I Survived!!!

Ironically, this is the shirt I wore after having gone through an elective induction (DUMB choice btw) with my first child.  I survived the longest and most excruciating event of my life!!!  If I could go back into time and redo my pregnancies, I would have gotten plugged into the care of a midwife and started educating myself sooner and let Baby and God decide when it was time for them to come out.  Having had a natural birth at home, I can say, had I done this, I would not only have survived but I would have thrived.  Sometimes though, life is just about surviving.  This year has been quite the example of that.


The last leg of my pregnancy with my youngest child was the most horrible time of my life physically.  I found out afterward that people were apparently becoming very worried about me (thanks for speaking up and sticking out a hand *sarcasm*).  But, I found strength within me that I just didn't think I had.  I was far from graceful about it though.  I complained incessantly, cried, cried and cried some more and even got to my lowest point of snotting and drooling as I was curled up on the toilet and sink sobbing.  Yeah, pretty bad!  Just another one of those moments that I am so glad to be married and only once.  LOL!!!  Just some parts of life, no more than that one person should ever see and even then it is still embarrassing. 


January 30, 2011 came and labor FINALLY began!  I survived laboring all day and well into the night.  January 31, 2011 and I gave birth to my youngest baby at home.  I wish that this was all I would have had to survived but my life spun out of control that early Monday morning.


I survived holding my dead son, watching while they did CPR on him, seeing his limp and lifeless body laid on my bed, seeing him taken away and me left naked sitting in a pool of blood with his cord left limp hanging out of my body.
I survived the numbing ambulance ride to the hospital alone thinking I would have to call NILMDTS to photograph my son's body. 
I survived, barely (with the help of a double dose of demerol) being poked, pushed on, placenta pulled out, bleeding, bleeding and more bleeding.  I wanted my placenta.  I had something special I wanted to do with it but knew I could not go home with my placenta with my baby in the morgue. 
I survived the roller coaster of emotions that flooded me at the news of my son's resurrection.
I survived DHR coming into our lives and taking my other three children away from me.  
I survived by my son's side as he lay shivering on a cooling blanket for three days unable to be held, to be fed, to be normal.
I survived three and a half weeks in the hospital with my baby after a false test (I think done purposefully) of herpes.  
I survived the whispering behind curtains amongst the nurses about me.
I survived the lies that the nurses told DHR.
I survived the continual threat of foster care for my children.
I survived week after week after week after month after month of DHR being in our home telling us how we "should" parent our children because they "questioned our ability to make sound parenting choices".
I survived the label of child abuse.  
I survived the loss of my best friend.
I survived betrayal from those I trusted the most.
I survived doctor visit after doctor visit, test after test after test on myself, my baby, my husband.
I survived the continual battles of our choice to not vaccinate our child.
I survived the painful gashes dealt out by my family because all of this was my fault.
I survived being manipulated and lied to and stolen from.
I survived my husband being on night shift this entire year working over time on top of 12 hour shifts; being left to be basically a single mom through much of this year.
I survived a lot of other more personal things as well as the daily wear and tear of my life.


I survived.  I survived!!!  My life is still intact and my family is well and my son is fully healed.  I SURVIVED!!!!!!  But, life is not just about surviving.  John 10:10 "I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly."  Through Jesus, we can do anything.  So, why stop at just surviving?  I want to have an abundant life!  I want to thrive!


Through all of this surviving, God's Holy Spirit was ever present in my life.  Time after time did He speak so clearly to my aching heart, terrified soul and battered spirit.  He was a healing balm in the midst of agony.  And for the first time ever, I learned what joy truly is and how to live life filled with joy even when happiness is far from present.  In the vast ocean of tears that spilled from my eyes, I was still able to have laughter.  For the first time, my life was not totally consumed with rage.  Rage and hate were there but I was not consumed.  This year has been filled with so much pain but also so much life and growth.  I enter into 2012 a new woman in many ways.  


2011 was about surviving and growing and living in the shadow of death.  My prayer Abba is that 2012 will be a year for thriving and laying in green pastures.

Who Are You Now?

I started writing this a few days ago.  I have been sick to my stomach these past several days with it growing as today has approached.  I'm cutting it way back though.  It was far more than needed to be sent out into all of the world and "draft" served me well in giving me a bit of a vent and relief.

December 15th 2010, I made a horrible choice.  It was unintentional but caused a lot of pain in lives of those closest to me and sent my life down a path that otherwise, probably would never have been stepped even one to on to.  This year has been something unlike I could have ever imagined but I am so thankful for God's grace and that His mercies are new every morning and that He holds to His promises regardless of our "failures".  I don't know if I have admitted this or not before now but had I, ME, not made the choices I made this night last year, my life could look very different today.  That's a hard pill to swallow.  It has been so easy to point at this person or that person passing as much blame off on anyone I possibly could pass it off on.  Yeah, I've admitted my wrong and countless times but, I still didn't want to carry that on my own.  Things could have been done differently by this person and that person but it all falls back on me and my first choice.  Owning our mistakes is crucial to changing and a lesson that fewer and fewer people want to learn and live.  

In Genesis, Jacob is fleeing for his life.  He leaves his family in a safe place and heads out to have some alone time and there he has a personal and face to face encounter with God.  They wrestle.  All night long they are tangled up together.  The sun is coming up and God tells him to let him go and he refuses to do so until God blesses him.  God asks him, "what is your name?"  I come to this in my reading today and have to stop and soak.  What is your name...who are you now?  This brings so much emotion to my heart.  Who am I NOW?

There is a lot more to write on this particular story but for tonight, I will keep it at this.  Satan does not want us to know who we ARE but who we WERE.  I think that is why I have been dreading this day with such misery.  My memories have been flooded with my mistakes and it has taken its toll on me this past week or so.  Satan would love nothing more than for me to get stuck in that night and not move past that; to become swallowed up in such depression that all I can see is who I WAS instead of who God has helped me to be today.  I've gone through so many heartaches this year.  But, God made me a promise...two really and I have seen one come to pass and am holding on in faith and trusting that the second is coming in its season.  God and I have gone around and around.  I don't know that I would call it "wrestling" but many times I have asked of Him and He has been faithful to answer me and numerous times to the same question.  He has touched my life and I am forever changed.  My name, Christ-follower, is truly who I am.  I'm not perfect but I am in love and I know that my pain has been and will be for God's glory and for the plans that God has for me and my family and even the lives that we are to touch as the days and years go by.

Regardless of the mistakes you have made, the failures, the wrongs, the hurts you've caused, you don't have to remain there.  Let go of those things and let God take them and create in you a new thing.  Let Him use what Satan has intended for evil to bring about something beautiful and good.  Then, anytime Satan tries to remind you of who you were, tell him, speak it out loud even, who you ARE!