Easter 2009

What a glorious Easter we had this year praising God for sending his son to die for us all!

I am especially thankful that I was with my family and got to go to church with my family and worship with my church family. I remember last Easter like it was yesterday.

Last Easter I was 3 weeks into a hospital stay that had no end in sight. I was afraid for my baby. My body hurt from being in bed for so long. I was shaky from crazy medicine. I was lonely. I was alone. I was sad. I was mad. I didn't understand why my body would not work the way it should to carry and grow a baby.

Life was going on around me and I could not participate. I wanted to shop for fun stuff for my kid's Easter baskets. I wanted to hide a crazy number of eggs with my husband for our kids to hunt on Easter morning. I wanted to sing those amazing Easter praise songs at church. I wanted to have Easter Dinner with my extended family.

At 5am last Easter morning I was awake and all of these feeling hit me like a truck and I began sobbing. I couldn't stop. I was broken. So very broken.

I decided that I was going to tell my doctor I was done and would be going home. It was decided (in my mind anyway). This was my last day in the hospital. This was my last day taking medicine that made me feel so yucky. This was my last day to tell someone if I had had a BM or not. This was my last day to be hooked up to monitors. I was done. I felt better just knowing that this decision had been made.

I started crying again. How could I be "done" when the tiny baby inside me was not ready to be born.

I had given it my all and didn't know what else I could do.

Through my tears God whispered (or maybe yelled) to me, "Sweet daughter, you may be done but I am not. This journey is not done and it will get harder. Allow me to carry you the rest of the way."

It was a powerful moment for me. I always try to be so strong. I had been asking God to give me strength. In fact, I started each day by asking Him to give me and my family the strength to make it through the day. But this moment was different. God was essentially saying get the heck out of the way and let me take over already!

It was an amazing turning point. Medically speaking things did get worse for me but my spirit was renewed. God's strength was enough. He blessed me in ways that exceeded my expectations.

It was later that week when Amanda, who was a complete stranger at the time, answered God's urging and called me and asked if she could come visit. I could and should devote an entire post to her. I will say she is an amazing Christ follower and has such a sweet spirit. She was with me when I was started on mag. She saw me throwing up and trying to rip my clothes off because I was burning up from the inside out. It was not pretty. She did not leave. She sprang into action and helped take care of me. The most amazing thing was that she came back after seeing all of that.

I will end by sharing some pictures from Easter 2009. I had the goofiest, biggest grin plastered to my face most of the day because remembering what God had brought me through since last Easter just made me giddy!




The bunny brought new swim tubes and candy for the big kids. Matthew got a cool Nike under armor type shirt and Nicole got a tote bag which is also know as a purse for high school girls. I swear they carry the biggest purses these days. Landry got a sippy cup, a cute ladybug toothbrush, bubbles and some yummy Gerber treats!




Landry's Easter basket (bucket) provided lots of fun and entertainment!



We need to work on the hair bow placement a bit!

Cute Cousins whose outfits were so well coordinated and we didn't even plan for it!