Blindsided

I have had several great weeks and have felt God's grace washing over me throughout these days. Work has been going great, I've lost 10 pounds so far on my journey to a healthier lifestyle, I'm exercising and spending more quality time with my family. We've also had some amazing things happening at our church that we are praising God for! The darker days seem to be behind me.

But then this weekend I had several moments where I was completely blindsided by my grief. Seeing a newborn baby boy up close this weekend took me to a place for just a few moments where I thought "I'm falling so far down in this pit again, there's not going to be a way out." It literally only lasted a few moments and then I was FINE. But in those moments I felt my heart shatter and I felt like I couldn't breathe. Grieving is such a strange thing sometimes.

At church we sang "It is well" (Todd Fields version)....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTmEln60d40. As my husband sang out these words, "It is well, it is well with my soul" there was a video on the screen. The last few moments of the video was a silhouette of a man swinging a little boy around in his arms.

Blindsided.

I miss my son so much I ache.

I told my friend, Angela this weekend that in those moments I feel like I am so overwhelmed I just feel like my life is over. It's like getting a bullet to the chest. But then I recover...and these days I recover so much faster than I was in the beginning.

Ethan has started asking more questions lately. The other night when I was putting him to bed, he asked me if I had another baby in my tummy. I told him "no" and that maybe one day Mommy would have a baby in her tummy again. He said, "well, I don't want a brother, I want a sister". I asked him why and he didn't answer me. A while later he asked me if my friend's baby boy (who is unborn) would be going to Heaven too.

My heart sank.

Now, I could be totally reading into it....I don't want to overestimate my child's understanding of the situation, but I don't want to underestimate him either. I think that Ethan might just believe that baby sisters get to come home, but baby brothers go to Heaven. At the end of our discussion Ethan said, "I want Noah to come and play with my toys".

Blindsided.

I would give anything to see my boys playing with their toys together.

If you didn't read my last post (it's actually MckMama's post), please read it. I've been cherishing moments with Ethan that I think I had taken for granted before. Ethan's favorite thing to say is "just 5 more minutes, Mommy" or "just 2 more games, Mommy" or "just 1 more story, Mommy". You would be shocked at how late I've let my child stay up this weekend simply because I don't want to miss out on such special moments with him. Last night he even asked me to rock him to sleep...something I haven't done in a long time (after all, he is 3). We went into Noah's room, I wrapped Ethan up in a blanket, rocked him and sang to him. He looked up at me and smiled and my heart melted. It seems like yesterday that I would rock him and nurse him and cuddle him until he fell asleep when he was a baby. That same little grin always melted my heart.

We are so thankful for this sweet little boy that God has blessed us with. He brings such joy to our lives and we are so grateful God chose us to be his parents.