Happy birthday my sweet Sarah C....

happy birthday dear one. wonder what you are doing right now in the new place you have gone...wonder. wonder about my mom and dad and sister...what they are doing too. we just see so limited, and have to just stretch high and believe...up onto our tippy toes...stretching high with both hands up, reaching high...and still not seeing...but believing.

i have had the privilege of meeting others whose children are gone now too---do you all gather and know this where you are? do you see us touching each other's hearts in tenderness on days like this when we want to celebrate but instead remember...and hold dear the memories of days before? i wonder if you all are so thrilled we have connected--or did you talk to God about us and He brought paths of ours to touch one anothers...?

i woke today remembering exactly where i was 31 years ago at that moment...i was about 10 hours into labor and you were not descending, so they did an xray of my pelvis to see if i could even deliver you..and found it would be marginal...so we waited 8 more hours to then decide to c-section you---and i still didn't know if you were a boy or girl...but i was ready...i had held you in my belly for many months---holding you closer...and then when i woke from anesthesia, i heard your dad keep repeating, "it's a sarah" it's a sarah"...and i can remember opening my eyes and they held you before me for the first time...and how absolutely beautiful you were...your slanted eyes, lots of brown hair, very pink...and then...into my arms...held close...

i hold you close today...i feel your presence with me as i remember. how you loved the story of your birth...made me tell you it all, every detail, every year...and i loved watching your eyes as you listened and would remind me if i tried to leave a detail out...you were a stickler for all the details...

how glad i am for all those times...the tender and close times...glad we took the time....

blessed i am...to have been privileged to be called mom by you...thanks God...what a gift you gave to me...what a blessed time it was...

happy birthday sarah c. pumpkin noodle...loved all of you...

as a mom...i sure could go on and on...and could just talk all day and night. i do miss bragging about you..and telling what you have been up to. i miss new stories and new things going on...it gets harder when you have no new pictures to show, no new memories...that i don't like about the longer you walk down the road of you gone...ugh...that truly sucks.
so, i have to corral those thoughts...hold fast to the road i am currently on---wrapping my arms around the life here and not stay too long in the life back there. yet today, i pray...God, grace all of us who remember the dear memories of our bella sarah's life...and pick up each treasure and hold them softly...dearly, close to our heart...i am...and then hold me Lord as i hand each of these back to you so i can keep on.

see you soon girl....love you...here's a toast, a yugabanuch to you today--one of many to come when we gather later...

mom

just cuz i don't write doesn't mean i am missing...just pondering

here it is, just a week before what would have been sarah's 31st birthday. the ache is present in my heart as it always is....
have been asked to preach in dec. and to talk a bit about the birth of Jesus from Mary's perspective. so, alot in my mind about a woman who was chosen to bear the son of Man and to ponder so much all her life and then to continue walking out her life after He was gone--even if it all made sense then to her as she saw Him in his resurrected body.

i want to walk out the rest of my life with faith of knowing it is true. God, help me and others who share this common faith to walk this well, to know it is not all in vain and to have a brokenness in our hearts that lays us down...for the count.

God, come and touch all the one's I have met in this journey--even the women of late who have lost their older children, and are so sore at heart. It is such an honor to walk alongside each of them.

My inner thoughts are deep within me more of late, and don't seem to be stirred to the surface right now...not sure quite why...just is...harder for some reason, not sure what...to talk...to visit the sorrow...to go to the place...

i ponder much though...deep in my heart...deep in my heart.