Late birthday post...

I tried to get this post up on her birthday, but blogger was messed up the night I tried to do it and through the next morning, too, so I couldn't. And then after I missed the official date of her birth, the intensity in getting it done decreased a bit. Just that it got done was important, so here I am.

Beth's birthday was May 12th. However, that day actually isn't as significant to me as Mother's Day in remembering her, because it was on Mother's Day that we found out she was gone and that she had quietly slipped away to be with Jesus. And that Mother's Day of her passing has forever changed my Mother's Days since. So grateful, so blessed with the two that I have still here, but so desperately missing her. Kind of like the Scripture that talks about the 99 sheep and the 1 that is missing, ya know? I have light and shadows all rolled up in one on Mother's Day now....

I was taking The Bob's mom home after Mother's Day activities while he and the kids stayed home and worked in the garden. After I dropped her off, I decided to stop by the cemetery where Beth was buried as it's only about 5 minutes or less away. The thoughts rolled through my mind on my way there that I was such a loser mom because I hadn't been in forever and it had been forever since I had put flowers on her grave. Her grave was surely bare. And what kind of mom, what good mom, goes years without putting flowers on her child's grave? I only can make myself feel better knowing she's always, always in my heart and she's really with Jesus anyway. All these thoughts rolling, and then I see it. Oh my....


Somebody put flowers there! I actually think they may have blown off another's grave and someone just put them in one of her vases. But when I drove up and saw them, my heart caught. And aren't they perfect for a little girl? White. Pink. Pink ribbon. Perfect. All I can think is that the Lord cares so much more deeply than we remember sometimes...and He covered for this "loser mom" making sure my baby had flowers...and He reminded this "loser mom" that He has held me the whole time since her passing...and while the Scripture says that the one with 99 sheep will go looking for the lost one, I need not wonder or look for Beth. She's with Jesus.....

Just because...

It was late. He gets home late a lot. Work does that to us. Sometimes we don't know if we own a business or if it owns us. But it was late, and I was hungry. I looked to see if he would sit in the driveway and finish up his day on the phone, and who knows how long that could take, and I was hungry. But just as I was thinking I'd go ahead and start eating without him, I saw the outside dark. No truck lights, no cell phone lights, and I knew that it meant he was coming in. And I was hungry. And he came in with a big, colorful, beautiful hydrangea and a card. Just because....



And then I forgot how hungry I was. Taken back by the beauty of that hydrangea, the perfect words on the card, and that he did it all just because. I often don't feel worthy of just because...

The next morning I was fetching some work he had brought home for me and left in his truck. And as I was digging through, I saw it. The Love Dare. Remember that book made hugely popular by the movie, Fireproof? And I knew. I knew. I knew that he had completed Day 1 with those flowers and card....which actually made them that much more special. Because everybody and their brother was reading and going through that book a few years ago. But we rather didn't get to it and let it sit on a shelf. And he's grabbed that book off the shelf, and he's not going through it because everybody else is or because it's part of a church marriage builder, but he's doing it just because....just because....he loves me....

I didn't tell him I found the book. I knew he probably wanted to go through it quietly himself. And when I told him that I had gotten the work from his truck, the look on his face told me that, indeed, he wanted to go through the book quietly...just because he loves me....

U.S. South tornadoes response | World Vision

I went online to make our monthly contribution to Rohit in India. And then I watched this on their site. And I cried. I cried over their circumstances, but I think I cried more over my selfishness. Earlier I had been making sure that the kids knew what I wanted for Mother's Day. A new comforter for our bed. I've been lusting over a new comforter for about six months now. Ours is getting old and worn, and I think it's about six years old or maybe more...I don't know. And it doesn't really matter. Because it still keeps me warm at night. How in the world can I now recieve such a gift when others, my neighbors right here in Mississippi, have lost....everything...



“You only have what you give away. All that you’ll ever have is only what you’ve shared” ~ Ann Voskamp