Arms Open to God

In the last week and a half I have had a roller coaster of emotions. After the surgery I knew that I was not going to have anymore children but it didn't hit. The full realization of what that meant had not touched me. In fact, the first time I showed any emtions to it is was when I was waiting for my blood to be drawn. I thought I was going back upstairs at 3. At 3:30 we found out that they first had to draw my blood and wait for the test to come back. That could take an hour. I was thinking "I have already missed so much of my child's life and now because someone is not doing their job I will miss even more of it." I didn't want to miss a single minute of her life.

The next time I really felt anything was Sunday night. We had a packed day of visitors and as I sat there and breastfed my beautiful daughter in my very quiet room I just started to cry. I began to tell her how desperetaly I loved her. I told her how very special she was to both her Daddy and myself. And then I told her that her daddy and I would always lover her, no matter what. She could not do anything to hurt that love. I let her know that just because we knew she would be our only biological child does not meant that she had any special obligations or expectations to live up to. Tony walked in on my crying.

After we let our last visitors go for the night tony and I took Addilece to the nursery and came back to talk. We poured out our sorrow to God and to each other. We held each other as we shed deep tears of saddness.

Tony and I will never know why God let this happen. We know we live in a sinful world and our bodies suffar from that sin. This is just part of that. We don't think God "caused" this. We know he could of stopped it but that wasn't his plan or will. God took our lives and chaged them drastically within a few hours.

My instincts tell me to take my daughter and hold very close, as close as I can get her. I want to protect her from everything. I want to make sure we pour all our time and energy in to her. But as Tony and I talked we both realized that doing that will not bring about the best results for our daughter. We want her to become a Godly woman, and raising her that way will probably not bring that about. We also realized that God has given her to us temporarly and as a gift. I asked Tony, "If God decided to take her tommorrow could we let her go?" Both of realized that we did not ever want to give her up, but that if God asked for her back then we had to give her back. As Tony and I prayed that night he said "God wether she is ours for 18 years or 5 minutes, we want to raise her your way."

That night Tony and I took our arms and offered our daughter back to God. I hope that God grants us the 18 years. I know that if he doesn't, that he will give me the grace to get through it. I know that he has wrapped his arms around her and is hold her close to him. In God's grace and protection is the safest place for Addilece. Tony and I can not protect her the way our Heavenly Father can.

Tony and I will be offically giving Addilece back to the Lord on August 31st. We will be doing this in front our church for accountability and encouragement. Part of me is screaming that this is a stupid idea. I keep thinking "do you realize what you are committing to? Do you know you are giving God the ability to take her away?" I have to remind myself that God can choose to take her wether I do this or not. My attitude towards it will make the difference in how I raise her and my ability to cope with it.

We have also realized that we will daily need to remind ourselves of this. I know I'm going to draw lines with God. "You can have her here, but there is no way I am giving her up here." We know that we need an accountablity system. We are praying that God will develop a network of people to help us stay on the Godly track of raising our daughter.

While in the hospital we had a friend come in who has struggled with her son for many monthes. Her and her husband have dealt with many things since the begining of their marriage. She gave me a set of notecards to write Bible verses on. She also included some of the most meaningful ones to her. Here is one of those verses:

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. wait on the Lord; he of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the Lord!

Psalm 27: 13-14