - these people are remembered.  Two - some of them were remembered for walking faithfully with God during their years.

I don't want Ellie to ever be forgotten.  I'm the one to make sure that doesn't happen.  And I want to faithfully walk with God while I honor her memory.

I want her name to be synonymous with faith and hope and peace and love.

I want people to know that like the meaning of her name...she was an answered prayer.  I thank Him for her every single day.  Sometimes through tears, and often with a smile.

I want people to know that while she weighed barely over a pound, she had weight in this world.  She was wanted.  She was longed for.  She was fiercely loved.

She is our daughter.  But even more importantly, she is a daughter of the King.  A child of the Most High God.  Radically loved by the famous One.  Today and forever she resides with her perfect Father.

Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am too.  This broken & wounded girl who is desperately trying to turn her mourning into dancing...I am the daughter of the Most High God.

I am chosen, blameless & holy.
I was bought at a great price.
I intimately understand that cost more now than I ever have before.

And I belong to Him.

Maybe you are like me, and you sometimes forget this.  I hope that this little blog post serves as a great reminder & encouragement to you.  You are a beautiful child of God.  And there is joy in that, even in the midst of heartache.


This month is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness month.  I am participating in a month long healing event called "Capture Your Grief", organized by CarlyMarie Project Heal.  Each day of the month there is a prompt for taking a photo & writing/journaling.  Today the prompt was wish list.

This month is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness month.  I am participating in a month long healing event called "Capture Your Grief", organized by CarlyMarie Project Heal.  Each day of the month there is a prompt for taking a photo & writing/journaling.  Today the prompt is memory.

Ellie was a bit of a brat when it came to doctor appointments.  Dr. K would try to find her with the doppler, and she would make it extremely difficult.  So, we ended up with ultrasound photos from each of our appointments.   All I have to say about that is...good girl.  ;)  I treasure those ultrasound scans.

Before we knew that Ellie was an Ellie, we nicknamed her based on what her ultrasound photo looked like.  She was a gummy baby, alien baby, Skelator baby, and our very favorite shown above....Hamburglar baby.  :)

If there was any question that she was our daughter, her stubbornness proved otherwise.  And I kind-of like that.  She didn't like being pushed on or pestered, and she let it be known.  She would move as far away from the doppler as she could.  And she would flail her little arms & legs in protest when pressed on with the ultrasound wand.

She was our little fighter, right up until she just couldn't fight any longer.  One of my fears is that she suffered or felt pain when labor came on so quickly & violently.  When that fear consumes me, I remind myself that the moment her heart stopped beating she was safe in the arms of Jesus.  Safe in the arms of the one who loves her more than I do.  She was healed in that instant.  I cling to that promise daily.

I love you, my tiny stubborn fighter.  I miss you.

This month is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness month.  I am participating in a month long healing event called "Capture Your Grief", organized by CarlyMarie Project Heal.  Each day of the month there is a prompt for taking a photo & writing/journaling.  Today the prompt is books. 

There are three books that have been my sanity over the past three months.  My Bible.  "I Will Carry You" by Angie Smith.  And "You are the Mother of All Mothers" by Angela Miller.
Today I can't give them the justice they deserve.  All of them have truly helped me.  But on days like today I would rather throw them across the room, because I don't want to own them in the first place. 

On days like today I don't want the tree that's planted in my backyard.

I don't want the gorgeous handcrafted album that Priscilla made for me.

I don't want the beautiful remembrance angel that my mom bought for me.

I don't want the molds of her tiny hands & feet that sit on our dresser.

I just want her.


I remember reading a blog post that Angie wrote after her daughter died.  She smashed a pitcher into pieces, and then put it back together.  While putting it back together, she spent the time having a very real conversation with God.

Today I am railing against the world.  And that's okay.  I'm going to have days like this.

Today I think I might need to go buy that pitcher.

This month is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness month.  I am participating in a month long healing event called "Capture Your Grief", organized by CarlyMarie Project Heal.  Each day of the month there is a prompt for taking a photo & writing/journaling.  Today the prompt is honor.  In honor of.

Introducing a peek at Arabella Grace Lawson.

I am fiercely protective of her.  And of the 188 photos that I have of her.  But I want to give you a little peek at her.  So you will know just how real she is to me.  Why my empty arms ache.  Why my heart breaks every single day. 

This is my daughter.
At approximately 8:21pm on Sunday, July 12th her heart quit beating.
Her heart had been beating just three awful contractions before that.
In a moment, she was just gone.

Less than one hour later, she was born still.
She weighed 1 pound, 1 ounce.
She was 10 inches long.
She had the start of curly blonde hair.
Her nose was probably the cutest one I'd ever seen.
She was so so tiny, but utterly perfect.

And I miss her.  Every single second of every single day.  Some days I'm not completely sure how I put one foot in front of the other.

But I do.  Because I have to.  Because I want to.  Because this tiny person impacted my life in such a big way.

She made me a mama.  And I will honor that for the rest of my days.

This month is Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness month.  I am participating in a month long healing event called "Capture Your Grief", organized by CarlyMarie Project Heal.  Each day of the month there is a prompt for taking a photo & writing/journaling.  Today the prompt is intention, but I didn't take a photo for it.  Instead...I made a little graphic.
Fear.  It's probably the worst thing that has come from dealing with Ellie's death.  I've always been a cautious person, but I've never really been a fearful one until now.  And I hate it.

I KNOW what the Bible says about fear.  I KNOW that God doesn't want me to fear anything but Him.  I KNOW that it isn't Christlike to fear.  My brain gets it.  But try telling that to my wounded heart.

Since that stormy night when we lost Ellie, I've become fearful of my own mortality.  Of Josh's.  Of my family's.  I check my dogs when they are asleep to make sure they are breathing.

I'm fearful at the thought of it happening again.  That I will only ever be part of the 1 in 4 club.  That my only experiences with pregnancy will be death.

And I am fearful to ask God for anything in my prayers.   Especially a miracle.

I've always tried to make sure my prayers aren't self-obsessed.  That they are based in gratitude and praise for God.  That I come humbly when I am in need of forgiveness.  That I share my heart honestly with the God that already knows what's weighing on me.

But I don't ask for much.  If I do, it is typically for other people. 

Then we got the news that everything about Ellie's life was uncertain, and all I wanted was for her to be okay.  I prayed, and pleaded, and cried, and flat out begged for her to be healed.  But it didn't happen...not in the way that I wanted.

One of the very few times I've prayed selfishly, and the answer broke my heart.

I think a lot of my fear stems from the fact that I am having a really hard time trusting in Him after all of this.  I believe that He is good, He is perfect and that He has a plan for me.  But my heart is having a hard trusting in that.  My mind & my heart can't seem to get on the same page.

I am so sick of being fearful.  I want to be faithful. 


Lord, let this be the prayer on my lips when fear creeps up on me & my trust in you is failing.

Just three months ago I would have looked at you like you were crazy if you told me to wake up to see the sunrise.  But these days it's rare if I'm not already awake.  Grief has turned this once solid sleeper into an insomniac of the worst sort...I struggle to fall asleep, I struggle to stay asleep & I struggle to go back to sleep.

As dawn breaks on this first day of October, I've got a lot of things on my heart.

Today I should be miserably pregnant.
Today I should be in full-on nesting mode.
Today I should be talking to a sweet baby kicking me from the inside.
Today I should be nervous about the impending labor & delivery.

But I'm not.
And it sucks.

I've realized that October is going to be really hard.  I've got things planned to get me through it.  Things that will make me laugh & smile.  Things that will inevitably make me cry.  I could fill my schedule to the brim with things to do but one thing isn't going to change...it is going to be hard.  In order to heal, I have to mourn every aspect of this loss.  Including the things mentioned above.

With every inch of my being, I wish we were celebrating Ellie's birth this month.  We will still celebrate the short time that we did have with her here on earth.  But there is still so much sadness for me, and that is part of this month too.

I might need a little extra grace this month.  I will need to extend just as much grace to others.  And as I watched the sunrise this morning, I realized how thankful I am that God's mercies are new every morning.