Undeservingly Blessed

 

 

 

 

This morning, on my morning commute I recognized a song. It was a painful and teary-eyed recognition, but it wasn't the tune that caught my attention. The words jumped out of the song like they were being spoke right in front of me. A moment in time where I was stopped in every thought process and someone said- LISTEN TO ME!

 

"You're work on earth is done"

 

 

For one moment, I could not have imagined how powerful that phrase is. That phrase alone sent me spiraling into a million thoughts and understandings about our world, our families, and our responsibilities in our time here on earth and how easily it is gone.

 

 

So if you hadn't guessed, this was an original by Vince Gill, but performed by Keith Whitley "Go rest high on that mountain" I had listened to the song too many times to match tears with, but the most memorable was at my Grandfathers funeral. I was very young and the only thing I specifically recall of this day was how I was walking through the halls of the funeral home and this song came on and even at such a young age I felt such powerful presence with the words.

 

 

Being a mother and wife gives me the greatest happiness in the world, and also the greatest fears I never knew could exist beforehand. I have never once had it put into perspective that living our lives here on earth is for work, it is for purpose. I live day in and day out, almost robotic and routinized. My children deserve more snuggles, and my husband deserves more recognition (he deserves more of other things too, but that is not post appropriate)

 

My family deserves so much more, but some days all I can be is adequate.

 

Some days I just...

 

Wake Up

Get Coffee

Get kids ready

Pack daily bags

Drive to work

Work

Pick up kids

Drive Home

Cook Dinner

Do chores (which is often replaced with everything else BUT chores- let's be honest)

Realistically- Do everything other than chores

Get baths

Get to bed

 

(sneak in snuggles all in between)

 

Pretty typical, and I think to myself. But WHERE...WHERE in there am I serving a purpose to a higher power. At what point in my daily (what seems jam packed) schedule do I "work" for a higher power? I am here to serve a purpose, and I still have yet to discover what that is.... I just spent moments thinking to myself... and in my routines I am serving a purpose. I am working.

 

I am doing my best to raise beautifully minded children that will bring smiles and happiness into this world. Teaching them morals, all the while they are teaching me so much more to apply into my daily life wherever it is I go. The best skill I have yet to master: patience. But they teach me each and every day!

 

"Motherhood is not a hobby, it is a calling

it is not something to do if you can squeeze the time in

it is what GOD gave you time for!"

 

 

As i'm scrolling through my news feed (on facebook of course) I see several posts of moms with their children. Each reads nearly the same along the lines of their child being the biggest blessing to them and God giving them what they didn't know they needed or now what they felt they never deserved.

 

I wish for one moment that I could explain to someone the love that a mother feels for her children. If you think about it, before you gave birth i'm sure everyone told you how incredible it was when you meet them and how deep the connection is and you THINK you understand or know what it will be like, and you haven't the slightest.

 

The moment your hands touch your child in this physical world is the most terrifying, exonerating, blissful and powerful moments you could ever imagine. I thank God (and should thank him much more often than I do) for giving me the greatest blessings that I could never deserve. Thank you for teaching me how to live, because before them I couldn't have been living.

 

THIS is what life is about. THIS is the work I am doing here on earth. I am creating a beautiful life to be a part of a world that will be more beautiful because of that. So when my day comes, and my work on earth is done, I hope my children know how powerful and driven they have made me and that I am so undeniably blessed. So undeservingly blessed. So, So, So incredibly blessed to have been their momma.

 

 

Love,

The Bittersweet Burrell

Selfless & Selfish - Being restored by the loss

You will always be the first thing I think about when someone says "Make A Wish"

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow, when the world wakes- it will be just another day. Tomorrow will be just another cup of coffee, just another morning for the rest of the world. But as for me...Tomorrow is the day that I said Hello and Goodbye to two of the biggest parts of my world.

 

 

It is not just tomorrow that I will feel the pain, its just another day in that regard. But tomorrow, I postmark a day in my life where it all changed. Tomorrow was a day that was full of such Selflessness and Selfishness. Tomorrow I sent my conjoined twins to be with our creator, and repeating that alone hurts so much to this day. If you are questioning whether you read that correctly, you most certainly did. I had to make the decision to time my twins' lives, and place them in the hand of God.

 

 

As I look back on that wretched day, where I didn't dare talk to anyone in the days before or even the days following, I was so alone. Being a mother is hands down the greatest accomplishment and the greatest joy of my life. Seeing my children grow in this world and be consumed with such love is overwhelming for my heart. So how does one decide? How does one give up her children to God?

 

I'm still figuring that out, and the only conclusion that is relative so far is out of Selflessness and Selfishness.

 

Now, if you didn't quite understand how those two could coincide in the particular situation- please let me take this opportunity to help.

 

 

I understand that only those who have been in my situation can TRULY grasp this, and what my family has went through so I ask that you leave the judging to our God Almighty.

 

 

A day that I said Hello and Goodbye was full of Selfishness - Why?

-I couldn't handle to hold them

-I couldn't have handled to kiss them

-I couldn't have handled to see them

-I wanted the opportunity to be able to bear future children

-I couldn't handle explaining to my child where the babies went

-I couldn't have handled my child losing his mother

-I couldn't have handled my husband losing his wife

-I couldn't have handled to watch them die in my arms

 

Selfish, huh?

 

 

A day that I said Hello and Goodbye was full of Selflessness - Why?

- I laid my children in the hands of God

-My children will never be in pain

-My children will never know suffering or heartache

 

It's terribly sad that the selfishness far outweighs the selflessness.

 

But, My God has a reason.

 

He has a reason for it all, I believe.

 

Through my loss and his gain (Yes, his gain) I have been restored in more ways than one.

I have been restored in Christ.  I spent seconds, hours, days and weeks pleading with God to take them so that I would not have to make a decision. I spent nights thanking God for my journey and some nights damning and cursing him for it the same. The journey of saying Goodbye to my twins was not a short one. It was not a quickly decided one. It was a long, heartbreaking, and meticulously planned one. The journey with my twins welcomed into my world Mia Jade Burrell. In the end of it all, I felt I found my decision in the comfort of Christ. The comfort in knowing they would be okay, and that my God is a compassionate and forgiving God, and that this is just part of his plan.

 

I have never known love and remorse the way I do today.

Never before Mia did I ask myself every day if there was still a baby in there, was it okay, was it malformed, would it survive my pregnancy? I love both my children equally, but the moment I saw Mia was the moment my storm calmed. The minute I laid eyes on her, was the moment God whispered to me " It's going to be okay"

 

The VERY moment, I knew this was what life was all about.

 

Love prevails all.

 

My angel twins changed my life. For the better. I will forever wonder what they looked like, how their laughs would sound, how much joy they would have brought to our lives if only they could have lived..and by living I mean having the capability to laugh, having the capability to walk, talk, breathe.

 

Tomorrow I can't promise to forgive myself, but tomorrow and everyday I am thankful. I am so very thankful for the path God has led me down regardless of how dark and murky some of those days are. I've seen the light, and I will continue each day to be a mother of 4 children and so very blessed.

 

I am so incredibly blessed.

 

Love,

The Brave Burrell