Originally published October 5, 2010
These are the footprints that my nurse took of Ella Grace's feet. You can see she was trying hard to get good prints before she printed the birth certificate.
Her birth certificate.
And the back of her certificate with her footprints.
Our sweet friends have found a website that makes rubber stamps out of personal images, so the plan is to send a scanned copy of her footprints and then hopefully get a stamp that we can use to do different things with. I hope it works. I think I'll make a thousand copies of these prints. Is it weird that I want to always have a copy with me? Lol. Am I that person?
Sometimes I am jealous of my nurse because she got to hold Ella Grace and I didn't. But then I think of how sweet my nurse was to me and how hard she worked to get those prints and just how much they mean to me.
Zack and I both felt like Ella Grace was a gift to us, even though we knew she was going to die and as hard as that thought was, we still felt the graciousness of God in giving her to us.
Now I'm like a little kid who's just learning to share. What was mine has been taken away and I want it back! Isn't that how we think about people and things? We stake our claim in them and then get angry if we lose them?
In truth, they're never really ours. They are all gifts. Every good and perfect thing comes from the Lord.
Ella Grace was a good thing. Yet...she was God's.
I feel so incredibly blessed that He allowed me to share in her life, that He allowed me to walk this journey.
Now though, just like with any loss, there's an emptiness and I'm trying to fill it with the right things.
Many people have expressed their own questions about this situation. I don't know if it's right to ask why in situations like these. But if I said I didn't wonder some things, I'd be lying.
I'd like to share those with you to maybe help us all understand a little better, though I don't think we'll ever fully understand until we see Jesus face to face. And then, I don't know that it'll matter.
I do wonder why she was taken so soon. I was ready and rejoicing and just plain loving having her with me. I was excited to hold her and see her face and have lots of pictures to cherish the rest of this life.
I wonder if we did something wrong, if we weren't faithful, if I typed the wrong thing on this blog.
I wonder even (and please understand this is my flesh--I am sinful) why other women got to carry their babies to at least eight or nine months and mine was taken from me at five.
And sometimes I even wonder what else God will take from me--my husband, my sweet little boy... These thoughts cause my heart to race (literally, it does) and I'm overcome with great fear and wonder "will I be as faithful in those times?" And I think, "No, God, I won't make it through that!"
You know what I've come up with?
Trust and Obey.
I don't know the answer to any of those questions. I just know and believe with everything inside of me that God really does know BEST. I will obey Him. He has placed us in a season of mourning and weeping and we will obey Him and walk through it.
But, I know (because His word tells me so) that one day my tears will turn to laughter, my mourning to dancing, my grief to joy.
This too will pass.
There really is no time in this life for bitterness (or even bittersweetness--note the root of this word), anger, excessive questioning (note I put excessive questioning). I do believe it's o.k. to wonder because through my own wondering I've come to incredible knowledge of God.
We have to let go of Ella Grace. Accept that God's best for us was to take her on September 30, 2010.
I'm sure it will hurt for some time. Maybe I'll always miss her, miss what would have been.
But, what an awesome God we serve who can turn our mourning into rejoicing, who never leaves us or forsakes us, who in our darkest hour, holds us the closest?!
Maybe I should be asking why He does that for such a sinner like me?
But I know why...It's How He Loves Us.
These are the footprints that my nurse took of Ella Grace's feet. You can see she was trying hard to get good prints before she printed the birth certificate.
Her birth certificate.
And the back of her certificate with her footprints.
Our sweet friends have found a website that makes rubber stamps out of personal images, so the plan is to send a scanned copy of her footprints and then hopefully get a stamp that we can use to do different things with. I hope it works. I think I'll make a thousand copies of these prints. Is it weird that I want to always have a copy with me? Lol. Am I that person?
Sometimes I am jealous of my nurse because she got to hold Ella Grace and I didn't. But then I think of how sweet my nurse was to me and how hard she worked to get those prints and just how much they mean to me.
Zack and I both felt like Ella Grace was a gift to us, even though we knew she was going to die and as hard as that thought was, we still felt the graciousness of God in giving her to us.
Now I'm like a little kid who's just learning to share. What was mine has been taken away and I want it back! Isn't that how we think about people and things? We stake our claim in them and then get angry if we lose them?
In truth, they're never really ours. They are all gifts. Every good and perfect thing comes from the Lord.
Ella Grace was a good thing. Yet...she was God's.
I feel so incredibly blessed that He allowed me to share in her life, that He allowed me to walk this journey.
Now though, just like with any loss, there's an emptiness and I'm trying to fill it with the right things.
Many people have expressed their own questions about this situation. I don't know if it's right to ask why in situations like these. But if I said I didn't wonder some things, I'd be lying.
I'd like to share those with you to maybe help us all understand a little better, though I don't think we'll ever fully understand until we see Jesus face to face. And then, I don't know that it'll matter.
I do wonder why she was taken so soon. I was ready and rejoicing and just plain loving having her with me. I was excited to hold her and see her face and have lots of pictures to cherish the rest of this life.
I wonder if we did something wrong, if we weren't faithful, if I typed the wrong thing on this blog.
I wonder even (and please understand this is my flesh--I am sinful) why other women got to carry their babies to at least eight or nine months and mine was taken from me at five.
And sometimes I even wonder what else God will take from me--my husband, my sweet little boy... These thoughts cause my heart to race (literally, it does) and I'm overcome with great fear and wonder "will I be as faithful in those times?" And I think, "No, God, I won't make it through that!"
You know what I've come up with?
Trust and Obey.
I don't know the answer to any of those questions. I just know and believe with everything inside of me that God really does know BEST. I will obey Him. He has placed us in a season of mourning and weeping and we will obey Him and walk through it.
But, I know (because His word tells me so) that one day my tears will turn to laughter, my mourning to dancing, my grief to joy.
This too will pass.
There really is no time in this life for bitterness (or even bittersweetness--note the root of this word), anger, excessive questioning (note I put excessive questioning). I do believe it's o.k. to wonder because through my own wondering I've come to incredible knowledge of God.
We have to let go of Ella Grace. Accept that God's best for us was to take her on September 30, 2010.
I'm sure it will hurt for some time. Maybe I'll always miss her, miss what would have been.
But, what an awesome God we serve who can turn our mourning into rejoicing, who never leaves us or forsakes us, who in our darkest hour, holds us the closest?!
Maybe I should be asking why He does that for such a sinner like me?
But I know why...It's How He Loves Us.
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