Janie

Today is Janie's birthday.

She would be 9 years old today.

Today, just to test myself on the Grief Scale, I clicked on the button at the top of my blog, just under that beautiful picture, and read her story.

And I felt the all-too-familiar welling up of the tornado of grief. I felt my breathing become fast and I felt those sobbing tears coming.

Still, even after 9 years and countless moments of life.

I miss her so much today.  I look at Sara and Kellie and I think how well she would fit into their group.  They'd be like the Three Muskateers.  They'd be so close and there would be another sister to laugh with and be silly with and whisper and giggle late at night with.

I would have held her.  I'd have kissed her too much.  I would have gotten to see her face when she discovered something new in her toddling ways.  I'd have gotten to put ponytails in her hair and get her up in the morning and have snuggle time.

But I didn't get to do any of that.  And right now, she doesn't need it.

For my Jane, there will never be tears.  She will never know heartbreak or grief or fear. She won't have to jump through any hoops in this earthly life.  She'll never know disappointment or sadness.  She's staring at the Author of Peace and Joy and Contentment.  She gets to walk with Him and talk with Him daily.  

She isn't lonely.  She has mansions filled with other children to play with and sing with and laugh with.  The mansion that is mine that the Lord is preparing for me is full of her siblings.

She's safe.

She'll never know a day of darkness.  She stands before the Light of the World.

You know, looking back to those terrible, intense days after she died, I remember how my heart was shrieking and crying and screaming and I remember distinctly telling my husband I didn't want to have any more babies.  That time began my fears and my anxieties with pregnancies.  There was nothing my husband or anyone else could do to get me to get pregnant again.  I can be stubborn, and I was totally done.

I think back and I feel how determined I was not to have any more kids. Remember, I was totally done.  

I remember that God came and in His gentle, determined way, He changed my heart.  It's odd that I can remember the sharp, cutting pain of the grief, but I can't remember when my heart was changed.

I do remember that if I had stayed that course that I was on in my own will, Sofia would not be here.  Lucie wouldn't even be a thought.  Pennie and Olivia wouldn't have been in my womb together at all. I think about that, and a cold shaft of fear, like ice water, courses through my veins.  If I had taken matters into my own hands, all of the blessing and joy and happiness that I see now, resulting from Janie's death, would not be.

They wouldn't be.

Yes, I would not have had 4 miscarriages and another stillborn baby.  Yes, that's true.  But I wouldn't be so fulfilled and so wrung out and so much more grown up and so much more careful about listening for the Lord and trying to daily lose my will to His will!

I know now that grief and sorrow and the killing agony of loss is intertwined with the process of a colorful, meaningful life.  Of course, I never want to go through all of that again, but I know that, as I live and breathe on this earth, as I continue to give my heart fully to the Lord, I know that that is a possibility still, if God wills it again.

The Lord told me in those weeks leading up to her death and her birth that I was going to have to trust Him.  How right He was! He told me that she would bless and change many lives.

And as I listen to the quiet, blissful breathing of my children in their beds, and I think about Sofia and Lucie and Pennie, my heart wells up within me and I think......

Thank You, Father, for the blessing that was Janie!

Though I miss you, Janie Rose, 

and though I want you here,

I'll see you soon, when He calls my name.

Give my babies a kiss for me,

but don't wait up.

Love Mama