With the morning sun rising, I was reading an excerpt from Spurgeon and Alcorn's We Will See God.  I enjoyed the following lines, "You could not describe Heaven except by borrowing the things of Earth to symbolize it, and this shows that there is a real likeness between them.  What is Heaven?  It is a Paradise, or a garden.  Walk amid your fragrant flowers and think of Heaven's bed of spices."  I find comfort in this text.  Since Matt and I have lost both our sons, I have found much comfort in gardening and even sitting outside in silence and listening to nature's language.  

Why the photo of basil?  Have you ever run your fingertips through basil?  Within a matter of seconds, the herb emits the most wonderful smell that tickles and pleases your sense of smell.  Is a bit of Heaven in that experience?

Today...an educational post!  If you have recently bought spearmint plants for your garden, take all of them back but one.  Spearmint is a perennial, returns year after year, and if you snap off a sprig and stick it in water, within a handful of days, you will see tiny roots.  Spearmint will re-root itself.  The new roots in the photos above are hard to see, but they are there.  I am going to let them grow for about another week and then put the plant in its new home of potting soil and relocate it to the sunny deck.  I will probably split the mama plant a couple of more times to get enough spearmint to make mojitos throughout the Summer.  :)

I was recently told that when someone gets down on their life, they think of our life and miraculously feel better.  Umm...that is not cool in my book.  Granted, they did say it directs them to pray for us as well, but I don't want my life to influence someone to feel better about their own.  Do you know what I mean?  It was said in a way of, "I am feeling down today about my position in life.  Oh, wait!  Thank goodness our life isn't like Sarah and Matt's.  I feel better now."  Am I making sense?  I hope so.

I am so angry.

I am very hurt.

I feel defeated.

My arms are empty.

Why am I here?

What is my purpose?

I want to run away.

I hate...

My latest comfort is silence.

Listening to the birds.

Watching the wind in the trees.

Pulling weeds in the garden.

Samuel Keith went home to be with Jesus during the early morning hours of May 29th.  We later gave birth and met him at 8:19pm and tearfully said 'goodbye'.  He was beautiful at seventeen weeks gestation.  He was tiny, 6 oz., yet had fingernails and every other feature that we have as living, walking beings.  

 

Life does not start when science gives it the go ahead.  Only One can begin life.  If we had done what the doctors has advised, we would have induced labor and ultimately killed Samuel, as he continued to have a strong heartbeat even after my water broke on May 18th.  God gave us eleven more days with him.  Eleven!  Eleven beautiful days that I would not trade for anything!  Eleven precious days that would have been thrown away had we listened to science and humans.  Days given to reading Samuel stories about Jesus, singing to him, calling him by name, feeling a couple tiny kicks and welcoming the community in to know him.  Doctors cannot give us that, did not want to give us that, but God did.

 

We are now back home, trying to heal and once again my body is ready to feed and nourish a baby that is not with us.  I am in physical pain from my calves to the top of my head and down to my fingertips.  Our hearts are broken, again, and we are struggling with what all of this means and what our purpose is in this life.