He Makes Everything Beautiful

I think it is time to share some not so good news. But I feel if God is to use this beyond me it needs to be shared. At the end of last year I had a miscarriage, this month we would be welcoming a new little one into this world. I wasn't very far along but it was still the loss of one of our children, a unique person with an individual soul. It has left a void in my life, and pain I will always feel.

Those first few days have been some of the hardest days I have had to walk through. At times the sorrow was so overwhelming it left me with almost the complete inability to move. Some of my strongest feelings at first were a longing to hold my baby and sweetly whisper in their ear how much I love them. I was full of pain but my faith and trust in God was not and is not shaken. Satan might have wanted and tried to use this to break me down but God used it for my growth and to draw me to Himself. I do not understand His ways but I know He is sovereign and all things work together for His glory. He is a very present help in times of trouble. And he sees so much more than we can. I have great peace knowing our souls are eternal and in Heaven I will meet our little one. What a great day that will be, to be in the presence of the King and get to hold my baby! Now I know God is holding my baby in His arms and His arms are full of perfect love. And my baby will never experience the troubles of this world. Through those first days I found this poem online that so perfectly fit my emotions.

  My eyes long to see you;
        Now you behold Him.
    My arms ache for you;
        Now you know perfect love.
    My ears yearn for your voice;
        Now you sing His praises.
    I desire to feed you;
        Now you will never know hunger.
    I anticipated the pitter-patter of your feet;
        Now you play at His pierced ones.
    I dreamed of years of love and laughter;
        Now you will never know pain.
    I longed to watch you grow and develop;
        Now you are perfect.
    This isn't how I planned;
       But I know He loves you.
            -Monique Stam

During those days I clung to the promises found in God's Word. "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." (Isaiah 41:10). When I experienced those times when my strength was gone I knew by reading, and now I know from experience that God provides the strength exactly when it is needed in His wisdom. It is because of these difficult moments that my trust is built in Him. He knows where the days lead and knows what I need for each moment of every day better than I do. I also know that "He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wound." (Psalm 147:3). My faith tells me that God understands, more than anyone, the pain I am feeling, He counts my tears and He will heal my broken heart.

A couple weeks after losing our baby I began to struggle with why this happened. I did not question the Lord's sovereignty and goodness, I just didn't understand why we had to loss a baby, a life before it was lived. I know this is something this side of heaven I will never fully understand and I prayed that my heart would know that. Life is full of joy but at the time I wondered and prayed that I could see that and be that again. I now know joy makes the suffering possible and suffering makes the joy more beautiful. There came a point in reading a book, (Beautiful Battlefields by Bo Stern) that I realized that it is easy in this life and in this country to confuse a lack of suffering with God’s unconditional love. As the author stated, “We can’t question His love for us because we’re in a battle. Rather, we rejoice in His love that walks us through the battle. His love shows up when we think we can’t keep going. He comes to our hurting and He pours out His compassion. Sometimes it’s through His Word, sometimes it’s through the voice of a friend, and sometimes it’s just a supernatural infusion of joy when there’s no earthly reason we should feel it.” God is so good in His healing and bringing of comfort, peace and joy.

Shortly after this struggle, of why the Lord showed me Ecclesiastes 3:11 which says, "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end." It is hard to see or even imagine beauty coming from this, but through my faith and what I have experienced and know of God I know that He will bring beauty in my life from this. I pray that this will also be used to bring Him glory. The scripture in Ecclesiastes has grown my heart and longing for eternity, for this world is not my true home.

There are times I still experience sadness, as I think I always will, the sorrow is no longer overpowering. I will always miss our baby, nothing will replace the loss of that person. I will always wonder about our baby, their gender, their personality, their future. But I rejoice knowing our little one is in heaven with the God of love and the King and Kings. Who is so perfect in the comfort and healing He provides that despite the loss and the void left in my life I see and experience joy, and that is only because of and through His work in my life. 

Beach Trip

This year the beach came together just a few weeks before. It was a bit crazy a few days before leaving. I was enjoying a weekend scrapbooking and The Farmer was getting some trees planted. This year we headed to Seaside and despite a turn in weather we still got to get out and enjoy the beach.We were there when the whale washed ashore but we didn't go over to it. It looked like it had decomposed quite a bit and was very smelly. Micah had an especially good time with his cousins this year. It was a great trip, over too quick of course.

 Jane loved to dig in the sand, fill up the bucket, dump it out and do it that over and over again.

 The two boy cousins, I am looking forward to seeing how their relationship develops over the years.

 The kids dug a BIG hole with a tunnel entrance. They did have a bit (maybe a lot) of help from the dads.

What's the Word

Apparently I have become a once a month blogger. I would prefer to be posting weekly but life doesn't seem to be giving me time for that lately. Now is usually when I would be posting my word for the year. It is a word that the Lord has placed on my heart as something to focus on for the year. Right now I don't feel lead to any word. Perhaps my problem is not being silent and still enough to hear God. So maybe my word should be something like listen or focus. I think it will be best to wait on the Lord instead of picking a word just to pick a word. So we will see, maybe it is a year without a word and that's okay.

Now as for an update...wow a lot has happened since my last post. Life as been a blur. I almost feel like I am just riding the waves, which I don't like I would much prefer to be directing life more. But I feel like I am just keeping my head above water, perhaps that is because we are coming out of the busyness of the holidays.

We had a great time seeing a lot of family.

 All the Rices got together, this is Grandpa reading to all the grand kids minus babies.

 The Sunderlands

The Wolfes

I entered a new decade. I hardly feel old enough to be 30.

Celebrating with my family, unfortunately The Farmer was sick that day.

The kids are as busy as ever. They bring constant challenges and constant joy. If you ask me what we have been doing I will be at a loss. Some how the days get filled, things get accomplished and many things beyond taking care of Jane and Micah don't get accomplished. So one day I might become better at blogging more regularly.

Recent Moments

Life is adventurous, entertaining and of course busy! Here are a few of our recent captured memories.

 



Baby bums are so cute.

 

 

Micah had a blast at the harvest party this year. He worked the press for over an hour.

 

The Farmer got to go up flying with our brother in-law. He got some beautiful pictures with all the trees changing colors.

 

I am no longer nursing Jane. She seems to still miss it in the mornings but over all she has adjusted great.  

 

The kids marching with strainers on their heads. Quite entertaining. It was in fact Jane's idea to put the strainer on her head. 

 

 "Micah God's Mighty Warrior". He is dressed up resembling a character in a book we have titled Will God's Might Warrior.

Micah God's Mighty Warrior (with a different hat)

 

All of us riding in the land cruiser, a first for Jane.

City Life

Last month The Farmer was The Soldier for three weeks. After the kids and I spent a week at home we headed into Tigard to spend some time with my parents while the soldier was away. It was different living back in the city. All the activities we were able to do were nice, but ugh the traffic! I could live without that. I visited with a few friends and got a lot of errands done (one nice thing about the city). We didn't get to go on as many walks as I thought we would, the weather was much cooler and wetter then I expected. We did get to go up the school playground and an indoor play park at a local church. The zoo was a major highlight for Micah and Fabric Depot was a major highlight for me.

We also were able to join the family in celebrating my Grandparents 63rd anniversary, which happens to be the same as our anniversary. Though we are not quite at 63 years, we are at 7 years. 

Beach Trip

Now that we have been back from the beach for over a month it seemed like the perfect time to get the pictures up. Hahaha. This year we went with all of the Rice side of the family. We stayed in a super big and super nice house with a theater room and everything. It was a fun time with the whole family and Micah really enjoyed playing with all his cousins.

 

I apologize if this pictures offends you, it cracks me up.

Sibling Love

It is fun to see Micah and Jane's relationship develop and how much they enjoy each other. The other day Jane got hurt and Micah started being goofy falling on the ground trying to cheer her up. And it worked! So great to see that he cared about wanting to make her feel better.

 The kids share a room and there have been a few mornings when I go into get them they are laughing and talking with each other. Okay Micah is doing the talking but they are both laughing. Looking forward to hearing more conversations between these two and my laughing.

Micah also looks out for Jane, trying to get her to stay away from things she can't touch. Of course he might not be doing it right, but his intentions are sweet.


Don't get me wrong things are not always this lovely-dovely. There are times Micah is taking toys from Jane or trying to push her around.

Laughter

The other night we were sitting around as a family Micah doing his typical craziness. Then all of a sudden Jane laughed! We encouraged Micah to do what he was doing again, he gladly obliged. Sure enough Jane smiled and laughed more. We caught a little of it on video. You will notice I have a lovely hat on too.
3-2 J laughing at M from Meagan Rice on Vimeo.

Jane Elizabeth

It has been over a week now since our little girl arrived and we have been greatly enjoying her. I certainly did not expect her to be nine days late. At one point I even thought she was going to come early.

The evening before she was born my contractions were starting to get stronger. They continued to be strong the next morning, but they were not regular at all. The day started as it usually does and I had no feelings that it was going to be "the day". After lunch and getting Micah down for nap I was taking care of things around our room and some contractions started to get much stronger. After a couple had come just as strong and somewhat close together I decide to start keeping track of the time. This was around 2:30, about 3:15 I called The Farmer to tell him I thought it was time. He came in and helped pull together the last few things to take to the hospital. At this point I was not paying attention to how close the contractions were. Later The Farmer told me they just kept getting closer and closer and were about three minutes apart when we left.

Once arriving at the hospital The Farmer thought it would be a good idea to walk a bit since I had been sitting in the car for about a half hour. We didn't want to things to slow down from the drive. Well we didn't make it far, I had a couple strong contractions and mentioned feeling lots of pressure. So The Farmer turned us around and checked us in at 4:47pm. The nurse checked me at 5:48 and I was at 6.5cm. At 5:49 my water broke and things really got going at this point. Just a few minutes later I was pushing and at 6:16pm on October 10th we welcomed Jane Elizabeth into this world. I had been praying for a shorter labor (Micah was 26 hours), I was not expecting it to be as short as it was, but I'm quite happy that it was. 

Jane has been great and we are loving having her apart of our family. Since this post is already long I will save the story about Micah meeting her for another day. 

This Moment

Soaking up and treasuring these moments

 this energy

 this wonder

 this love of trucks

 these expressions

 this time

 

 this boy and me

these two together

 even these times

 this exuberance

 this play

 this sweet boy

 this love of outside

 this excitement in the little things

 this love

 this smile

this laugher