The following collection of posts are ones I have prayed over, begged my precious Father for direction with, and poured my grief into at the end of a torturous Christmas season.  Undoubtedly, anger spilled into them, and it shows.  The rage that fills my soul at the injustice of the end of my children’s earthly lives is debilitating.  It captures so many of my thoughts, forces its way into my soul and taints everything in its path.

Unconsciously, I refuse to let it dissipate.  Because in some twisted way, if I do, I feel as though I’m betraying not only Mercy and Sam, but Eva, Charley and Max, too.

So I’m making a different choice.  I’m sharing these thoughts because I pray that by doing so, I’ll find some relief and make a way in the darkness for the beauty that we have also witnessed in these last 7 months to break through.

And maybe, just maybe, if I get just a little of the endless pit of pain out of my soul, I’ll be able to tell you the stunningly pure, awe inspiring, God-breathed parts of my story.  The parts that show the endless grace and mercy of the Living God.  The parts that will convince you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we are His creation, that we are His workmanship, that WE ARE HIS.

So before I give you the fruit, I want you to see the brambles, the dead vines, and the bleak landscape of a life lived in moment by moment grief.

And when this is done, I’ll tell you the rest of the story.

And it will be-

A memoir of grace.

A narrative of faith.

and an affirmation that there is nothing that the enemy could put before us that will ever triumph over the Word of God.

You know what else?  I’m going to tell you exactly what I think those precious Words mean.  And many of you may disagree.  And that is, quite frankly, your right.  After all, we live in the land of FREE SPEECH, AMEN?

But until you have walked IN. MY. SHOES.  you simply cannot tell me what I should do, must do or am required to do.

So, buckle up, folks.  We’re in for a bumpy ride.  Cause I’m gonna tell you the WHOLE story.  And it is my prayer that in doing so, I will bring honor to the only One to whom I am accountable.

And just when I least expect it, the freight train hits again-

full speed.

And I am flattened into a million tiny pieces.

Insidiously, the doubt creeps in.

If only I had embraced the chaos more.  If I’d made a schedule and stuck to it.  If I would have just listened that little voice in the back of my head that wasn’t ok with sending my 5 precious babies away.

I used to get so overwhelmed.  So many days I’d question my abilities, my mommy hood.  When I was super frustrated, I remember asking God if He hadn’t made a mistake-“Are you SURE you picked the right mommy for this?”

Almost always, I felt like a failure.

The school day wasn’t successful enough.

They wouldn’t eat what I made without complaint.

They almost never did their chores without me hounding them.

I yelled too much.

I took too much time to myself.

I got frustrated too easily.

Over and over again, I seem to sink into the realization that I should have heeded the sage advice of a sweet friend.  Gently, with grace, she told me often to “love the little years.”  She even gave me the book…

But most of the time, it seemed I was just too busy keeping my head above water and trying to find my way.

Clinging desperately to my sanity in a world I didn’t expect.

And now, I cling desperately to something different…

To the whispered memories of “I love you, mama… Mama, can I just have one more muffin?…Mama, can I sleep with you?…Mama, I’m never gonna grow up and I’m always gonna live with you!”

My life seems to stretch out before me like a desert highway, dry and desolate, dull and vast.  

I wish, with every fiber of my being, that I could find something, anything to look forward to in this new year, but honestly, I just want 45 more New Years to pass by so I can gracefully go home to Jesus and see my sweet babies again.

My emotions overwhelm me most days, filling my body with coiled energy that doesn’t have a  place to go.  I’m SO SICK of crying, SO TIRED of the emptiness, SO FILLED with longing that I can’t assuage.

You know what else?  I’m pissed off.  Pissed off that this is my life now.  This is Charles’ life, and Eva, Charley and Max’s.  And everyone else that loved them so much…I’m seriously bent out of shape that this is the life we now have to live.  At this point, you are all probably beyond exhausted just reading the SAME thing OVER AND OVER…I’m dog tired of writing it.  It just seems to be the only thing that I can talk about.  The only thing that fills my mind.

24 hours in my life…

Arrived home to the mess that is STILL my house, because I don’t have enough space, our minor renovations STILL aren’t done, and I can’t get rid of half of the stuff I need to because I’m stuck in the fog of needing physical reminders of my dead children.  (God forbid I get rid of the chair I would snuggle my little bits in, next to my favorite fireplace, when I stumbled out of bed on cold winter mornings.)

In the middle of sweeping the mess up in my kitchen at almost midnight, I turn around to a tearful little Max-devastated because when he walked into his room after the 10 hour drive home from Tennessee, one of Sammy’s toys was sitting out and reminded him of how much his little heart hurts.

Cleaned out Eva’s closet today…

every “too small” item reminded me that I don’t have a little bean to save these cute things for anymore.  The quiet reminded me that she would normally have been all over this clean out, claiming every cast off for herself…especially if it happened to sparkle.

Later found my formerly bright and upbeat biggest bean, melancholy and lonely on her bed…staring into a memory of the past.  A past filled with laughter, companionship and joy.  A past she can’t ever return to and a future she often dreads looms too large in her mind.

Which reminded me of how bottled up she really is…because what she remembers in the days just following “the accident,” is how often she was told to “be strong!” Shame on those who filled her mind with such nonsense!  She’s a child-a traumatized and guilt filled CHILD!

Had a gut wrenching conversation with my Charley, where she casually asked me,
“Mommy, what does it mean when they sing ‘I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength?’  Does it mean I can teleport if I ask God?”

Because she TRULY believes that if she could teleport or time travel, we could go back and everything would be A-OK.  And she thinks God will make that happen.

So, I had to get down on the floor and try my level best to explain exactly what “I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength.” REALLY means to a 9 year old who insists that God is going to send her brother and sister back. Who insists that if we just move home and put everything back the way it was, God will supernaturally send them right on back.

Who believes, with 100% of her sweet and formerly innocent heart, that a loving and kind God would send them back.  Who believes that she can’t be mad at God, she is not supposed to cry and that, someway, somehow, this is HER fault.

Then I decided to clean out the mess that is the cabinet in the kids’ bathroom.  My lack of storage necessitated some serious purging…

And I found every. single. bow, hair tie, cute barrette, headband and scrunchie.  The hurt that squeezed deep into my heart was physical, painful and more powerful than anything I could shake off, tune out or shut off.  (As I had to do to even remotely survive this first Christmas season.  WHICH. WAS. TORTURE.)

Sweet Jesus, the sparkly nail polish. the bath bubbles. the glittery lip gloss.

Every little thing that had her stamp, her memory, her crazy grin…

And that led to the conversation with my 13 year old where I felt compelled to make her understand the importance of rules… which I then felt guilty for having, because I live in fear of her blaming herself and what that self blame could do to her tender and tattered heart.

Wait, I almost forgot (NOT)… in the midst of cleaning up the closet in Max & Charley’s room… it was time to move Max up to new undies.

And I just lost it.

Over underwear.  Little boy underwear that my adorably sassy little boy used to run around the house in (when he wasn’t buck naked instead…)  That he would leave on the floor of the bathroom when he called me in to “wipe my butt, mama!”  The ones I bought him to convince him “not to poop on Scooby, because poop belongs in the toilet!”

Follow all this with our nightly ritual of shining Sammy’s glow light turtle on the ceiling to make “the moon,” for us to tell Mercy and Sammy, “I love you to the moon and back!”

And Charley yells it, full volume at the top of her lungs, every night, convinced they can hear her if she says it loud enough.  While I can barely force it out.

Because I AM SO PISSED.

And then I open my Facebook to the blessing of my friend Corry.  My friend who captured the very essence of my family in pictures.  Who brought me to my knees with her words of love, inspiration and kindness.  Who reminded me that I have resolved, with EVERY FIBER OF MY PISSED OFF SELF, that I WILL let God work in me and through me.  That I WILL do HIS WILL.  That I will bring glory to His Name, His Works, His Word.

So- in essence, I’m pissed as all get out that this is my life.  And it may be a cold day in hell before I’m ok with it, but I absolutely, positively, WILL NOT allow the enemy to triumph over my family.

EVER.

Here’s what I’m going to do and I’m begging you to do it as well.

Pray for my heart.  That the pissed off part gets completely obliterated by the grace part.  That the part of my heart that needs to give forgiveness will be ok that it may never be truly sought with understanding hearts.  That those who seek to compare their grief to what we suffer every day will be convicted of the fallacy of this enemy induced lie.

Pray for my husband.

Pray for his fractured heart and his battered soul.  Pray that he can seek God and find Him at every turn, in every whisper and ultimately, inhabiting his very being. Pray that he is infused with supernatural strength and wisdom to lead our family in this unexpected new course.  Pray that the deep and wide crevices of betrayal and hurt in his heart are filled with the precious peace of our Savior.

Pray for my treasured living children.  INVOKE the name of Jesus over them, that they will understand the power of the enemy and his vicious lies.   Beseech our Creator, begging for them to remain rooted firmly in Christ, convinced that their strength comes only from our precious Abba Father.

Pray for yourselves.  Each and every one of you.  Pray.  Quiet your minds, your world, your earthly pride.  
Pray that in His goodness, He will reveal to each of you what He has planned for you, how you can serve Him and what you can do to further His love.  Pray that the narcissism of this broken and fallen world will fall off our shoulders and we will be made new.

 See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.                Isaiah 43:19

I need Jesus.  Seriously-it’s not a sort of thing.  It’s an all-out, all encompassing, deep into the pit of my soul NEED.

Each morning that dawns is filled with the unbearable pain of knowing my children are dead in this life.  My heart breaks all over again every time the image of their lifeless bodies pops unbidden into my mind’s eye.  Every time I happen to glance for just a moment at their images captured in pictures.  Every time I “hear” their sweet little voices resonating in a memory.  Every time I go to make a meal and I make too much to feed what is left of my family.

All day, every day-I have to live THIS life now.

AND I HATE IT.

I used to look forward to the rest of my life.  Charles and I would laugh over how we would have NO idea what on earth we would do with ourselves once our kids were grown…

So we had decided to buy an RV and just travel from kid to kid if they moved away, and if we were blessed to have them nearby, we’d be those nerdy old parents/grandparents that are so present in their lives they’d be sick of us.

And I have no idea what to do now. (And please, please, don’t tell me I have to keep going for my 3 living children.  I really do know that.  I really do my best, each and every day to be the Mommy they need.)

Many of you would probably say that we should still do all those things we had planned.  We should live our lives just like we would have before, that it would honor Mercy and Sam and that they would want us to be happy.  (Just for the record, Mercy hated to see mama cry.  So she would HATE this if she saw it.  As a wise friend once told me, it wouldn’t be Heaven if they could see us because they would be so sad if they saw our brokenness.)

Do you know what would honor Mercy and Sam? NOT just living our lives like before. NOT just getting back to the way things were.  Because the way things were is never going to be how they will be now.  And because if we do that, their deaths mean nothing. NOT one thing.

What we should be doing is this.  Finding a way to make sure this stops happening. Paving a path to teach others, first and foremost, that UTV’s and ATV’s aren’t TOYS.  They are strong, monstrous vehicles that should never be taken lightly or operated carelessly.  And THAT makes me angry too.  Because in the time that has passed since my children died on that field, in ways so awful that it makes me want to vomit every time I think of it, OTHER CHILDREN HAVE DIED TOO.

When the first responder who knows the details of your children’s accident flat out tells you not to read the report and then informs you that the people who responded to the scene had to receive counseling, it MAKES MY BLOOD BOIL that before this even happened to my children,  not one person has thought it might be a priority to not sweep these horrors under the rug and pretend they didn’t happen, but to stand on a daggone soap box and DEMAND that these vehicles be taken more seriously!  It breaks my heart on a level I can’t explain.  If my children had been riding in a car without seatbelts or doors and had been killed, there would have been a whole different response.  And yet, what they were riding in was essentially a car.  But it wasn’t treated like one, it was treated like a toy.  Because that’s just the way it’s done.  Well, maybe we need to change the way it’s done!  For crying out loud, Charley thought it was a golf cart!

So, for the sake of all that is left of our life, of the treasured life we spent 13 years building with our children and 20 years building since we said “I do,” I am standing at His door, knocking, NO POUNDING…please, Jesus, let me in.  Sustain me with love, care, peace, comfort and the assurance that only You can give.  Because I sure as heck can’t do it without You.  In the deepest part of my soul, the tenderness remains.   Only You can overtake the burning anger that is rooted so firmly.

“So I say to you, keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you.”   Luke 11:9

in His Grip always,
forever the clan mac mama