Walking With You - Thankful

Walking With You is an outreach of Sufficient Grace Ministries, led by Kelly Gerken. Walking With You is a group of mothers who have lost a baby or child who gather together each month to share our stories, to encourage, and pray for one another as we walk this path together. Our hope is that you will be comforted when you join us here...and maybe that we can offer some grace for the journey as we look to the Lord for comfort and strength.

This month we are focusing on our gratefulness for the gifts we were given and the ways our lives were changed by the lives of our babies. I know that many people are busy, so this can be as simple or in-depth as you wish. I hope you will link your own post with us, sharing ways that you are thankful. I do think that reflecting on gratefulness is very valuable...especially in the throes of grief. Grief is big and consuming. The simplicity of counting our blessings refocuses a grieving heart from the giants of pain, sorrow, and hopelessness to the hope, comfort, peace, and eventually joy that waits for us on the other side of the valley. The comfort that waits for us in the arms of our Savior.

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1. When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,
   When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
   Count your many blessings, name them one by one,
   And it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.
   • Refrain:
     Count your blessings, name them one by one,
     Count your blessings, see what God hath done!
     Count your blessings, name them one by one,
     Count your many blessings, see what God hath done.
     
2. Are you ever burdened with a load of care?
   Does the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
   Count your many blessings, every doubt will fly,
   And you will keep singing as the days go by.
3. When you look at others with their lands and gold,
   Think that Christ has promised you His wealth untold;
   Count your many blessings—wealth can never buy
   Your reward in heaven, nor your home on high.
4. So, amid the conflict whether great or small,
   Do not be discouraged, God is over all;
   Count your many blessings, angels will attend,
   Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

~Count Your Blessings, Johnson Oatman Jr, 1897

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I am thankful. As weird as those words taste to me, and probably sound to you, I am. I have been blessed in uncountable ways by my daughter's short life and Homecoming.

I have received comfort. From friends, from acquaintances. From perfect strangers. From God.

I have been richly gifted with new friends. My eyes have been opened to the value of the friends I'd already claimed. The support I've been given has sustained me, and held me upright through this process.

I'm so lucky it happened to me here. In Troy, Ohio. God put us in the perfect place to weather this storm. He surrounded us with caring people in the midst of our despair. He brought me to the one hospital with the one nurse with the ministry of photography and a heart for those tiny, tiny angels. He provided nurses who genuinely hurt for us, and weren't afraid to show it. An OB with a heart. When I look back at everything that happened, I cannot help but praise Him ~ He has well and truly provided.

I'm grateful this happened to me, not to someone I love. I am not strong enough to watch one of my friends go through this. That takes a special person. I'm so fortunate to have a few of those special people in my life. Too many others watch their friends fade away because they don't know how to bridge the gap after a loss like this. My friends are brave. They persevered. I am blessed beyond measure.

I'd been given hope where there had been none. I was resigned to infertility. Now I know it can happen. And, even better, God told me it will happen again.

I'm so thankful for the gift of my daughter. Leila Mae. I love her. Love to say that name. Right now, I have the memories, and when I die, I'll have her companionship. I guess that's a future gift, something to look forward to. A "Now and Later".

I've received the gift of experience. Knowing what this is like. Feeling it for myself. It's given me a depth of compassion I lacked.

And I've been given the opportunity to reach out to others going through this. How great is that!?!?

I Cor 1:3-4

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort,
who comforts us in all our troubles,
so that we can comfort those in any trouble
with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.