The movers are here today. I'm sitting here in the kitchen, supervising what goes where, and wondering if at the end of all of this I will be relieved, or excited, or sad. I'm not sure what emotions have been lingering through this process. Most of the time it feels like only the really bad ones make any kind of actual appearance. I'm beyond ready to move on, settle in, and prepare our hearts and minds for what life looks like as we contemplate growing our family in the shadow of this sorrow.

We are going through a lot of change and nobody every really enjoys change... but Adam always tells me that I do. I guess if honesty is the goal, I really do. I like to solve the puzzle of continuity and stability, balanced with the unknown and all of its adventure. God knows us. He knows our personalities. He knows are strengths (they are His gifts to us) and our weaknesses. He delights in seeing us share those gifts and he mourns with us as we mourn our son. As we mourn not only his breath, but the hopes and dreams we had for him. One of my grief books said that is the hardest part of losing a child: that not only does the person leave a void in your story but all of the things that could have been - the things you imagined for them - also leave a void. You lose out on everything. As I watch all of our stuff get loaded into a 16x8 foot box, I'm seeing all those things that George never got to do pile up alongside those boxes.

Its hard to walk past the room that should have been his nursery every day. It's hard to not be using the crib or the swing or the breast pump. It's hard to imagine our new home without a nursery for our newest addition. And it's always hard to look into our future and see all of the variables and the what if he was like this... but here we are, in this place, facing this reality. The only explanation is one we likely won't get this side of heaven. The only sense that can be made of losing our son after only 16 hours is knowing that God is sovereign. That even though we don't understand and it's painful, God is control. He is good. He is love. He is caring. He is perfect. He never once lost control. He could have saved my son, and I wrestle with why he didn't, but I am comforted knowing that my son and his wonderful 16 hours outside of my womb, was and is a child of God who was very much working towards God's glory; NICU tubes and all.

So as I watch my stuff get loaded into a storage box, I'm feeling many emotions and facing this reality of living forward and doing life through this lens of grief. God knows. He understands because he was man once. And even if I curse him in a moment of frustration or question his goodness in all of this, he still (and never will stop) loves me with a ferocity that I can only beg to fathom. That is the amazing thing about God and the even more amazing thing about doing life as his child; I can know and feel those things in a very tangible way. And whatever the feeling when we close the door for the last time at this home, God will be with me. Forever and always.

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