A Dose of Love

A couple weeks ago... right after Rachel's Race...  my back totally went out on me.  I woke one morning and knew it hurt.  By that night, I was screaming in pain.  Like, literally *screaming* randomly and without warning.  I barely slept at all that night.  I couldn't lay on either side.  I couldn't lay on my back, I couldn't lay on my stomach.  I couldn't sit up.  I found myself screaming and "breathing through" every move I made.

I figured it was a pinched nerve, but the pain started to completely circle around my entire mid section.  If I was pregnant, I would have assumed I was in labor and experiencing back labor. Actually, this was worse than any labor I've experienced.  I called the doctors the next morning and they had a very early apt open, so I went down there with all the kids.  I really probably shouldn't have been driving, I could barely move, but I had to get there.... and I cried the whole way.

I walked into the office and the girl working the desk was wearing a shirt from Rachel's Race....
my heart smiled, even though I was a mess physically.

As the nurse was checking me in in the room, we heard a knock on the door... and in walks two of the young ladies who volunteered at Rachel's Race and they handed me this amazing and beautiful photo book one of them made me!  I started crying even more...

For obvious reasons, this is special to me... and gifts do tend to be a love language of mine... but if I were to try to say why it is that gifts about Rachel mean so much to me, I would say that they say loud and clear that she is on someone's mind besides mine.  I so often feel alone in this... I so often feel like everyone else has moved on...  I so often feel like so many people judge me for the way I continue to include her, because we've been told that the "healthy" thing to do as a believer is to look forward to heaven instead of behind me at what I lost....

This is special to me because she took time... energy... love... and thoughtfulness... and she poured it all into making something for me that would articulate to me that Rachel is not forgotten and that my love for her is beautiful...

She used quotes from me from my blog. This is not something I would have done if I had made it myself... I would have made up new quotes, new thoughts - which is not bad, but reading things that I had written before about Rachel, about my love for her, about my devotion and about how God is carrying me... Snippets from my blog....things I didn't remember writing... I was blown away...

There are so many times I wonder why anyone reads my blog - I wonder why anyone cares about what I have to say about this, especially still... and I know so many have stopped reading who used to read every day and they no longer follow my journey... and that can feel lonely too.

But reading the things she chose to put in this book, I was so encouraged that words that I wrote in some of my hardest days looked beautiful to her - and I hope to everyone who read them then and still do.  Because Rachel Alice was and is beautiful to me.

I wish there was a way to share the entire book!!  Each page is filled with pieces of our journey these past few years.... here are a few....

The front of the book

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prayer vigil in the very early days with Rachel

A note I wrote to her at her grave one day last year, I think.

a quote about why I picked an Ark for her playground

Thank you SO much for this beautiful gift.  I went to the doctors looking for much needed relief of my physical pain, and my heart got a little medicine too.  It was the dose of love I needed when I was at a very hard place.