A Full Heart

WARNING...INCORRECT GRAMMAR AND/OR PUNCTUATION WILL LIKELY  FOLLOW!

November 11

Today I have had a FULL heart...full of memories of the past, full of love for my family,full of gratitude for my husband, full of thankfulness to our Veterans,  full of humility before God...

Today is the 8th anniversary of Russ' death. Every year I seem to relive that LONG day- no matter how hard I try to stay busy & push it away. However, it doesn't have the same effect on me today that it once did...I don't fall apart with sadness. Now that I am a Mother, it is a chilling day and one that puts me humbly at the feet of the Lord praying that I never have to outlive my children. Of course I know that God already has a plan for my family and I doubt that He is going to change it just because I asked Him to do so today.
But for this busy Mom who sometimes thinks that the most important things of the day are how many hours my kids slept, how many meals & snacks they had, how many toys & clothes they have or if I blogged about their most recent adventure....I forget that THE MOST important thing is that they are here with me, they are healthy & happy, and that they KNOW they are loved!!! I do not  live in fear, but I have seen up close what it looks like to loose your children...I can't even put it into words.
Maybe that is why I take ALL of the pictures, blog every silly thing & keep every scrap of paper...I want to hold on to every second forever. I guess this is because long before I became a Mom I witnessed this loss up close and saw the pain! BUT, I also witnessed a Mother's unshakable Faith in God regardless of this unimaginable pain...lessons that will last a lifetime.
God used all of this for His glory for sure!! Many people saw the love of Jesus in these parents' experiences and  their faith through the years.

On the brighter side....

Sarah Jane has been waking up in the middle of the night & not being able to go back to sleep until around 3:00 or 4:00am. Knowing that she is entering the stage of development for dreams/nightmares to occur, I asked her today if she was having any dreams. I asked her if that was why she couldn't go back to sleep at night? She looked at me sort of puzzled for about 3 seconds...then she said yes she was having dreams. She said that her dreams were waking her up. I asked her what was she dreaming about- I was very scared of what her answer would be. She said that she was dreaming that "sugar bear bunny"(her pink peeps bunny that she tragically lost) came back to her...that she found her bunny. I didn't think that I would be able to keep a straight face, but I did. I tried to reassure her that I was trying to find her bunny on eBay (she thinks eBay finds lost toys...which is sort of true!) and that hopefully soon she would be back home!! On the inside all that I could think of was that she is going to have her Daddy's quick thinking. She is relentless about this bunny!

My heart is also tired of loosing my iPad to my children...I think that I have officially lost my iPad to Palmer now!!!! GEEEZZZZ!!! It's been a full day!!!!