The Other Side

Wow.... 2 years. Guess I've been a little busy. This blog started as a way for our families to keep up with Caroline from a distance. But it's going to be a little different now. So here's the run-down on my life. Caroline is almost 3 and will probably be the topic of many posts here. She's the most wonderful part of my life and I can't imagine it without her. And just to clarify, I refer to her a lot as "C" bc it's much faster.:-) 2 years ago, we moved back home to Clinton and Robert is a band director at our high school. He loves his job most days, and is the best Daddy in the world. I currently stay home with Caroline, keep a friend's baby during the week, and sell Aloette Skincare and Cosmetics. I love my job(s) because they allow me the privilege of staying home with C everyday. We love being back home near all of our family, but we greatly miss our life and friends in Fairhope, AL, too. So that's the basics.
I have never been a "Bible beater" type of person and I know I never will be. Don't get me wrong-God has always been the center of my life. I'm just not that person who thinks God "led me" to wear a blue shirt today or eat pizza for lunch. I think He gave me a brain so I could use it to handle those minute, day to day details. But the past year of my life has forced me to take a closer look at my relationship with Him. [Before I sound selfish, let me say that nothing I feel can compare to the pain, anguish, fear, and helplessness that Jack, Lisa, and Bobby feel every moment of every day. But you'll have to read her blog to know all that.] My nephew, Jack, was diagnosed with brain cancer last April, and it has turned my life upside down. Have you ever been so confused and baffled by something that it literally makes your brain hurt? Can you take a minute to try to rationalize a 4 year old, otherwise perfectly healthy, little boy having 1 tiny spot of cancer in his brain that, in only a moment, changed his world forever? Try. Try again. Now do it everyday for a year. The only way to cope with something of this magnitude is to turn to God. So whether I'm uber-religious or not, there I am, at His feet, begging, praying, for this precious gift He gave us not to be taken away. Asking for answers and guidance. I know that the only way to survive this is to trust that God is going to take care of all of us. "Be still and know that I am God." So I'm being still. I'm listening. I'm trying. I'm struggling. Why can't my life be like (insert happy thought)? So then I glimpse into the lives of other people around me. Whose situation would I rather be in? A friend who deals with the death of her 3 month old son to SIDS? Another who deals with the 20-year-old wound of a little brother hit by a car and killed? And yet another who deals with the fleeting memories of a full-term, stillborn baby that she dreamed of for months but held for only a few, short hours before she was taken forever? But the grass is always greener on the other side, right? So I wipe my tears, crawl out of my self-pity, and realize- my side of the fence is just fine. So here it is- my crazy, messy life. And I wouldn't trade it for anything. This is My Side of the Fence.