Roses in December

I survived Thursday!  I cried, but that is OK.  I made it through the day.  It has been almost five years since he has been gone and while life is different and I cry less WAY less than I used to I still have bad days.  It is OK to cry, because I am human and God gave me tons of emotions.  He just ask that I trust Him in all those emotions.  So many times through the day when I cried I just prayed and asked God to take the hurt.  Just make the day better to live with.
Well God answers prayers!  I already knew He did, but what happened on Monday I do not find to be coincidental at all.  On Monday night I got a message from my highschool sweetheart who happens to be a very good friend of mine still.  I am still close with his whole family.  I even attend church with some of them. Anyhow he sent me a message and told me he was about to post a picture and it was not to take away from Ethin at all but that Ethin now shared his birthday!  J as we will call my friend for the protection of his privacy and his wife A delivered a healthy, beautiful, perfect, baby boy on January 9, 2014......Thank you God for giving me a reason to celebrate this day rather than mourn the whole day!
Anyone could have had a baby on Thursday, but it was not just anyone it was a very close and dear friend of mine.  A friend of mine who held me when I cried one night that I was home, because Ethin had been put back in ICU and intubated, a friend of mine that cried when he heard that Ethin had died, and this same friend who's family on the hard days think about me and pray for me.  I felt such overwhelming peace when J told me that him and A had their baby!  I felt as though Ethin was saying, "Mommy it's OK to celebrate today and every year after.  I now share my birthday with baby J"
This is what a Marilynn Willett Heaviin would call A Rose in December...http://www.amazon.com/Roses-December-Comfort-Grieving-Heart/dp/0736917799......This was a book that she sent me after Ethin had passed away......
God's divine plans continued to unfold last night when I went to a hockey game with friends and straight across from me there was a red out section for Congenital Heart Defect Awareness!  The tickets and day were picked out way back in December....Coincidental?  I think not!  God has His loving hands in everything!  Even a hockey game!
As long as I am a bereaved mother I will continue to search for the Roses in December and this week God gave me two of them!  Finding God's Grace in my grief has not and is not always this easy, but I trust in Him that His Grace will always be sufficient!

With A Joyful Heart,
Jessica