'What if your blessings come through raindrops'

I was driving home from the hospital, finally taking a second to breathe when Laura Story’s song ‘Blessings’ came on the radio. (I’ve posted the lyrics below with a link to the song if you haven’t heard it before).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOOFAaUGfRE

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering
All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You're near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You're near
And what if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

When friends betray us
When darkness seems to win
We know the pain reminds this heart
That this is not, this is not our home

Cause what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
And what if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You're near
What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise

 

Needless to say I completely lost it in that moment; and as if to add to the perfectness of the lyrics for this day it began to rain. Then I cried….

I cried for the fear I felt when I got the call about my husband’s accident.

I cried for the horrible outcomes that could have taken place.

I cried for finally feeling a sense of relief.

I just cried.

As I continued to listen to the song I could feel God moving in my heart. Instead of seeing all the bad parts of the day, I could finally see the mercies of it too. It is so easy to take life for granted or to get too busy throughout the day to neglect the ones we love, yet we never know when that could be the last moment we have with them.

Honestly this morning I was tired, no exhausted. Jasmine woke up twice last night, once at 2:45am and again at 5:45am, when I had to be up by 7:30am for work. I was in a hurry to get out the door and gave my husband a quick hug, kiss and ‘I love you’ before rushing out.

What if that had been the last goodbye? Would I have looked back and regretted not holding him longer? Kissing him harder? Or doing more than saying ‘I love you’ out of routine?

Absolutely! And I think that is where the bulk of my emotions are pouring from tonight. Thankfully my husband is ok and he will recover with time but I learned a valuable lesson. So tonight as I look into my daughter’s eyes and see her daddy’s face, I promise myself that tomorrow will better and I won’t take my loved ones for granted. Sometimes it takes earth shattering moments like I had today to see God’s grace and feel Him moving. Because after all, ‘what if trials of this life, the rain, the storms, the hardest nights, are your mercies in disguise.’  

<3 JT

For Better or For Worse

            When I first started my blog I promised myself I would always be transparent with people about my feelings and my life even if things weren’t perfect or glamorous so here it is, for better or for worse.
           

In November of 2010 my husband and I took our vows:

“to have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”

It seems we have been tested on every single part of these in the last couple years, from horrible sickness shortly after he got home from Iraq to richer and poorer as we transited out of the Army and now for better and for worse. Life is always constantly changing but what do you do when some of life’s most significant changes happen all at once? Well you have two choices, you give up or you fight for what matters most. Between moving states, starting a new life and having a baby things have been overwhelming to say the least but worst of all somewhere in all the chaos my husband and I lost the thing that mattered most: we lost ‘us.’

I became so focused on taking care of a little human being that I neglected to take care of my husband.

My husband engulfed himself in his career so much that he lost he focus on things back home.

For months we argued but never about what we were really upset about, what was really hurting us. Instead we bickered about frivolous things….when we lost our ability to communicate we lost ‘us.’ After many tears, long pauses of silence to collect our thoughts and process all the emotions we finally talked about all the things we had been keeping inside. It is going to take some work, a lot of work, to get our marriage back where we want it to be but I know I have the best teammate in the world who will fight for us and our marriage.

We had the choice to give up,

 to tap out when things started to get rough,

to toss out four years together and almost three of marriage,

to start over with someone new.

But we took vows and even though the fire isn’t blazing like it use to, the hot coals are still there and with some work we can start that fire again. Because after all, we are in this for better or for worse.

Waiting...

          Well another trip to the hospital just to leave without a baby in our arms and painful contractions still happening in my belly. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed and a few tears weren’t shed. As I sat in bed consoling myself with unnecessary processed fats while my husband tried to catch up on sleep since I once again dragged him to the hospital for no reason, I started to feel something I had not felt before (no I’m not talking about contractions) I felt contentment. I am extremely anxious for Jasmine to be born but a part of me is going to miss being connected to her like this. From the moment I found out I was pregnant I have been dreaming of the day I finally get to hold her and see her; yet as she wiggled and kicked inside me (and even as I write this) I realized how content I am to still be carrying her. I also realized how selfish I was being by wanting her to come early so badly. Maybe, just maybe, she isn’t ready for this world. God not only knows when she will be born but He also has Divine plans for her once she gets here. I’m an imperfect person, how am I supposed to grasp or even comprehend His perfect plans for me and my daughter?
           

            I am no stranger to the ‘waiting trial.’ Jasmine is the miracle Josh and I have been waiting for, long before she was even conceived. God was testing us then and I have no doubt that He is testing us now. But the beauty is that He is always so faithful to provide.

            As we walked, or in my case waddled, out of the hospital my husband said, “Well the good news is you won’t be pregnant forever!” Being emotional and hormonal I did not take this statement well; however, I am now able to recognize that everything has a time and no trial lasts forever. While finishing the last of my Taco Bell indulgence I mulled over God’s word about timing and I found myself in the book of Ecclesiastes. His words gave me comfort:

“There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:

 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,
a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,
a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,
 a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

What do workers gain from their toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on the human race. He has made everything beautiful in its time.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

            So as I continue to wait I find reassurance in the fact that God has a time for everything even when I can’t or refuse to see it. I am still anxious but for now I will continue to enjoy my daughter’s movement from within because someday soon it will only be a memory.

<3 JT

Learning to Share

         From an early age, we are taught to share with others. I don’t know how many times my mom yelled at me and my sisters over this or even how many times I’ve said this to my nieces and nephews in the past week. The funny thing is, now even as an adult, I am still struggling with this concept. My husband and I have been married almost two and half years and even though I am getting better about sharing certain things with much practice there are still things I need to work on. Marriage really is the greatest test of sharing, whether it is simple things like the bed (I am a self-proclaimed bed hog), the bathroom (guilty again!), food, the television (I’m working on that one too ;)) or more important things like money, emotions, responsibilities and fears. Now we are facing one of the most significant tests of sharing in our entire marriage: a child.

            Let me be really honest for a second. No matter how perfect you think your spouse is or how perfectly you blend together with him/her, you are still two very different people and I promise you will disagree. You’ve had different experiences and up until your wedding day you lived different lives. I don’t care how much you were raised alike in respect to morals, standards or whatever you choose to call them. You still were not raised in the same home by the same two parents (if you were, I’m pretty sure that is illegal in most states.) The point is that you bring two perspectives on how you want to raise your child. Sometimes it is meaningless stuff like “honey I want the nursery to be hot pink instead of baby pink” (yes this conversation took place at one time)  or “should we pierce her ears when she is an infant or wait until she is old enough to decide?” Then there are other times when you disagree on important stuff like what age is appropriate to start dating, should we make our kids play an instrument, should we require our kids to read certain books, etc. Even though our daughter isn’t here yet we find ourselves having these conversations and not always agreeing on what we want to do. We have learned so much more about each other as we prepare to be parents to this little girl. We are learning to compromise where we can and ultimately to share our child and responsibility for her upbringing.

            At the end of the day, I am grateful for the partner I have in this journey. I’m thankful for the disagreements (maybe not right away but eventually I get there) and most of all I am greatly blessed with our daughter. As I anxiously await the arrival of   my our baby girl, I never could have imagined the amount of love I would have for her before meeting her. She and I share a special bond as mother and daughter, but Josh and I share a bond just as strong as blood: the bond of marriage. Jesus said in Mark 10, “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”

            So even as I struggle to relearn the childhood concept of sharing, I am confident that I will get the hang of it. Today I will work on my parenting strategy and tomorrow my bed hogging, well maybe… ;)

<3 JT

Happy Birthday Jellybean

I’m afraid of remembering because of the pain it will bring, but I think I am most afraid of forgetting. I don’t want to forget our first child though his or her life lasted mere weeks. I don’t want to forget the love I have for someone I never met, never held and only saw after death. Though it hurts me to my core, I don’t want to forget. January 13^th will always be special to me and yet in the back of my mind I will always wonder. To be honest I have been dreading that day for a long time now. On Thursday I looked at the calendar marked with big letters ‘Jellybean’s birthday.’ In my mind I couldn’t believe it was so close and for a moment I questioned whether I would have remembered or not, but in my heart I knew when it was. The thing about grief is that you never know when it will hit you or even why. The tears will just start to flow and suddenly you have to focus on breathing. I think that is the worst part, not knowing when it will happen. I never expected to be standing in the card aisle at Wal-Mart struggling to see through what seemed like an ocean of water, trying to focus on words that no longer made sense and doing everything to just keep myself from collapsing. That is the other thing about grief everyone grieves differently. For my husband he wanted to honor our angel baby by buying a birthday card. But just the sight of all the happy birthday wishes and cards addressed to someone special made me want to vomit. Turns out there aren’t cards for this kind of situation, probably because there aren’t any words. A day that should have brought so much joy now brings sorrow and empty arms. If that isn’t enough emotion, I carry so much guilt on top of it.

Guilt for possibly coming off as ungrateful for the child I do have with me…

Guilt for having another baby so quickly after the loss…

Guilt that one child may seem more important than the other…

I think people assume that you are ‘over it’ just because you are pregnant with a second baby. We are so incredibly thankful for Jasmine, she is such a precious gift from God but that doesn’t mean we have forgotten about our Jellybean. I truly believe each child is unique from conception in their personality and looks so I mourn the loss of him or her as an individual.

But God makes no mistakes and the number of days we have on this earth were determined long before we were ever formed whether that equal 6 weeks or 90 years; and that magic number is based on how long until our purpose is finally fulfilled. Jasmine wouldn’t be here had Jellybean not gone to be with the Lord, his/her purpose is complete while Jasmine’s is still here with us for reasons I may never fully understand. All I know is that I am the proud mother of two miracles: one angel in Heaven and one princess still growing inside me. I may not know what to expect each January 13^th but I know I won’t forget. Happy birthday Jellybean! Mommy and daddy will always love you.

<3 JT

Life's Greatest Choices

Every day offers so many choices…to get out of bed on time or sleep 15 more minutes, to skip breakfast or not, what to wear, what to say…you get the picture. But I feel there are very few times in life when you are literally standing at a fork in the road deciding which way to go, with each path leading you somewhere completely different. I can’t believe it has almost been a year since I made one of life’s greatest choices and I can’t help but reflect on how drastically it has impacted my life.

As many of you know my husband returned from Iraq last November just in time for our first anniversary (literally just in time, two hours before midnight), and though we were overjoyed to be back together we weren’t planning on him being home for a few more months. We had a plan. We had it all figured out. That was our first mistake ;) I was supposed to finish my Bachelor’s while he was in Iraq and then move down to Texas. But God, as He often does, had other ideas for us. He knew we wouldn’t last long trying to sustain a long-distance marriage for 6 more months after doing it for the last 7. Here came the time to make a choice, to stay in Colorado to finish my degree or to leave and be with my husband.

It is no secret that I packed my bags and left for Texas within 4 days of deciding to move; when God moves He moves quickly! It wasn’t an easy decision by any means. I was leaving everything and everyone I had ever known, not to mention the dreams I had always had in my sights. Yet I felt God pushing and unlike so many times in the past I was going to stop fighting Him and just follow. The first months in Texas were kind of rough. I went from working two jobs, going to school fulltime and leading campus organizations to doing absolutely nothing. I was going crazy staying in the house all day doing the same thing every day. After much discussion with my husband I decided to find a job, specifically in my field of passion: criminal justice. I absolutely LOVED working with former offenders in Colorado so I knew in my heart that is where I ‘needed’ to be. I have to laugh as I type this because once again God had other plans! I applied to be a police officer, correction officer, police clerk, and even a teacher of sorts. I made great progress, had good interviews but something was always in the way. While I waited for the right job to come along I turned my search elsewhere, I started looking into non-profits in the community.

Looking back it was nothing less than Divine appointment how I ended up at Hope Pregnancy Center. A friend has recently started working for the organization and ironically I came across them in my Google search that same day. I remember thinking, “a pregnancy center? Me? What do I know about working with pregnant women?”

Enter God….”Go check it out.”

Me: “Uh not really up my alley. Silly God. Isn’t there a prison ministry around here?”

God: “Trust me.”

Seriously the conversation pretty much went like that. I did like that the organization was Christ-centered since I had spent the last several months working for an organization that not only acknowledged God but encouraged us to share about it with clients. Long story short, from the first meeting I had with the center director to the first time I stepped into the counseling room I felt at home. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know the ‘trade’ so to speak, I knew working with people, I knew Christ and that is all that mattered.

To say that I’ve been blessed by my time at Hope would be a huge understatement. I have learned so much about myself as a person, a professional and a follower of Christ. Most importantly, I gained the confidence to share the Gospel with all God calls me to; something I am ashamed to say I struggled with before. But even setting all that aside I have made some incredible friends. The women I have the privilege working with never cease to amaze me. They listen to me complain when my husband has to be away. They supported me after we lost our first baby. And they share in our joy of our gift Baby Jasmine. Through their words, hugs and even silliness I have found my Texas family and that is something I will never take for granted.

It is hard to think about leaving this place…today I gave them a date for my final day. Such a bittersweet time this is but I take comfort in the fact that God is leading us through our newest life choices: transitioning to Colorado and bringing our baby girl into this world. It helps knowing that family (biological, church and family in heart) awaits our arrival as well as going back to work with DenverWorks. It’s funny how God led me away from an awesome group of ladies in Denver down to another group in Texas just to bring me back!

As I continue to reflect on life’s greatest choices I leave you with one of my favorite poems by Robert Frost, it has taken on such a deeper meaning from the first time I read the words in high school.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

~Robert Frost

Two roads dive  nnnn

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took t

What does color have to do with it?

*I want to preface this by saying that this blog post will deal with sensitive issues regarding race, racial ignorance, and racial identity.*

I grew up in a ‘mixed’ home as some would call it, my mother is Caucasian while my father is Hispanic. Although I really wasn’t aware, or rather I didn’t place much emphasis on it, until I went to school. I never saw my mother as being different than me; honestly I didn’t see color. But kids were quick to point out that my mother looks entirely different than me with her red hair, green eyes and fair skin while I have dark brown hair, matching eyes and needless to say I am a few shades darker. I was constantly asked if she was my babysitter or stepmom. I didn’t understand why people questioned me or why it even mattered at all.

Fast forward a few years to middle school…this would be when I really started to struggle with racial identity. Many are probably wondering what that term even means and to put it simply it is the race one most identifies with. We have all been confronted with the question on medical forms and job applications, “Please check the box of your race (select only one),” or something along those lines. But what do you do if you are equally two races? I can’t deny half of myself. Yet sometimes it was just easier to identify as Hispanic since I look more so. Then I was confronted with which group of people I identify most with. As I told my mother growing up, I am too brown for the white people (based on my looks) but too white for the brown people (based on the fact that I am not fluent in Spanish); it really was a struggle. It was only made more difficult by the comments I heard from others…

In 6^th grade a fellow student, who was a refugee from Somalia I might add, told me to go back to my own country. Umm yeah I am American citizen, I am in my country. He went on to say how “‘my’ people were beneath him and someday ‘my’ people would be kissing his feet as his servants.” No joke that is a direct quote from someone who wasn’t even an American citizen himself. A year later in 7^th grade a girl who proclaimed to be a Christian (I think that is the part that hurt the worst) stood up in class and said in front of everyone, “the only reason there are dark people is because they were burned in hell.” Yeah I must have missed that verse in the Bible somewhere. Again I didn’t understand. How could someone that proclaimed the name of Christ be so hateful and hurtful over something that doesn’t matter?

I often wondered why I had been chosen to look this way while my sisters inherited my mother’s fairer skin but more often than that I just cried. People were so cruel. I was downright outraged when a girl in 8^th grade had the nerve to suggest that racism had ceased to exist since the Civil Rights Movement; yeah easy for her to say as she sat there with her blonde hair, blue eyes and white skin. What could she possibly know about racism?? She had no idea what I had been through, what I was going through and what I would face down the road.

High school got easier but I constantly had to deal with the questions: where are you from? Um Denver. Colorado. The United States. Do you speak Spanish? Uh no, do you speak French? Is that your real mom? Yes, wanna see her c-section scars? I mean seriously why do people think it is ok to ask such personal questions, it blows my mind. I’ve seen my dad have to go through it too. He gets the dumb questions, the rude remarks about being an immigrant (which he isn’t), being told to go back to his own country and even being racially profiled by the police in some instances; all because of the color of his skin.

Baby Jasmine at 18 weeks

As I’ve gotten older I have learned to brush it off or maybe I’m just more immune after all the scars, either way I don’t let it bother me as much as I did when I was a kid. However now I face a new challenge and more ignorance. Our daughter will be mixed race (one fourth Hispanic and three fourths Caucasian), there is no telling what color her skin will be. To me it doesn’t matter because she is my daughter, she is made exactly the way God intended her to be. But other people seem more preoccupied by it. I’ve been told that ‘it would be easier in society if she was just white.’ I can handle hurtful words, I’ve been doing it for years, but my daughter should not be subject to such ignorant things. Every time I hear a racial joke I literally have to bite my tongue. Hearing the word “wetback” makes my skin crawl with anger. Such things are not funny.

I want to educate others a little bit on definitions for a moment because I feel like they are often misused and misunderstood. Race refers to a large group that includes all the ethnicities of that group for example Caucasian, Hispanic, Asian, Native American or African American. Ethnicity is the sub category of a race for example German, French, Ugandan, Mexican or Chinese.

My parents

For the record, my race is Caucasian AND Hispanic. My ethnicities are Spanish, German and Swedish. My racial identity: human being. So please think twice before you laugh at a joke at another race’s expense, use a racial slur, ask a question that may potentially be hurtful or make an assumption based on someone’s skin. After all, what does color have to do with it?

<3 JT