Beauty For Ashes

I can't believe a week has gone by already...  Seems like it's going by way too fast and yet feels like forever, just like my pregnancy.  My mom came down to help us clean this morning (our house was a wreck!) and at 11:10, she asked Matt if he could pray... Rachel passed away at 11:10 last Friday.  A whole week...  My mom has never asked us to pray before.  She's prayed along with us by default, but never requested it.  I'm glad Rachel could bring her to the place where prayer is comforting to her.  I'm also very grateful that she remembers details that matter to me - and that they matter to her.  10,080 minutes without my girl...but who's counting?

Things are tough here right now.  We are blessed to have a full house that keeps us busy, but there's no denying the pain.  I feel so inadequate to be what I need to be for everyone right now...but I guess that's not really that different than usual.  I am just so tired of being sad and I know it's not going away any time soon. I feel like if I let myself fall apart, I would never be put back together.  I cry here and there, but only for a minute or two and then I have to dust myself off and keep going.  Everyone else will move on and life will return back to normal, but for me..."normal" will never be the same.  Rachel was a part of me for so long, I hardly remember life without her and I don't know what to do now.

I was planning on going to the cemetery today alone and then remembered I'm not allowed to drive.  In the midst of everything that has been going on, it's been easy to forget that I just had major abdominal surgery.  I had a couple of people, who had c-sections before, comment at Rachel's service that they couldn't believe how well I was moving around just 6 days later.  I guess when you're heart's broken, it's hard to feel anything else.  Although today my pain has been pretty bad.
My mom stayed with the kids for a couple hours (she spends 1/2 her life here at this point) and Matt &  I went down to visit Rachel.  When we pulled up to her spot, I started bawling.  It was so hard to be there and have her be out of reach.  To know she's under there... to know she's never coming out. 

We sat at her grave for well over an hour.  Matt dug a little hole to put some fake flowers in (hopefully they'll weather the winter and keep color on her grave) 


and I read scriptures to her. We prayed and we talked to her. It was beautiful and painful. That same old line between beauty and sorrow that we've been walking this entire journey.

When we first found out that Rachel wouldn't stay with us long, I read a book called "I will carry you" by Angie Smith.  She had said that she marked all the scriptures she read to her daughter in her bible with dirt from her grave.  Today I did that too... a way to always remember the verses I read to her.  A way to always carry part of her resting spot with me.  We found great comfort in God's Word today. 

Matt collected some of the clay from the ground in his hand and took it with him... I was reminded of the picture we're given in the bible about God being the potter and we are the clay.  I wondered, can He really make something beautiful out of my pain?  It's easy to trust Him to mold the "clay" when the pieces are intact, but what about when the pieces crumble in front of my eyes?

What about when it seems impossible for the pieces to come together?  Do I really trust Him?

I do.

I love the spot we chose for her.  It's so peaceful.  Standing on a grave and talking to my baby is far from how I would like things to be, but we are making the most of it... for Rachel's honor and God's glory.  God is taking care of what we can't.  Picking up the pieces we can barely hold onto and gently putting them back together again.  I am so thankful for Him. 

The bible says in Isaiah 61:3:
To appoint to them that mourn in Zion, to give to them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.