WOW!! WAy too long!!

OK! So I totally suck at keeping up with my blog! Life has been ridiculously crazy over here at the Campbell house. This is such a weird time of year for us. I wanted to do a birthday post for Courty but the time just goes so fast. So here it is, almost a month late!!

My sweet Courty Serene turned four years old on November 17th!! I cannot believe she is this big! It really does seem like yesterday that I was at the hospital waiting for her to come and yet it also feels like another lifetime. She is such an incredible little person and I am so proud to be her momma! She is so intuitive and wise beyond her four long years. She knows so much more about life and how precious it is than I did until just recently. I am amazed by her more every day. I wish with a ll my heart that she hadn't;t had to go through what she did, but I am so proud of the person she is because of it. She is so tender hearted and would never hurt anyone's feelings on purpose (except maybe her brother :)). She is so fun to take with me places and to be silly with. I am so blessed by her!

So another thing about her right now is that she is ALWAYS in character and most of the time she is Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz. Its safe to say she is obsessed. She also plays all day long with Scarecrow, Lion and Tin Man and they go with us every time we leave the house. So naturally, I asked her what kind of birthday party she wanted to have and she decided Wizard of Oz! It was really cute. I couldn't have pulled it off without my other-in-law and my mom. It was really fun for her and she had a great time.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY PRECIOUS GIRL!! I LOVE YOU!!

I've been HORRIBLE about updating! There have been so many things going on here! My sister left two weeks ago. My brother officially made it safely to Iraq... Those are just a couple. I just thought I'd kind of journal about what God has been doing in us, but especially me this last few weeks. My sweet Jesus has been working with me for a very long time on learning to trust Him again with my kids! I feel like a huge turning pint for me was Christine Caine's message a couple sundays ago. She talked about being safe and trying to keep everything in it's nice little place and keep it all from getting hurt or messed up. I realized for the first time in a long time that that is where I have been. I'm still so confused and broken about what happened to my precious Jace and our little family that I have found it next to impossible to entrust my children to Him again. I think that a lot of it has to do with claiming the healing for all those months only to wake up to an empty body next to me and a promise that I was still clinging to. It felt, deep down, like a promise that hadn't been kept. My understanding has deepened quite a bit... I realize that I've been focusing so much on why and what could I have done. I have definitely given myself far too much credit. I am learning very slowly that I can not ever protect and love my kids the way Jesus can. Also, Ia m swallowing the fact that , while it wasn't God's plan for Jace to hurt and ultimately die and early death, It was Jace's destiny to touch his little world the way he did. I am so proud to have gotten to be his momma! Jesus has been wooing me for awhile and urging me to put Courty in MDO just for one day a week. I believe just to perove his faithfuolness to me. The last straw was when Court asked me if she could go to school like Ella. That was all I needed. My awesome friends talked me through it and I enrolled her in Crossings. I also Have stopped nursing Jett. It was a such a hard decision, but my hormones have been wierd and I've been getting horrible migraines. I was afraid if I stopped, I'd be risking him getting the flu and sicknesses this season. God loved me through that too and helped me to see that I can trust him to keep my baby boy well, (and he even does a better job than me- shocking, I know) I know that the one thing I am working on understanding and grasping is that God does have a plan for my life. That he did take us out of eternity and put me here in this time for a specific reason. That He is the God over my fear and that GREATER IS HE WHO IS IN ME THAN HE WHO IS IN THE WORLD! And I am so thankful for that! Lydi

2nd Birthday 8-14-09

Ok guys. It has definitely been awhile...
Needless to say, it has been a hard couple of months. Jace's Second birthday was Friday. It has also been a week of milestones for us. Jett, today, is officially older than Jace was when we found him not breathing that awful December night. It has been almost hard to breathe the closer these days have gotten. I can't believe that Jace would have been two. I watch my sweet nephew and my sweet Bryson and I can't help but wonder what it would have been like to watch Jace walk around like that. If he would have still been so chubby? If there would be anything he was so attached to like Max and his blankie? How would he have interacted with his sister and what would it have been like to watch them play together. Words cannot express to you all how deep the ache is in my heart just to know those things. I continue to ask God to help me to hand these things to Him. I take them back so often, but He is so gently and tenderly showing me how much He wants to hold on to them for me. He holds his hands out and gently urges me to place my sweet Jace there. To trust that he is so very well looked after and that he is unspeakably happy. There are no words really to tell you all what God is and has been to me... He has loved me so perfectly on this journey and is continuing to hold me and anchor me in the middle of so much hurt and anger and things I just do not understand. I have looked through pictures so much this past week and just wondered.. And today I am having to make the choice again, to put those things in God's care and TRUST. It is becoming and minute by minute decision I am having to make. I am making peace with the fact that it will probably be this way indefinitely. I am learning what it means to live a life completely dependent on the Lover of my Soul and the HEALER of my heart! I love you my baby Jace! You will be part of us forever. I can't wait to see you and Jesus! Happy Birthday sweet angel baby.

"Though you're gone, you're still here in my heart, in my tears. Yeah, you sure left your mark and we were just getting started. It wasn't long enough together but it was long enough to last forever." -Rascal Flatts

"In the end, its not the years in your life that count, Its the life in your years.."
-Abraham Lincoln

One Year Ago Today

One Year ago today we said Goodbye to our sweet Jace Richard. I didn't know how long a year was truly until today. It has been a whole year, one of every holiday and milestone that I have already missed. I have missed watching him take his first steps and hearing him say mama and dada. I have missed his first birthday and will miss every one after this. I miss him so much! I can't even express how badly I ache to hold him and touch him and pull him close to me. I miss his smell and the little sounds he made. I miss just being his mama and the one that could comfort him better than anyone else.

But there are other things we missed as well. We missed having to have surgery on his hip and having him in a body cast for six months. We missed having to get him a wheelchair because he was getting too big for me to carry everywhere. I missed watching him watch other kids play and wonder why his body didn't work the way their's did. I am glad I missed those things and that Jace never had to endure those things.

As I reflect on the past year and also the events that brought us here, I am so grateful for every tiny moment I had with that precious little boy. I still wish every day that none of this had happened, but I am so glad that we trusted God to take care of him and that God had prepared our hearts for this very day one year ago, and we didn't even know it yet. Yesterday was a precious day. It was very bittersweet, looking at my sweet Courtlynn and holding my baby Jett and watching him smile, remembering how desperately I wanted to see a smile on Jace's face those last few months and just knowing that, someday when I get there and we are all together again, maybe it will make some sense then. And that even if it doesn't, I won't care because I will be in the presence of my sweet Jesus and with my little boy again. Thank you all for all of your support. All the calls and text messages and facebook messages make this all just a little bit more bearable. We are grieving still and will be forever in some ways. But we are purposing to allow God's healing and make new memories to go with the old ones. We love you all and one year later, God is Still Good!

Lydia

Independence Day

Happy 4th of July my precious Jace!! We will be thinking about you ALL day and celebrating your freedom today! We miss you with all of our hearts and wish we could see your sweet face today! We love you tiny man.

Love, Momma and Daddy

Father's Day

I know its a little late, but I wanted to say a few things about the dads in my life.

First and foremost, my amazing husband. I am so proud of him and of how he has led our family through the darkest and hardest year and a half of our life. I am blown away by how in tune he has been with the Holy Spirit. I love how, with Courtlynn, he loves to "take a date" with her in the living room at breakfast time on the weekends while I am sleeping. She goes to his side of the bed and says, " Hey Daddy, you wanna take a date?" I am instructed to stay in the room! Its just for her and Daddy.

With Jace, he used to walk in the door from work, and before his accident, he would hear his daddy's voice and his eyes would get huge and he would look for him everywhere. As soon as he could smile, he would grin so big every time he heard his Daddy talk. After he quit breathing, Rocky was the strong voice of faith that helped me to continue to hold on to hope, even with no reason to believe!

With Jett now, I see so many similarities in their relationship and him and Jace's. Jett knows the minute his Daddy comes home and he smiles at him and Court more than anyone else! Rocky can calm him down at times when its even hard for me to.

My husband is such a good man and an amazing father. I am so proud to be the one that gets to stand beside him for the rest of our time here on earth and so blessed to have such a wonderful Daddy for my precious kids! I love you my Husband!

And just a few words about my dad. He has taught me so much in my 24 years. He has taught me the importance of hard work and integrity. He has taught me how to respect myself and stand up for what's right. He has taught me the importance of authenticity and transparency. How important it is to be real with people. Most of all, thought, he has taught me to recognize how much God loves me. That its not just that I want to know Jesus so I can go to heaven, but that Jesus is ALL that matters. He has helped me see that its okay to question your values and where you stand on issues, as long as you remember that Jesus is ALL that matters! I am so blessed to have a dad that loves my mom and that loves us kids and his grandkids so much. SO blessed that he was there through the hardest parts of my life and continues to support us and teach us by example! I love you, my Daddy!

"Early when the day is new, Before the stirring, I will come to talk to you. To confess the ways I'm broken, to recall the words You've spoken, and to try to comprehend the love You have for me! You are my Hiding Place, You fill my broken heart with songs, Songs of deliverance, You sing of how the weak are strong. And You never meant for me to walk alone. You are always for me , as the TRUEST lover of my soul. You hear my desperate calling, You have kept my feet from falling and You've set me on this rock on which I'm standing now. And I believe You, for you saved me from my darkness and my shame." Hiding Place by Sara Groves

I think I wrote the words to this song close to a year ago when I started this blog. I am obviously still on the journey and it means something totally different to me now than it did then. We said goodbye to my brother yesterday. He left for active duty with the navy reserves. We don't know which country he will go to or even how long he will be gone. I am again learning a very hard lesson in mortality and trusting my Jesus. It brought up all the other stuff about how fast our lives changed a year and a half ago and then how fast it changed again just a year ago. I am here this morning, letting the Holy Spirit minister to me the truth of the protection and covering I have just resting under His wings. Where would I go if it weren't for this precious place of peace and truth? I am so blessed to have my Hiding Place.

Lydia

Please pray for Cat. She has a long journey ahead of her waiting for my

brother to come home. Pray against fear and for an overwhelming peace! I love you girl!

All of us kids before we had a lot of cares! This was a sweet memory! I will miss you Bubba. You will be home with us soon. You are Brave!!