Heavy heart.

My heart was heavy this morning.

I set out to finish working on my Inspired Paper collection (all kinds of paper goodness complete with beautiful scripture passages.)

And yet, I found myself completely overwhelmed when it came to the specific task at hand this morning. Design a sympathy card. Feel the weight of that task. Design something that's entire purpose is to encourage and comfort a person in pain. How do you effectively do that through paper & ink?

So, in need of inspiration I pulled out two boxes of cards that I have kept for almost 4 years now. When Aaden died, the daily trip to the mailbox was just about all that kept me going some days. From first hand experience, cards, letters, sweet notes of encouragement, and prayers of healing mean so much more than you could ever know.

I read through card after card this morning weeping at such a great loss.

I begged the Lord for encouragement in His Word and He led me to Psalm 55:22, 'Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.'

Thank you Lord for your gracious provision and power that sustains.


And just minutes ago my husband brought to my attention that an amazing couple that we have been praying miracles for are now facing the worst possible result. My heart is aching for them... aching for her. Such a great loss. All the while, we are still praying for a miracle in her body.

While Aaron was reading me the update, my heart was repeating, 'May You be glorified, may You be glorified...' And again I sought the Lord. I begged Him for answers. Such pain is too much to fathom.

He brought me to Psalm 95.


Oh come, let us sing to the Lord;
    let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation!
Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving;
    let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise!
For the Lord is a great God,
    and a great King above all gods.  
 In his hand are the depths of the earth;
    the heights of the mountains are his also.
The sea is his, for he made it,
    and his hands formed the dry land.

Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
    let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!

A sweet and tender reminder from the Lord that we are to praise Him and trust that 'In His hand' are all things. He is in control. He is faithful. And we praise Him.

...

Our prayers are with the Hurst family. We pray for hearts to be held by a God who knows deeply the pain of a loss so great. We pray for miraculous physical healing for Angie. We pray that you would hold Thomas as he leads his wife and children through such tragedy. We pray for their sweet boys, that You would keep their hearts tender toward You protecting them from fear, anger or bitterness. We pray that friends and family would surround them with comfort, encouragement and willingness to walk through the lifetime of healing to come.

Adelee is One (Month!)

We celebrate in this family. We celebrate even the smallest of milestones and the most seemingly of mundane moments. We celebrate because each day and experience truly is a gift.

As a parent it is easy to wish away those sleepless nights and the first few days of sheer confusion when you wonder if this is what the rest of your life will be like. :) However, after losing Aaden, even the difficulty of sleepless nights and unending crying are beautiful... because it means you have a baby in your arms to love and care for. We know first hand just how fragile life can be so we choose to enjoy and celebrate each and every milestone.

So, happy one month baby girl!

p.s. We are trusting that you will 'heart' daddy soon too. I think his beard is just a bit too prickly for you to be able to enjoy all the millions of kisses he smothers you with on a daily basis.

Missing you.

As the draws closer to meet baby Adelee my heart is aching a bit more for Aaden.

Aaden,
Today I am missing you baby boy. You would be so big now... my mind wonders to what you would be like, what your favorite toy would be, your favorite book or your favorite treat... you gave us just a tiny peek and I do long for more.

Just to see your little face.

So, today I missing you. That's all.

And never loving you less.

I am looking forward to the day I get to see you again.

love,
mommy

Sneak Peak: AadenSage Collection

This Sunday marks the 1 year anniversary of a dear friend's baby Nathan going to meet Jesus.

Tonight our small group bible study will celebrate his little life with cupcakes and books given in his memory. We will pray over this sweet friend and ask God to provide sweet peace and everlasting joy.

When we celebrated Aaden's first birthday a friend suggested we give books dedicated to him. I keep these books in a special place and when we pull them out to read, we have a special opportunity to remind our boys about their brother in heaven, about Jesus, about eternity. 

Below you can see a little peak at one of the AadenSage collection. I pray this little gift is a blessing to my friend.

 

We love this book. We bought this for Aaden's 2nd birthday and I can never read the end without weeping.

"And God wants me to make sure you know about heaven. It's a wonderful place.
There are no tears there.
No monsters.
No mean people.

You never have to say 'good-bye,'
or 'good night,' 
or 'I'm hungry.'
You never get cold or sick or afraid.

In heaven you are so close to God that He will hug you, just like I hug you. 
It's going to be wonderful. I will be there, too. I promise. 
We will be there together, forever. 
Remember that...
just in case you ever wonder."


~Max Lucado

AadenSage.

Today is November 15. Today is a bittersweet day for our family. Today we mourn the death of our sweet baby boy but we celebrate in knowing that we have hope. A hope that exists only because of Jesus and the sacrifice that He has made. Today we celebrate knowing that we will be reunited again. Today we celebrate knowing that there is coming a day when death will no longer be.

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21: 3-4

My heart yearns for my son. I see my husband with my two boys and a part of me aches knowing there is someone missing from the picture. No matter how many children we have, our ever growing family will always be incomplete.

We spent today as a family. We laughed and we played and we cuddled. We took time to remember our sweet boy in special ways and to treasure the gifts we have in our hands today.

I believe in making moments special. We celebrate Aaden's birthday (October 8) every year, praising God for the gift He gave us. We want Aaden's brothers to grow up knowing all about him and the great things God has done because of his life and death. We want them to yearn for eternity with our Father. So, we make his birthday a special day in our family and we make the day he joined Jesus a special day as well. Our special day went something like this:

Breakfast (from a very sweet friend).

Cuddling and cartoon watching.

Craft making.

A trip to Publix.

A trip to the cemetery.

A trip to Cheesecake Factory (thankful for sweet friends who know our love for that restaurant!)

A trip home.

A long nap.

 We bought 2 blue balloons and a beautiful bunch of yellow flowers.

We visited the cemetery. We can't go back to Virginia (where Aaden's body is buried) every October 8 and every November 15 (though I do wish we could) so we did the next best thing. We have dear friends that God has brought into our lives because of Aaden; because of his death we have walked through this same or similar journey with many others. Baby Nathan went to be with Jesus (and Aaden!) after only living an hour on April 15. We were blessed to honor his life today with that beautiful bunch of yellow flowers.

And then our boys let their balloons go to heaven, just like they do on Aaden's birthday. 

In my heart I believe Aaden sees those balloons and it makes me smile... and today Nathan saw them too.

My hope is to help those who have hurt the way our family has hurt. I remember when Aaden's first birthday was coming up and being at such a loss as to how we should spend that day. Do you celebrate? Do you weep? Do you pretend that it is just another day, the same as the one before and the one after? For our family, for me, the answer was not to treat those days just like any other, instead we seek to honor the gift that God gave us in Aaden and to praise Him for the great work He has done because of his life.

My little devotional book this morning started with this line: "Completely surrender your hurt to Him, withholding nothing, and invite Him to work miracles from your misery." ~Beth Moore

My prayer has always been for God to use Aaden's life and death for His glory... 'to work miracles from my misery.' God has given me a beautiful opportunity to do just that, to minister to families who are hurting and in tragic pain, to minister to them in the way that I am most gifted. I am overjoyed at knowing that our Father is going to be telling Aaden's story in a much bigger way.

{A Little Inspiration}

{Introducing}

I would love your prayers as I start this new journey.