What's Different now?

This is a post to respond to, so remember that as you read.
Yesterday, I was talking to a good friend from college about his news of a son to be born in late October. So what is your first response to this news? Whats his name?
Noah, he said.
And I stopped. Its not often during the day you run across these moments, or maybe it is. Where you are reminded, something is just not right. And you say to yourself, "@#$(%" ... or sometimes I find myself just blocking it out as hard as I can so you dont have to respond to it. Like tonight at church, watching the powerpoint during the songs, and seeing a Rainbow. Yeah, God sent a rainbow after Noah's journey in the OT didn't he, and it sure applies to Noah Whaley as well. I was also pondering the life of Ira, 2 months old yesterday. I love you little man.

Its so easy to just forget it, and block it, and pretend, and move-on.... isn't it?
Tell me, whats different now for you? Have you found yourself coming across people or places or thoughts that remind of our precious Noah's life?
Ok.. I'll start, I put a visitor sticker in the front of my bible when i went up to see Noah one evening, May07,2005. One of the few times I spent alone with my nephew, reading scripture, praying, and just talking about my job and family. So everytime I open my bible, I'm reminded of his life. (Powerful statement isn't it)

Tell me more...would you? How did Noah impact your life?

To Be Held

I am still here. Somehow. I can't believe that it has been over a month since I have seen my boy's face. The time has gone by fast, yet slow. But I am still here. That is all I can do is just be here. I wake up in the morning and decide to just get up, then just take a shower, then get Alyssa and the rest of the day goes on. Life just goes on. I lay in bed most every night and just think of Noah. I can remember everything from his birth to his last breath. And I am thankful that all of that stays in my memory. But things are getting harder I think. (Sorry mom) The first weeks were just trying to make it through, and now as reality sets in, day after day after day, it gets harder to believe. Every morning is a reminder that "damnit, this is my life isn't it?" "This really happened to ME."

I received a copy of Natalie Grant's song, Held. It is a beautiful song that I am beginning to understand more and more each time I listen to it. Some of the words are:

Two months is, too little
They let him go
They had no sudden healing.
To think that providence
would take a child from his mother while she prays is appalling.

Who told us we'd be rescued?
What has changed and why should we be saved from nightmares?
We're asking why this happens
to us who have died to live,
it's unfair.

This is what it means to be held.
How it feels when the sacred is torn from your life
and you survive.
This is what it is to be loved,
and to know that the promise was
when everything fell we'd be held.

My point? The first dozen times I listened to the song, I focused on the first part of the song. My son is gone. You did not heal him. Why would you take him from a family who is praying? And this is how I feel, because the sacred in my life is gone. But as I continued to listen my heart was softened to the other message of this song. No where does it say that we would be rescued of pain, saved from nightmares. All He told us is that when everything fell apart, we would be held and loved. Does that make things better? No. But it reminds me that He is there, and if all He can do for me right now is hold me, then that is enough. It has to be because no one is giving me anything better. God only gives us what we can handle and I am handling it. The tears come alot easier for me now than they used to, but I am still here.