This past Thursday I took my first flight (ever) to Atlanta, Georgia, where I met up with seven of my closest friends (with whom I had never met.) I am sure it will take me several posts to give you all a true idea of what this weekend was like, Ben is recovering from surgery nicely, but he still cranky and sore so I have limited time. I met with seven other Blogger moms who have lost babies this year (as my anonymous commenter was so keen to figure out). Emily, Kenzie, Karen, Kim, Yvette, Chrissy, Angie, and I met face to face this weekend in Atlanta to go to a Deeper Still conference. Here are just a couple of pictures.
It is so hard to put our time into words. We laughed, hugged, cried, prayed, learned, worshipped, and ate chocolate together! It was such an amazing experience and it was so evident that God was present. It did my heart such good to spend time with these incredible women. I will write more later as I am able to put my thoughts into words. For now just know that it was an amazingly blessed weekend and God continues to show himself each and every day! Once I have Ben closer to recovered I will share more!
It is so hard to put our time into words. We laughed, hugged, cried, prayed, learned, worshipped, and ate chocolate together! It was such an amazing experience and it was so evident that God was present. It did my heart such good to spend time with these incredible women. I will write more later as I am able to put my thoughts into words. For now just know that it was an amazingly blessed weekend and God continues to show himself each and every day! Once I have Ben closer to recovered I will share more!
Our first night together missing Karen!
We had the opportunity to meet with another mom, Kirsten for a short time. God orchestrated it so that she would be in Atlanta at the SAME time as us from California! It was so great to meet her. For a while we were a group of NINE!
Here we all are with Beth Moore. We had the privilege to meet her, talk with her and have her pray over us. It was an amazing experience.
Here we all are on the steps waiting to get into the conference.
17 comments:
Looks like you all had a great time. What a blessing. Look forward to hearing more about a blessed weekend.
I am so glad that you got to meet up with those wonderful ladies!! What a blessing from the Lord! You look like you had a wonderful time! God is good!!!
I'm so glad that Ben's surgery went well and hope his recovery goes well! I'm also so happy that your trip went well and was such a blessing to all of you! God is so good!
Yay for answered prayers.
And yay for comment moderation. ;P
Kristy,
I just love these pictures and you all look like SISTERS, I mean it. What a beautiful bunch of girls you all are. I am so thankful that your time was blessed. And I am going to have to mosey on over to Kirsten's and say Hi. The eight of you must have blessed her socks off!! I am praying for Ben to recover completely and for all discomfort to go away. I love you and am so thankful for this life time memory of your get together. God is so awesome and loves you all so much. Have a great day and love on Ben for me okay?
Love, Laurie in Ca.
So glad you were able to go. Stil praying for Ben.
Wow. Thats so awesome that God has brought you all together. In tears for the second time this morning! (pardon the prego hormones!) LOL
Glad that Ben is recovering. Looks like you had a wonderful time, I can not wait to hear more about it.
love claire
oh Kristy,
SO glad you could go. Praying that you and the other ladies continue to reap the blessings of your time together!
Also glad that Ben's surgery went well.
Many blessings to you! Love, MELANIE
Hi my forever closest friend,
Just a quick note to tell you that I am thinking of and still praying for Ben's recovery. I also wanted you to know that today in my van - I turned of the radio and specifically prayed for you, your needs, your wants and desires and for God's will for you family to be met! I am not sure what it will look like, but something inside tells me it's going to be amazing and I will be right here to see it all unfold. I can't wait!
I love you,
Kim
It's so wonderful that all of you had the chance to meet and share! I'm sure it was a blessed time for each of you! Just out of curiosity, are the matching t-shirts from the conference or did someone have them made?
What a blessing from God that all of you were able to meet and spend time toghether. Can't wait to read all about it! :-)
I have debated with myself and prayed long and hard about trying to explain my comments, and I was just going to let it go, but I think it is worth trying to explain how things sometimes look to other mothers who have lost babies too - who are looking in at you all from the outside.
I lost my baby girl several years ago. She died in utero at 23 weeks from Trisomy 18. I prayed for the months, the weeks, the hours, the minutes that some of the blogging mothers have gotten, but it was not to be. I was pregnant with twins at the time, and her death unfortunately started my labor with her sister. I delivered both my girls at 26 weeks. So I buried one daughter four days later and spent the next three and a half months not knowing if my other daughter would live or die. In fact, it took multiple surgeries, a surgical feeding tube, 18 months of being quarantined to our home, and over two years of therapies before we really knew she would be okay. And all that time, I couldn't really grieve my baby who died - I had to focus all my energy on making sure my living daughter survived and thrived. And when she was about two and a half, and I was ready to really start processing my grief (whatever that means), my parents were the victims of a violent crime in their home. They are both alive, thank God, but it was another six months before we all "got over" that.
So this past fall, I really started trying to deal with my grief. I did start seeing a counselor. And in the late fall and early winter, I found you all. I waited and prayed as each of your babies were born. I waited for Happy and prayed for the minutes or hours or even days that some of your friends had had. I rejoiced with you even for the brief minute that you had when he looked at your husband before he passed on to his heavenly father. I would have given anything to carry my little girl for even a few more weeks, let alone to have delivered her alive for even a minute. I have loved reading your blogs, because it has given me a chance to know what my daughter might have been like had she been born alive - for a minute or an hour or a day. I feel like I have had a chance to know her better through the blogs. And the grief of the mothers is so similar to my grief because the babies have died of such similar causes. I actually have my own live group of women where I live. We have been together for over three years - about ten women who have lost babies at various gestations or at birth or after - and we are incredibly close. We meet formally once a month, but we also are friends - we socialize, and we are raising our children together. We have become a community for each other. I wouldn't trade them for anything. But the one thing that you all have offered that they don't, though, is that none of them had babies die from a genetic anomaly. None of them lost babies that they knew they were going to lose ahead of time. I knew my baby girl was going to die before I lost her. And it has been different grieving with you all, because of that shared experience. Which brings me to my explanation. I envy you seven/eight women your closeness. But at the same time, most of the time, I am just happy you all found each other, and I just feel lucky that I get to reap the rewards of your friendship and your openness. If you all hadn't found each other, you wouldn't have linked to each other, and I wouln't have so many blogs to learn from and grow from. And I am just happy for you all that you have had each other. But I am envious, too. Four years ago, blogging was not really all that prevalent. There was not really this kind of resource for me, and I am a little envious that you all have each other. But again, you all have been so generous about being inclusive most of the time, publicly anyway, that I am mostly just happy for you all. Until last week - and the way you talked about your trip. When the other women had talked about it, I had felt envious of the experience that you all would have, but certainly not excluded. But the way you presenting it on your blog, it just came across as excusive to me - and it felt very excluding. And we certainly have no right to be included in anything you all do, but there sure are nice ways to talk about things and not as nice ways, too. And there are a lot of women reading your blog that have lost babies - I know of several.
Anyway, so that is why, I guess, I got so obstinate about trying to understand why it was a secret. I apologize. I was having a hard week with my own issues, and I think I just seized upon that like a dog with a bone and wouldn't let it go. And I stayed anonymous because I have posted suggestions or supportive comments for you in the past, and I really didn't want to lose the ability to do that in the future. But you probably already have traced who I am. You younger people are so much more computer literate than we older ones are. And no, that does not mean I am not really a mom who lost a baby, it just means I am an older mom - I got married a lot later than most of you all did and had my girls when I was 37 after a brutal miscarriage at 14 weeks (I delivered my baby boy in the backseat of my car on the way to the hospital).
I hope Ben (and you) are feeling better.
It is so awesome to read everyone's accounts of the weekend. It is such a blessing because every minute is such a miracle and you did a wonderful job explaining the details.
Praise God that all went well with Ben's surgery. We'll keep praying for a speedy recovery. You are an amazing mother!!!!
You are so sweet to mention me in your post. Thank you. I love the picture!! It is a treasure to me. Can I put it on my blog, too?
Did anyone take a picture of the back of your shirts? They are so cool - brought tears to my eyes. Precious babies dancing with Jesus...what a beautiful sight.
Hugs and blessings to you today,
Kirsten
What a group of AMAZING women who are with filled with Christ love!
Cathy & Annabel
Dear Anonymous,
I just read your comment and I think you are so brave to post your comment here. I am sure that you will be understood and this will be appreciated. I am so sorry to hear of your loss. I am older, 60, a grandmother now, and have twin sons who are 37. I have followed all of these girls stories and I have to admit I was a little envious of their trip together too. But more than that, glad that they had eachother to lean on. There is something sacred about sharing sorrow. Thank you for reaching out and I am sure you were just misunderstood. My email is on my profile if you care to read and write.
Laurie in Ca.
First I want to thank this person for taking the time to reply, and for doing so in a loving way. It was a brave thing to do to comment again and I am so thankful you did! I guess there has just been a misunderstanding...I just want to also explain myself.
Our little trip to Atlanta was NOT something all of the women wrote of on their blogs. Actually when I was invited it was agreed that no one would post, until we returned, the details of the trip. This was NOT to be excluive of anyone. It was that some women were going to leave empty homes and families behind and did not feel comfortable broadcasting all of the details of the trip. When I posted that I was going on a trip, I knew many of you knew of the trip, but this is the internet and I didn't feel comfortable giving every detail to everyone with a computer. This trip was about more than just me and my comfort it included seven other women and I did not know what their thoughts were on broadcasting the details.
I do truly feel for every woman out there who has endured such a loss and I do wish it were possible to meet each one face to face and hug each of you! I never intended to make our group sound exclusive in any way. For the record I do not try to trace comments so I have no idea who posts anonymously, if you choose to post anonymously, I will leave it at that. It is just my wish that those who have something to say or clarify would do so via email so I would not feel it necessary to address these things in my blog.
I do truly appreciate all comments and the comments I have received have been overwhelmingly encouraging. I did decide to change my settings to moderate comments. I have tried my best to be open and honest. This is my place to come and let it all out. My sacred place for my thoughts and feelings, where I can be vulnerable and share with those who will read what God is doing in my life. That said, this is my blog and I post things the way I feel is best. Though I enjoy being open and honest, I still deserve my privacy where I see fit. Just because I have chosen to share some of the intimate feelings and ongoings of my life doesn't mean I am obligated to share them all. I am not excluding anyone, just keeping a few things sacred.
Again, I thank you for clarifying. I am so very sorry for your loss. Sometimes this internet thing can be tricky...it is easy to be misunderstood. I guess we both were. I know what it is to have rough moments, days, weeks. I will be praying for you as I know that even years later the pain is still there. I also invite you to email me. There is nothing like connecting with another mom that "gets it" I would LOVE to hear from you Anonymous! I love you and thank you for reading and praying for us!
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