Thankfulness, day 2 and 3

OK, so I didn't get off to a good start! Here's a combined thankfulness! Just shows how hard it is to be thankful, can't really do it on my own strength!

So today I am thankful for the shop keeper at the news agent who was smiling today. A smile in the midst of a sea of disintersted, apathetic, or even mean faces is so refreshing. Thank you, God, for people who smile!

Yesterday, I am thankful for friends and birthday parties. For friends with listening ears and cups of tea who make you laugh at the end of it all, thank you God!

Thankfulness, day 1

So lately I have been festering and fostering a lot of grumbling in my mind and heart. To combat this, I am going to try and blog each day between now and Thanksgiving about something or things that I am thankful for, and perhaps the grumbler will be evicted by the end of it all.

Today a friend was telling me how her grandfather survived during WWII and the horrors he endured. Being forced out of his home country of Poland, he and countless others were abandoned without food and freezing. One in seven made it back. I am thankful tonight to be in place of peace, not having seen the horrors of war. Thankful to lead a life of freedom, I am thankful for the basic essentials. The things that would create a state of desperation if I were without them...food, clothing, shelter. Thank you, God, for these good gifts. Thank you also for bringing my friend's grandfather through, and for her sharing that story with me today.

Thankfulness, Day 29 To Corey..

I am thankful that God is with us in dark places. I am thankful for Corey. If you feel up for a cry, please read on...what I wrote for Corey back in August. If you are someone close to me who thinks I should have told you this in person, please forgive me for not telling you this in person, some things are easier for me to write.

I first knew you were there when I could open the upstairs windows at night and smell roses and lavender as though they were close enough to touch. You woke me up to use the toilet every 2 hours and I remembered how well that prepares me for the months ahead. Though usually a bustle of energy, with you needing to grow all I could do was sleep and sleep! You made me feel nauseaus and I didn't want to eat my favorite foods anymore, but I loved the fresh vegetables, the homemade broth, even the liver that I ate every week for you to grow strong. Then when we took the test to know for certain you were there...one drop...a blue line, another blue line. "Praise God" I said, and looked out the bathroom window on the garden below and smiled. I gave your poppa our willow tree "cherish" (a figurine of a woman about 7 months pregnant) and a pair of booties that Grammie had bought in England for Ethan. He was so delighted, I was so delighted. You continued to make me nauseaus and too dizzy and uncomfortable to ride the bus through the summer. So we stayed home and I read many stories to the children, thinking that you might enjoy listening too. When I sang songs to your brothers as they were falling asleep, I hoped you could hear them too and be surrounded by love as you grew. I thought about your pinpoint eyes that formed at 6 weeks, and your nubs for fingers and toes. Just 4 days ago I thought of how you have tiny feet, smaller than the tip of my pinky finger. I don't know if you ever did have those feet, just 3 days ago I awoke to small blood stains. I saw the doctor, and an exam said everything was fine. I was going to have a scan the next day, and then we would see you. 2 hours before my appointment, a huge clot of blood dropped in the toilet. Tears, tears, tears. This is it, I knew, you had gone on. I look out the window at our garden that is showing signs of the long hot summer. The warning signs got more urgent and more frequent. Going to A&E, (accident and emergency), a friend comes to drive me, another stays with the boys who are crying as I leave. At the hospital...I am having a miscarriage. They hand me a red slip and I check in. I never had a red slip before, but in England, you still have to wait the queue and answer the questions that you can't understand through the plastic window and the various accents. Various nurses and questions. I am led back to a room with 3 other people. After the urgency is dealt with, finally a nurse cares for my dignity. I find out later she is 10 weeks pregnant. I look for something beautiful in the room. Its full of signs and supplies and medical equipment. Poppa arrives. The doctor comes to examine me, she is moving to the states next week. The neck of the womb is open, she says. I knew, but it still brings even more tears to this day full of tears. She leaves to get a gynecologist, and they turn my bed so its facing the wall. I look up at the window that is opaque. I can see the beatiful light that comes even through clouds, even through opaque glass. How much more beautiful is that light than the harsh flourescent light. I sing the song I sang to the boys and you just last night, though I don't know if you were already gone then..."When peace like a river, attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, "Even so, it is well with my soul".

"Todd," I say, "Todd, do you know, our baby is with Jesus now? It must be so happy. It must be so peaceful..." And yet, that night after an operation to remove the tissue, many more exams, and needle pricks and starvation and being in a room with 6 other ailing women trying to sleep I pray, "Jesus, I know you are holding our baby, would you let me know you are holding me that way too...and lift me from this awful place, and give me rest for the night."

We are naming you Corey, either for a boy or a girl. Though I don't know which you were, your Maker does. There are many Corey's or Corrie's as such in this world, but you are named in memory of Corrie Ten Boom.
I wrote this on August 5, 2010. We miscarried Corey on August 4.
I am thankful that God answered that prayer, and he did lift me up, and I am thankful, so thankful for those 10 weeks to be Corey's momma.