So many mixed feelings

I just have so many thoughts running around in my head right now. Overall, October has been a very hard month. I really don't know why. We had so many days of clouds and rain. The sky finally cleared up and we had some nice sunny days.....thank God. I think I am just scared of what lies ahead. We have so many holidays coming up. I am just having a hard time figuring out how to feel. I want to feel happy and excited about what we will get to do as a family. But, my heart just aches and longs for Landon so much. I am so thankful that we have Avery and she nurtures my soul so much....but at the same time I miss my son. It is so hard going back and forth like this. Some days I can get through okay and other days the grief is so suffocating. Oh God, please continue to give me and my family peace. It has been amazing to see what You have done for us.....please continue to be close to us.

Tonight Channel 8 will have a story about infant loss. October is National Awareness month for infant loss. We got a call not too long ago from the amazing people that took Landon's pictures. They called to see if it would be ok for Channel 8 to show some of Landon's pictures. At first I felt numb. So surreal. Was I really getting this call? Did this really happen to me? I just want him to be here with us.....I don't want to get a call like this! I was so mad. I broke down and sobbed. I asked God why? Why did this have to happen? I don't understand. I went outside and took a long walk....just needed to talk to God for a while. First of all, I saw so many butterflies. I can't tell you how many butterflies I have seen since we lost Landon. Then, I started thinking. This is one thing that we can do for Landon. To have his pictures as part of this story on the news. Maybe someone needs to see this.....maybe it will help someone else. That is my prayer. I hope that someone is touched by this and that it will reach out to someone that might be going through the same thing. I brought this up at the last MEND meeting. This is the support group I go to that is for families that have lost babies. I am so thankful to God for this group. I have missed it a couple of times because we have been out of town, but it was so good to go back. I just wish it was more than once a month. I haven't known the other ladies in this group very long, but when you have shared a similar situation like this, they "get" you....they understand exactly how you feel. It just helps to know that your are not alone in this journey. I am so thankful for them.

I have been wanting to share these pictures for quite a while now and I am just able to do this. Many of you know about the flower garden we planted for Landon. The flowers have been so beautiful. I took some of his flowers to go place them on his marker several weeks ago. I also wanted to get some pictures of Avery at Landon's marker. My wonderful friend, Sarah, went with me and helped. I'm so glad she was there. I knew this was going to be hard but it is just one of those things that I have to do. I know I couldn't have done this several months ago. You just don't know what you are going to do until you are "in it" and experiencing it at that time. But I do know that God is "in it" with you every step of the way.

I just wish there was more I could do for Landon. I write to him all the time and journal about what we are doing as a family and what Avery is doing. I have started this blog for Landon which is something else I can do for him and it helps me so much. Landon, I love you so much. I still get to "hold you" in my heart. I still feel so close to you. You will always be there.

This next picture reminds me that Avery is our gift from God. This picture also reminds me of God's promises. "Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. " Romans 5:1-4.


"The Lord is faithful to all his promises and loving toward all he has made." Ps 145:13

I also believe with all my heart that, "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Phil 1:6. God will complete what he starts. His work may seem unfair, it may even be painful, it may involve changes that cause you to question His goodness. But, He knows what is necessary. And He will do it. And I trust Him and love Him with all my heart.

We have found our "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow :)

I also want to use this blog to share about what we are getting to do as a family. Once again, I am trying so hard to continue to make memories and to get to experience new things with my family. We just got back from an amazing camping trip with some wonderful friends from church. We went to a place called Marval. I don't have any pictures ready yet, but those will come on the next blog post! We had so much fun! The kids got to go on a hayride and plant pumpkin seeds and then a couple of hours later, they got to go back to the pumpkin patch and pick their pumpkins. They loved it! We had a campfire and cooked hamburgers and hot dogs and of course....smores! Our kids also got to put on their costumes and go trick-or-treating to all the cabins. It was such a fun weekend. It just went by too fast. I just want to thank you all again for continuing to pray for us and for being there for us in so many ways.

I do want to take this time to say thank you. Thank you for being so patient with me as I continue on with this unpredictable journey of grief. Some days it is easy for me to open up and share....and this is what helps me so much. Don't be afraid to ask me how I'm doing or how I am feeling. This does help. I may have a lot to say one day and not so much another. But, just know that I love you and am so glad you're part of my life. I couldn't imagine it any other way.

Bless you and love you all,

Michelle

Freshman girls devotional #1

New Friend Request: Session 1 Devotional
NO CLONES
By Tim Walker
If you’re anything like me, I usually walk into a room of strangers and start looking for the people who look like me. Okay, not exactly like me—I’m not that vain. But I tend to find people who seem to dress similar to me, who are around my same age, who seem to be a “similar status” as me. But the ironic thing is that most of the time, once I start a conversation with those people; I’m bored out of my mind. Or the conversation just is strained, awkward, and we’re done talking after about a minute.
It’s “comfortable” to seek out people who are like me, but if I’m honest with myself, most of the people who are closest to me are nothing like me. And that’s a good thing. King Solomon was the wisest man—ever. He wrote things like: “He who walks with the wise grows wise, but a companion of fools suffers harm” (Proverbs 13:20 NIV). And from his son Rehoboam’s decisions, one just might think he wasn’t listening to his dad’s advice.
Then King Rehoboam consulted the elders who had served his father Solomon during his lifetime. “How would you advise me to answer these people?” he asked.
They replied, “If today you will be a servant to these people and serve them and give them a favorable answer, they will always be your servants.”
But Rehoboam rejected the advice the elders gave him and consulted the young men who had grown up with him and were serving him. He asked them, “What is your advice? How should we answer these people who say to me, ‘Lighten the yoke your father put on us’?”
The young men who had grown up with him replied, “Tell these people who have said to you, ‘Your father put a heavy yoke on us, but make our yoke lighter’—tell them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s waist. My father laid on you a heavy yoke; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.’”
Three days later Jeroboam and all the people returned to Rehoboam, as the king had said, “Come back to me in three days.”
The king answered the people harshly. Rejecting the advice given him by the elders, he followed the advice of the young men and said, “My father made your yoke heavy; I will make it even heavier. My father scourged you with whips; I will scourge you with scorpions.”
So the king did not listen to the people, for this turn of events was from the LORD, to fulfill the word the LORD had spoken to Jeroboam son of Nebat through Ahijah the Shilonite.
When all Israel saw that the king refused to listen to them, they answered the king: “What share do we have in David, what part in Jesse’s son? To your tents, O Israel! Look after your own house, O David!” So the Israelites went home (1 Kings 12:6-16 NIV).
Rehoboam chose to ignore the people who were different than him, in order to follow the advice of those who were just like him. And the advice of his friends, the ones he grew up, turned out to be very bad.
There are people in your life now, people who are so different from you, that you may be completely oblivious to because you have this picture of what your friends should look like, how they should dress, what kind of financial status they should have. And there may be someone in your life or someone you know who doesn’t fit any of those criteria, but could be someone who brings a different perspective, teaches you new things and even inspires you to be more like Christ.
When we don’t allow people into our lives who look and act differently than we do, we end up less. Too much time in the company of people exactly like you starts to affect you—just ask Rehoboam. It starts to make you think that if someone isn’t like you, than they aren’t good enough. We start to judge people and their worth based on how closely they resemble us, and we think that God is on board with it. But don’t be fooled—He’s not. God isn’t only like me. He isn’t only like you. And, God didn’t make a world full of clones. But when we begin to act like we, and people like us, are the only people worth investing in, we start to shrink God. We start to undermine His creativity and the pleasure He finds in the diversity among us. God is much bigger than that. And He wants us to be bigger than our sometimes narrow view of other people.
There is one thing in common you definitely want in a good friend—you want to have people close to you who have an active relationship with Jesus Christ. People who love Him, not only with their words, but with their lives. But their interests, their perspectives can be completely different than yours.
The world is much bigger than us. It is much bigger than people like us. Do you believe that there is more to you and more to me than just who we already are right now? What if there was this incredible untapped potential to become so much bigger than we even thought possible if we just began to entertain this idea that there are people out there who are going to shake our lives up, maybe push our buttons every once in awhile, but who will expand our world in ways we could never do on our own?
What if someone different from you wasn’t bad, but was just what you needed to become the person God has in mind? Would you choose them, pick them, accept them as friends as different as they be from you—even if no one around you, including yourself, understood “why them”?


**I would love to hear your thoughts about this devotional if you would like to share. You can post a comment and I will get back with you. :) Don't feel like you have to share, but it is open if you would like. Also, if any of you has a prayer request, you can post that as well if you would like and that way I will know how to pray for you. Let me know about answered prayers too! I love each and every one of you girls. **