A New Chapter

As most of you have heard by now, our beautiful girl, Callie Grace passed away suddenly on July 4th. It has been 10 days now since we lost her, and it has been by far the hardest and longest 10 days of my life.  It is only by the Grace of God that I am able to wake up every morning and put one foot in front of the other.  The pain of losing her is so deep and some days feel so dark that it can be hard to breathe.  But God is Faithful, His grace is sufficient.  The verse that I am clinging to at this time is Lamentations 3:19-25

"Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!  My soul continually remembers it and it bowed down within me.  But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope; The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.  "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him."

Great is Thy Faithfulness is the song we sang to Callie every night and it was also one of the songs we sang at her funeral.  My heart is broken, but I know that God is good and He is faithful.  I know He has a greater purpose and I have absolutely no idea what He is doing.  I often wonder, Lord, why me?  Why us?  Why Cooper?  And I will never know why, but I trust and know there is purpose.  This is NOT meaningless.  God is using Callie's short life for a greater good I will not know this side of heaven. Joy is coming, God always keeps his promises, and we have hope.  The Lord will not forsake me, and He will give me a lifetime of grace.  This is not a trial that will go away in a few months, or a few years, this is a trial I will endure throughout my lifetime.  But His Grace is so great and I know He will give me the grace I need every minute, every hour, everyday, for the rest of my life.

I do not say all this to get a pat on the back, and for everyone to think how wonderful I am doing.  Because I'm not doing wonderful, I hurt deeply and I have been in dark places.  I even found myself just this morning dwelling in self pity listening to myself instead of preaching truth to myself.  So I needed to write.  I needed to continue to preach truth and scripture and listening to the truth of God's Word.

I try hard not to live in regret, but there are a lot of things I think about that I regret.  I regret not kissing her one last time.    I regret not soaking in every moment I had with her the weeks before she passed.  I also regret that I stopping blogging about her.  I blogged throughout Cooper's life, but I stopped at Callie's at 4 months old.  Why did I do that?  I know I was busy and had a lot going on with raising 2 small kids, but I so wish I would not have stopping blogging about her.  So this is one reason why I started this blog again.  This is for me, not for everyone else to read or to get likes or page views.  This is for me to process, to honor Callie, and maybe one day the Lord will use it to minister to someone who may go through this horrible tragedy.

Thank you for being on this journey with us, thank you for your constant prayers and love.  We grieve with Hope, knowing we will see her again.  While everyone's life is getting back to normal, we are trying to find our new normal here as a family of 3.  My next blog post will be all about Callie, about the amazing person the Lord created and how she was a true joy and delight to our family.  It is a true honor to be her Mom.