Mothers Day

The first time I held my first born and was inaugurated into the blissful society  of motherhood was 17 years ago.  Oh how I remember that feeling of overwhelming love and fear as they placed that sweet baby boy into my arms. I had no idea what I was suppose to do with this sweet child but somehow I knew Joshua and I would be okay. And the fear of knowing that child was dependent on me for life was overshadowed by the abundance of love that I never knew was possible. If you are a mom you understand that bundle of emotion that comes with that first born. 

My second child came to me under not so normal circumstances.  I was at that time for all practical purposes a single mom. My husband and I were separated and fear took on a whole new face. I had no idea how I was going to take care of two children on my own.  God was good, he gave me the sweetest most content baby I have even seen. Jennifer was a joy from the moment I met her. She slept through the night at a week old and hardly ever cried. And we survived and began to get into a routine that would sustain us for many years as a single parent home.

My house was always full of noise, laughter, crying, fighting, all the business of two children. Until that fateful day in November 2002.  That was the day my house fell silent. No more business, no more laughter, no more fighting, just silence. I remember those days as vividly as I remember the noise. 

Again God is good. Five years after the death of Joshua and Jennifer I once again had the blessing of welcoming another child into the world. I did not realize how much I missed mothering until I was actively mothering another child. In just 9 short days my youngest child will turn 3 and as much as I love this child and as much as I am grateful for him there are days that it is just plain hard being a mom! Sometimes I fail miserably but always I have to remember the silence. When my child is throwing a fit in Barnes and Noble or Toys R Us and I loose my composure I have to stop and give thanks for the noise.

Because Lord willing my child will grow up and graduate and get married and have children of his own and once again my house will be silent. So for today I bask in the temper tantrum for the noise is far better than the silence. 

Happy Mothers Day! 

A time to celebrate!

The past two weeks at the Gray house has been hectic as we joined a few hundred of our friends at Central Baptist to prepare of the Easter Pageant. Russell is singing and I am toddler Jesus' handler. Yes, our son made his acting debut as toddler Jesus. His role is to stand with Mary and Joseph as the kings come. He waves and blows kisses to the kings. He is absolutely cute if I do say so myself.
It has been a great opportunity to talk to him about Jesus and the story of Easter. So as we were laying in his bed the other night and he was reviewing his day as he does every night we talked about Easter pageant practice and the Easter egg hunt he had at MDO. He was so excited about the egg hunt and talked excitedly about the treats he got.  I thought I had the perfect opportunity to talk to him about the real reason we celebrate Easter. So I asked him if he knew why we celebrated Easter and he looked at me with all seriousness and said, "because Jesus is alive"! I had an elaborate explanation for my sweet child and he broke it down into three words, Jesus is alive!
It brought sweet joy into this mommas heart to hear those words so simply stated. It also made me stop and cherish those three simple words.

A time to rejoice!

Thank you all for praying for the Haven of Hope Retreat this past weekend. God answered your prayers! The mom's that came in on Friday were not the same when they left on Sunday and let me tell you that was God! Some of them mom's shared on that on Friday they did not want to be there and some even admitted to almost backing out. But on Sunday they were all glad that they came and were uplifted and renewed in spirit.  God truly blessed us with His presence.
One of the greatest joys for me was to have so many mom's before the retreat want to help by providing gifts for the other mom's. We had tons of stuff to give them! It was amazing. From books to special blankets to Sentsy.  It was such a blessing to see these mom's want to reach out.
Lots of prayer went into this weekend. In fact God would not let Marsha, Daisy or I sleep on Friday night so we were up praying into the wee hours of the night for the women God brought to the retreat. I think I can speak for all of us when the weekend was over we were exhausted but reassured that it made a difference for the kingdom of God.
The women who came out were precious to share their children's story with us and what a blessing it was to sit and listen.
For those of you that are reading this and  have not walked this path and have children, STOP. Stop and take time to enjoy today. The messes, the arguing, the whining, the laughter, the tears, the piles of laundry, the dirty rooms, all of these things are things I missed when I Josh and Jennifer died. And today I am so grateful that I have a child that I can honestly bask in today with.  When I pray with my son at night I always thank God for another day with him. Why? Because that is all I have. I don't know what tomorrow has. God does and for that I do not have to worry. I allow myself to worry about tomorrow it steals the joy of today. So hug your children a little tighter, a little longer. Thank God for all the things that irritate you about being a mom.  You may not loose them to death but they will grow up and you will miss this!

A time to sleep??

Yes it is 1:00 am and I am blogging.......what am I doing up you ask? Stuff for the Haven of Hope retreat that is April 8-10th. Yes that is only a week away which is why I am up.
For those of you that are not aware Haven of Hope ministers to mother's that have suffered the loss of a child. And today I was scrolling through pictures of the children for our slide show and was overwhelmed with the unfairness of a need for such a retreat.  I assure you every single one of these mom's would rather not need this retreat.
So I am sitting here shamelessly blogging at 1:00 am to ask you to join me in praying for these mom's this week. I know from experience that prayer makes all the difference.
Also please pray for Marsha, Daisy and myself as we prepare all that is needed to minister to these precious mom's.  A ton of prep work needs to be done and we are almost there but this week will be hectic in finishing up all the details.
After the 10th I will fill you in on how God answered your prayers and share with  you our next project, Easter Pageant at Central with none other than Zachary Gray as toddler Jesus. Lots of hilarious stories to be told  already and we have only had one rehearsal, but that will have to wait for now I will try to sleep.

A time for restoration

Today was Zachary's first rehearsal for Easter Pageant at Central. He is playing the part of toddler Jesus and he had a blast today. Those of you that know Zachary know that he is totally in his element when he is the center of attention so he totally hammed it up today. As we were leaving a sweet gentleman walked over to us and said that Zachary had a "neat personality".  I could not agree more and as I drove home I was once again overwhelmed with God's love for me.
When I look into that child's face I see God's love for me.  With every "I love you mom" and every "super duper" cool story he tells I am humbled by the fact that God loved me so much that He not only restored my role as mother but super exceeded it beyond anything I could have ever imagined.  What a blessing.

All his brothers and sisters and everyone who had known him before came and ate with him in his house. They comforted and consoled him over all the trouble the LORD had brought on him, and each one gave him a piece of silver and a gold ring.

  The LORD blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys.  And he also had seven sons and three daughters

Job 42: 11-13

A time to keep silent, a time to speak.....

Confession time..........I was watching Oprah today and it spurred this blog.
She mad multiple families on her show that have served or are serving in the military. She also had families that have paid the ultimate sacrifice as they lost a loved one in the war. Her purpose of the show was to help us know what to do for these families. We all have been in a situation where we are not sure of what to say or do so many times we do nothing.....
That is not the answer. So here are some thoughts I wanted to share from my own experience:
1. Do not ask "how are you"  unless you really want to know
2. Do not say "call me if you need anything". This will not happen the person that is dealing with trauma or separation is so wrapped up in doing the "next" thing that they cannot even see what they need.
3. DO show up..............to either bring a meal, mow the grass, clean the house, or just sit and listen.
4. Do call, send an email, or a note of encouragement

We use to as a society take care of each other. We use to know our neighbors and we use to live by our families. Be sensitive to the needs of those around you. Reach out and let them know you care. You may not think it makes a difference or that someone else is taking care of them. You may never know the impact you have on that person but believe me it makes a difference. So does your silence and lack of action.

A time to surrender

There have been some very pivotal points in my life where God has brought me to a place of total surrender. This is one of those points. I have struggled this past four weeks with many questions. It seems the more we experience in life the more questions we have.
This past few weeks as I questioned why and struggled to make sense out of something so senseless anger trickled in and in my anger I gave the enemy a stronghold. My anger manifested in a poor attitude and a short temper with my family. I really blew it a few times with my two year old and I had thoughts like, "well not wonder God keeps taking all your children you are a horrible mom and you do not deserve to have children." Now you have to admit that in a way when you are trying to make sense of things we do not and cannot understand that seems like an answer that makes sense to our human minds. Our sin causes the consequences in our life, after all is that not what we teach our children?
Well this is what God revealed to me as I was speaking to a woman that voiced a statement much like mine. As she said that is must have been something she did that caused God to take her loved one I realized how wrong that thinking was.
You see first of all we do not serve a vindictive God. We do serve a God that gave His only son to die on the cross for our sin. Jesus' blood covered our sin. So what that means is if we yell at our children and sin and our anger God does not in turn take them from us. If that was the case then there would be far more families without children.  Don't get me wrong I do believe that there are consequences to our deliberate disobedience but it is not out of vengeance but out of love.
Once I was released of the insane thoughts of my mind I was able to take a step back and focus on who God is and has been in my life. He is my Savior, my comforter, my prince of peace, the Great I Am,  the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, my deliverer, my redeemer......
Once  I focus on those characteristics of God then I am able to surrender to His will for my life. My question can then go from why to what. What am I suppose to do with this? How am I to be used in this?
COMPLETE SURRENDER! knowing that I am loved by the King and while I do not have any answers as to why I have had to loose 3 of my 4 children but I do know that God does not waste anything.