We finished decorating the Christmas tree today after church. I’m thinking this is going to be a great way to end a great weekend … Doug and I cleaned the house, went through all of our summer shoes and got out our winter shoes. The boys took an afternoon nap today. We cleaned the house. Then at 3 we turned on the Packer game and got out the ornaments to hang on the tree.

It was one blow after another. A heavy rock in my chest. Triplet christmas ornaments – one right after another. Baby’s First Christmas. Three owl ornaments … two sets. Owen’s name written on the back of an ornament. Yet again, a happy moment where the wind is knocked right out of me. I get frustrated when another pure moment is tainted. Yet I cling to the pain, almost relieved to feel something.

Today at church I wrote down a quote from Pastor Chris that I love so much …. let your actions speak your prayers. Whoa. Let your actions speak your prayers. If you pray that the hungry are given food … feed the hungry. If you pray that your children grow up to know God – make the introduction yourself. Let your actions speak your hearts desires.

I pray on a daily basis that my words and actions are worthy of Owen and the “big guy” I pray that I am fulfilling God’s vision for me. How do I act out that prayer? I speak freely of my faith. I journal. I, not only enjoy, but seek out “intellectual” conversations with my friends and family where we talk about life and relationships. I learn so much by listening to other’s stories.

Growing up I decided that life was too short to make all the mistakes I needed to learn the “right” way of doing things … I found a short cut. Lean from other’s mistakes. So when my parents said don’t smoke pot. I listened. I didn’t have time to make mistakes. HA! If you only knew me in college. It appears to me that I threw out that rule right around my junior year. That’s for a whole other blog! 🙂

I have also learned to embrace my mistakes. I absorb them, learn from them, teach others about them. If I don’t …. someone else could end up wasting a part of their life going down that same path. Now that’s ironic because I also don’t regret my mistakes. I would not be who I am today had I not made those choices … no matter how dumb they look me to now! But I wouldn’t have the scars, the bandaides, the learnings from those life experiences if I had always taken the “good girl” road.

Same with this grief I suppose. I wouldn’t have the depth to my soul and self if I didn’t have to go through such pain. In the end, I hope to have wisdom that at least one other person will be able to learn from. Save them a little bit of life’s pain.

I’m going to challenge myself something this week. Maybe you’ll want to do the same thing. Slow down. Breath in-between chores, meetings or even sentences. Take a moment to pause and find peace before moving on to the next thing. Christmas is a time where everyone is on the go go go. Don’t let yourself get so booked up that you don’t have time for your pjs, kids/family and hot cocoa. When you say your nighttime prayers try this: Dear Lord [pause] thank you for this day [pause]. Bless [pause] my family [pause], my friends pause] ….

How will we ever find peace if we are always running? Always doing something. Peace comes in the silence. In the thoughts and in prayer. So pause to give peace a chance this Christmas.

I am going to try to find at least 5 minutes a day when all of my boys are “busy”. Jaden at school, Doug at work and the triplets are napping. Or maybe when they are all asleep at night. But I am going to find 5 minutes where I can just get lost in my thoughts. Maybe I stare into the Christmas tree and zone out. Or I let myself think about Owen and my pain. Or I think about all the wonderful blessings I have in life. But I’m going to give that to myself.

The bigger plan is that when I want to flashback … when I want the world to stop spinning just for a few minutes so I can get my feet on the ground again – I know that if I just keep going for a little while longer, I will have my 5 minutes to let everything go. The world can keep spinning, but I don’t have to know about it for 5 minutes out of my day.

I so badly want to feel at peace. To feel that calmness again. Instead of sitting here thinking, “Ok I had a good day today. I know it’s not going to last forever. Another bad grief day WILL eventually come … but when?” So maybe, if I enforce my prayer for peace with my actions … maybe God will hear my prayer more clearly 🙂

Love, Mel