November 28th- Two Years Later

God has an amazing way of redeeming things, and He is redeeming our story down to the smallest details.  His goodness and faithfulness have been so obvious over the past two years, and November 28th, 2013 was the ultimate example.

Thomas died two years ago on November 28th. This year, November 28th was Thanksgiving day, and we were able to bring our precious Turner and Emmaline home from the hospital!  Last time we left the hospital empty handed, and this time we left with our hearts and hands full to overflowing.   We did stop by the cemetery on the way home so the babies could visit their big brother.

I never in a million years would have guessed that this was the plan for us.  Even the details of the timing are just too much to take in. My heart is so full with gratitude to God for Turner and Emmaline that it might burst.  They are such a joy.  Each time I wake up and see them in their little bassinets I just have to pinch myself.  We have TWO babies at home! It is truly more than we could have asked or imagined.

"We tend, however, to divide our past into good things to remember with gratitude and painful things to accept or forget.  This way of thinking, which at first glance seems quite natural, prevents us from allowing our whole past to be the source from which we live our future.  It locks us into a self-involved focus on our gain or comfort.  It becomes a way to categorize, and in a way, control.  Such an outlook becomes another attempt to avoid facing our suffering.  Once we accept this division, we develop a mentality in which we hope to collect more good memories than bad memories, more things to be glad about than things to be resentful about, more things to celebrate than to complain about.  Gratitude in its deepest sense means to live life as a gift to be received thankfully.  And true gratitude embraces all of life: the good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, the holy and the not-so-holy.  We do this because we become aware of God's life, God's presence in the middle of all that happens."
(Henri Nouwen, Turn my Mourning into Dancing)

"For in our suffering, not apart from it, Jesus enters our sadness, takes us by the hand, pulls us gently to stand, and invites us to dance.  We find the way to pray, as the psalmist did, "You have turned my mourning into dancing" (Psalm 30:11), because at the center of our grief we find the grace of God. "(Henri Nouwen, Turn my Mourning into Dancing)