Back to Where We Started

May 17, 2022

Back to Where We Started

Hello, old friends....

Are any of you still out there? I've come back to this comfortable old space after many years of blogging elsewhere and then falling silent for a long, long season.

It's been refreshing to come back and read these old posts stored up here like a family scrapbook.... photos and stories of when our older children were tiny little things.

(I've included some recent photos further down in the post if you want to scroll ...)

In fact, they're teenagers now, and when I told a few of them about this space, I found them - over the course of several days - sitting bent over their iPhones, reading and smiling and sometimes giggling.

Maggie - who's taller than I am now - came and found me in the kitchen and gushed "you're such a good writer... I love reading your blog!"

And that moment right there was just about enough to satisfy me forever.

And for the record, the kids' iPhones only work at home with wifi, and none of them have social media accounts ... just wanted you to know some things haven't changed around here (wink).

Saturday Morning Bike Ride

Not long after we adopted Christopher and Lena (who are now sixteen!) and then had "baby" Olivia (who is now ten!) I walked away from blogger and decided to "go professional" with a dot.com blog and a name change (Our Blessed Broken Life) to reflect a really hard season we had entered with our post-adoption journey.

I blogged over there about our Trisomy 13 Pregnancy with our baby Rebecca, who was born extremely early (29 weeks) in 2014... she lived about 45 minutes and all her siblings held her, wrapped in a tiny pink blanket.

A year later, we had another baby girl - again born early (32 weeks) with a life-threatening emergency C-section... on the other side of that we learned what it was like to be NICU parents, as I spent the next 21 days healing and visiting the NICU twice a day. Jessa is now the spunkiest six-year-old I've ever met. (She's currently singing at the top of her little lungs two rooms away)... We are so blessed.

And then almost three years later, Carson (who is now twelve!) finally had his prayers answered when we brought home a baby BOY after a pretty perfect pregnancy and delivery (thank you, Father!)

As one thing rolled into another, my "professional blog" fell further and further down on the priority list, until soon I wasn't writing anything at all. And sadly, I've actually lost that blog and everything I posted it on it, including Rebecca's story.

But,... as I've been learning a lot about recently... sometimes you gotta go back to where you started.

I'm older now - and I have the gray hair and extra skin to show for it (what's that all about?). I'd like to say I'm wiser, but really, I just feel I have much less to say, but a calling to say it...

God is faithful, and He brought me out of the fog... brought us out of a dry seven-year season of weariness and struggle.

We've returned to old paths in many ways, and I'm here for the long haul to share whatever he wants me to... with whoever is still around to read it.

No grand promises about professional blogging or anything... although jumping back in to Make-It-Yourself-Mondays seems like a lot of fun... for now, it just feels good to be back.