Faith

This past week, I learned that one of Brenna's friend's daughter had aspirated a kidney bean. After several days of tense waiting, the 18 month old is now on life support to maintain her organs for donating. When I first heard about the accident, I was filled with horror and sadness. As the days went on, the mom, Sarah made a few blog and Facebook posts that were incredibly inspiring. Her faith is amazing

I often contemplate what it would look like to have faith during incredibly trying times like that. It never made sense to me to have faith that God would heal or fix whatever is wrong, because obviously bad things happen to even the most faithful. So what does it mean to have faith during challenging times? Well, I wish I had an easy answer to that. I know it involves having faith in God's greater plan...but I don't fully know what that means or feels like. But, I do know that I saw it in Sarah over the past few days. She had faith in Gods greater plan and is at peace knowing that her sweet baby girl is now in the arms of God. She is in a perfect place and doesn't have to experience this imperfect world.

There are a few people who I've encountered who truly let Gods light shine through them and who have helped solidify certain "lessons" in my mind and change the way I look at things (one of them was Joel's grandma who had so much faith and was celebrating the fact that her time on earth was almost up. She was so excited to go meet Jesus!). Even though I've only met Sarah once, she has taught me a lesson that has tweaked the way I think about faith and has gotten me one more step closer to understanding what it means to have faith in life's darkest moments.

So, I'm hugging Ben extra close and thanking God for every minute of joy he brings to Joel and I. I pray that Sarah and Darren continue to have peace and strength for the long road of healing ahead of them. God is good.

Six months

Six months ago at this time, Joel, Ben and I were just getting to our recovery room at the hospital. It's so amazing to think of how much has changed in those six months and how little we knew the little guy. I have loved getting to know him and seeing his chill, happy personality develop.

Lots has developed in recent weeks. The biggest change is that he is crawling. His favorite things to crawl to are Emma's toys and our phones. He gets good practice when he crawls after Emma's toys because she takes then away from him as soon as he gets there, so he has to turn around and head back across the room to where she takes them next.

Another noteable change is his sleeping!! Aaaaaaaaah! He's a great sleeper now! He goes down around 6:30, sleeps soundly until 4:00, at which point I bring him to bed with us and feed him and we snuggle till Joel and I get up at 5:30. I miss my snuggles, but I looooove my sleep!!

It's amazing to see his little personality shine through more and more. His personality has been evident for a long time, but I just love seeing it develop more and more and to see the funny little habits he develops...like bouncing his head on the bed as he's falling asleep...or playing with his hair gently when he's nursing or taking a bottle. I love watching him as he explores things and seeing his little mind work. He is so fascinating!

I couldn't be happier with my little family. Words can't express how thankful I am that Ben is a part of our family. It's mind boggling. The past six months have been the most love-filled, joyful months. Yeah, I guess it's hard sometimes, but the challenges are absolutely nothing compared to the happiness, love and joy that he brings!!

Below are some pics. I plan to update them with captions when I get to my computer...I'm just writing this on my iPhone for now.