Last Day On Earth

So as I was skimming myspace I was on Steven Curtis Chapman's site, he's one of my favorites and he's been around for so many years that there are many songs of his that I've not heard and this is one of them. These lyrics just gripped my heart...I'll go on more after the lyrics are posted:


Last Day on Earth
Verse 1:
I pull over to the side of the road
And I watch the cars pass me by
The headlights and the black limousines tell me
Someone is saying goodbye
I bow my head and I whisper a prayer, "Father, comfort their broken hearts"
And as I drive away there's a thought that I
I cannot escape, no I, cannot escape this thought I can't get away

Chorus:
Oh, if this should be my last day on this earth
How then shall I live?
Oh, if this should be the last day that I have Before I breathe the air of Heaven
Let me live it with abandon to
The only thing that remains
AFter my last day here on earth

Verse 2:
If this should be my last day here on earth
If this should be my last day here on earth
If this should be my last, last day here on earth
And if tomorrow comes to find me Looking in the face of Jesus
Will I hear Him say the words "well done"?
If this should be my last day here on earth
If this should be my last, my last day here on earth
Cause if this could be my last, this could be my last
This could be my last day


Yesterday the sermon was about not worrying about tomorrow, but instead focusing on today. (Sorry drawing a blank right now on the verse). Then this morning I get online and find Emily-Really Living online and she'd just updated her blog and what is it about...the same thing. We chatted for a while, then she finally went to bed so she could get up and go to her first day of work (be in prayer for her today and well everyday). But I heard God. I've really been focusing on "tomorrow" for me my tomorrow is Friday and the week to follow. The birth of our daughter and the week I'm going to be in the hospital. I've been getting anxious (I know we're not to be anxious over anything) over her being healthy. I want her to be healthy not only for her or me, but for Emily. I have been in deep prayer and done quite a bit of worrying over this in the last couple of days and ultimately she's in God's hands and when she's born, God already has that taken care of and all I need to do is trust him. I need to remember that HE has this already taken care of, he knows what is ahead of us and that is not my responsiblity to worry about it. I'm to simply trust him and as a human, a mom, a wife, a sinner...I do struggle with that. Thank you to our chaplain and to Emily for reminding me of God's promise and instruction that tomorrow will take care of itself and that I just need to focus on today.

I think we live in a world where we're constantly looking to tomorrow. What IF today is our last day? I've said it since Jordyn died...tomorrow is NOT promised, not even for our children. I need a reminder of that myself. I can preach it, but I don't always live it. What do I expect Jesus to say to me if tomorrow doesn't come here on this earth and instead I wake up in Heaven? How I live today is what matters. I can't change yesterday, I don't know what is to come in the future...all I can do is live today. God gave us each free will, so how are we using that free will? Are we using it to Glorify God? I can tell you today has not been the most glorified day. I've been moody. I've been ugly towards my husband and my children. I've focused on how uncomfortable I am vs how blessed I am. I've looked at how much my back hurts vs how blessed I am to even be able to FEEL discomfort.

So for the rest of today, I'm going to focus on living it for Christ. Glorifying him through my words as well as my actions. If today is my last day on earth, I want it to count for something other than an ugly day, of moody pregnancy hormones.

What Might Have Been

Life is full of unexpected things. We don't know what is in store for us tomorrow. What we think so often is a promise of the future is as fragile as a 99 yr old woman taking her last breaths. I keep thinking about Jordyn so much and how much our life would be different if she were alive. I honestly don't even know how to picture her in my head, only in my heart. I know so many 9 yr old little girls...some are beautiful inside and out and some are not. Some I can picture Jordyn being like and some I pray she wouldn't have been.

I was sharing Jordyn's last moments with Emily http://emily0305.blogspot.com/ yesterday and then talking to Chad and it just rushes back fast and HARD. When I was talking to Chad I just sobbed into his chest. The reality is that there's no end for grief. There's days, weeks, even months of complete joy. I know Jordyn is with Jesus and I don't grieve for her persay but for me and what I long for. I miss her. I miss the feel of her in my arms, the warmth of her breath on my neck, the feel of her in my arms. She gave me the best hugs. The boys give wonderful hugs, but they're not like Jordyn's. She put all of herself into them and she just wrapped her arms around my neck as absolutely tight as possible. There are moments where I can almost feel those hugs, and then the ache starts up inside of me. I lose my breath for a moment. I shut my eyes and just sit there and in my heart feel those hugs. You see grieving is for us who are living. It's something we go through and it's not something you just stop doing one day. You don't get "cured" of it. You learn to live in it. Some grieve deep and hard for months, some go for years, some for days. There's no right or wrong. No one, and I mean NO ONE can truly understand what another person's feeling. They can relate, but that's as absolutely close as they can get. Be it the death of a child, parent, friend, spouse...no one else can TRULY understand another person's grief or experience in any part of life. When I hear someone say "I understand" or the bigger one "I completely understand" a little part of me inside screams...."NO YOU DON'T". That relationship was not theirs. They don't get to "own" another person's feelings. I know it's done out of empathy, out of caring, out of reaching out and I don't fault that person, but something that has to be said is we can NOT truly understand what another person is feeling or going through. We can relate, that's it. We can relate how WE felt or feel about something, but to truly understand is to be that person.

I only know my personal pain of Jordyn's death. Not a single person, and this includes Chad can ever understand my feelings on her. No other woman was her Mommy. No one else held her in their arms as she took her last breath. No other woman carried her inside of their womb for those precious 10 months (deal with it women...pregnancy is NOT 9 months it's 10 months if you go the full 40 weeks and I went 40 weeks 6 days!). She was a part of me in ways no other person could ever understand. Just as the love, grief, and moments Chad shared with Jordyn are his. I don't know the depths of his pain, I know what I see with my own eyes. I know what he's shared with me, and I know the pain of the loss as a co-parent to our beautiful Jordyn with him, but his pain belongs to him and only him and I have absolutely no right to even try to claim it.

I have had a song keep going through my head the last two days. "What Might Have Been" by Little Texas (country band if you don't know). It's actually about a long lost love (girl and guy type of love) the one that got away sort of song, but I always loved it. It always grabbed a part of me. I love music and it's one of the ways that I can express myself and feel myself being expressed. I don't try and compete with others on my love of music, it's just a part of me.

Sure I think about you now and then
But its been a long, long time.
I've got a good life now, Ive moved on
So when you cross my mind....

Chorus:
(i, so, and) try not to think about
What might have been
cause that was then
And weve taken different roads
We cant go back again, theres no use giving in
And theres no way to know
What might have been.

We could sit and talk about this all night long,
And wonder why we didnt last
Yes, they might be the best days we will ever know
But well have to leave them in the past.

Chorus

That same old look in your eyes
Its a beautiful night
Im so tempted to stay
But too much time has gone by
We should just say goodbye
And turn and walk away.

Chorus

No, well never know
What might have been









I think as a mother I'll always think of "what might have been" when it comes to Jordyn. I praise GOD that she's with him. That she's safe, happy, cancer free, no worries, no tears. I will always ache though. This is just how life is for me anyways. I don't doubt God's wisdom in taking Jordyn home when she was 2 yrs old. Sure I wish that her lifes purpose wasn't fulfilled so quickly, but I know it was. I know that her time here was full of joy, happiness, and lots of giggles. That she showed me a strength that no one else ever could have. That she taught ME about God's love, how unending, how large it is. Oh I'm so thankful for every single second I had with my beautiful girl. I will miss her, but look forward to the day I get to see her again....in Heaven.

Legoland

I know it's not a close up of them, but this is Jack and Jacob at the entrance of Legoland in Germany!











Saturday we went to Legoland with a friend of ours and a friend of hers! In total there were 4 adults (Chad and I were two of them) and 7 children (our 2 boys, my friends 2, and her friends 2 plus a little girl she had for the weekend). We took the train down there. The ride down was uneventful and on time all the way. We had a great time there, but oh it was so hot! My friend's stroller has a themometer built in and out of the shade it was reading 116 degree's and trust me it felt like it, in the shade it said it was a cool 110 degree's and again it felt like it! We did find relief in the water, well we found an area where we could stick our feet into the water and it was frigid and yes I mean it, my feet went numb right beside it was another water area where the water would shoot out of the ground, Jacob and my friends son LOVED it!!!













It was a lot of fun, but I don't recommend going there 35 weeks pregnant and in the blazing heat. It was the first day of our little heat wave we're having in Germany (it's supposed to cool back into the 70's come Wednesday). We plan on going back down after the baby is born, maybe in September. It should be cooler and well I'll obviously be more comfortable! ;) We plan on driving for one and we are planning on getting a hotel the night before we go, so we can get there early and explore the whole place. Oh it's a true amusement park and also for those who don't know yes it's Lego's as in the toys and almost everything is made out of lego's. It's truly just a really cool place!













Now for our ride home, well that was anything but pleasant. Our train left at 8:05. We got there and there was a 5 minute delay. We get to our next stop and there was a 4 minute delay. From there we go to Nurnburg and we had to get on a BUS to take us to Erlangen (another city) to get on the train that would take us home. Let me just say ahhhhhh now! LOL We get to Nurnburg and can't find our bus. Chad goes and asks at info and we went as quickly as possible, hoping there was a bus for us. By the time we get there it was 10 minutes PAST when the bus was scheduled to leave, but he was still there and we were the first to get on, but before we left the bus was standing room only. The bus left 20 minutes after we got on. We get to Erlangen and the train was on a 30 minute delay. It finally arrives and they announce ANOTHER 30 minute delay. We finally take off towards home at 1 am. We get there about 1:45 am I think and get into the taxi's which was an issue in and of itself, but we get it figured out (it wasn't on our end...one of the taxi drivers decided he needed a vehicle big enough for all of us, although there were 2 taxi's and they could fit all of us between the two! another ahhh!) thankfully another taxi showed up we all loaded in to our respective taxi's and we got to post a little after 2 am, walk the few blocks home from the front gate and we walked into our door at aprox 2:15 am. The boys got into bed, I took a shower, there was NO WAY I could sleep feeling that disgusting. Chad went to bed, and I actually got on here to wind down a little. I know wind down after that long train ride home, but I needed still! I chatted with my dear Kelly and then off to bed I went. The boys and Chad slept until a little after 10:00 and I slept until 11:30! Yeah we missed church.













This afternoon after we had some lunch, we went to the pool just off post. There was a long line to the entrance, but thankfully it went pretty quickly and we were able to get cooled off quickly! The water felt great and it was nice to just relax in the water while the kids all played!













So here's some pictures from our adventure at Legoland and a couple from our train ride home! :)









Chad, Jacob, and our friends son









Lego Family








Jakson in Thomas!!! He was so excited!





Jack and Jacob with Nero the dog!








Jacob and Jack looking at Munich Airport! The fire engine there sprayed water! They LOVED it!!



Huge Dino made out of, of course...Lego's!


Jacob, "B" (our friend), and Jack with Albert Einstein!

Soccer stadium (the one that's in Munich)

Jack one tired, tired boy!

We have a date! Our baby girl should be here on August 3. I go next Monday and get registered and take a tour of the hospital I'm having her in. I'll also meet the dr who'll be performing my c-section and he'll do an exam. I need to talk to a friend of mine and see if she can watch the boys for me while Chad and I go up there and get it all taken care of. The hospital's about 30 minutes away aprox. I'll have a private room and Chad will get to stay with me. I will also be talking to my dr about how long I'll be staying after she's born. German's keep you longer (think America 30 years ago). For vaginal they like to keep you on average of 5 days and c-sections 8-10 days. There's no way I'm staying at the hospital for that long. I'll stay for 5 days and even for me that's stretching it. The thought of being there more than just a couple days just is not sounding pleasant to me at all! But I'll suck it up and do it! LOL

A friend of ours has offered to keep the boys. It works out perfectly. We kept her son when she had her daughter in January. All the kids get along great. Her dh is currently deployed so the fact that she's taking both our boys for a few days is such a blessing.

I better get off of here. I have some laundry to do. Our new furniture should be getting delivered anytime. Oh the fun never stops! LOL

Soldiers' Voices

A friend of mine shared this with me and I couldn't agree more. While Chad was deployed this was often something we discussed. Of course you'll NEVER see THIS in mainstream media. The liberal media would NEVER want the general public to actually heart HOW the average soldier is feeling and what they actually think of the media, the antiwar crowd, etc!


Soldiers' Voices
The Fifth Column Buzz PattersonJune 30, 2007

Operation Arrowhead Ripper, as the latest American offensive is called, has successfully swept into al Qaeda-infested Baquba, the capital of Diyala Province northeast of Baghdad, killing and capturing hundreds of terrorists. The battles in Iraq and Afghanistan time and time again have resulted in significant, but often untold military successes. Realities on the ground often go unnoticed or under-appreciated. The American soldier has often lacked a voice to articulate his mission and his successes amidst the cacophony of defeat in Congress and public opinion polls. I invited warriors to weigh in with their perspectives, interviewing hundreds of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines, many on the battlefields of Iraq. Together, their interviews constitute much of War Crimes: The Left’s Campaign to Destroy the Military and Lose the War on Terror. And the picture they paint of their fellow citizens at home is anything but rosy.

▪ “Every day, the enemy changes…only now, the enemy is becoming something new. The enemy is transitioning from the Muslim extremists to Americans. The enemy is becoming the very people whom we defend with our lives. And they do not realize it. But in denouncing our actions, denouncing our leaders, denouncing the war we live and fight, they are isolating the military from society…and they are becoming our enemy. Terrorists cut the heads off of American citizens on the Internet…and there is no outrage but an American soldier kills an Iraqi in the midst of battle, and there are investigations, and sometimes soldiers are even jailed…for doing their job…It is absolutely sickening to me to think our country has come to this.” —Sergeant Eddie Jeffers, U.S. Army

▪ “Some of the American public have no idea how much freedom costs and who the people are that pay that awful price. I think sometimes people just see us as nameless and faceless and not really as humans…A good portion of us are actually scared that when we come home, for those of us who make it back, that there will be protesters waiting for us and that is scary.”—-Specialist Jason Gilson, U.S. Army

▪ “What angers and hurts me as a soldier is that they parade their anti-war views in the face of my brothers and sisters who are recovering from the same battlefield that I fought on and am still fighting on as I type this e-mail. Is there no honor or dignity left in the antiwar movement? Do they have no shame? Do they have no integrity? Do they have no heart? Do they have no soul? I can answer that with a simple no! How can they say they support the troops but protest where they try to recover from war? You interviewed one gentleman, and I use that term loosely, who stated ‘If I was injured I would want someone to speak for me like this.’ Well let me tell him something, we do not want you to speak for us and we do not need you to speak for us!” —Sergeant Mark Leach, U.S. Army

▪ “Compared to the shock of the instant, violent death of a squad-mate standing right next to me or the excitement of a child looking at my uniform, the constant barrage of partisan politics, runaway brides and the activities of Paris Hilton seem utterly devoid of importance. I have marines slowly recuperating at hospitals in San Francisco, Washington, Bethesda and San Diego. Who is telling their stories?” —Captain Rory Quinn, U.S. Marines


▪ “We daily see the gross distortions. We can’t recognize the caricatures they [the media] scratch out, neither in our fellow soldiers, nor on the battleground. I know they claim to be objective but really they’re nothing more than accomplices in the face of this evil.” —First Sergeant Jeff Nuding, U.S. Army


▪ “The troops’ number-one frustration has consistently been the media reporting. The way the press mishandled Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo had a tremendous negative effect on us. It inflamed the Iraqis at a time when we were making great progress in their support and willingness to help.”——Major Eric Egland, U.S. Air Force


▪ “We are at war, Representative Murtha, and your actions and conduct give aid and comfort to our enemies…You have dishonored all of those who have fought and died up to the day you stood on the floor of the House of Representatives and demanded that we withdraw immediately. Representative Murtha, you have given aid and comfort to our enemies in a time of war. You have given them hope, which they have fast been losing, due to all of the victories and sacrifice by our sons and daughters on the field of battle in Iraq and Afghanistan. You have been honored by our enemies on the front page of Al Jazeera. . . ” —Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Stark, U.S. ArmyListen to these voices. Listen to their clarity and purpose. Have you heard anything lately from Washington, D.C., or in the mainstream media nearly as cogent? As with all wars, America’s fate resides in the hands of the vocal elite manning the editorial desks, congressional offices, and studio back lots. As we approach the birthday of our independence, let us add another voice to the dialogue: the uniformed men and women who, then as now, granted and preserved our freedom. Our way of life is at stake, as is the plight of 25 million Iraqis. Shouldn’t we listen?


Buzz Patterson is a retired lieutenant-colonel in the U.S. Air Force. His new book, War Crimes: The Left’s Campaign to Destroy the Military and Lose the War on Terror, is released this week

A little of this and that

I am feeling drained all of a sudden. All afternoon I've been doing the chore I hate more than any in this world....laundry. Oh how I hate that chore and I really hate going up and down 4 flights up stairs to do it. Seriously it's just extra special torchure I think the Army created for us wives, especially those of us who are 8 1/2 months pregnant and already detest laundry the way it is. No way a woman thought it was a good idea to put the stinking laundry room in the basement. Of course the people on the 4th floor have thier own washer and dryers. Sure they're apartment size, but hey it's better than going up and down all those flights of stairs. The one way we are lucky though is that our storage room is actually in the laundry room (well you have to go in there to get to ours) and it's the biggest storage room in the building, which trust me we need. We do have it organized and for the most part know where everything is and we even have our deep freezer down there. So I am able to just put my laundry detergent right in there vs hauling that up and down the stairs as well. What really gets me though is just how rude a couple of our neighbors are. They don't seem to have the intelligence to empty the lint trap which just gets on my VERY LAST NERVE, they never wipe off the washers, and often one neighbor in particular (who lives right across the hall from me) leaves her clothes down there for at min. a week at a time. The longest has been 2 weeks. OF course she only does laundry about every 2 to 3 weeks, oh and she overfills the washers with clothes and then of course over-fills the dryers. I just wonder if she's that stupid or what. How does a person think their clothes are going to get washed if they can't MOVE in the washer? Today she had 15-20 pairs of jeans in the dryer (I didn't count, but it was AT LEAST that many). Big shocker that they were all still very damp. So I seperated them into 2 loads and started both dryers for her. I'm way too nice. I needed those two dryers for my own clothes (she'd used 2 washers for 2 sets of uniforms, do you see where I'm going..the girl is not smart!). So although I only use 3 out of the 4 washers at a time, I had a load still waiting to go in since her laundry was still in. She's AD and of course she probably threw that laundry in there last night and then she's gone all day long. I used to fold her laundry to be nice, but after she pulled our clothes out one day, and they were all damp, and just tossed them on the folding table (some hit the floor) that was it. I was done being nice and had I actually seen her that day I'd have torn her a new one. I did knock her her door that day and she didn't answer. To say the least I pulled her clothes out of the dryer and put mine back in so they could finish. (Chad did see her and he told her that if she was caught doing it again she had better stay clear of me lol)

Ok so anyways, done with my rant...I've been doing laundry. I actually need to be heading back down there to get more clothes out of the dryer and throw the last 2 loads into the dryers so that when Chad gets home he can bring it up for me. One perk of being pregnant is I don't haul heavy loads up and down...Chad does it for me. One perk for after I have our little girl and I'm healing up from my c-section is that Chad will be doing all the laundry for a couple of weeks. You can bet I'm not going to be doing it and it's one of those chores that after a c-section the dr tells you not to do anyways (common sense)! So I'll enjoy having a couple weeks off from doing that delightful chore!

Chad's working late tonight. He just took over the Arms room on Monday and next week they have inspections, so his 1st Sgt asked him if he could stay late Friday. Well Chad's taking our boys and 2 of our friends boys fishing and camping (on another friends BIL's land) and they're heading out there Friday...so he said he'd stay late tonight. So Chad said he'll be home between 7 and 7:30. He probably could have gotten most of it done today, but he had physical therapy for his knee that he had surgery on and then a check up with her ortho so he was gone two different times for a little over an hour both times. Actually the 2nd time he was gone longer because he stopped at the commissary and got steaks, baking potatoes, corn on the cob, and a few other things for our cook out tomorrow.

I am looking forward to tomorrow. We're going to have the cook out like I said. We're having steaks, burgers (for the kids if they want them), baked potatoes, corn on the cob, we'll have some chips and dip as well for anyone who wants some, and a watermellon to snack on throughout the day! We're making iced tea and raspberry lemonaid too! We're having a friend over and her kids (one's a baby so she obviously won't be enjoying the feast!). Then that afternoon we'll go up to the park for the celebration. Jump houses, bull riding (electric), dunk tank toss, paint ball (not for our kids), face painting, and other fun things, and of course the fireworks! Last year I think we got home at about midnight...but since the weather has been so cool and we've been getting so much rain it's getting darker earlier here than last year so there's a good chance the fireworks could actually be over by 11:00 pm! I know the boys will love that, it'll probably be their favorite part of the day.

For those who prayed for Miller Grace thank you. I know I didn't update over here, but she went home to Dance with Jesus on Thursday. The funeral was Sunday. If you go to her website: www.caringbridge.org/visit/millergracecassetty you can read the words that her Momma, Emily wrote. You will also get to see just how beautiful of a little girl she is and that's resting in the Arms of Jesus now. Keep praying for Matt & Emily and of course their other two little girls Hope and Matilyn and the rest of their family. I love Emily like you just don't know and she's such a blessing in my life. My heart aches for her that she has to know this pain. A pain that no mother should ever have to know, yet far too many of us do.

Well I better head back to the basement and then it's time to start dinner. I have to clean up the kitchen before starting dinner. Thankfully it won't take long for any of it (the cleaning or the cooking). I just have a few things in the sink and we're having fish and mac-n-cheese...nice and easy! Which with the way my back is aching is what sounds perfect to me. I just have about 3 to 4 weeks until this little girl is born!! I can't wait to hold her in my arms!

God Bless