When we Fall!

                There I was going about life, perfectly happy in my own little bubble I might add, when out of nowhere, the Frisbee came and literally knocked my feet out from under me. I must admit, in the beginning, I wasn’t sure I could move a single part of body or even attempt to get up off the ground and keep moving forward. Keeping my head buried into the ground and fading away into the darkness somehow seemed like the easiest thing to do; what else are you supposed to do when a nurse has just looked at you and told you your 37 week old baby has no heartbeat? My entire body went numb and I began to  shake uncontrollably.

This was a moment I never saw coming, and I had no clue how to pick up the pieces of my body that were beginning to crumble faster than I could even take in  was happening in my life. My world was changing. I will never forget leaving the hospital after I had my baby. I had left this very same hospital with two of my other children, and yet this was so drastically different. There was no baby in my arms as the nurse rolled my wheelchair to the car.

The excitement and nervousness of driving home for the first time with the new baby was gone. I stared out the window into the dark sky that night. I remember looking high into the sky and praying to God. “Where do I go from here?” As I walked into my house that night, I walked into a new life; a life without my daughter, and a life learning to  move on.

I remember thinking that night as I sat on my bed holding Bethany's hospital blanket and crying, it’s not how we fall, it's how we get back up. I have said this SO many times before, and yet NOW it was time to see if I really believed it. Christians' are going to fall. We are going to hit rock bottom or go through that storm we NEVER saw coming, but the real question is not how the storm came, it's how we got through it.

I can't go backwards and change any moment or make it different, but I can make a choice on how I move forward. When I look at my life I have two options. I can be miserable and angry at the world that my baby is gone. I can live a bitter life full of hatred, anger and jealousy which will only lead me into a darker hole and a darker depression, or I can choose hope. Hope for a future and a new day. Hope that I can put one foot in front of the other and know that even in the bad days God is still going to be there leading me day by day. I can miss my daughter and love her without being angry at the world for her not being here.

I know I will still have bad days, it's inevitable, but I can't let it dictate I how live my life. I could sit back and ask "why" all the bad things have happened and never really receive an answer my heart would be content in hearing. When others look at me what do they see?  Do they see a hurting and lost mother? Do they see a bitter and angry women? Do they see someone who has pushed God and everyone else away in the midst of tragedy, or do they see Christ?

If I were to die today, would others know for sure that I would be spending eternity with my daughter in Heaven? We are going to walk through many valleys in our life, the question is this: Am I going to allow Christ to pull me through that valley every step of the way and show others that I will praise Him throughout the storm, or am I walking through the valley alone? How will others see that I have dealt with heartache? How will others know that I am a Christian?

It is not how we fall, but how we get back up that matters the most...