I love that these kiddos get to be together!!
Sight Seeing with Del and Ari Fam
Love being together
Grateful for this women, and thankful I get to spend a great deal of time with her in this short season of life until they move.
love this man.
be still my heart!
My friend Martha put brought flowers and visited Nola’s grave for me.
{Sigh} Life, I love to live until death happens at which point I want to evade life. Last week was hard. I didn’t want to be here in Senegal, I didn’t feel like cooking, mothering, being a wife, didn’t feel like going outside, and was depressed inside… I wanted to be home (so funny… where is that even?) but I have this feeling that even if I was in Florida, California or Missouri for that matter that I wouldn’t want to be there either. Evading Nola’s death was impossible and remains that way. Her birthday, October 22nd is just another reminder that she is not here, and that all the babies that came after her are not here either.
This last loss was a tough blow, to us as parents, to our trust in God, and to our desire to have more children. Because we came here to Senegal directly after loosing a child, we didn’t get a chance to really deal with it for a while, and it takes a while to deal with these things anyway. I feel 100% confident that it was time to go and that it was time to be here, and I still feel that way. But right now, just about the time of Nola’s Birthday, life has started to settle down, and my heart is just starting to grasp what happened, my heart is beginning to deal with some of the heart ache and beginning to ask God questions about the future. My heart is asking, what does it look like to trust God again? Lord how do we move forward together?
A year ago.
All week I wore my Nola Grace necklace, and the girls talked about her every day. Penny would grab my necklace and say “this reminds me of Nola”. We talked about how old she would be, how life would be different with her in our lives. I love that the girls miss her too… it’s not just my pain, it’s their’s too. Ava often asks me if I’m pregnant, “when are you going to be pregnant again?” and then she tells me how sad she is about all the babies that we lost, and starts to think of names for all of them… sweet girl, when I lost the baby after Nola, she named that one Star, and it stuck… no names for the others, I think I’ll let God do the naming for those.
new flowers and bucket from flowers last year.
By Thursday the 22nd I came out of my depression and really had a blessed day as we spent it with each other and my brother Del, Arielle and their family. I was reminded of God’s grace and all that he did through Nola. I think my recent experiences have faded my picture of what God did through Nola, but I can’t forget that God met me in those dark places with such grace and peace, and strength where strength shouldn’t have been. I can’t forget how he revealed himself to TJ and I, I can’t forget how he used her to affect people, he got to people’s hearts through our story, and Jesus was able to impact people’s hearts through Nola’s death. God was glorified through Nola’s life. It doesn’t change the fact that I miss her… Oh do I miss her! And I still feel pangs of the deep pain I felt in my heart as the day we said goodbye to our little girl.
Spending the day with the fam.
I felt encouraged by this Psalm today.
Psalm 27:3-5
“Though an army encamp against me,
my heart shall not fear; though war arise against me, yet I will be confident. One thing I have asked of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple. For he will hide me in his shelter in the day of trouble; he will conceal me under the cover of his tent; he will lift me high upon a rock.
So, here we are 5 babies lost later and the reality of right now is that I don’t get it and I don’t understand, but I’m trusting God. I have been challenged recently with the fact that I might not feel like God is all the things he says he is, but that doesn’t change who he is. I have experienced this past week deep struggle, and God met me there too, He used friends, mentors and sisters in Christ to encourage me, to point me to Christ, encouraging me to share my burdens, to not be afraid to share my struggles. I am encouraged by those praying and those standing with us. God has not left me alone, that is the truth. Speaking of sharing burdens, I had a moment with our maid today. I can tell she feels really comfortable with us now which makes my heart happy. Today I could tell that she was down, she told me that her cousin died last Friday, and that she wouldn’t be able to come to work on Wednesday. And so I started asking her more questions like, were they close? Yes. How old was he? 26. It was sudden and totally unexpected… So sad! I asked her if I could hug her (not so normal to do here) and she gratefully accepted a hug, and we cried together for a minute as we embraced. Why is it that we as humans do well to share burdens? I was glad she told me, and shared more than she had to with me, and my heart hurt with hers as she grieves the loss of her friend and cousin.
God does not want us to be alone, he does not want us to struggle on our own… and I wonder does he struggle at all? What does he think when I’m over here freaking out? Does his heart hurt like mine? And you know what else? I know Jesus prays, he intercedes for us, what is he praying right now? I would love to know that! I even feel like God is giving me little gifts here and reminding me of his character and love for me through material things. He knows my love for food and my love for cooking… and coffee! We found a coffee roaster here in Dakar that roasts coffee from all over. It is about $12.00 a lb so it’s a little bit expensive, but wow what a yummy treat! I have been really thankful for the fruit stand across the street where I feel totally comfortable now with buying fruit there. We eat amazing apples daily, and sometimes super sweet bananas, clementines, papaya and more. We can get bread easily from the bakery across the street as well. I am thankful for Martine who cooks for us amazing food once a week!! All fruits and veggies might take a little more work to get (from market and such) and clean, but we have it, we get to eat fresh food… mmmm! God is good to bless us with these things.
trying the coffee… mmmmm
The little things: We found a coffee roaster
And my 2 girls… Ava and Penny, I love them to pieces… I m feeling extra grateful and thankful for them these days. I know that I shared that I have struggled with being down, but on the flip side I have felt much more even keeled with the girls, not getting so easily flustered and agitated. We have felt more focused in discipline and not all over the place. I feel like we are getting in a groove in life, that doesn’t mean we don’t have difficult days, but within the difficult days we have vision and focus for what we’re doing and why, and the girls see that too. I am thanking God for giving me patience and a special love for me girls during hard days. They are feeling more at home here, Ava even said to me tonight “Mommy what if I marry a brown Senegal boy, would that be silly?” And then she followed that by asking God to help her marry a boy who knows God well… again, I love her heart!
One of my good friends sent this to me on a day God knew I needed it. I cried through it as I needed to hear these truths, and I needed to be refocused! I hope it blesses you too. Thanks Krista!
“‘The love of Christ constraineth us.’
2 Corinthians 5:14
How much owest thou unto my Lord? Has he ever done anything for thee? Has he forgiven thy sins? Has he covered thee with a robe of righteousness? Has he set thy feet upon a rock? Has he established thy goings? Has he prepared heaven for thee? Has he prepared thee for heaven? Has he written thy name in his book of life? Has he given thee countless blessings? Has he laid up for thee a store of mercies, which eye hath not seen nor ear heard? Then do something for Jesus worthy of his love. Give not a mere wordy offering to a dying Redeemer. How will you feel when your Master comes, if you have to confess that you did nothing for him, but kept your love shut up, like a stagnant pool, neither flowing forth to his poor or to his work. Out on such love as that! What do men think of a love which never shows itself in action? Why, they say, ‘Open rebuke is better than secret love.’ Who will accept a love so weak that it does not actuate you to a single deed of self-denial, of generosity, of heroism, or zeal! Think how he has loved you, and given himself for you! Do you know the power of that love? Then let it be like a rushing mighty wind to your soul to sweep out the clouds of your worldliness, and clear away the mists of sin. ‘For Christ’s sake’ be this the tongue of fire that shall sit upon you: ‘for Christ’s sake’ be this the divine rapture, the heavenly afflatus to bear you aloft from earth, the divine spirit that shall make you bold as lions and swift as eagles in your Lord’s service. Love should give wings to the feet of service, and strength to the arms of labour. Fixed on God with a constancy that is not to be shaken, resolute to honour him with a determination that is not to be turned aside, and pressing on with an ardour never to be wearied, let us manifest the constraints of love to Jesus. May the divine lodestone draw us heavenward towards itself.” – Charles Spurgeon
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