Reminders

This has been a tough year for the Alexander household.  I love being home now but it's not easy.  It's been very hard getting used to having less income.  Sometimes I feel so ashamed that I can't buy for Ansley the way other parents do.  I have to work hard and save hard to sometimes even get the most basic things.  I don't own a credit card so there is no easy fix in my situation.  It's tough telling her sometimes that we can't do something or can't have something.  I tell myself that being home, where I still feel like God wants me to be, is better for her.  She gets a Mom who can drop everything and go on field trips with her, I can go to every awards day, I am there to pick her up in the evenings...we get to spend so much more time together.  I know within my heart that this is the better thing for her.  However, knowing something is right doesn't make it easy by any means.  When she grows up, I hope she doesn't remember that we might not could have afforded the best of everything, I hope she remembers she has a Mommy that thought time with her was  more important than any amount of money. 

Then there has been the loss of the two babies.  If God had allowed us to keep the first baby, I would have that baby in my arms today.  I would have had a Csection within the last few days and we would be falling in love with a tiny, sweet infant.  Our family would be complete but that was not God's plan for us.  Nor was it the plan for us the second time I got pregnant this year.  It may never be God's plan for us.  I know God's plans are so much better than mine.  I really do only want his will for my life but it's hard getting to the point to where you give it all to him.  It's hard making myself realize that another baby may never be God's plan for us.  It's not only hard on me..it's hard on Jeremy, it's hard on my sweet Ansley, it's hard on my friends and family.

So it's been a tough year all around but God has been there every step of the way, guiding me, sustaining me.  He has been my rock and my deliverer.  My heart has been so broken.  It has felt broke beyond repair but God has healed it.  He has replaced my sorrow with joy, my tears with laughter.  God has always been and will always be so good!

This morning I took Ansley to school.  If you are in south Mississippi today you know it's a dreary looking day.  The sky looked black on the way to school.  It had started to rain some on us.  I thought to myself, "What an ugly looking day."  So as I'm looking at the sky, Ansley shouts, "Momma!  Look! Look!," and she points to the East.  I turned my head and saw the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen in my life.  You couldn't actually see the sun but you could see the beauty it produced.  The eastern horizon was the most beautiful shade of orange I have ever seen.  The beams from the sun broke through the clouds and lit the sky up like nothing else I have ever seen.  Ansley and I just stared at the beauty of it. I dropped Ansley off at school and rushed back to that spot because I had every intention of pulling over and enjoying the beauty God had given me this morning but it was gone.  No more orange.

God speaks to me in so many ways.  It may not be an audible voice but there are times when he speaks so clearly to the depths of my soul that I can understand every word he is saying.  Sometimes it is through a scripture.  The Holy Spirit opens my eyes to God's word in a way that I never understood it before.  Sometimes it's just through prayer.  Other times it's through my child's innocent childlike faith.  At other times, it's through a friend.  God speaks to me all the time as long as I have my heart tuned to him, as long as I'm looking for him, as long as I take the time to recognize his voice.  This morning God spoke to me through that sunrise.

That sunrise this morning was a beautiful picture of my God.  My path has felt so dark and dreary this year just like the sky this morning was dark and dreary.  There seemed no end to the darkness.  Just when I thought I was coming out of one storm, I was plunged into the depths of another one, but God has been with me all the way.  I could not see God just like I could not see the actual sun this morning but I saw the results of him.  I saw him in my husband, in my child, in my friends.  I felt him with me every step of the way.  I seen the beauty of the sun this morning without actually seeing the sun just like I see the beauty of His SON without actually seeing Him.

The sunrise also reminded me that even through the storms of my life there is always a beautiful sunrise waiting.  I just have to give God time to work in me and through me.  I have to give him everything and allow him to pick up the wreckage from the storm and allow him to put it back together.  The pieces never go back the way they started.  The pieces are cracked and there seems to be holes in them sometimes but that's when I allow God to fill me up with all that he is.  He gives me new pieces to fill in the holes and he seals the cracks back together with his love...if I just allow it.  It requires me having complete, absolute faith in him.  It means giving up everything...my worries, my fears, my doubts...everything that robs me of the healing God so desperately wants to give me.  It means dieing to myself day after day, moment after moment, but if I trust, God will replace my sorrow with beauty.  He will take away my tears and give me laughter.  He heals my soul by molding the pieces into the woman he created me to be.

Though this journey has been so hard, it's not over with yet.  Until God allows me to meet him in glory it will never be over.  There will be constant pain and healing.  I will be broken time after time but God will ALWAYS be there to put back the pieces together.  Praise God that he gives us reminders of his goodness and his grace.  The sunrise this morning reminded me of exactly that.  God is so good....so very, very good.  I wish I didn't have to go through all the hurt I have been through this year.  I wish I had my sweet baby in my arms today.  However, I have needed this journey.  I needed to see that above all God is what is most important.  Everything and everybody will let you down. God NEVER does.  Our lives may not be what we thought they would be and we may endure things beyond what we think we are capable of enduring.  The path may seem so dark, but if we allow God to remind us of his will, of his plan, of his grace, of his mercy, our souls will be filled with a peace and a joy that cannot be explained in words.  Our lives will be shaped in a way that is producing an eternal glory that CANNOT be taken away.  We will see the hurts as a blessing and praise God for what he is doing and how he is working.  I praise my Father for reminding me this morning through a sunrise that he is still working and that he hasn't left me.  His beauty is all around me.  All I had to do was open my eyes and heart to see it.