Quiet.

Quiet. That describes the house tonight. The first day of school is tomorrow. We're all inching back into a routine. The kids were all in bed by 8:40pm. I don't remember the last time that happened. It's nice, but also well, just quiet.

The past few days have been spent preparing for tomorrow. Monday was "Carter's day." We spent the morning with the girls and grandma (Greg's mom) - our SUV had tire issues so we didn't have a vehicle until the afternoon. We had lunch together and by that time the vehicle was ready. Carter wanted to go to the skate park. We went to Kidspace here in Shawnee and stayed about an hour. It was hot, but he was having a lot of fun. We stayed until I got the creeps. An older man showed up on a bike and started riding the ramps with the kids. I just didn't have a good feeling about the situation, so we left. There were some other adults around, but seriously, if you have a child, please don't drop them off at the park or let them go by themselves. Your kids are too precious to let something happen to them.

I thought I had heard that the nearby town of Tecumseh had a skate park, so we went there. They had a nice one and we were the only people there. C-man had a good day.

Today I meant to get up early to do a trial-run for school, but it didn't happen. I couldn't get to sleep last night, so I slept in this morning. Greg got up and ready for work and brought us home breakfast from Braum's. He went to work and we stayed here for a while and enjoyed a visit from my dad and grandma. Then we went to the school so Maddie could fix-up her locker. After that we made a shopping run to try to find shoes for Maddie for school. Nothing like waiting til the last minute. We wrapped up the afternoon with snow cones.

Tonight was back-to-school night. Carter found his classroom and his desk and talked to his teacher. I think we're going to have a great year. He seems excited about going back. Maddie knew all her teachers from last year, so not much excitement from her. I think Chloe would probably fit right into the pre-K class, but her birthday is Sept. 29 so she she doesn't start until next year.

I told Chloe that it would just be me and her for a while. Her mother's day out doesn't start until Sept. 1. I asked her if she was going to miss Maddie and Carter when they started back to school.
Her reply, "Maybe just a tiny bit" as she pinched her thumb and forefinger together with only a tiny space to keep them from touching. She later asked me if she could have a day after the kids went back to school. She said, "Maybe we could go to Benec Stweet." If you don't already know, Benedict Street is our favorite place for lunch - and she loves the little cups of coffee. I said, "Maybe."

While sitting awake last night I decided to start reading another book. I found this one while going through stuff for the garage sale. I bought it several years ago at a Christian women's convention and had started reading it, but for whatever reason it didn't grab my attention. It's grabbing it now. The name of the book is "Fresh-Brewed Life" by Nicole Johnson. I'm in a coffee kick now, so the title is fitting. I actually got up from my chair at two in the morning to find a highlighter to mark in this book. I've never been someone to mark in books, so for me this is big. I've really been struggling with the loss of Mav and feel kind of stuck. I know what path I'm taking next, but I feel spiritually stuck. I feel betrayed. I feel like I had all the faith in the world that Mav would be healed and I was let down. I was crushed - I am crushed. One year ago I expected to be toting a baby boy along with us tomorrow on the first day of school - an eleven-month-old to be exact. Eleven months tomorrow. My plan was not God's plan. I don't know why. I've read books and listened to sermons that make me feel better for awhile, but I know this is going to be a long process - a life-long process.

Back to the book... The first thing I highlighted followed a story about a woman sunbathing on the roof of a hotel. She decided no one could see her up there, so she slipped out of her bathing suit for a better tan. The assistant manager of the hotel was out of breath after running the stairs to inform her that she was lying on the dining room skylight. Here's the following paragraph - parts of it I highlighted:

"Talk about exposed! It's terrifying until you realize one thing: when you're naked, you've got nothing to hide anymore. When you're empty, you have nothing else to be taken away. When you tell the truth, it sets you free. So, I made my decision to stop pretending."

As we've been going through life without Mav I've found myself pretending frequently. Pretending everything is okay. Some days are better than others, but I miss my baby. Greg misses his son - he's mad and I'm sad. I'm not saying our life is horrible now. You can look at the pictures of our other beautiful kids to know we're blessed. Life is so different now, though. What's been hard for me to realize through the years is that people are pretending everyday. They pretend their lives are fine, hiding their flaws or struggles from everyone around them. I have been naive enough to believe them in the past and have wondered why our lives aren't as perfect as theirs. When the truth comes out, you realize everyone is "normal" until you get to know them.

The next highlighted area of the book is as follows:
"The darker the roast of the coffee, the more intense the flavor. It stands to reason that for a rich, strong life, we are going to have to go through the fire."

It then goes on to reference 1 Peter 1:3,6-7:

"In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials." These trials have come, the Scripture says, "so that your faith - of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire - may be proved genuine." This genuine, refined by fire, holding-on-for-dear-life faith will result in praise and glory to Christ.
We are the beloved of God. We will go through trials, but we can submit to them so that our faith, the most precious thing we have, may be authentic. When people see our lives, they know we are honest people. Suffering makes us real, and that brings glory to God.

I'm holding these scriptures close right now and I love the way this book presents them. Well, it's late again. I'll try to update tomorrow with our annual "First Day of School" pictures. We should find out about Maddie's biopsy results tomorrow as well. Love you all, jc