Little Gifts

This has been a long week... a week filled with a roller coaster of emotions, less sleep than normal, and a lot of energy needed to just feel "normal." I've had moments where I have just been so angry I can't stand it, and other moments where God's peace was just so incredibly real.

A few things have happened this week that have encouraged my heart, and I am so greateful that God has brought these people, whom I have never met in real life, across my path.

On Friday, I received an e-mail from someone who has been reading this blog. She very tragically lost her son when he was five years old. I couldn't even imagine. With her permission, I have included part of her e-mail to me. I love her candor and I love what God is doing in her heart...

So after hearing your plans and that you guys were very faithful in your beliefs, being agnostic at best, I was angry at you for being so stupid and blind to your reality. And for weeks now my son has come to me in dreams, come up in conversations, and is everywhere. Now granted I feel him a lot, but it’s like he was trying to tell me something. So I sat and thought about him, thought about you and how crazy you were to subject yourself to my reality, and it came to me all at once. I cherish every single moment I shared with my son. EVERY single moment, no matter how small, from wiping snot off his nose to him squeezing me and telling me I’m the best mom in the world. And I began to cry…for me and my son, then I fell apart for days and I still do for you and Isaac. There is no way I’d change anything, even if I knew the outcome in advance, I’d do it all the same, just for those precious moments with him, and now I see you are no different. You have no idea how you’ve impacted me. Your story, and your son, what a precious gift he is to you, and to me and I’m sure there are many, many people out there who’ve already been touched by him. I know I’ve not thought much about God since my son died. It’s hard to feel compassion and love for someone who took your child from you. However my rational thought believes he was here to teach me lessons and left when they were over, or perhaps he was here to touch my heart and teach me lessons upon his death, which ever way it was supposed to go it’s worked. I’m a completely different person since he’s gone. All for the better I know. I decided his death wouldn’t be in vain and made some huge changes. Everything about him was such a blessing to me, and continues to be so. I had no idea how strong I was until that day. I had no idea how strong he was either. What an angel. You are so strong and have such faith in God and your little boy. I love you for it. I love your Isaac for God’s presence in my life again.

After reading this I just wept. I wept for this woman's heartache and her brokeness. I wept for my heartache and my brokeness. And I wept tears of pride as a mother who's son is already impacting lives for eternity. What a gift.

I received another e-mail from another woman whom I have never met who has also been reading this blog. She said,

So, I say all that to say this. I WILL BE HERE FOR YOU, each day, as you take this journey. Whatever you need that is in my power to give, it is yours. I lift you up numerous times a day, and will continue to do so in the coming months.

I will be faithful to post to your blogs (by the way, you will break my heart daily with your letters to Isaac - they are beautiful) and to email you so that you never feel completely alone.

I will hold you and Spencer and Isaac close to my heart. I will tell my little one about how brave you and your little boy are. Isaac's legacy begins now.

Your testimony is shining brightly, Stacy. I am blessed to be standing in the shadows around you, holding you up.

This woman's faithfulness to God, to prayer, and to encouraging me is such a gift.

Today is Spencer's birthday, and we're going out later with some friends to celebrate his last years in his twenties with a good old Maryland-style crab feast. It feels almost wrong to be celebrating in some ways, but I don't think that's God's heart about it. I know that there can be joy in the midst of sorrow, and today (well, every day) I am so thankful for my husband... for his courage, his sense of humor, his determination, his authenticity, and the way that he loves God, loves me, and loves our little Isaac so completely. If you don't know him, you should :) He is a gift to anyone who knows him.

Thank you for your ongoing prayers for Spencer and I, and for Isaac. They mean more to us than you could know.