Gracefully Broken: The Legacy of Ellie Love

Losing a child certainly makes you look at things differently. At least it has in my case. Honestly, I think any loss of a loved one is something that makes us think about how much we take for granted, how much we complain about everything, even our blessings. I read something recently that was posted by a dear friend of mine. It said, "When people ask if the glass is half full or half empty, my only response is that I'm thankful I have a cup." Talk about perspective.  Truthfully, I have that thought frequently these days. Losing Ellie has made me realize how much we truly have to be thankful for. Sometimes it's hard for me to be scrolling through Facebook and see so much negativity everywhere. No one is happy, nothing is going right, everybody wishes something about their life was different. I get it. It's SO easy to complain when things don't go our way. I'm completely guilty of that. Often.  One such example is that my nearly two year old Car...

I don’t feel like I have anything particularly inspired to write tonight. It’s been a hard few days. Overall, I’ve been amazed at how quickly I recovered from Ellie’s birth. In fact, because she was only with us for 10 days, at times it almost feels like I didn’t even have a baby recently. I know that probably sounds weird. It feels weird to me as I type this. Once my milk dried up (a very excruciating process, by the way!), and other than a few small twinges here and there, it seems like any physical reminders of having been pregnant and giving birth so recently have simply vanished.  However, this week it has all hit me like a freight train. My hormones have been all over the map, and I’ve experienced an awful anxiety, unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. I have felt VERY on edge about everything and have been entirely too snippy to those around me. I’ve struggled to take care of my kids as well as I normally would because I feel so impatient constantly. I generally a...

Many people have been asking me how I'm doing in these days since Ellie's home-going. Usually I just say, "I'm ok but not ok." That's really the honest truth. I don't know if I'll ever be "ok" again. I have forever been changed by the events of the last 4 weeks. But at the same time, I'm "ok" because God is carrying me every step of the way, and I look forward to the day when I'll get to see my sweet #EllieLove again. I know she's in the best of hands until then. I trust that He has a bigger plan for us and for Ellie than what we may be able to see right now. Fair warning, this post will be a little long. I really hope you'll bear with me for a moment and keep reading to the end. I'd like to share a more detailed answer to the question of how I'm doing. Oftentimes God will use music to minister to me greatly. Selah has been one of my favorite artists for a long time because their music sp...