summer crazies

Ok, brief updates: Jess is done with boards! whoopee! This is just round 1 of 4,... but it's good to have these ones behind us. He should get results soon. He's back in Denver again now, for a 2 week long 3rd year orientation course.

And yes, we are still buying a house. slowly. very, very, slowly. blah.... Our closing is set for a week from today, but I'm not confident that it will stay there. It sure does seem difficult to get people to do their jobs! Lord willing though, we'll be able to move in when Jess gets back from his class at the end of the month. We have all of our furniture and pain colors picked out,... we just need a house to put them in!

Jess had one week off last week and we went camping up on the Grand Mesa while he was home. It was so nice to get up into the mountains! The dogs had a blast chasing chipmunks to their heart's content, and Lola made it the whole 11 mile Crag's Crest hike! She was a rock star. Here are some pictures:

And my favorite picture from the whole trip:

I definitely still feel the absence of Jude when we go out and do things like this, but it doesn't usually cause the same intense pain that it used to. I think I'm learning to be content with the blessings that I have in the here and now. 

Hopefully new house pictures will be coming soon! 

Blessings on you and thanks for reading!

Dear Grief,

Let's just clear the air.

Your seemingly random appearances without so much as a pre-visit phone call are really starting to get old.

It's one thing if you give fair warning of your impending visits. Totally another however, when you show up without even giving me enough warning to clear the clutter from the coffee table of my mind.

Simply rude.

Please call ahead from now on.

Sincerely,

Mom Body

"Mom body" is a touchy subject; I know. It means different things to different people. And even different things to the same people at different times in their lives.

I've seen several blogs lately on the subject of having to transition to a "mom body" without the baby that usually goes with it. I've been thinking alot about blogging on the subject, and whether or not it is glorifying to do so, but I think it's valuable to share my experience.

Everyone's experience with loss is different. I know that for many women, body image issues are not even on their radar after a loss. Maybe it makes me shallow, but immediately after having Jude I wanted to lose the pounds I'd put on, and have my old body back. I didn't want to look like I'd just had a baby, unless I had the baby to show for it. I've never hugely struggled with my body image. There are things I don't like about myself, of course, but I work hard to be healthy, and for the most part that's always been good enough for me.

Not after I had Jude though. I wanted to be healthy,... but more than that I wanted to be skinny.

It took me a few months to start losing the weight. It helped that I had no appetite for quite some time. But even when I started losing, and have continued to lose, and now weigh less than I have in years,... I still struggled. I don't like my body.

I think I can finally admit that it has very little to do with how my body looks,... and alot to do with the fact that my body couldn't save Jude. It couldn't help him thrive. It couldn't even keep him alive. Different women  have varying responses to it, but the sense of betrayal felt seems to be fairly universal.

I DO have a "mom body." My body has carried a child,... it just couldn't carry him long enough.

I can't begin to express how difficult it is to share your body with your growing child. GIVE your body to your child, really; only to see him emerge from it breathless. It causes me to mistrust and dislike this vessel I've been given. It causes me to want to change it into something different than it is. Something better than it is.


The Bible has alot to say about our bodies:


Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. 1 Corinthians 6:19-20


So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. Genesis 1:27


For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:10


I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. Psalm 139:14


I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Romans 12:1


These are just a few of many verses about our earthly bodies, and the view we should have on them. I will likely struggle to view my body as a beautiful temple of the Holy Spirit for the rest of my days on this earth. But this following passage gives me so much hope. Hope for a future in Heaven, not only for me, but for Jude!



I declare to you, brothers and sisters, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory.”

 “Where, O death, is your victory?
    Where, O death, is your sting?”

 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labor in the Lord is not in vain.
1 Corinthians 15:50-58

I can't wait for my new body; and to see Jude in his. Untouched by pain and death. They will be so much better than this!