5 Ways to help your grieving friend

Grief is wild. It’s a roller coaster. The first time we went out to dinner a few days after losing Blakely, I was triggered by so many things. I felt like I was literally living in a bubble watching other people live their lives. I was caught in between “Find joy and step forward” and “How dare them be so happy when I just lost my daughter.” Also… completely recognizing NONE of them knew our reality.

It was quite eye opening, and I found myself thinking about how the world is full of people with their own stories. Their own stories of sadness or loss. Their own experiences that need compassion and grace today. We are all walking our own journey full of both joyous mountain top moments and the aching depths of heartache. I urge you today, as we walk into our days, remember we are all dealing with our own things. Be the kindness somebody needs who may have just lost their baby or a family member or whatever their story of grief entails.

Anyways, today, I wanted to share a list of things people did for us over the last few weeks that truly helped me navigate grief. We were so overwhelmed by people’s kindness in the days before and after losing Blakely. I have even just this week received gifts from YOU in the mail, honoring our sweet girl and letting us know you’re thinking of us. I found some things particularly helpful, and I wanted to share those with you. We all know somebody right now who could use support as they navigate something difficult. I hope this helps you be a pillar of support to somebody you love in the sometimes awkward journey of grieving.

  1. What To Say:
    “I know nothing I say can help, but just know I am so sorry and I am grieving with you.”
    Everybody’s experience is their own. However, in my own journey, I found the people who said something like this to be the most validating and encouraging. Grief is a speechless place to be. Join us in that speechlessness.
  2. Meal Train:
    My best friends set up a meal train for us when I was put on bed rest, of course with none of us knowing in the following days we would also all test positive for COVID in my home and also lose our baby from my subchorionic hemorrhage. I have never felt so cared for. We had people deliver food to our porch, have something delivered, or VENMO us money to order dinner for weeks. It was a relief to us both with our time, efforts, and financially.
  3. Gifts:
    I can’t tell you how many people sent us gifts in the mail or left things on our front porch. Flowers, gift baskets, personalized items for Blakely for us to remember her by. Heartfelt notes that brought me to tears. Every single gift made me cry. It meant so much that people would care to say “Hey, I see you grieving. I love you and I care about your situation.”
  4. Texts:
    I received texts from so many people who started their sentiments by letting me know I don’t owe them a reply. This immediately relieved me from feeling overwhelmed by the looming expectation of owing people a response. Every single text, whether beginning with this or not, made my eyes water. A text to say “We love you, we love Blakely, we are praying for your heart today” meant the world to me. It made me feel a little less like everybody around me’s life was moving on business as usual while I sat stuck in my sadness and loss alone.
  5. Support with Each Step Toward “Normal”:
    Every step taken toward feeling “normal” will be a different pace for every single person facing grief. For me, sharing about Blakely was sickening but I needed to do it as quickly as I could. I had kept her a secret for 8 weeks. And then, also secretly lost her after two weeks of bed rest. It was all overwhelming. Grief told me talk about it. Then, when I wanted to start going to stuff again at church or with friends, I needed people to treat me like me… Make sense? I didn’t want to be the center of people’s sad stares or be asked “No really, how are you?” I just wanted to be hugged and told they loved me and were glad I was there – wherever “there” was.

I could go on and on with the amazing things people did for us. But, I felt these 5 things stuck out the most in my grieving that I didn’t know I needed but once I did, I knew it was good. I have never lost anybody or been in a situation like this personally until now. And I know I now have different responses to people in their grief than I did before my own personal loss.

Thank you for continuing to love my family through this season. Oddly, in our grief, I have felt a sense of liberation and freedom I never have had until this life experience. Good can come from all bad. The Lord promises beauty from ashes. I see those ashes rises up into new blooms and gardens.

My Loss & Subchorionic Hemorrhage

I miscarried my daughter, Blakely Amelia, just shy of 14 weeks. We found out she was a girl during an emergency room trip while in Alabama for a conference when I was 11.5 weeks. I had prayed earlier that day for a miracle and that God would somehow get our genetic testing results early, because I just couldn’t wait. I just knew this was it. I knew it was my daughter. And though I didn’t expect it to be from an ER trip, I got to learn about my daughter earlier than expected from my sonogram there. Our sweet sonographer asked us if we wanted to know and said she was about 85% certain she could tell us.

My SCH was discovered that night and I scheduled an appointment for the morning I got back to Texas. Like, literally we drove in and got home at 2:30 AM and I was at my doctor’s office at 8:30. I had never heard of these and, to be honest, it was difficult to find much information on them. If anything, I wanted to share this post to first and foremost share a bit more about my time and loss with Blakely. Second, if this can be a resource for women in the future, I hope it helps. Let me start this by saying MOST often, a SCH will heal itself and moms deliver perfect babies with these. Unfortunately I had a very large one and it couldn’t heal itself.

Blakely

Blakely was 10000% a surprise. We were not trying and actively so… ha. God truly wanted us to have her in this exact time and season for some reason. And to be honest, it is even more so hurtful and confusing after having lost her knowing how much of a miracle it was that we conceived her. But I know there is purpose in this pain. I trust God with it. I had told God after Rory if He wanted me to be pregnant again, it would have to be a shock because I was too scared to try again. I expressed my deep desires for a daughter once more and let Him be in charge. Boy, did He shock us. We have joked since this pregnancy that I have seriously got to start being more clear in my prayers about timelines because God always delivers exactly as I ask. Of course, God is in charge and does as He pleases. But, man, he really does hear us.

What is a subchorionic hemorrhage?

Essentially, in the easiest words, your placenta and uterus pull apart in a spot and cause a clot to form. Sorta like a scab holding the two together until, hopefully, it heals and binds back together. Mine was 5 cm at the bottom of my uterus just over my cervix. There is no true cause of this, nothing you did nor can do. Some believe it’s caused by when an egg fertilizes on top of a previously fertilized area in your uterus. Regardless, your body deals with it as it pleases, essentially. I was on bed rest to help all that I could and so that, mentally, if I did miscarry, my doctor told me I would know that I know it wasn’t me and I wouldn’t carry that weight of false guilt. Many women have pleasant, perfect full-term pregnancies with these and it’s not a grave diagnosis. In fact, most often, it isn’t one. SCH is pretty rare but not necessarily a bad ending, just high risk. I held onto that hope for the next two weeks after. I am not a doctor, so take these numbers lightly, but it’s what I found while researching my own. I found in my grief that I needed to understand it better. Statistically, a study of 64k pregnancies, only about 2% had SCH. Another study that focused solely on SCH said about 30% of SCH end in a miscarriage.

So, again, please if you find this and have recently been diagnosed, I am hopeful for you. This doesn’t have to end like mine did. In fact, statistics lend themself to say you won’t have my experience and I pray you do not.

What to expect with a SCH

For mine, I bled significantly my first bleed. Leading up to my bleed, I felt sick and uncomfortable all day. My tummy was also extremely swollen, something I didn’t fully realize until after the fact. I was at a 3 day conference, day 2, and couldn’t sit straight. It felt somewhat like early labor pains. I was miserably uncomfortable but thought it was round ligament pain. I was having light headedness and was coming in and out of what felt like “out of body” experiences. That evening, we arrived at a restaurant and walking in I could feel something wasn’t right and I ran to the bathroom immediately to find I had bled everywhere. At this point, I assumed the worst and thought I had miscarried then. My husband had to come into the women’s restroom with me to try to clean up what we could and walked me out to the car, all done in a favorite white dress… ugh. It just made everything so obvious and horrifying. We called my midwife out of state and she, too, prepared my heart that it was likely either a miscarriage or COULD be a subchorionic hemorrhage, but that my 8 week scan didn’t show signs of one as it normally would. The trip to the ER confirmed my baby was bouncing around and healthy, but I did in fact have a large SCH.

From here, I saw my midwife the day I returned home, learned about the size of my hemorrhage *also called hematoma* and started fighting physically and in the spiritual realm for my daughter. My sonogram that morning also confirmed a girl, and then my midwife let me know my genetic testing had come in the day before and I was in fact pregnant with a little girl. I had prayed for this moment for 3 years and I immediately knew it was my Blakely Amelia whom I prayed for by name since 2018. I didn’t expect my time with her to be so short, but I am so abundantly thankful God gave us our gender early to be able to dream and celebrate her as long as we got.

Though, it did feel cruel when I lost her and part of me wished I had never known, I know there is purpose and significance in this for having known it was her. And I keep asking God to heal the pieces of my heart that are wounded from the confusing loss of such a dream.

The miscarriage

I will be bluntly honest that I just had no idea what actually happens in a miscarriage. Truly not a clue, and I now have such a greater depth of heartache for moms I know who have also lost babies, whether at 4 weeks or 14+. I had only bled in the two weeks of knowing about my hematoma that once in Alabama. I felt excited that I wasn’t bleeding more and saw it as a good thing *which it was, to be fair*.

In the middle of my bed rest from the hematoma, my entire family actually came down with COVID to top this whole experience off. We were stuck at home, me on bed rest, and all of us piled into one bed soaking up every moment together in between sniffles and snot. My loss has absolutely Z E R O connection to COVID and to be honest, our experience was that of a cold/flu. We lost our taste and smell for a bit but already it’s come back almost fully. I recognize this isn’t the case for everybody, but it was our experience (as well as my many friends who have now had it) and I am grateful to now have a natural boosted immunity and antibodies for it in our home before the fall/winter months. We chose to do only a steroid (I only took it for 3 days) and vitamins, and by day 8 were doing great. I was prescribed Ivermectin but chose against it with my doctor as there just wasn’t enough information on it for pregnancy.

Just as I was starting to get over COVID, I began bleeding again. It was like from one thing to the next and back again. It appeared to be a “good” shade of blood and like my hematoma was actually healing and releasing itself out of my cervix rather than absorbing simply because my body saw it was easier to release it being so close to an “exit.” And so, I began the process of what we believe was my hematoma healing. But, I wasn’t allowed to go into my OB’s office again to check yet, having only just hit day 10 from symptoms, as their policy required 10 days post-positive test. I was stuck at home and had to wait and pray. Or if I needed to, I could go to the ER but had to tell them I was likely still COVID positive on a test… I didn’t want to endure that so I stayed home. The hope was my body would release the clots and that my tear was ultimately fixed.

Long story short, my body went into labor two days after beginning to bleed again. It appears my body was tricked into believing, due to the large amount of blood leaving my body, that it needed to dilate. Thus, sending my body into active labor. Having been in active labor twice before now, I knew at this point it was time to go to the hospital. Sparing details, the clots and bleeding changed significantly and it was clear something was happening. But, even still, though terrified and wailing from pain, I truly thought I would show up, get my contractions sedated, maybe stay over night to be monitored, and head home. A miscarriage was a slight fear but still nowhere on my realistic radar.

Unfortunately, when I walked into Labor and Delivery, I delivered my daughter right there as I tried to quickly check in. In my SCH case, I had to dilate too much to rid my body of the “bad” that it unfortunately got rid of the good, too. We got to spend time with our daughter in a private recovery room as long as we wanted. I also had to have blood tests and deliver the placenta, which thankfully came out on its own without surgery. I held my 13 week 3 day baby in my hands for hours, enjoying time and mourning our loss of her. I saw full hands, legs, feet, eyes, and a perfect tiny body made in the image of God. I knew I believed life began in the womb, but now more than ever I know what life in my tummy actually looks like. And it’s a baby. A full, tiny human.

I wanted to share my story, partly to connect with other mommies who have lost their child, partly to answer the questions you’ve had, and partly as part of my grieving process. I have spent the last 8 weeks dreaming of the day I got to share with all of you about Blakely and all the fun things that happened while in my first trimester. And, because I believe she is my daughter and her life was woven in my womb by the Lord, I want to still share about her and her story. Even though it hurts, even though I am still so sad and shocked, talking about my story and experience is healing.

I posted this in my stories yesterday, and it seemed to help so many of you understand your own grief and loss. So, I want it to live on here as well to help others as they navigate their own loss.

“The gap between an answered prayer and the way it unfolds sometimes will never fully be graspable on this side of Heaven. I believe Blakely was such an answered prayer. God shocked us with her just as I had asked Him to. Loss and heartache exist because we live in a broken world. My placenta and uterus came apart with no explanation other than that of I live in an imperfect body in an imperfect world. But I worship the Lord because I have seen Him in my answered prayers and I have seen Him in my mourning. And I know He always gets the final say, the final victory, and all the glory. I choose to worship Him, even when it hurts, because it’s all I know to do.”

Friend, if you have lost a baby, I am so sorry. I am so sorry you have experienced such depths of heartache. No mother should have to say goodbye to their child in a blanket in their lap at the hospital. No mother should have to bury their baby. No mother should have to choose what steps to take next for their now deceased child. These things are part of what God promises us will be no more in Heaven. No more hurt, tears, pain or loss. A perfect, renewed, restored body in a state of perfection. I so look forward to that day I enter into Heaven and see my sweet girl. I imagine she, like my boys, has bright blonde hair with subtle curls and big blue eyes. I long for the day to see her.

Thank you for loving our family through this time. We’ve found ourself in the midst of such grief thanking God for the amazing outpouring of kindness we’ve experienced these last few days. I also recognize how, even in the middle of losing Blakely, the Lord was so near. Our nurses were so kind. There was not a single bed for me and I begged them not to send me away, and they created a makeshift room for me in L&D. They soothed us, cared for us, and literally cried with us. When I left, I was truly hugged with sorrow, empathy, and compassion. I am forever grateful for them. They honored us and our loss, and most importantly honored my daughter as a LIFE.

Tips for a Better Quiet Time

Today I have teamed up with Luxe and Bloom for a special giveaway for a quiet time box I curated with them! I believe I am a better mom, wife, boss, and self every day because I spend time with the Lord, write out the things I am grateful for and praying for, and setting my thoughts straight. This quiet time box will hopefully help you do this, too.

Luxe and Bloom is a special curated collection of top notch items to create custom gift boxes for the special people in your life. This is such a great idea for birthdays or wedding parties! OR that friend who had a tough week. There are literally so many options to pick from, and they’re items worth your time. We are talking brands you find in Anthropologie, including my favorite Volcano Candle, Rifle Paper Co., and Sugarfina (to name a few!). You can curate a box [or pick from pre-made ones] and have it shipped directly to the recipient’s door. What a sweet surprise to give somebody you care about!

To enter the giveaway is SIMPLE:

  1. Follow this link to sign up for our emails!
  2. Follow me (@hannahmcmorrison and @shopluxeandbloom )
  3. Like and tag 2 friends on my post for giveaway in my IG feed!

3 Tips to Better Your Quiet Time

As a mommy and business owner, I often have to wake up at 5:30 or earlier to get in some “me time.” I am also most creative when it’s dark out and a cup of coffee in hand. However, I have also learned to listen to my body in this season of life and can easily sleep until 7 or later. Whatever you choose, though, setting a moment for you and God is key to a fulfilling quiet time. Here are 3 things I do to make it special, whether it’s an hour or just a quick 10 minute breather with the Lord before I take on my day. I cannot do anything without Him, and I never want to start my day thinking I can.

  1. Set a scene! I mean it. Light a candle, have a seat that’s YOUR seat for reading, make yourself a cup of coffee or tea, and take a few deep breaths before starting. Jesus made it possible to speak directly with God as our father, but He is still God. Approach Him with honor and expectancy in a space that was prepared for him. It doesn’t have to be extravagant by any means. It’s more so a reflection of where your heart is as you prepare to commune with the Lord.
  2. Ask the Lord to reveal something to you in today’s scripture that He wants to teach you. It’s crazy how the same scripture will hit me differently depending on the season of life. God’s word is breathed by Him and is alive, meaning it is constantly ministering and meeting people where they are at by the power of the Holy Spirit. It’s always relevant because God is always relevant and beyond the concept of time. Your Bible can impress on your heart whatever the Lord wants it to today – ask for Him to reveal it.
  3. Prayer/Thankfulness. The devil cannot defeat a thankful heart. I believe a grateful heart is the starting point for God to work. When we recognize all He has done for us and will do, He can work for us on our behalf. Likewise, bitterness and victimhood are where the Devil loves to simmer in and get you stuck. When we live in a state of mind that is “Whoa! Look what you’ve done and your mercy on me!” vs. “Woe is me, my life is a wreck and I am a sinner” … God can just do so much more. Yes, we are sinners. That’s why Jesus had to die for us. Never lose a reverence and gratitude for THAT. He defeated sin and death on the cross. Life is a joyous event – act like it. I write out every day what I feel thankful for, sometimes pages long. Then, I write my prayers – also sometimes pages long. But I want to make sure I, first and foremost, and God hear out of my mouth how much I see He has done. Then, my prayers and requests are spoken in faith. It’s like saying, “Wow look at all the things I just wrote out that you’ve done for. I am praying and asking in faith for these things to be more than I could have ever asked or imagined, too.

I hope this helps you enhance your time with God! AND, I hope you check out Luxe and Bloom for gift ideas!! Don’t forget to enter to win my box curated for a lucky winner – a winner is announced on Sunday.

xoxo, Hannah

5 Things I Did for Me

This year has been wild… We all know that. Both the world as a whole and in my personal world behind closed doors, everything as I knew it blew up in my face a year ago [almost to the day] and… Although I didn’t ask for it and it’s been quite painful, it’s also been the greatest thing that has ever happened to me, to be honest. This year, I took back my life in so many areas. I said NOT TODAY, SATAN and started doing things that brought me joy, and I pitched the things/commitments/relationships that didn’t. I Marie Condo-ed my life and it’s been awesome. Painful? Yes, of course. I won’t romanticize the work of pruning. But, the end result sure is lovely.

Below is a list of 5 things I have done for ME that made me feel like ME again. I brought back hobbies and parts of me that have died over the years, either from stress or just phase of life. But, not anymore. I am bringing back the best me, and here is how I did it!

Voice Lessons: YEP! I have been a singer quite literally my entire life. My family loves to tell stories of how I would put shows on without hesitation in the living room and make up songs. I was in the best choirs at my 5A high school, sang at church, sang the National Anthem for games at my school etc. Then, in short, anxiety took over my life after some fairly hurtful and traumatic situations in my young adult life. And with those, my gift became a source of deep anxiety. I didn’t sing for nearly 5 years when I graduated from high school. And though I have been a worship leader the last 5 years of my life, my anxiety and fears have always bubbled under the surface. So, I decided it was time to get me back! I have been taking lessons with a worship pastor who, quite honestly (whether she knows it or not) has been equally a voice coach as she has been a therapist to me. She literally has made me preach the lyrics of my songs to empower me to find my voice again. I have started writing songs again and feeling a freedom in my voice [both my singing and quite literally] that I haven’t felt in ages.

Counseling: I have always encouraged counseling and always will. I truly see counseling as integral to your overall physical and emotional health as healthy eating, working out, and friendships are.  Find somebody you love, respect, and who has a life (private and public) that you honor. I love my counselor so much. And even when I come in feeling GREAT with nothing particularly to talk about, I leave a better person because of my time with her. As a wife, boss, leader of a church, mom, and entrepreneur… I need a healthy space to get poured into spiritually, emotionally, and to speak into my businesses.

Audible Books: I just recently started to do this… and I am such a better person for it hehe. But, no seriously… my husband literally just told me this morning he feels like I am being goofier and more playful lately – Overall less stressed. I chalk it up to having a fiction book going all day and allowing that creative space of my mind to work and floruish. Any time I have dead space to fill and could start scrolling on IG or turn on the television, I have started to do an Audible. I also turn it on while driving or doing my house work. It’s just been so great for my mental health. I feel calmer, my spirit feels at ease, and I even feel more creative in my work from filling my headspace with less social media.

Break Rules – Have Fun: I am a 9 on the Enneagram with a very evenly split wing 1/8. If that sounds like a foreign language to you – basically, I feel a whole lot of feels and can be very commanding about those feelings and equally need a LOT of structure. In seasons of stress, I tend to tap into my wings heavily. I have found as I have gotten older that my spontaneity and love for fun has been overshadowed by a need for structure and rules. SO, I challenged myself to start breaking my rules to give my boys a better version of me. A little less structure (within reason) and a little more space for fun. This has looked like ice cream for dinner, a picnic on the ground of our new house without plates, staying up past bedtime for one extra episode of Knox’s favorite show, snuggling in my bed for cartoons before 10 AM…. I have a lot of rules, which isn’t a bad thing. BUT it has become something I cling to for security when my life feels chaotic. If God is supposed to be my only source of true security, though, I need to break the tie to rules where they need the breaking.

Work Out: I have shared about this on here before, but my Peloton is a daily dose of sanity for me. Hopping on for even a 20 minute ride is so good for my headspace. I am a better mommy, wife, and boss when I take the time to get a quick sweat in. I love my bike and truly think it’s worth every penny spent.

What hobbies or life commitments can you make to bring back YOU. Whether you’re a momma trying to carve out space to feel like you each day or a working lady juggling the office and friendships, we can all commit to doing 5 things for ourself that make us our best self!

Goodbye, 2020

A year ago, I sat down and wrote my end of the year blog post reflecting on the past decade as we were entering into 2020 in just a couple of days (here). So many incredible milestones had passed, and as I sat 2 months pregnant with my now 2nd son and knowing that our dream of church planting was a very real conversation unfolding, I knew so many more were yet to come. I sat with expectancy, but also a bit of unease. I could feel God was preparing me for a life-altering year, which I thought would be a, b, and c. The things I had planned on. The things I had discussed. The things I had written out a plan for in my imaginary timeline of events that fit ever so perfectly together.

I have been as open as possible throughout this year and that it’s been, well, difficult. I established this space of the Internet with the intent of teetering the line of “too honest” for the sake of unity and cultivating a space of vulnerability, and yet I have literally found myself in so many scenarios that I literally couldn’t share about. It’s been incredibly hard for me. Whether because it wasn’t honoring to or it was simply not my story to tell, or -like discovering Rory was a boy and not the little girl I had thought God told me I was having- some things have simply taken me a long time to process. Many pieces of our story from the last year will never be told, and I am okay with that. But, I mean, truly, from NYE/New Year’s Day of 2020 when I found out I was so very wrong about what I thought God had spoken to me about the baby in my tummy, all the way to even today as I sit writing… this year has been the year of disappointment. (Or so it has seemed.) Seemingly every detail of our life has been blown up in some way or another. I mean, like, heart wrenching, nauseating, slamming the steering wheel screaming, gasping for breath in between tears disappointment. I have faced grief-filled months of waking up anxious, certain something new would surely pop up that day to cause more disappointment, all within the same months a new baby came to my family who brought me more joy than I could ever imagine. Joy and heartache aren’t separate -they can very much live in the same space- but navigating both at the same time is awfully confusing.

As I sat in the NICU with Rory, alone because COVID restrictions wouldn’t allow for both Paul and I with our baby once I was released as a patient, I would sing worship for hours weeping over … everything. Literally, everything ha. God had told me to name Rory, Rory Liam, because it meant “Protector King. And that through my pregnancy I was going to gain trust in God as our Protector King. And then, as I sat in the most uncomfortable rocking chair surely not designed with postpartum moms recovering with a 2nd degree tear in mind, I would ask God, “You are sure you see what is happening… right? Because, I mean, this is starting to feel a bit cruel if you do. If you’re our Protector King why the $%#$^ am I sitting here in the NICU with my son after everything we’ve been through?” I remember leaving the house one day to see Rory, telling my parents how mad I was. “It’s not supposed to be this way!” I wept in the kitchen wanting to throw glass or plates or something that would show how down right angry I was, not only about my child who for some reason wasn’t breathing on his own correctly, but the way everything in our life seemed to be going. It was exhausting. I was exhausted. My spirit was exhausted. My faith was running thin. How can I keep being “a good Christian” when I feel so angry about how seemingly unfair life appears right now?

I literally am weeping all over again writing this, because oh my gosh I see the fruit on the other side of our hurt. But, y’all, I am here to tell you I have felt seemingly betrayed by God before. I know the feeling. I know what it feels like to think “WHY ME? THIS MUST BE A JOKE.” I am also here to tell you, friend, that He is always working. He is always working on your behalf. Ugh, I know. When you’re in the middle of the storm, hearing phrases like that feels so silly. “Oh sure, He’s working for me… How kind of him to do… absolutely nothing I can see for a glimpse of hope today.” Mhmmm, I can write it out in confidence now, because I am healed from that season. Although, hear me when I say that recovery is a longer process than the initial healing. When you get a sport’s injury, the bone may be healed after time in a cast and it may grow easier to share about what happened when people ask without wanting to burst into tears. However, the physical therapy to keep fixing what was damaged takes longer. Often times you get to play back in the game, but see the PT for a good taping before the game. Let’s say I am in the PT phase hehe. But I am no stranger to feeling hopeless and cynical. And I am sure some of you have felt that before, too. Others of you may even feel exactly like that today as you read. Come. Sit a bit longer. Let me pass a virtual cup of coffee across the computer screen to you and encourage you. In some of my darkest days of 2020, I read the story of David and Saul. David was a man after God’s heart who saw confusing, treacherous days in between the word spoken and the promise fulfilled for his life. And yet, in face of adversity, David always chose honor and to trust God. It was like ointment on my wounds every day when I read what David did, and I saw the same fruit David received in our own life so tangibly every time we exchanged curses for blessing . With every ounce possible within us, we’ve fought to bless the spaces the devil has fought so hard to crush. When the pain and confusion of 2020 didn’t stop -with every new lockdown, every new personal trial, every new unknown that knocked on our door holding hands with our unwelcome friend, Heartache- I clung to the story of David.

When slander and lies came our way, God blessed us so abundantly in other areas of our life.

When we ached to have our baby boy home, He worked miracle after miracle inside the NICU for Rory.

When people we loved walked away, He blessed us ten-fold.

When we stepped out in faith over and over and over toward what we knew was for us, He blessed every step more than we could have asked, hoped or imagined.

God is so sweet. It has somehow worked out that in 2020, in the midst of such pain and confusion, I also experienced the nearness of God in ways I have never known in such a way until this year in desperate need. I have never needed to deeply know God the warrior like I did this year. I have never needed to know God the fierce protector like I did this year. And, it made me fall more in love with my God than I ever have before. This year, though I hope for one never again quite like it, I can say I am better for it. I can say my marriage is better for it. I can say my family has clearer vision for it.

If you are still in the thick of asking God if He sees what’s happening… I get it. Allow yourself to feel that. Allow yourself to be angry. BUT, surround yourself with people who see the good with you and for you when you don’t have the eyes for it. And, stay in scripture. If we don’t remind ourselves of truth consistently about God’s character… then it can be really easy to rewrite a narrative about it that is straight from the lips of the Devil. When Rory turned blue in my arms for the third time and had to be resuscitated, I so desperately wanted to throw a fist up to God. Peace out, man. You’ve clearly left us.

Community and scripture didn’t let me.

Renew your mind daily in truth. Water it, even in the middle of a drought. You gotta keep it fresh. And then, as you know I probably was going here… You will see how good it was. YEP. The sucky things of 2020… it’s for your good. God didn’t design crappy things to happen (don’t get that twisted). Sin in a broken world welcomed crappy things into God’s perfect design. But, God is the only thing or person capable of making crappy, good. I know it is true for you, too. I pray you can see it. I pray you can know it.

I am charging into 2021 with excitement. Not only because I want the heck out of 2020 (hehe) but also because I feel equipped. I feel prepared. I see the mountains ahead for us to climb and I can’t WAIT to do it. I truly believe more is to come that I could have ever dreamt, but it wouldn’t be appreciated if I hadn’t tiptoed on the floor of hell and back this year. You know what I mean?

So, friend. I see you. I see you exhausted after the insanity EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US faced this year. Literally, every single one of us. But man, I hope you can see the fruit of the struggle. I know I am grateful for it. Happy New Year, friend. I am believing the best is yet to come for you, too.

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