Holy hurt....

It has been a really tough emotional week for me. 

I'm beginning to see that I'm not going to ever fully get over losing Princess Petunia. We're moving on and doing life of course, but theres still a little hole in my heart. I see pictures of her and have just these moments of utter sadness. Sometimes I cry, but mostly it's just somber quiet reflection. I know in my head and have been told by countless people that she needed more than we could give her at this point in our lives. Even her SW told us the night PP left that she would have had to answer to her supervisor had she not moved Princess Petunia away from our other children. My mind knows all these things, and I know that I probably would have given the same counsel to a friend. My mind knows but my heart...oh my mommy heart just is having the hardest time accepting it. My mommy heart cries for this precious little girl,who for a season was my precious little girl.  

I wasn't ready to say good-bye.

God brought all the hurt and pain and anger over losing her back to the surface this past Monday night during a Lifeline GPS meeting. Jared and I were watching this role play of a little girl being taken from her family and placed into foster care and then later having to be moved to another foster family for much the same reason PP had to leave us. I was watching my life being acted out right in front of me. I didn't realize until that moment that I was (am) still carrying a whole lot of junk around. I've just buried the emotions, or tried to bury the emotions thinking that they are just too great to handle.

But God is greater. 

Jared reminds me constantly that God knew how this all would go down before He brought Princess Petunia to our door that night. He knew the day, the hour that she'd leave us. He knows how her story is going to end. He wanted her with us for those 5 months, no more, no less. He loved her through us for that season of her life and is now working in her life in other ways through another momma. 

Perhaps Princess Petunia was with us to birth a greater desire to share the gospel with these hurting children just as Dora & Diego are with us to birth a greater desire to share the gospel with these hurting moms & dads. We have these sweet faces that will be forever etched in our memories to fuel our passion for His glory to be known. It doesn't erase this hurt, but it does give the hurt a holy purpose.  

too much...

'Standing on a road I didn't plan
Wondering how I got to where I am
I'm trying to hear that still small voice
I'm trying to hear above the noise

How many times have you heard me cry out

"God please take this"?

How many times have you given me strength to

Just keep breathing?

Oh I need you

God, I need you now.'

I love to vacuum. No, truly I do. Its one of the few times in my day when I can completely shut off all the noise in our crazy house. Its amazing. I just press that green button and instantly, theres no fussing, no screaming, no "MOMMY!", just blissful white noise. 

I do some of my best thinking and praying while I'm vacuuming. This afternoon after lunch was a good time to vacuum. This afternoon life just seemed so very big. Much too big for me. There's just too much. Too much of everything. Too much school, too much homework (seriously, what do they do all day?), too much cleaning, too many diapers, too many spankings and timeouts, too many valentines (I loathe valentine's day btw, truly despise it, but that's another blog for another day.), too much laundry, too many dirty dishes, too many visits, too many meetings, too much drama, too many decisions, etc. I was running the list in my head of all that we have going on in our family and it was beyond overwhelming.

I am all too easily taken in by all the 'stuff' we have going on in our lives right now. I all too easily let myself stress over how I'm going to get this or that done or how I'm going to handle this little problem over here or how I'm going to order my day so that we all stay sane. Thats so not what this is about. My life's purpose is to make Him known. 

What if He keeps us in this place to show us that He is bigger, that He is our wisdom and our strength and our patience. What if He brings us to the point of brokenness to show us that He is our healer and our comfort and our joy. What if all this utter madness is 'to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us?'