Covered in Joy

My Sweet Paige Abigail, I can’t believe you’ve already been snug in our Savior’s arms for a whole year already. Time sure does fly. But I thank God daily for the gift of you! Even though I wonder all the time about what your sweet smile would’ve looked like right now, a year later, whether or not you would’ve had your momma’s dimples, what your precious little voice would have sounded like and what your first words would’ve been, along with so many other daydreams, I choose to focus instead on all the blessings that you have brought to my life. When we named you Paige, knowing it meant “young servant,” I couldn’t wait to teach you how to be a servant of the Lord. Little did I know that you’d be the one teaching me how to be a better servant of His. Although we are on different sides of eternity for right now, you, my sweet daughter, have already helped God teach me so much in this first year of loving you from afar, and I am forever grateful for that. Thank you for making me a...

Broken but beautiful. If someone had asked me how I was doing almost a year ago right after Paige went home to Jesus, I can honestly say that my answer would have simply been that it all felt “broken.” But God has patiently and faithfully shown me how to reorient my heart and look at this journey as yes, broken, but also beautiful. He is showing me how to take captive lies buried in the grief that try to creep into my heart. He is showing me how to replace those lies with His unshakable truth. He is showing me that even though there is so much that is broken around me, He is still good, faithful and loving. And because of His perfect love, even in the brokenness there is beauty. Paige was my first child. When we left the hospital without her, I didn’t go home and snuggle my other babes extra close, cherishing their smiles and beating hearts a little extra. My husband and I went home to a quiet house. Along with grieving my daughter’s absence from my arms, I was also grieving my ...

“Do you have kids?” The days when that was a “simple” question to answer seem so long ago. “No, no kids yet,” was the easy answer right after my husband, Brendan, and I got married. “Not yet, but hopefully soon,” was the anxious but hopeful answer while we were waiting for God to bless us with a child. “Our first is on the way,” was the answer full of excitement and dreams coming true once we finally found out that we were expecting. Now, that question holds more emotion than I ever knew possible. “Yes, I have one precious daughter… she was born into the arms of Jesus.” This is my answer, my story, now. Paige Abigail was, and always will be, our first child. She is the beautiful blessing that made me a mom and us a family of three. Her story, our story, is not the one that we would have chosen for ourselves, but it is the one that God has entrusted us with, and one that I am honored to tell. Being a mother has been my dream ever since I can remember. It wasn't long afte...