Because God Came Down

 Do you think there's a Christmas day in heaven?  I've been thinking about Lynda's first Christmas in heaven and it seems to me that the only people who mark one day as Christmas are those of us who live down here on earth.  We celebrate the birth of Jesus and how God became human and was born in a manger....all so He could be the living sacrifice on the cross for our sins.

Why would there be a Christmas day in heaven?  I know that our purpose for living is to worship and glorify God.  In heaven there is no day.  There is no night.  Eternity stretches forever and as the old hymn says "when we've been there ten thousand years bright shining as the sun....we've no less days to sing God's praise than when we've first begun." I have no way of knowing (but Lynda does).

We will continue to celebrate the birth of Jesus on December 25th and will worship and adore Him.  We will read the old, old story about our savior being born to Mary and Joseph and how shepherds followed the star to meet the new king.  I will still think of it as Lynda's first Christmas in heaven.

But the truth of the matter is more awesome than we can wrap our minds around.  My sweet Lynda who has never been able to ask a question or speak more than a few words is now perfect and whole.  She is able to recognize and know all who are in heaven and can sit at the feet of Jesus and listen to him tell the stories she's never heard.  She can dance and sing and praise God.  She can hug her Daddy and can talk to her angels who have cared for her almost 42 years on earth.

All of this is possible because God sent His son to earth for us.  Because God Himself walked among humans knowing that one day He would die on a cross for the world's sins.  No sin of His own.  Just ours.  The ornament shows the Christmas story where Mary and Joseph obeyed God and held God Himself in their human arms.

I look at that ornament this Christmas and think about my baby being in heaven with THE baby that changed the world and rules the universe.  It takes my breath away.  What a gift heaven is with God forever and forever.

Merry Christmas, Lynda. 

Merry Christmas!


 

Can You Believe It is December?

Today is December 2nd and it just doesn't seem possible that it could be December already.  It doesn't seem like it has been four months since Lynda left her earthly home for her eternal home in heaven.  I look at this picture of Kevin and Lynda together and it just confirms the fact that time moves too fast.

This was Christmas 1981.  Lynda was ten years old and home for Christmas holidays from Millcreek.  Kevin was two.  They made quite a tag team.  Lynda's stroke was January 21st just a few weeks after she had been home for Christmas.

Today Kevin is married to Nicole and they live in Olive Branch.  They have two children....a little boy named Mason who is almost nine and a little girl named Graysen who will celebrate her fifth birthday today. 

My Little Angel Dressed in White

This was Lynda's first Christmas with us in 1975.  She had just turned four.  She looked like a little angel in her white dress and that blond hair.  I'm looking at this picture right before I go to sleep.  I would so love to dream about Lynda tonight.  Before she died I used to dream of her often and she was always able to speak.

I dream of seeing Lynda again one day for real.  In heaven.  Right now I would just love to see her in my dreams.  Thinking about Lynda at least helps me to fall asleep sometimes.  I'm sure when I do dream about her it will be a total surprise.

I have a granddaughter, Morgan who will be turning four this January.  It's just hard to wrap my mind around the fact that Lynda would have been 42 this September.  Equally difficult to grasp is that we have six grandchildren that are around the ages that Lynda came to live with us.  Of course I look at them and memories of Lynda at that age are sure to follow. 

Thank you Lord for Meghan, Morgan, Mason, Graysen, Kaden and Karson.  Thank you that they are healthy, happy and loved.

Give Thanks With a Thankful Heart

 It's the season of giving thanks and of spending time with family.  I was thinking about where all of the family is scattered across the United States now.  With a blended family the scheduling gets even more complicated.

As Russ and I were driving back from supper last night, I was thinking about the upcoming birthdays of the grandchildren and our children when they were young.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks.  That's why grief is so tricky.  I think I'm handling my emotions pretty well but four months hasn't allowed enough time to live through my first Thanksgiving without Lynda or the first Christmas.

The holidays were one of the first things I thought of after Lynda died.  What I had NOT thought about until tonight on our way home was that no matter how many times we try to get all of our grown children and their families together, we will never be able to have everyone home at the same time.  We won't have any more family pictures made that include Lynda and for some reason I'd never thought of that until tonight.

Just about everyone has experienced the loss of someone they love.  Grief doesn't follow a pattern or a chart.  It's not always the obvious that will bring us to our knees.  I think this is one of the reasons that it's difficult for men to understand what a woman is going through with the loss of a child.  I think it's equally as hard for a woman to really understand the type of grief a man experiences.  It may also be the reason that some people don't understand why the thought of a family picture never including your oldest child again would be a big deal when you had just left the cemetery where she is buried.

I don't have the answers.  I think for me pictures have been such an important part of my saying good-bye to Lynda.  I relived every memory that I could using those precious photo memory prompts. From the first day I met her until the last.  It isn't a one time journey through my Lynda memories.  I will visit there time and time again.

My mind wanders to Lynda growing up, the age she was when Kevin was born and Lynda a year after Kris was born...so many special moments in our lives.  I try to steer away from the memories of the trials that she survived because they are so hard to remember.  Yet, they are part of her life.  Those memories of the injustices she endured helped up celebrate all of the kindness in her world...and there was an abundance of good. 

Russ and I took mother to Cracker Barrel for Thanksgiving lunch today.  At 11:30 there was a two hour wait.  We went to Ryan's and moved through the lines like fish in a barrel.  It was what I needed though.  Mother kept saying that she had bought everything to cook for Thanksgiving but I couldn't explain to her the feeling of claustrophobia that I would have had sitting at the same table that has two empty chairs now---my Daddy's and Lynda's.  She would tap on the table and he would say "service.  Lynda wants service".  LOL  They made a great team.  I know that they are together this Thanksgiving in heaven with Larry and his parents, all of Daddy's siblings and parents....it's a good thing God has a really big table.

I don't have to even wonder where my heart is.  It has always been with Lynda and it always will be.  God makes mothers with hearts that can grow to include any number of children and at the same time break when one is gone.   She will forever live in my heart and when she went to heaven she took a piece of my heart with her.  My heart won't be really complete until I see Jesus, wrap my arms around Lynda and our hearts are touching again.  For the promise that this is not just a dream but the reality that Jesus died for....I have a heart of thanksgiving today.

Greetings From Heaven

I just got off the phone with my mother about Thanksgiving.  She wants to cook and I want to go to Cracker Barrel.  She's 90 but I win. 

She was telling me about the "latest Lynda story".  While she was rereading the blog entry I wrote about Lynda and Grandmother, a John Denver song came on and it was one of Lynda's favorites. 

Mother said she felt like Lynda was trying to tell her something and she felt like Lynda was with her the rest of the day and the next.

That's the incredible thing about miracles...big and small.  If you realize one when you experience it you find they are all around.  Our God is in the smallest details of our lives.  Just as I believe He spoke to Lynda and provided comfort to her through the Holy Spirit and angels when she was on earth....I also know that He sends us little whispers of our loved ones after they are safe in His arms. 

Everywhere I look I see God and everywhere I look I'm reminded of Lynda.  My mother has never believed that these occurrences were anything but coincidences until the one magnolia blossom appeared on the tree after Lynda died.  Now she's open to the possibility....the possibility that these are not coincidences at all. 

Life Was So Different

                                                                                                 

                                                                                                                                                                                 Last November, I had spent the summer taking care of my mother and quite honestly there were several times that I didn't expect her to make it.  She came home from the hospital in August, just a few days before Russ and I started back to school.  She had home health care nurses but she was still walking with a walker and we weren't really sure if I would be teaching the year or not. 

Lynda's Daddy, Larry had struggled from the first of February when he suffered a fall and was taken to the emergency room and found to have pneumonia.  His health was already poor and he had congestive heart failure and diabetes but he had lost a lot of weight in the months prior and had been feeling better.  By early June, his health has spiraled down and he passed away the Sunday before Father's Day.

Never once did I think about Lynda being sick because she had been in good health for the years prior.  My mother celebrated her 90th birthday on February 1st of this year and I poured myself into trying to teach my class.  If you've been following Lynda's blog, you know the rest of the story of how Lynda joined Larry in heaven 14 months after he left this world at age 69.  

There aren't many days that I don't think of Larry especially since Lynda died.  There were so many things I would have liked to ask him if he remembered since he and I shared some of the memories of Lynda's early years that no one else did.  And then there's Christmas and the memories of him singing the Messiah in his beautiful tenor voice.  For his mother as long as she lived, he went home to Florence to sing Oh, Holy Night at her church.  Yet, after his death among hundreds of recordings he had we could not find a single recording of him singing Oh, Holy Night.  It doesn't matter because I can still hear him singing it just as I can hear Lynda saying " Nana, huh?" in her sweet little voice.  So  Christmas 2012 was a bittersweet one.  Mother was spending the holidays with us and for that we were thankful but she, Russ and I all missed Larry who had always been a part of our Christmas even after he and I were no longer married.  

Kris wasn't able to come home for Christmas because he had come home during spring break.  That trip was the last time he saw his Dad alive.  God is so good.  We skyped with Kristopher Christmas morning but I missed him since it had been two years since I'd seen him.   I worried about mother and I was just exhausted so I took presents out to Lynda at NMRC earlier but I didn't get her to bring her home.  I was so worried that it was going to be mother's last Christmas with me that I kept thinking, I'll spend time with Lynda later.  I think I slept almost all of Christmas break from shear exhaustion.  Oh, how I wish this Christmas was last Christmas.  Life was so different this time last year. 

 So different. 

Now for almost four months I've wondered what I was going to do this Christmas.  Again I am exhausted.  I've always shopped for Lynda as I see things I think she'd like so I already have pink flannel snowman sheets for her bed and a new Christmas sweater hanging in our winter clothes closet.  I have loved Christmas since I was a little girl...the lights, the magic of the season and the traditions.  Christmas has a completely different meaning this year.  I'm skipping most of Christmas.  Thankfully we will be able to spend time with Russ's son Kelly who lives just miles from us.  I'm giving up the expectations of it being a Christmas that I can just turn off my longing to see all of my children during the season--the son in Olive Branch, the son in Denver, the step-daughter in Lake Charles and the daughter who is now in heaven.  I don't want to remember how it was and I don't know if my heart is strong enough to go through the holiday as if everything is normal.  Where I've always had a Christmas book since the children were little with what they wanted for Christmas, what Santa brought and a million other details that made our hectic house run smoothly on Christmas morning--it won't be that kind of a Christmas this year.  Every year in the beginning of my "Christmas Book", I write about the changes in our lives during the time since last Christmas.  The new babies born, the new home locations, what happened during the year that was important.  Some Christmas Eves, we get out all of the Christmas books and take a long walk through memory lane.  It is a rich experience and one that is sometimes hard to look back at Christmas 1999 which was my Daddy's last Christmas or read the entry I made last Christmas about Larry.  There are pictures of the grands as they were added to the family and a documentation of our lives throughout the year. Being so close to the end of the year and the beginning of a new one it's just natural to use Christmas as a marker of the end of another year and the promise of a brand new year a week later.  I've made the decision to sit out a lot of the things that usually are a part of Christmas.  There are several Christmas songs I will turn off of the radio the second they begin.  I'm going to take the season one day at a time and reflect on the things that are most important.  I choose joy. 

I've given myself permission to lower the expectations of doing everything like I've always done them Christmas after Christmas.  I've given this a lot of thought in the days and months since Lynda died and I've made a choice to celebrate the birth of Jesus.  I've decided to really celebrate what the birth of this baby means to me this year in a more personal way than ever before.  This is Lynda's first Christmas in HEAVEN!  It's her first Christmas celebrating with JESUS!  While she is listening to the angel choirs worship our Heavenly Father I cannot even begin to imagine the scene.  While I have always been thankful that Jesus left heaven and came to earth to be born as a human baby and lived and died for my sins, this year this age old story repeated each December is even more personal.  My Lynda is there with Jesus and how can I be sad when she is in paradise? 

  I have a choice and I choose joy.  Joy for the big picture.  Joy that doesn't mean tears won't occasionally fall.  Memories aren't all we have now because we have a hope that transcends all of the sadness and draws our eyes to heaven. Thinking about my sweet Lynda being in heaven this Christmas aware of everything going on around her makes me want to fall to my knees and thank God over and over for sending His precious son to die for mankind.  I read the Bible story we have heard so many times before with a new thirst to try to comprehend the love He has for us and I know this Christmas is going to be a special one.  It isn't going to be like all the others.  It will be a quiet kind of meditation instead of the hectic pace of the mall searching for gifts for people who have everything. 

I will probably miss a lot of gatherings because my emotions aren't reliable and will twist my heart into a knot without a second's notice.  I'm not trying to hurry it up to get it over with or skip it altogether (although I did give some thought to the idea), instead I want to begin some new traditions.  I may pull out the box of ornaments that cradle the precious ornaments Lynda made as a child or were given to her by someone special in her life.  I may buy a few more angel ornaments this year than the snowmen I bought last year.  I'll spend more time taking angels off the angel trees to give back to someone who needs help this year because helping others will fill some of the emptiness that Lynda left in my heart.  Mostly I think I'll spend time dreaming of what Christmases to come will be like when I too am able to celebrate in heaven with Jesus and will be reunited with Lynda.

This Christmas will be different than any I've ever had because I now have a child in heaven.  And since I've never experienced this before I have no idea exactly what to expect.  I just know that this will be an unscripted time with no deadlines or expectations that I've put on myself.  I will be walking totally by faith with my eyes toward heaven and ever diligently looking for God's miracles of grace and mercy along the way.

Thanks for the support

We feel very blessed to be able to tell Lynda's story to viewers from around the world.  We encourage you to leave comments and email us to tell us about your special needs child.  We've met several of you already.  In about a week, Lynda will have been in paradise for four months.  She will be celebrating her first Christmas in heaven and we our first Christmas without her.

Since one of the hardest parts of losing a loved one is the fear that she will be forgotten....you all have helped us in our grief process during the past months and hope you will continue to follow Lynda's blog.