Eight

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Eight years ago today, my arms were full of beauty. My arms were full of the marvelous and wonderful gift of creation.  My arms were full of this little feminine package that looked like me. My arms were full of death.  I cannot express this feeling adequately- our joy for beholding her,  and yet our anguish for the stillness, the coldness, the inevitable letting go that loomed over us like lightning, ready to crack and sever our souls.




As I seek to remember, I am flooded with faces, expressions, conversations, moments, and it all feels so contradictory, this life of pain matched up against this life of blessing. Over the past few weeks of my anniversary grief, I have been seeking to be a good steward of the soul God has given me- a servant of the pain and a servant of the praise that beckons to be lifted from this grateful heart.  It’s strange to be so full of both, these hot and cold currents, each reminding me of the good Father who is perfectly loving and sovereign in both.

As I ponder what was and what is on this, Anna’s eighth birthday, I find myself growing deeper in this rich grief soil. I’d love to share it with you, this message I am seeking to live, but for any of it to make sense, I must first tell you a story.

Once upon a time…I offered these words to Jesus,


“Father, give me a prayer specific for this baby.”


His reply came nearly instantly, as if he had just been waiting for me to ask,


 “Child of worship.” 


From that day forward, I asked God for this very thing, that my first child would in fact become a child of worship, that she would grow absorbing His love and therefore reflecting back that gratitude and adoration to Him. 


A couple months later I came across Luke 2:36 and clutched my bible, realizing the Lord had just whispered my daughter’s name to me.  I ran to Chris and together we read,


“And Anna the prophetess, never left the temple day and night, worshiping God and telling everyone about the promised Messiah.”


In this moment, our baby, our child of worship, became our Anna.


For nearly nine glorious months Anna was tucked in tight, curled up safe and wrapped in crazy measures of love and then… she was gone.  I thought she was sleeping.  And in this moment of my oblivion, the moment before the train hit, Anna was in fact stepping into the truest fulfillment of my prayer for her.


Eight years later and I am still pondering, child of worship.  What began as a simple prayer for my baby has now become…everything.   This phrase hangs in the air like a banner over my life, my grief and my hope.  I have come to realize that child of worship was always His greatest longing for me. Child of worship was always who He wanted us both to become.


So how do I do it- this holy thing God asks of me?  How do I worship as a child and in such a way that worship defines me…becomes me?


I love the way John Piper expresses worship:


“Worship is what we were created for. This is the final end of all existence-the worship of God. God created the universe so that it would display the worth of His glory. And He created us so that we would see this glory and reflect it by knowing and loving it-with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.”


Growing in grief by grace has completely redefined my experience and perspective of worship, and it is simply this:


Everything I am, submitted to receive and reflect everything He is.

Our lives, every moment we exist are to be a compliment to God, or as Piper wrote, to display the worth of His glory.  We are to be a round of applause to His beautiful love and perfection.  But how does this happen in grief…in pain? 

A few weeks ago I shared with you the sacredness to me of becoming beauty from ashes in my grief.  As I have continued to meditate on this passage from Isaiah 61, I find “child of worship” leaping from the page.


To all who mourn, He will bestow on them

a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.


There it is again, that phrase…for the display of His splendor or glory.  And who is it that will be on display?  Who will live as applause to His glory?  This passage proclaims that it is those who have mourned and those who have despaired.  When our brokenness comes into intimate contact with Jesus Christ, holy, miraculous, redemptive, restorative, beautiful things happen, and these things…they glorify God.   


For me, being a child of worship means staring into the face of God on the bitter days as well as the best days, needing Him, loving Him and absorbing His love for me.  Being a child of worship is kneeling at His feet and knowing that His greatest desire and the truest fulfillment and satisfaction I will ever feel, is to know Him.  Being a child of worship is rooted in child-likeness, that beautiful neediness, trust and bragging rights that “my dad is the best.”


The closest I can get to my daughter this side of heaven, is to get lost, radically and intimately lost in the child of worship experience.  If you find yourself reading my words and there is pain in your life, if you are angry or doubtful, ashamed or broken, grieving or despairing…this is it. This is your grand moment to be a child of worship.  To kneel with all that you are unto all that He is.  Whether you feel it or not, in this moment God gets to be God as you simply fall into the position of His child… His child of worship.  And this, this practice of being a child with your Father, this is what brings resurrection.


So on this day…this day that marks the day I held her for the first and last…this day that ushers tears and pain and a longing I cannot possibly describe- today, I am seeking to worship as I know my girl is doing the same.  I can only imagine how lovely she must look, dazzling in joy and love for Jesus.  I want to be lovely…lovely like Anna, lovely child of worship.

Dear Jesus,

Thank you for being more than enough for my pain.  Thank you for opening up heaven’s doors to our girl.  I am giddy for the day I will finally see you with my own eyes, see the love and tenderness I will have spent a lifetime believing in by faith.  Thank you that redemption is waiting for me and for the little arms that will wrap me up tight, never to let go again.  Let these tears of mine form a river watering grief’s soil, allowing me to grow bigger and bigger for you…for the array of your splendor.  And tell her, tell her everything you can see in this love-sick mama’s heart.  But mostly tell her I’m doing it, tell her I’m worshiping and I am determined to dance and sing my way through the rest of these unknown days until I’m with you both.  But until then…I am, all of me, for all of You.

Grief Like Gold

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February…here I am once again.  This month laced with hearts and lavished in love, this month of Anna’s birth.  These are the days eight years ago that made time stand still, forever changing my life.  Does the mess of who I am these days have the energy to write it all out?  Will I be able to wade through grief to reach the words that will express the reality of my life without her but filled with Him?


I must. I must share of the wondrous things He has done for me.  And so to that end, I can’t write it any other way but raw…

I clutched ashes this week. 


I clutched them hard and wept.  For nearly eight years now the remains of Anna have been nestled in a small box wrapped by the crematory in brown parchment paper.  Eight years have invited no more courage to open it than on the day Chris first placed this parcel of pain in my lap.  I buried this little box in a larger box some might have purchased for small treasures. Mine is a casket and sits no larger than a ruler on my dresser. Red velvet lining, this box carries a few favorite photos, a couple of rose buds and a vapor of love and sorrow than can never be held.  My treasure box holds death, holds grief, holds Anna.
 

I can’t remember one specific event or thought; perhaps it was a collection of both that led to the clutching moment.  But it happened, as it always does, and I could do nothing but get swept away once again in the crushing wave of anniversary grief, the one that will undoubtedly wash over me through February…perhaps longer.  I saw it coming.  I ran for my little casket and dove for cover. 

I lay there, blue bedspread like blue water engulfing me, pressing the box as close to my heart as I could get it.  I held up the picture, the one I love most, and a gasp escaped- a tender smile invoked by love pressing its way through pain as well.  Nearly eight years and still her little nose, her pink mouth, her monkey brown hair, her eyes, her everything penetrating me, and wounds were ripped open once again.  I pressed my lips to the paper and wished beyond all wishing to feel her once more.  In these moments all the truths that equip “good Christian soldiers” feel more like band-aids than missiles to me. The reality… gone… swept through this mama, leaving me once again weak and silently wailing.


I cried out, “Jesus I will not grieve without you for one moment,” a desperate invitation for His saving presence and yet also, a confession, as if I was in the wrong for grieving yet again.  Then the whisper came, soft, yet strong and with it a gentle measure of peace.  At first this peace was just an inkling, but then it worked its way through me like yeast until the dough of my heart rose and I was strangely new.  The sorrow remained and yet somehow, I was at home in the pain.  And all because of a phrase, a voice that gripped the groaning…


“You are my treasure.”


Something in me registered deeply with it, some desert spot was quenched, and yet my mind wondered, Why this phrase?  Why affirmation instead of condolence in the midst of my sorrow? Wouldn’t “I love you” or, “I’m with you” have sufficed?


There have been many days of meditation and now, I am better acquainted with myself, my grief, and the One who claims me as treasure in the dark.


I dread grief.  Grief makes me feel lost, weak and helpless.  Grief makes me wonder if perhaps I am regressing in this process of healing.  Grief makes me feel ugly and pathetic, makes me wish I was stronger or braver.  Grief acquaints me with my humanness, my loneliness, my inadequacy and my limitations.  The enemy has tempted me to believe that grief should not get the better of me any longer.  And when it does, I should be ashamed, I should be embarrassed.    


The voice of Jesus whispering to me, you are my treasure, tells me this: Jesus and I do not share the same expectations or feelings about my grief.


I am so grateful to be indwelt by a God who perceives my thoughts from afar.  I am so grateful that the voice of Jesus echoes in my anguish and that His presence speaks to my deepest needs, the ones far from my reach.  I am so grateful that the battle against the Father of lies is easily won by the Father of truth.  Yes it has been eight years.  Yes I have grown in grace through grief and I have had many precious and sacred encounters with Jesus.  I have felt freedom and tasted magnificent measures of hope.  I have flown high on the wings of gratitude and have worshiped, praised and rejoiced at His feet.  But death, the reality of it, can take the wind out of the strongest of sails.  Grief can flatten souls swollen with faith and bursting with Jesus.  Eight years and still, in the moments when I am simply Kate missing Anna, I am broken hearted once more, crushed in spirit all over again.


When the intolerable longing erupts and renders me grieving, Jesus is awarded the opportunity to be the best of Himself to me,


“Our God wants me to comfort all those who are sad.  He wants me to help those in Zion who are filled with sorrow.  I will put beautiful crowns on their heads in place of ashes.”  Isaiah 61:3

In my grief I desperately need the reassurance that I am acceptable and pleasing to God.  The truth is, my grief is attractive to God, it allures Him to His treasure.  It allows Him to be the Savior He longs to be, the encourager that He is and the giver of beauty for ashes.


Just this morning another wave swept over me.  A haunting memory came and stabbed me in the heart.  But this time in the heaving only pain for Anna existed.  There was no shackling guilt or expectation to be anyone other than a weeping mother in the affirming arms of her Shepherd.  I heard myself whisper with gratitude, Thank you.  The tears rolled on, but truth had won and somehow I felt exquisite in my grief.  I felt wealthy in my weakness.


Today I am resting in the reassurance that as I crawl through the days ahead, I am in fact climbing higher and also deeper into the heart of a compassionate, kind and present God.  I see waves in the distance, some much greater than the ones that have already washed over me…but there is a crown on my head.  I am in a season of sorrow, a season of rich love.  


I am crushed, clutched and covered in grief like gold.     

A Better Day

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A better day is coming.


This is the whisper that came to me this morning- the one that interrupted my weeping moment-the one that supernaturally invited me to hope.  His voice can do that.  Slice through layer upon layer of hurt, humanness and opaque pain to ignite flames of hope and love in the darkest of places.


Christmas is approaching and it’s cold.  All is glitter. The air is ripe with cinnamon, windows are awake with candlelight and store fronts are drenched in magic, but it’s cold.


One friend just suffered her third miscarriage.  My knees hit the ground.


Another friend is approaching one whole year without her son.  I am aching, continually grieving with her.


My 86-year-old grandmother is frail, sad and lost. Nearly a year has passed since her husband of 66 years became dust and memories.  I hug her never wanting to let go and yet also wanting to fold the thinness of her into a paper airplane, sending her as she wishes into the heavens, into a better day.


I am in urgent need of a hearth where hearts can go to get warm… 


A better day is coming. 


Is this the fire I long for?  Are these words flickering, glowing and beckoning me to come?  Does this sentence have the power to make souls toasty in spite of all matter of frozenness and death around them?  If I stare into it deeply, will my eyes reflect the fire dance and be opened to wonder, mystery?  Will the light remind my soul that light is what I was created for and light is where I am headed?  Will pain begin to feel more like a part of a story and less like the ending?


If you are reading these words, perhaps your heart is cold.  Perhaps you want to know hope.  Not simply to know the word, but to go there, to really go there. To sit at the hearth, staring into flames of an unseen reality, flames of promise, getting lost in the light of truth and feeling warm…even if for a bit.


A better day is coming.


Immanuel brought this reality to earth with him- a tiny baby growing in a virgin, born in a stable, bringing with Him from heaven the answer to our pain.  Not an answer from pain, but a way through and out of pain, a way into a better day, a forever answer that cuts through flesh and bone, harmonizing with the soul fabric of all who beat and breathe.


It was a rescue mission.  The strangest and most miraculous the world has ever known.  That snake, he bit Eve with his lies about God and the venom has seeped into every soul since, sin which blinds the eyes and severs the heart.  A chasm between man and God was formed, distrust from child to her all-loving Father.   A remedy was needed, an anecdote.  God came down, spurred by crazy grief and crazy love for His children, dying of sin.  God curled himself into a womb. He became baby. Boy. Man. Sacrifice. Savior. Remedy.

I spent years wrestling God for answers, the ones I thought having would bring peace and closure from the loss of my baby girl.  The poisonous questions first uttered to Eve in Genesis have found their way through history and into the chapter of me. The snake offered new bait with the same old deception, and frail and grieving, I feasted.    


“Did God really say He loved you?  Did He really say He would take care of you?  Is He really all he’s cracked up to be?”  This mad questioning of God and needing to know why, Why, WHY… got me nowhere but more deeply embedded in the enemy’s plan to rob from me. Now it seems the better path is to get lost in the answers He has given.  Answers like…


“I do not willingly or from my heart grieve or afflict my children” (Lamentations 3:33). 


Answers like…


“I have told you all this so that you may have peace in me.  Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart because I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). 


Answers like…


“The God of Hope will fill you with all joy and peace as you trust and believe in Him” (Romans 15:13).  


And finally answers like…


“He will wipe every tear from their eyes and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.  All these things are gone forever” (Revelation 21:4).


I need Him- I need God’s saving.  I yearn for what the baby came to bring.  I crave what the man died to give.  I need the promised power that surged in Jesus as He broke through grave clothes and out into the light of day.  I need it because I am afraid, because I ache for my girl and I am in empathic agony for those around me.   Because it’s been nearly eight years and my Christmas tree drenched in pink ornaments fully reminds me of the daughter that does not open gifts or sing carols or bake cookies with me. I do not see her eyes dazzle with wonder and delight at the twinkling of the tree lights…and yet, I know they dazzle.  They are glory dancing- reflecting all that her little eyes behold in the kingdom of a Better Day.


A better day iscoming.  The baby is coming…coming to die, coming to take away the sting of death and to beckon the weary of heart to be warm in the fire, the fire that whispers of the possibility of joy now and joy forevermore.  A fire that rages and surges with power to live full of hope and strength in spite of painful realities.  A fire that conjures up the deep truths that first brought you to grace and will bring you there still, the fire that dwells inside, the one that has a name, the one that calls you child.


My eyes have something to say…see the fire dancing? 


Hope is here and in this moment, I am warm.

  

My Name Is?

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Love came to me this week just as I prayed it would.  Even though I was waiting for it, it surprised me.  The tablet of my heart is nearly full from all the writing Jesus did upon it this week.  I am desperate to jot it all down here….for you, for me.  There is one word however that stands out from the rest, one experiential name that has captivated me.  It is my honor and privilege to inscribe it to you now.

Comforter.

God used my son John to bring this message to life for me.


He has always had an old soul.  Nearly seven and he blows us all away with his vocabulary, his questions and his refined humor.  John and I have always seemed to have a way with each other.  My mom used to tell me that God made a copy of her heart and placed it in me.  It appears the same could be said for John and his mama.  Our spirits are similar and undoubtedly intertwined.
Earlier this week he came and stood before me, his joyful, mischievous eyes hinting for me to ask the question, “Johnny, what are you doing?”  His reply, “Just you wait mama, you are gonna love this.  I am making you a present.  It might take me all day, but I’ll have it ready when you get home tonight.  Don’t forget to ask me for it, okay?”  

The day was long, in work and in spirit.  The gnawing sense of incompleteness and vacancy I wrote about last week was ripe with insecurity and fear.  A whisper came, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”  I was busy, not in the mood to be occupied by anything else- I shushed it away.  I made a mental note- read the 23rd Psalm later.  That evening I was helping John to straighten his room before bed.  I picked up a piece of paper from his nightstand, caught my breath and then inquired, “Johnny, what is this?”  He looked up, a bit deflated and said, “That’s your present mama. I forgot to finish it, but I guess that’s okay.” 

I clutched the paper to my heart, careful not to crumple it and grabbed John into my arms and pressed a kiss, full of wonder and gratitude to his forehead.

 “The Lord is my shepherd, He gives me everything”

That night I fell asleep within the blessed assurance that God was in fact pursuing me with more love.  “The Lord is my shepherd, He gives me everything,” I chanted.  I waited for a massive impact, some deep down change or enlightenment…it didn’t come.  I fell asleep.   

The next morning as I cleaned up all the messes I was simply too tired to get to the night before, I came across yet another piece of holy scribbling by John:

There was no Bible next to it, nothing to copy from, it stood alone.  It reads,

“So the words that were spoken through Jeremiah the prophet were fulfilled. A voice is heard in Ramah, wailing and loud laments.  It was Rachel weeping for her children and refusing all consolation because they were no more.”  Matthew 2:17

I looked up at Chris, shocked, awed, and completely enlightened in that moment to all the ways God had been speaking to me.  I processed, The Lord is my Shepherd…Rachel refusing to be comforted.  Each of these words converged with the other and I found myself staring at one complete message from Jesus.  I pray God gives me a fluid and clear way to decode it here:

The Cry

Who is Rachel?  In essence, she is the first recorded mother of deep sorrow.  She died moments after giving birth to her second son. In her agony and suffering she cried out just before giving up her last breath, “His name shall be Ben-Oni…son of my sorrow.”  The initial account is recorded in Genesis and is referenced again by the prophet Jeremiah and again in the gospel of Matthew.  In essence the writers, separated from Rachel by thousands of years, are communicating that she can still be heard weeping for her children.  The image comes to me of Rachel’s corpse bearing down on a somber, low and hollow note of an ancient organ, a song that bellows throughout the generations, “I have nothing, my children are dead.”

Rachel weeps without a comforter.  In fact, the verse proclaims that she will not, she refuses, to be comforted.  Is there hope for Rachel?  I remember two years into my grieving a day when I said to my sister, “I don’t feel like my name is just Kate anymore.  It feels like my name has become- Kate, mother of a dead Anna.”  Essentially, I could have said, “My name is Rachel, I have nothing.”

I have been asking myself a question all week.  May I be so bold now as to ask it of you? Do you answer to Rachel?  Is the last key your life played since the loss of your child (or any sort of loss) a lament, a hopeless note? In your mourning for your child, do you essentially cry out, “I have nothing?”  Do you refuse to be comforted because you are so unsure of the one who declares Himself to be the Comforter? 

 The Comforter


Just a few months after we lost Anna my therapist encouraged me to read a book entitled, “Safe In The Shepherds Arms.”  I bought the book.  I got two pages in and felt so angry that I nearly hurled it across the room.  How could the psalmists words be true?  How could I join him and proclaim, “I have everything I need, I do not lack or want for anything,” when all I wanted was for heaven to open and for Anna to be dropped back into my arms.  At the time, I was unable to push through my anger and confusion to discover the life boat that the psalm actually is for those drowning in the sea of sorrow.

The 23rd psalm proclaims the Shepherd to be our comforter, our guide, nurturer, restorer, refresher, protector and one who will pursue us with His love all the days of our life and for all eternity.  The psalm is rich with promises of the everything Jesus can become to the suffering child of God.  I well remember the days of meandering through the valley of death questioning and rejecting the Shepherd.  But I also remember the day I got swaddled up in His comfort and I haven’t been the same since.

In the days between Christ’s resurrection and ascension He tells His disciples that He will pray to the Father and ask for the Comforter to come to abide with them forever. “I will not leave you comfortless” He said (John 14:15-18).  The Greek word here for comforter is paraklete, which means advocate.  Paraklete comes from the word parakletos which literally means to come to one’s side. So, the Comforter is the one who comes to our side, to advocate and to be with us. 

The Comforter Responds To The Cry

 

It is excruciating, to live here in the world, simply excruciating at times. And there is and will continue to be weeping and wailing.  But our hearts are able to be invaded by the Shepherd and He makes bold promises to those who mourn:  promises of comfort, promises of a soul invasion of peace and nurture and love of the deepest sort for our moments of horrific, gut wrenching pain and sorrow. 

Of all the scriptures God could have lifted out for me this week, He chose for my son to scribble down these two passages…why?  Without a doubt I believe God is saying, “I hear their cries, I hear their weeping and their wailing and I ache for those who do not know my comfort- I long to be their Shepherd in the dark valley of death.  I ache to bring my everything into their nothing.”

That everything includes the hope of redemption. The last chapter paints it like this:

“For the lamb  on the throne will be their Shepherd.  he will lead them to springs of life-giving water.  And God will wipe every tear from their eyes…There will be no more death or mourning or or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Rev 7:17,21:4).

 

I am following the Shepherd.  I have spent many years in the valley and I have spent many years basking in the glorious light of the mountain.  I know more valley’s are ahead of me…death is inevitable, as is my own. I cannot begin to express in words the joy and anticipation I feel for the day I will finally see the One who I have been listening to, trusting in and receiving from in the dark. This will be the day when all of my questions are answered and the day when I will be comforted one final glorious time. The day when my tears will once and for all be wiped away and when I will finally see the look in His eyes, the one He always gave me, the one that the veil of earth prevented me from seeing.  They will be eyes which reveal grief, tenderness, compassion, comfort and love.  But perhaps I am most eager to see His look of joy when I embrace my Anna for the first living time…and never ever will I have to let go.

After Rachel named her child, Ben-Oni, “son of my sorrow,” she died.  Do you know what the baby’s father did?  He renamed him Benjamin, “son of my right hand.”  In essence He renamed Him, the son I will come along side of, the son I will be comforter to.  The Heavenly Father offers us the same name trade, from child of sorrow to child of my comfort. 

This past week God answered my prayer for more love.  He reminded me of who He was to me in my darkest hours, and who He has been to me every day since.  He is my ever-present Shepherd and in Him I have everything I need. I pray this page flows hope to each of you weary in grief, desperate for more love and eager for the Shepherd who offers you His everything.
My name is Kate, child of comfort.  What is your name?

Am I really home?

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I have been sitting here for a while staring at the screen, my hands hovering the keys, waiting.  I feel it, but sometimes it takes a while for all that simmers inside to come scripting out.  I hear this prayer rise…Make these, my words, a well oiled river, flowing the brokenness of me and the wholeness of you, up, out and over.  The simmer becomes a boil.  I process what the prayer means.  It’s a pleading that the mess of me combined with the perfection of God will emerge, expand, and explode right past my heart and onto the page. The prayer gives birth to vocabulary…

When Elijah was just a few months old, we went to a church picnic to kick off the summer.  I was wearing jeans and a white shirt, holding the baby, blanket bundled, in my arms.  I sat down at a picnic table.  Emily came and sat down next to me.  Emily was also wearing jeans and a white shirt, holding her baby, just a month or so younger than mine in a blanket, sleeping in her arms.  We both have long brown hair, probably both looked new-born-baby-tired and probably both smelled like breast milk and spit up.  Ryan, one of Emily’s twin boys, saw his mama from a distance and made his way over.  He stopped short of us, attention caught by something else, and then backed into his mom, resting his hand on her knee, his head on her chest.  Emily and I looked at each other and smiled, wondering how long it would take for her son to realize it was me he was clutching and not his mama.  A minute or so later, Ryan turned around with a smile, looked up into my eyes, and was suddenly reduced to panic.  He looked to his left, found Emily, and before an instant had passed, he was safe in her arms.
Love…


I think I have been praying to know the love of God my whole life.  It has never been easy for me.  I could process here all the reasons why, but for now I’ll just leave it in a word…hard.  It’s very strange to me now that the very thing that caused me to know God’s love, the very thing that ushered in the answer to a lifetime of prayers, was really the thing that brought me to the place of hating Him first.


We lost our baby girl.


The few friends, family and grieving souls that tumble their way here already know that hating God became my avenue to knowing Him.  Death made me feel like I had a right to stomp before the throne to demand to hear a few things.  Some days it was anger that compelled me.  Other days it was hope, that maybe just maybe, the love I’d always longed for, would finally connect to me through this.



In three years of stomping and crawling to the throne, I never left empty hand.  Each wound, need or question I brought to God, whether about Him or my grief, was always met with a bit of glorious truth, experiences with a present and risen Jesus.  In time what I became convinced of was this:  The God I had been seeking my whole life was not God at all.  He was God-like.  He was constructed with a whole bunch of truth, but so many lies had found their way into my perception and image of Him that that the God I was approaching was not purely “the Way, the Truth and the Life” (John 14:6). 


Just like Ryan had backed into the wrong mother, so I had backed into the wrong Father.  It wasn’t until the little boy looked into my eyes that he realized he was in the wrong place and then ran home.  Likewise, my grief, compelled by anger and want, caused me to look up and really stare at the Father I had been clutching since the age of seven.  He looked like Jesus.  He had a beard and authority and nail scars, but something was off and the tell tale sign was the fear I felt looking into His eyes.  And then, just like Ryan, I ran home.  When I turned away from “god” and began seeking the Jesus I met in my grief, something amazing happened. Love. It found its way into my heart, the deep recesses and nooks and crannies that had been 30 years parched and I began to feel loved.  Grieving still, questions still, but suddenly alive with love.

I am coming up on eight years without Anna Rose Kelty.  Eight years deep into grief and my own resurrection.  And suddenly, there is an inkling of fear once again.  Somehow a bit of untruth has sneaked in once more to my perception of God.  Or rather, as I grow deeper in my faith, Jesus is dragging up old boxes from the basement of my heart to sort through.  Things I need to get rid of to make room for more love.



As I write, I am beginning to look through the boxes with Jesus, my real Father, my Shepherd.  I don’t want to hold onto anything that would keep me ensnared to not seeing Him as He truly is, thus preventing me from the love and trust I long to define me.  I am not yet sure I have identified the culprit of this awkward fear, but here is what I do know, the following prayer from the apostle Paul has become the cry of my heart once again:


“And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know His love that surpasses knowledge, that you be filled to the measure to all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19).


These living words nearly sing to me, a lullaby, hushing all the fright away. I need this “love that surpasses knowledge,” love that bypasses making sense.  A love that is better and more satisfying than answers, a love that digs to the root of our problems, massaging things like, peace, strength, hope and joy into the wounds and fears that seed themselves in human soil.


So here I am once again, setting out for love to save me, change me, free me, rouse me, cause me, deliver me, soften me and ignite me.  I imagine there will be stories to share as I head out on this adventure, the one that will undoubtedly take me off the map to where the width and length and height and depth of God’s love are waiting. 


I’ll be writing those stories here because I kind of have to… have to write out all the Jesus and love my fingers can muster.  If you find your heart weary and wanting like mine, then I invite you to come along with me.  I invite you to ask for a flood instead of full enough levels of God’s love.  I’m not okay with sometimes peace and sometimes joy.  I’m looking for more and there’s only one place to find that.


So here’s to discovering the uncharted territories of God’s love, to being filled to the measure of all the fullness of God, and to looking into the eyes of our realFather, snuggling into home.

I Remember You

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I remember the first day I prayed for you.  It was an ordinary day but I was suddenly awakened to the reality that one day you would in fact, be.  And so I fell to my knees both smiling and weeping as I offered my first words to the Father for you.


I remember the day I learned that you were nestled inside of me, the day my womb was opened to be your home, the day my heart was opened to be your mother. 


I remember the day we learned you were a girl.  I pulled your daddy into a broom closet at the doctor’s office as we left the ultrasound room and cried. I thought your daddy wanted a boy.  He smiled at me tenderly wiping my tears and then proclaimed the secret truth behind his giddy smile, “Sweets, do you know what this means? I get to have a daddy’s little girl!”


I remember the day the Lord whispered your name to me.  It was an answer to the sweet phrase God had spoken to me weeks before when I heard, “Child of Worship.”  Like a note arriving in the mail, this verse lept from the page “Anna the prophetess waited in the temple day and night, worshipping God…” Luke 2:36-37.  It was a clear match and so you became, our Anna.


I remember your kicks, your rolls and your hiccups.  I remember daydreaming about your soccer games and ballet recitals.  I remember daydreaming about nursing you, comforting you and telling you all about Jesus.


I remember the last time I saw you alive.  It was a lazy afternoon at the Pregnancy Center and nurse Kay invited me to what became my last visit with you.  You were sleeping and then you opened your eyes and I gasped.  I felt like we were staring right into each other’s eyes and souls.  I traced your sweet frame on the monitor with my finger…I whispered  all my love to you.


I remember the pain and the fear of the moment we learned you had slipped away, just three weeks before forever was supposed to begin. I remember and it takes my breath away.  Even now as I write I feel afraid.


I remember Jeannie rushing in at the last moment to deliver you.  I remember the tears streaming down her face.  I remember her words when you arrived, “She’s beautiful.” And you were Anna Rose.


I remember the moment they placed you in my arms for what has become the most exhilarating and excruciating moment of my life.  Meeting you and losing you all at once…there are no words.


I remember the look in your daddy’s eyes when you captivated him.  I remember the smile he wore the entirety of your birthday- the one I haven’t seen him wear since.  You awakened the daddy in Him- you awakened a new kind of love and pride in him.


I remember the way your lips felt against mine.  I remember your cold little nose and your monkey brown hair.  I remember every facet of your sweet feminine body- all five and a half pounds and every one of your 20 inches.


I remember every soul that bent down to kiss you hello and good-bye.  I remember Uncle David gently applying his chap-stick to your crimson mouth and I remember Aunt Tris singing to you.  I remember the pain and the love each one of your grandparents showered on you.


I remember the moment you left my arms.  I remember sweet nurse Alice walking away.  I also remember her coming back one last time with a remnant from you…your “coming home outfit.” I remember her gently telling us that she had placed you in a soft white gown to sleep for the night…


I remember every moment of hating God for taking you from me and I remember every moment that His supernatural presence and incomprehensible, perfect love rescued me.


I remember the day that peace became greater than pain and the day when Jesus became the hero and not the villain.  I remember the day He whispered to me about the ways in which he would make beauty for ashes and the ways in which he would turn evil for good.


I remember the first day I began writing our story and I remember the last.


I remember the day nine months ago when I sang your lullabies to Pop on his death bed.  I remember thanking him for giving me a lifetime of Jesus.  I remember asking him to shower you with my love. I remember asking Him to tell you everything.  I remember wondering if he could even hear me anymore.   I remember how he raised his weak hand to my cheek and cupped my sopping wet face as if to say…”you can count on me and I love you too.”


I remember you sweet girl- every day of my life I remember you.  Every truth and promise and every dream and vision are on the mantel of my heart and I cannot wait to scoop you up into my arms for the hug I have dreamed of all my life.


I am so glad it was you…the one who made me a mama and gave me Jesus.


Anna Rose Katherine, everyday of our lives, we remember you and cannot wait to see as you see.

All our love forever baby girl,
~mama 

For Maw Maw

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I hope this brings a smile to my mother in laws face!!!!! Sharon has recently had surgery and will be off her feet for a good chunk of time. We hate that we can’t be there to cheer her up….So, maybe this will do for now!!! We hope to make a trip up this Fall! Here are some other photo attempts!


Today was also the UK Uof L football game. Unfortunately we lost something bad! But we are still huge fans. John wanted to wear Chris’s sweat shirt. Ben was completely enamored by John’s big red cloak and couldn’t stop laughing. I am documenting this as well because I know Maw Maw and the rest of my cardinal loving famiy will get a kick out of it.


Want to hear the laughing?
Now for a Benny Update… He is now standing alone for a good 5 seconds before falling down and he is walking across the room while pushing different objects! He says mama all the time (yeah!) He has 3 teeth and he is working on three more all at once…it’s been a rough week for Ben, bless his little heart! He is getting to be so big…Check him out!

So, there you have it, the Kelty Boys. Sharon I hope we succeeded in bringing a little sunshine your way. We love you so much and wish we could hug you.

From Pulling My Hair Out to Counting My Blessings!

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Well, buckle up, this is gonna be a long ride. I plan on writing stream of consciouness and I’m not looking back so who knows what will come out from these fast typing fingers. Today was just one of those days. Yes, mothers all around the world know what I mean when I say…It was just one of those days. My morning began at 2:30 am, and then 3:15 am and then 5 :30am and then the final buzzer went off at 6:50 am. Ben did the triple morning wake up. Wow, I wish I hadn’t taken a benedryl last night and that my precious husband wouldn’t have taken more than his fair share of the coffee this morning. For the past week John has miraculously slept until 8:30 am. As I sat down in the recliner with my 1/2 a cup of coffee and with Benny contentedly in the in exersaucer, i thought to myself, ” well at least I’ll have a few moments to let this caffeine override my exhaustion before our little spinning machine wakes up”…. “A,B,C,D…H,W…” Is what I hear at that very moment like a loud speaker from heaven blaring from John Kelty’s room. I take a deep breath, say a quick prayer and sacrificially change the channel from my beloved Today show to hopefully catch up on the Texas Polygamy case (my current obsession) to John’s beloved “The Wiggles.”

And so the day began…we were off to a good start. Chris quickly ran upstairs to get John before he left for school as I started to nurse Ben. I hear a sweet “Goodmorning Anna, have fun with Jesus” as John came down the stairs and saw Anna’s picture. I think to myself, “such precious things come out of that little mouth”. The next thing I hear is, “Mommy, John needs a snack and Benny eats (drum roll please……) boobie snacks, 2 of them.” Yes, you heard me right, boobie snacks. I have never heard that from John before and we certainly don’t refer to nursing in that way. So I silently rewind and add to my previous thought, “Precious and precocious things come out of that little mouth.”

The sweetness quickly turned into hysteria and 2 year old tantrum throwing when I suggested we take a special “brother’s picture” for Maw Maw for Mother’s Day. I even promised a bowl filled with chocolate chips, ( I swore I’d never bride when I became a mother). Rivers of tears and flailing erupted since he couldn’t have the chocolate chips before the picture was taken and since he actually had to sit next to Ben which meant Ben’s hunky, unsteady body kept toppling onto John. John was convinced that Benny was kirplunking him on purpose….and he tried to kirplunk him back…and so a series of timeouts prevailed.

I decided to turn the morning around by having a fun mommy son morning activity, cookie making to give as a gift to a friend. I should have known better than to suggest such an activity on, “Just one of those days.” John and I had very different ideas about the right way to incorporate the chocolate chips and oatmeal into the dough. I suggested stirring as the correct method. John demanded the scoop and stuff method…from the bowl into his mouth. Of course I had to take the bowl away which sent John running into he living room to throw himself dramatically onto the sofa where he pounded the cushions with his fists and soaked the fabric with his tears. Needless to say, I finished the cookie project alone. I left John in the living room to calm down as I went to put Ben down for his first morning nap. As I was tending to Ben’s needs, I realized it was quiet downstairs. I thought to myself, “finally he is caming down, probably entertaining himself with the “little people” I pulled out for his pretend, independent pleasure.” I took my time with Ben and came back downstairs to find the “little people” abandoned, with a knowing look on there plastic faces seeming to indicate that John was up to no good. I took there hint and headed for the kitchen where I caught John red handed standing on a chair he pulled over to the kitchen counter fisting a good majority of the dozen cookies that were cooling on the cookie rack. I said, “John Christopher Kelty!” he said innocently (but not so innocently), “Mommy John likes cookies.”" Gooey chocolate was painted all over his face and markers all over his neck. Oh, did I fail to mention the earlier coloring activiy that went ary? I forcefully (I mean gently) removed his body from the chair and plopped him onto the living room sofa….another dramatic crying session insued.
Then came the sad moment. As I was walking and pumping at the same time and dealing with 2 year oldness while listening to a frantic 6 month old cry in hunger, my hard earned 24 hours of scarce breastmilk, I mean gold, somehow came flying out of the bottle in slow motion and flooded the living room floor. I was on the edge. I know it wasn’t John’s fault but in that moment it certainly felt like it was…somehow.
Then of course this would be the day when the infant constipation pipe we have been waiting to unclog would come erupting forth in what we like to call the “blowout” or “neck poop”. I kept my neice today which always means extra fun for John and a fight at naptime. He kicked and screamed as I carried his overly stimulted and overly tired body up the stairs. He practically passed out on my shoulder when I plugged his plump little mouth with the passy and handed him his sticky (I’ll wash it later) blankey. Of course the naps were far from coinciding today and my stomach hurt and I planned for another pot of coffee that never got made and John woke up early from his nap.
Chris called to say that baseball practice, which I was crossing my fingers would be canceled, was definitely not canceled. But I determined that I could do it- I could take my “crazy today kids” to Wal-Mart. But of course, when you are having, “Just one of those days,” your baby who rarely makes an unhappy peep, cries the whole way through the store and your 2 year old most certainly screams, “my turn for toys” repeatedly over and over and loudly so that everyone in the store can hear (and judge you as one of those mothers) as he tries to hoist himself from the cart. So of course I proceeded to bribe for a second time today and I headed straight for the MacDonalds that sits conveinently right inside the electric double doors magnetically pulling you in with thier signature fried fat aroma. At first I felt bad about this bribe, I thought, “I’m a bad mother resorting to food to keep my kids quiet.” So I came up with a cute rhyming song with the words “if your sweet you’ll get a treat, insn’t that neat…” and then I resolved that I wasn’t a bad mother at all. In fact, I ws incredibly creative, providing my child with fun, melodic, opportunities for sweet treats. I opted for the new jumbo cinnamon and sugar pretzal since John had already had who knows how many cookies this morning. “Be careful, the pretzel is very hot,” said the MacDonalds cashier. John understood her caution very clearly and started to cry, “Oh no mommy, my treat very too hot!” No problem, there’s a snack kiosk not ten feet away. I quickly paid for the sizzling pretzel that was later thrown away and headed for the snack station as I thought to myself, “What in the heck am I doing and I am so glad Chris is not here to witness this pitiful parenting moment.” I grabbed a bag a cheesey enchilada “for a limited time only” cheetos which left John with gunky, orange fingers and of course he used Ben’s fuzzy new hair as a napkin….. And so on and so forth.
When Chris came home tonight there was a brief moment when he hugged me and I thought I would burst into tears and say “let’s go get a pizza.” Instead, I took a deep breath and I said outloud, “tomorrow’s a new day”and I proceeded to make the healthy dinner I knew I needed to make in order to right a day filled chocoalte chips and cheetos. As the evening progressed, John and Ben got cuter and cuter and I grabbed my camera to capture these little boogers that I love so much. I started counting my blessings. Sunday is Mothers Day, a day when mother’s get to thank God for entrusting them with his little people to love, nurture, tame and mold. Three years ago I sat and wept all day and remember thinking I would give anything for a screaming baby to love. I want to remember that desperation as I reach another Mother’s day when my arms and my heart are so full.
The following pictures capture some of our evening rituals….playing with daddy, dancing, bath-time, story time and getting ready for bed.
Cuddling with daddy.
John taking a picture with Ben while still watching The Wiggles.
Waving my arms in the air just like an emu (compliments of the Wiggles) and waving my U of L flag- a daily acivity!!!
Chewing a giraffe…Ben is working on some teeth!
Getting Ben ready for bed…

bath time…
sucking my toes….fast asleep.

Getting John ready for bed…
story time…

fit time…John wanted to wear his elmo underwear conveinently right as we wer turning out the lights for bed. He didn’t like our idea of waiting to wear them until tomorrow.
kissing daddy and saying prayers.
“God, thank you for bad days that turn good and for the grace to wake up adn do it all over again tomorrow.”

April at Home

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This blog is entitled “April at Home,” because it truly has been just that. Actually, maybe the more appropriate title is “April in Bed.” Today is the first day in a month I haven’t felt like passing out. I’m crossing my fingers but I think mono has passed. I think I would still be in the bed had it not been for a few key players who helped me to get the rest I needed. Chris is my hero. He took a “leave of absence” from baseball to take care of me and the kids. He has been Mr. Mom for the past three weeks and I am so grateful for him. My mother came every day for a week to take care of the kids and to let me sleep. Mom and Kristen both helped me so I could keep my glorious cleaning job. My friend Jill organized a week of meals from my bible study which were out of this world. I feel so blessed to have the family and friends that I do. Thank you for all of your gifts of love and prayers for us during this exhausting month. And thank you to John and Ben for all the snuggling and naps they took with me.

Speaking of John and Ben…..here’s what they’re up to. John just finished his second semester of Musicgarten. He sings constantly. He particularly loves to sing “That’s Elmo’s world” over and over. He also loves to pray. Whenever we pray he says, “Now John’s turn…” He starts off pretty good, but often ends with his ABC’s. He loves to line things up and to cluster things together. He seriously does this all day long with whatever he sees.

( clustering animals)
Of course, cuddling is still a favorite, the kid has major skin hunger

Ben, smiles all the time.

He’s incredibly content. The newest development with Ben is that he has really taken notice of John. He watches him dance and jump around the room, and laughs hard at him, which John gets a kick out of.

Here are some more highlights:
John has discovered that he loves to cuddle with Ben, who he affectionately calls “cutie boy.


Ben has also discovered food this month. After 6 weeks of trying all the different foods in 3 day intervals, we have figured out that Ben loves food and that he has no food allergies unless you consider gagging on green beans an allergic reaction.

Ben has discovered his toes….If he’s lying down, he’s pretty much in this position.

We just put Ben in the exersaucer this week which he loves!


And like always…our boys love their cousins.

Another huge highlight for me this month was getting to meet the long awaited Clyde Robert Jones, the precious baby boy of my lifelong friend Kristin and her husband Tim. He is adorable and is a gift like none other. Though the time I got to spend with Krissy was short, it was cherished.

Well, that’s about it. Thanks for reading this month’s edition and for taking an interest. I hope this finds each of you well- The Kelty’s miss you all!!!

Much Love,

Kate