Logan Wolfram

Enjoying Life for Dessert

What’s Cooking?! Blue Ridge Black Bean Salad/Salsa

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It’s been awhile since I’ve shared a stand out recipe and this one just screams summer to me!

We were at my parent’s lakehouse this past weekend for Memorial Day and we ate the heck out of this super yummy and ridiculously healthy salad/salsa stuff.  It is so good you could eat it straight from the bowl.  It’s also awesome for a really fast dinner salad to toss over some greens with your meat of choice.  I have made it as a side to grilled chicken too, but my favorite way is to eat this stuff loaded up on a tortilla chip.

Both of my kids love it and I’m loving that they’ll eat all of this healthy jumble of goodness.  My plan is to keep it around this summer as much as I can make it!  It makes a monsterous amount, so try buying a couple of mason jars and give some to a friend if you don’t think your family will eat all of it.  Who wouldn’t love you for that?!

Here you go friends.

Blue Ridge Black Bean Salad

from the Junior League of Roanoke, VA.

Lime Vinaigrette

  • 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
  • 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • 2 teaspoons ground cumin
  • red pepper to taste
  • salt and black pepper to taste

Salad

  • 2 or 3 (16 oz) cans black beans, drained, rinsed
  • 1 (11 oz) can white shoe peg corn, drained (yellow corn may also be used)
  • 1 to 2 cups cooked brown rice (I had a stroke of genius today and saved time using an Uncle Ben’s 90 sec brown rice bag.)
  • 2 (14 oz) cans diced tomatoes
  • 1 each green, red and yellow bell pepper, chopped
  • 1 small purple onion, chopped
  • 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

For the vinaigrette, combine the lime juice, vinegar, olive oil, cumin and red pepper in a bowl and whisk to mix well.  Whisk in salt and black pepper to taste.

For the salad, combine the beans, corn, rice, undrained tomatoes, bell peppers, onion, and cilantro in a large bowl and mix well.  Add the vinaigrette and toss to mix. Chill, covered, in the refrigerator for up to several days. Serves 10-12.

Bon Appetit and Ole!

Filed Under: Eat

Just Stop Screaming!

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I had a really mature moment yesterday.  So mature in fact, that I thought I’d share with all of you equally mature people out there who also happen to be raising our future generation.

Let me set the scene.

Birthday party at the Children’s Museum.  We arrived late and thus playtime was cut in half.  Loads of sugar and blue icing….everywhere.  Not enough time, so… birthday boy didn’t get to open presents in front of kids.  (My oldest’s love language is gifts…no present-opening in front of him equals devastation when he isn’t able to see how the recipient liked his gift.  Been that way for years.)

On the way home in 5 o’clock traffic…kids bickering.  Then more bickering.  Then I misunderstand my 2-year-old who apparently wants to show me his Children’s Museum wristband….incorrectly though, I hear “take it off Mommy.”  NOT what he said.  More devastation.

More traffic.

More screaming.

“Boys, seriously….inside voices. Be nice.  Stop hitting.  W, just give your brother the toy.  For real, just give it to him. I don’t care if you had it first…he’s 2 and won’t stop crying.  Help me out here bud.  Please….both of you…enough yelling!”

More screaming and crying.  Still arguing.  Storm clouds looming….traffic standing still.

Then….

“STOP SCREAMING!!!!  I’M GOING CRAZY!  SERIOUSLY….JUST STOP SCREAMING!!!!”

“WAAAAAAAA!!!!” (from both kids.)  “Mommy you scared me. Why did you just scream at us like that?!  Booohoooohooo.”

Then….more crying.

So…I did the mature thing then since I’m almost 34 and all.  I turned up the music and “put another dime in the jukebox baby” along to Joan Jett.

Sometimes, I really, really do “Love Rock ‘N Roll.”

Jesus…save my kids from my mistakes please?!!  Heaven knows we’ve got a counseling bill coming our way one day!

Friends…. tell me I’m not the only one who’s walking in this level of maturity on occasion?!  When was the last time you dropped the awesome on your kids like this?!

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Dog Days….of Summer, and of Life!

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So, It’s been AGES since I’ve written here.  Sorry about that.  I have loads of things to share too….our amazing trip to Mexico, a funny story about how the Arbys lady (who looked like Granny Klampett) tried to save me at the gas pump, pictures of my almost done laundry room and newly painted living room.  Seriously…life has been full here lately and I just haven’t made the time to write.  It takes time you know, and the time I’ve spent lately has been trying to keep my life in order as we gear up for summer and learn to live again after the past few weird months.

Honestly, I feel like I lost the first quarter of this year.  Sick for 3 months and then losing Fisher…and then 3 more weeks of super sick from 2 D&C’s and then other complications….ugh.  Glad it’s past….it’s the future that I have no idea about now.

I have been writing weekly though…even if it hasn’t been here.  On Mondays I write devotions for Allume, and if you’re curious, then you can check out what I wrote today HERE.

My firstborn turned 6 recently and he just graduated from K5.  The cap and gown thing still cracks me up, but the program they did was adorable.  I shed a tear….or 7.

Oh, and in other exciting news….remember that amazing dress I LOVED last summer from Anthropologie?  Well, I found it for less than 1/2 of original price on ebay last week in my size and I bought it!  Oh my words….I LOVE it!  I think it’s a sign when you dream about a dress for an entire year that you should definitely buy it!

I’m going to make concerted effort to get back into the swing of things here now that life is getting sorted out.  I have a few amazing product discoveries from the past few months that I can’t wait to share with you too.  Good stuff coming…for the blog, and for my life.  I’m sure of it!  And in the meantime, I realized that I never did post pictures of my little man’s 2nd birthday party which was in JANUARY.

It was a dog theme, so I broke out my ever useful astroturf as a tablecloth, snagged a few dog bowls at random stores, and made some cake pops that made me want to poke out my eye.  Seriously…just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.  Those things were a pain in the tookis and I will only be making cake pops ever again for my kids birthdays….if even then!

The pics are great…thanks to my freaking awesome photographer friend Kim who stopped by to snap a few shots for me to commemorate all my hard work.  And yes, you’ll see lots of pictures of the PITA cake pops (and by pita….I don’t mean chip.  I mean “pain in the….”

Glad to be back friends. I hope you missed me and will start stopping by again!

 

Set Your Spirit Free…

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“I like to be a free spirit. Some don’t like that, but that’s the way I am.” – Princess Diana

“To be true to myself, to be the person that was on the inside of me, and not play games. That’s what I’m trying to do mostly in whole world…” – Janice Joplin

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Last week, I went to get my hair cut and colored. After almost a month of things in my life spiraling beyond my control, this was something I could actually change. My hair. Just my hair.

I called Sarah Mae on my way to the appointment to tell her my hair plans and shared my heart about something the Lord has been teaching me for about 6 months now. She condensed our conversation down really well in a video she posted on her blog HERE the other day.

I’m not a stranger to chunky highlights or a little funky color, but I tell you what, my hairdresser would not do what I wanted her to do last week. She knew I’ve been in sort of a crisis lately, and she didn’t want me to do something I’d regret. I get it, I really do…but once in awhile, we really do just want to let go of the constraints holding us back don’t we? Crisis or not.

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To read the rest of this post, hop on over to Allume where I’m sharing today!

More Than Just Houdini…

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I love the circus. I’ve loved it since I was a kid. There’s something mesmerizing about the blend of all the colors, the lights, the performers. Something almost magical about it.

As I’ve gotten older though, the circus has held a new fascination for me. The “tricks” I saw the performers do as a kid, make my stomach drop now. The trapeze artists swinging high above the ground without a net, the guy on that crazy weighted cylinder thingy that I swear is going to get going too fast and he’s going to smash into the floor of the arena, the woman hanging from her teeth 40 feet in the air. The death defying stuff scares the daylights out of me. What if they really fall…what if the tiger really bites the guy…what if they really don’t defy death and they die right there?

That would pretty much end my days of circus-going.

To read the rest of this post, hope on over to the Allume Blog where I’m posting today!

Anesthesia….

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So, while I wouldn’t in a million years choose to have the procedure I’ve done TWICE in the past week, you have to admit that any time there’s anesthesia or pain medication involved, there is a chance for ridiculousness.

Yesterday was no exception.

First, Mike and the other nurse anesthetist (whose name I can’t remember,) came in to give me something to “help me relax and sleep” since my procedure was delayed a few hours because of surgical schedules getting backed up throughout the day.  They probably should have asked me the medical questions they needed to know BEFORE they dosed me the relaxing juice.  But nope…they mixed that little cocktail right into my IV and then started asking about family history, medications I was taking, etc.  I think my eyes crossed and I could hear myself slurring my words.  Mike looks at the other guy about 5 questions in and says “You already gave it to her didn’t you?!”  I felt myself laugh like an idiot.  I’m pretty sure I sounded like Beavis and Butthead.

My husband told me that when I was coming out of anesthesia and the nurse came to get him, she “warned him” that I was awfully “weepy as well as a bit combatative.”  Nice…basically I was crying and being a jerk.

I think last week, I was just weepy…

One time under anesthesia I told the nurse that she was so beautiful she should be a model.  I asked Jeremy later if she was as gorgeous as I repeatedly told her and he said “yeah…not really.” HA!  Well, at least I had nice words to say and wasn’t combatative that time.

When I was a teenager and got my wisdom teeth out, I cried again and almost punched the doctor because they gave me pink kleenexes instead of white ones.

The worst of all though was a few years ago when I had carpal tunnel surgery.

I remember that the first time I went in for a consultation, I noticed that the doctor was an attractive fella.  Apparently though when I had the surgery and was all nice and anesthetized, I told him so.  In fact, I told him he was “hot.”  Really hot. Like, really, really, really hot.  Repeatedly.  In front of my husband….who later told me that it reached a point of complete embarrassment.  I was so mortified later that I never went back for my post op appointment.  My pinky finger is still a little strange feeling to this day.

Ahhh…memories.  At least even in the midst of feeling bad and still pretty loopy, there are things to still laugh about.

So what about you?  Ever done or said anything really ridiculous under anesthesia or pain meds?  Do share…I’m in bed recovering all day and could use a laugh or twenty!

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If I had superpowers, today I’d do this stuff…

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I’ve had to be in bed way too many hours lately, and my creative bone is being forced to rest way more than seems natural.  I’ve been all over the web looking for super fun things to do with my kids this week since it’s spring break.  Of course, they’re now at my mom’s for a couple of days so that I can have surgery again today.  Indulge me while I show you (and provide links) to a few things I’d hoped to do this week that are creatively awesome!

Easter Egg Cupcakes via CupcakeProject.com

Yes…these are cupcakes made in REAL egg shells!  And can I tell you how badly I wanted to make them this week?!  For the love….this is the most incredible Easter treat ever (next to a Cadbury cream egg of course!)  I’ll never forget when I was a kid getting what appeared to be a plain white hard-boiled egg in my Easter basket.  When I began to peel it though, inside the egg, injected in some super secret and amazing way, was chocolate!  That egg was solid chocolate…or solid gold…depending upon how you look at it!  So when i saw these cupcakes…imagine my delight.  Cake…in an egg.  Just plain awesome!

Or how about this happy little face shining up at you?!  Listen, I’m still not sure what the bunny has to do with Jesus’ Resurrection, but I think once I heard it’s some pagan nod to fertility or something.  Whatever irrelevance it has with the holiday is beyond me, but I’m not gonna stress about the bunny and why he matters.  He really doesn’t…but still, it’d be SO FUN to make this!  I mean, if I were staying at the Hilton Doubletree (which is where this picture originated) and they brought this to my kids on Easter morning, I can’t say with certainty that I wouldn’t ask for them to take my plain short stack back and amp it up a little…bring me back a bunny face too!

 

 

Or look what else I found. It’s no bunny…but still, a toasty brown bear is pretty stinking adorable!

I also had great intentions to let my kids paint some old frames and pop this awesome printable into them.  If you check out Willow of Wonder, she’s made this free printable available in other colors.

Pretty great huh?  I had plans to decorate my Easter table around them with some other flowers and random knick knacks.  Check out this cutie little floral arrangement I happened upon!  The site this is from was what appears to be a pretty phenomenally beautiful wedding. I wish I could have gone to it, but alas, I have no idea who Adrienne and Daniel are.  I think we’d be friends though.

Photo Credit...Adrienne and Daniel's awesome looking wedding

This year, it looks like the reality of 2 folders of tax documents sitting in the middle of the dining room table will take center stage after all.  In 2013 though, I will have our Easter Egg Hunt again, and do a fabulous tablescape.   I will make cupcakes in egg shells with my kids, and bunny pancakes several times! For now, all dreaming aside, I must deal with reality, which isn’t nearly so pretty and cheery.  Even superman had cryptonite…we just can’t do everything all the time!  But if I could…wouldn’t all of these things be so much fun?!

Wish I could hug all of your necks!  Please pray for me today as I do have to go through another D&C around lunchtime.  Thanks friends!  Get out and do something fun today…for your kids…for you…for me!

 

Detour…

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I know I’m on a long road to recovery right now, but seems that I’m in for a bit of a do-over…a detour.

To spare you the gory details, the short story is that my body hasn’t exactly cooperated since my D&C.  I now have a uterine infection, and I have to go in for another D&C tomorrow.  To say “this sucks” is sort of the understatement of the day…or week…or maybe even so far this year.

You think you’re headed one way…hopefully this time back in the right direction…but then, you realize this road isn’t actually what you were thinking.  Re-route.

And while this do-over alone is really just straight-up crappy, I thought I’d share a few additionally crappy things.  Not just to bitch and moan about it, but because I think it’s maybe helpful to know that even though for most of you this will all be over as soon as I stop writing about it (and realistically long before that,) there are things about a loss that creep into other parts of life that you just don’t think about til you walk it.  In an effort to a) be honest about where I am right now, and b) clue people in who really truly want to know how to help…here are a few more thoughts.

Look out…I’m about to go stream of consciousness on you again.

First off, we may not be able to afford the family vacation to Montana this summer that we’d taken off of the calendar because I was gonna be too pregnant, put back on the calendar when we lost Fisher, and now may have to take off again.  Two rounds of anesthesia and 2 rounds of the same awful procedure and hours in the hospital are going to put a dent in our wallet.  Go figure…they actually want you to pay for this stuff?!  And while I’m telling you how bad that stinks, I’m gonna risk really pissing a few people off by saying that I think it sucks that my tax dollars have to go to fund someone’s chosen abortion, but my own same tax dollars don’t cover the SAME FREAKING PROCEDURE that I have to do out of medical necessity.  Instead, we just have to sacrifice our family vacation this summer, and that bites.  This is NOT how I planned my parenthood people!

And because some of you are too sweet to publically ask or have had to google the procedure (and several have emailed to ask) what a D&C is, here’s a bit of an explanation.  The procedure that I actually had last Tuesday is called a D&E…dilation and evacuation.  It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  The wikipedia link even says that it’s the “2nd trimester method of abortion”, which is especially awful for this pro-lifer who wanted both of my children who have been subjected to this procedure.

It’s NOT the way that God designed for my baby to come out of my body.  It feels disrespectful and harsh, and while I know for myself and many others, it’s medically necessary, it’s still a really hard procedure to reconcile doing to someone I love.  And while I’m being honest, I just want to say to all of the people out there who in the name of “pro-life” stand on the street corner holding signs with graphic images of “this is what your aborted baby looks like”…you hurt people who would never choose this procedure with your heartless imagery.  And for friends of mine who have had abortions and were wrecked by them and it’s a part of their beautiful redemptive stories now too… you hurt them too.  What you’re holding up is awful.  Have you ever thought of that?!  And by the way…the next time I see one of you holding one of those…I’m stopping my car and I’m grabbing your stupid evil-looking sign, and I’m gonna tell you how mean you’re being.  Rethink it. That’s what I have to say about that.

And just so you know, tomorrow I’m actually having a D&C…dilation and curettage which is different.  More people know what a D&C is though (which is why I originally used that terminology) because it’s a more commonly done procedure than the D&E which is what I had to do first go round.  I hope that helps in case you were wondering.

And here are a few other things that are hard.

I read one time that when a person is grieving, people shower you with love and cards and sympathies for about 2 weeks.  A few super-sympathetic stragglers and close friends will still ask how you’re doing in the 3-6 week span.  But by 6 weeks, your pain has all but been forgotten by the rest of the world.

It’s true.  It’s not a judgement…I know I do it too.  We don’t mean to, but life gets busy and time passes and we often forget to ask “I know this was the first Christmas without your mom, how are you doing?” or “It’s labor day weekend, Fisher was suppossed to be born this weekend…are you ok?”  or “It’s mother’s day and you’ve been trying to get pregnant for 3 years…how can I love on you today?”  Truth is…we forget.  And for those feeling forgotten…it is just hard.  Our lives are forever altered…and noone seems to notice.

I can’t even try to get pregnant again for 3 months after this procedure.  Add a miracle of immediate conception to that and a 9 month gestational period, and I’m still not even having another baby for at least a year.  Months after when I thought I’d be holding a little one.  I’m almost 34…and while in the whole grand scheme, that’s young…I’ve been pregnant 6 times and have 2 kids here with me.  I want one more baby, and then I want to take my body off of this yo-yo physically exhausting train known as pregnancy.  I’m fat, I’m skinny, I fatten up again, I lose a baby and have to work it off, I’m fat again…then I have a baby and I’m still fatter than I want to be for 4 months (ok…let’s be honest…for a year or more.)  My hormones are up and down and all-a-freaking-round and I’m ready to be done.  My family isn’t finished, and while we’ve always wanted to adopt and eventually probably will…I want to KNOW when I’m nursing my last baby.  I want to know the way it feels for them to practically break your rib when they kick so hard in utero again…I want to know when I’m done and celebrate each tiny last moment.

It’ll be hard at the next baby dedication at church.  It was hard in the OB office today where I could hear a baby’s heartbeat on the doppler from out in the hall.  It’ll be hard when some of my friends have babies at the same time I was supposed to have Fisher.  I’ll still be wholeheartedly happy and thrilled for them, but going to their baby showers will be hard.

I saw a friend’s 20 wk 3-D ultrasound picture yesterday on her facebook…and I cried.  I want one of those.  I was supposed to have one of those.

I was supposed to be on a fun trip with my kids this week…traveling to DC and Pennsylvania, and then to New Jersey to see my sister and new baby nephew.  We were going to visit friends along the way, and see the monuments in DC that my 5-year-old learned about in school.  My kids were going to meet their cousin for the first time.  And then when that got all messed up and we lost a son and my boys lost a brother, we changed our plans.  Detour…let’s still make spring break this week not suck.  Let’s go a couple of hours away and visit my parents and our friends who will be in town from Montana for a few days.  Let’s have a couple of friends over here for Easter Sunday lunch and have a mini-party because I love to host things and it’ll feel more normal and Easter is the best reason of all to have a party!  Let’s get to feeling better because Monday is my sweet husband’s birthday.  Let’s pick out the good things coming up and focus on those.

I’m trying here.  I really am.  It’s that stupid game of 2 steps forward and one step back.  It’s maddening and unfair and f@#&ed up.  This isn’t the way it was supposed to be!  Not just for me….for humanity….for all of you…all of us. UGH!

I am the devotion writer for Allume, a christian women’s conference and community, and I tell you what…it’s been hard to write devotions lately!  But I have to be honest and say, that in all of this mess…the Lord is showing me SO much.  And because I started writing about it with you all here, and because I need to come up with something spiritually profound to say every Monday, the Lord has been forcing the issue of my processing.  I’m seeing more at a rate that seems faster than normal.  I’m digging deeper than I ever have before.   And it’s been hard, but it’s been SO good too.  So I’ve been processing more of the raw here…because it’s my space to do that….but the Lord has given me some seriously good nuggets that I’ve posted over at Allume the past couple of weeks.  HERE is the link to those if you’re curious.

And also…don’t worry that this space is going to become a long-standing, grief and healing driven space.  It’s not.  That’s not me…to muse about the same junk for ages on end until you and I are both sick of my own life!  With all this time in bed, I’ve been having a blast on Pinterest.  So if you want to know that my creative juices are still flowing, and the entertainer in me is still there…pop over and follow me for fun in that place.  Pinterest is oozing with life!  I’m pinning recipes and crafts and home decor that I’m itching to implement as soon as I start to feel better.  The really fun, crazy, crafty, silly me is still here….she’s just scratching through this mess to get back into the sunshine to keep LIVING!

So much love and gratitude to all of you for reading, listening, and encouraging.  You all rock…seriously.  You are full of awesome!

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Red Rover….Hope floats again…

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My dear, dear friend brought me this figurine yesterday.  It’s beautiful isn’t it?  More beautiful is that she’s had it for several years because a friend gave it to her after she’d lost her first baby.  She shared with me yesterday that the Lord told her, as soon as I called her Wednesday with our news, that she was to pass this on to me.

This morning when I woke up and turned the lamp on by my bed, this was the first thing I saw.

And I feel it somehow today too.

I can’t explain it, because it doesn’t make sense…but I know where it’s coming from.

The Lord has blanketed us in love over the past week.  I have been blown away by the love and prayers we’ve received from dear friends and from people we don’t even know.  We have gotten cards, and flowers, and so many emails of encouragement.  Friends are bringing meals and sweet gifts for me to remember Fisher.  Even the nurse at the hospital yesterday gave me a pair of hand knit baby booties, and a soft teddy bear with a bracelet spelling out his name. I have cried every time I look at them, and at 33, I’m not too old to sleep with a teddy bear either.  There has been something oddly comforting about holding this stuffed animal bearing our sweet son’s name.

All to say, we have felt so loved.  So thank you all. Thank you for the comments, the notes, the tweets, the facebook messages, the random drop bys, the meals, the flowers….thank you for loving us so well.  Thank you for praying for us and showing us the love of Father.  We have felt it all. (And to whomever sent me the anonymous sunflowers from ProFlowers.com today…oh my words…thank you so much sweet friend.)

Someone wrote to me the other day and said that together with the saints, I’d be lifted up in prayer.   I wasn’t going through this alone. I have been looking and looking to find the scripture for this, and the Lord has given me Ephesians 3:17-19.

So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

It has been through your faithful encouragement and intercession on our behalf that I am constantly reminded of the breadth and length and height and depth of the Father’s love that surpasses knowledge.  Thank you a million times friends.  Please don’t stop praying just yet…this road isn’t done for me, but with your encouragements and prayers, I’m amazingly already journeying on a healing pathway.

The Lord gave me a picture this morning of me standing in a field and I thought I was alone.  Then the viewpoint panned outwards and I realized that there was an army of people standing in front of me all holding hands playing Red Rover.  There were lines and lines of  you standing in front of me and as I stood at the back by myself (with my family,) I realized that as the enemy dared to run towards me, it was the army of you all and your prayers for me that deflected him.

I found this picture this morning and I really loved it.  I love the image, and it’s the one I have right now of you all in front of me.  An impenetrable wall of faith and prayer and love.

From the bottom of my heart….truly, thank you.  Your shielding provides such a margin for hope restored.  I am overwhelmed.

In my ideal world, I SO wish I could email each one of you back to thank you for your words, for sympathizing, and for sharing your own pains with me.  I am so thankful that the Lord can use us, even in our depths, to bring encouragement and a sense of community to one another.  So many of you emailed me and said “I’m so glad to know I’m not alone.”  You’re not alone, my friends.  And if you need to know that even more than just I share in your pain, have a look through the comment section from my Raw post the other day.  You will be amazed to see the droves of dear friends who have been willing to share their own stories.  We are not alone….not at all.

 *Red Rover photo credit: Demotivationalblog.com

Raw…Life Unedited

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I think I’ve crossed over into some realm of really truly being a blogger….because right now I need to be raw and write, and I need you to read it.  Somehow, someday, all I about to say will make sense….but right now it doesn’t.

Today I found out at my 16 week ultrasound that our baby, Fisher, died a couple of weeks ago.

And you know what I’m thinking this time?  It’s not profound like with the last one.  It’s really more like…

What the hell?!

This is my 4th….FOURTH baby to lose.  And it’s the second one that’s made it through the first trimester.  Our first one was 11 wks 6 days, our second was 6 weeks, the third was probably 4-5 weeks, and this one measured 15 wks.  I have to have another D & C too.

And you know how I feel right now?  Pissed.  Seriously God….what is up with that?

So if you’ll all indulge me…here are the things I want to say to God right now.

Really?!  Seriously?!  We’re here again?  I mean, I know you’re good…I know it….but what the hell?!  Honestly…I don’t know how it was that after 3 previous losses I never worried this time.  How,  after we found out on Christmas day when I heard you whisper to me “Get up and take a pregnancy test,”  and how you told me this baby would be a “fisher of men” and said to name him Fisher….HOW did this happen?  WHY did you LET this happen again?

Have I not proven myself faithful enough having walked through 3 others gracefully?!  Has my faith to not worry any of these subsequent pregnancies not been enough?  Has the ministry and heart I have had for women ever since I lost the first one not been profound enough?  Do we really have to go to this sucky well again?  Do I really have to have a D & C again?  Isn’t there a different thing you can work to redeem in my life?!  Do we have to keep redeeming the same awfulness?

And when I had to tell my son tonight…the wails God….the loss of a brother.  He felt it all.  He knew what it meant and he asked “why did this happen?”  And all i could say was “I don’t understand either.”  Because you know what God….I don’t.  And I’m angry.

I know you’re the giver of good gifts…and I have 2 of those good gifts sleeping just down the hall…but you have 4 others of mine there with you.  I know this world isn’t anything when they can have heaven…but can we stop with the tease of life to come?!  I know these lives are yours to begin with…but if you’re gonna give life…then intervene for it why don’t you?!  You didn’t do this…I know you didn’t because you don’t kill…the enemy does….but you allowed it, and I don’t understand that.

And you know what else…my f***ing clothes don’t fit either.  And I puked my brains out for 6 weeks.  And now my closet is full of maternity clothes I don’t get to wear…and now I have to go back through all of those bins that I just put away and give my friend, Melissa, all of her cute clothes back because this belly isn’t going to swell with life this summer afterall.  So now I’m fat and for nothing.  FOR NOTHING!

What are you doing here God?  I know there’s shelter under your wing…but is there a freaking leak between your feathers or something, because it’s raining on me Lord….it’s raining.  I know you’re good…and i know you’re faithful…and i know you’re trustworthy….but you know what, I don’t want to have a cup of coffee with you right now.  I want to drop kick you in the face God.  I don’t want to dine at your table, or sit in your shade….because to me right now…there’s a hole in your umbrella and I’m baking here….baking.

And you know what else…life today…it’s not like dessert.  It’s like someone took a big fat dump in my cornflakes…and I have to eat every last bite of it.  And it tastes awful.

Lord….I know your ways are higher…and I won’t understand this til I’m in heaven sitting at your feet and holding all of these babies myself….but you know what…for now, I just don’t get it.  I’m angry, and I’m broken, and I’m using incorrect punctuation because I don’t even give a crap.  i just need to say what I need to say and not edit.  This is life…unedited.

So friends, here’s what you need to know about me right now. I’m raw. And I’m broken.  And I don’t have any good answer, nor am I asking you to come up with one either.  So please don’t say things like “this may be better, because what if something was wrong with it?”  Or don’t say “He never gives you more than you can handle.”  Or don’t tell me about how maybe if I hadn’t lost this one that I might not have had the chance to meet a next one.  Because for all we really know, the Lord could be sending us the same kid over and over again and the enemy is afraid because it’s heavenly destiny is so huge he can’t stand the thought of it making it here.

I said to my friend Sarah Mae today that I don’t know why the Lord would tell me this baby would be a “fisher of men” if he’d never be alive to meet any and her wise and comforting words were that Fisher can still touch people even if he’s not here.  He’s a part of me and our family…and somehow I ask the Lord to use this, to use him, to use our family and me to fulfill the destiny that he won’t live out here on earth.

And in the midst of my tears and anger and cuss-fest….I have to believe that that’s just what He’ll do.