Sometimes I just look at my pieces....

So I'm 25. It's young. It's the middle of being young I suppose. I'm an adult, but I'm still a young adult. I'm young enough to where people in their 30s look at me with that knowing smile...."you'll see one day"....you remember.....the same one you saw when you were 13 and 18 that annoyed the daylights out of you. Only now, you should be wise enough to look back and reflect thinking "yup! They were right!" And these smiles are probably going to be the same too.

So now those smiles come and I take them with all the faith I can. Then I watch the smiles have a quizzical twinge to them.

I suppose for a 25 year old I'm young but I'm also old in some respects. In 25 years I've gone through a rape, cancer, all kinds of abusive relationships, lost my parents, buried a child....

How did I get here? I ask myself that a lot. When did my life get like this? How...what? And I'm sure after talking to me for a few minutes, and as open as I tend to be (and talkative) people wonder, is she really 25?

Yes. I am.

I don't get it either. But it also doesn't bother me.

It doesn't bother me that either this is a pretty rough way to set up the rest of my life or maybe I'm getting the junk done first. I don't personally believe that God set up my life in any particular order for some long "sabbatical" from living, like I will go through the rough parts now and then just be able to enjoy the rest, or that He crams all the crap into certain portions of our lives for some long term lesson. Or for whatever other reason people come up with.

Life just happens. It happens more to some then others. It happens a lot to some and hardly any to others. It's not fair, it's not just, it's not right or wrong....it just is. It's just life.

Yes, I've got friends and people I know and have thought "well, why is she so lucky to have such an amazing family and life? She's never dealt with hardly anything." Why does life happen tons to some and hardly touches others?

Eh. That's just life. It really doesn't matter. It just is.

Some people will say; "well God gives things to those who can handle it" like it's badge of courage or a plaque. Should it be an honor that I'm the incredible punching bag? Is resilience the mark of some sort of honor?

Makes me chuckle. It's no particular honor. Like life, it just is. Would I rather the life where the worst worry I've had in the past few days is what's going on with my job? Well sure. I'd love to know what it's like to have a baby born and my biggest nightmare was that he had so many ear infections we had to have tubes put in, instead of planning a funeral at age 24. Or that my parents may not be able to be able to be at my bedside within the first hour of being settled in to the hospital room. Maybe never hearing "Well it's stage 5, and we're not sure how this will affect you long term" at age 18.....but then again, I wouldn't have what I do.

I wouldn't change what I have for the world. All my pieces, even though they sometimes surprise me too, with all of them I've had a beautiful life. All those pieces make up a beautiful mosaic that makes up my heart and guides most every step I take. I'm able to take an extra step with empathy when it comes to how I talk, how I treat others. You never know! You never know if this day is the day that the girl who's taking too long to get her change in her wallet got the news that she's got stage 5 cancer. You never know if the person who pulled out in front of you at 2 miles per hour is trying to wrap their brains around a birth defect that their unborn child has been diagnosed with. You never know if the man standing infront of the ice cream just staring and starting and staring is trying to figure out if he should have an open or closed casket for his dead child. Or any number of other issues, you just never know.

And who cares if instead of all those things, the girl or man or woman or boy just had an awful day because they couldn't find their favorite toy, shoes, or jeans? Or that the laundry is out of control, house needs cleaning or car has a ding in it. Life is. It is as big as it needs to be for some people and as small as it needs to be for others. It suites who it's given to and as it's given, with no particular reason or honor or consideration.

It just is.

It's funny to me to consider things from this perspective. I don't often get to think about how crazy my life can seem until someone points it out. Tonight I was sharing with a lady the course of the past year, a miscarriage, Maverick's death, 1 year anniversary of Avery's death and his 1st birthday....and then we got to how both of our cars have been in and out of the shop for the past 2 weeks and she says "can your life not be some what not insane?"

And I laughed....it's not insane. It just is. It's beautiful. It really is. Jared is the most amazing man ever. Us together, I really don't believe there could be a better suited couple in this world. Only the two of us would be able to walk through the way we do and still smile. Still laugh and find things to be goofy and happy about.

There's our families and how amazing and beautiful, how supportive and steadfast they are.

There are our friends who no matter what decide to give us a free ride whenever needed, or come and make sure we're OK when we're hitting the "insanity".

There's an incredible God who cries with us and laughs with us, who loves us dearly and never forgets us, who heals our hearts and gives us just enough and then handles our anger and frustrations, our praises and love, just as it comes. Just as it is.

Everyone likes to "justify" and "reason" things, well God has intentions, or things happen for a reason. You know....even the Philosophy major in me is OK with this statement; somtimes things just happen. There's no particular reason, they just happen.

I appreciate that so many try to justify things for me, like it will bring me some peace. But my life really doesn't bother me. I live with my miss, my pains, my joys and my happiness. It just is. I'm perfectly fine not having a reason here because that means that my God is bigger then what I can possibly understand. And I'm good with that.

If I could rationalize the justice behind why so many babies I work with now suffer, my God isn't big enough. If I could figure out why God feels fit to allow parents to bury their babies, He's not big enough.

There's no justice in the mind of a human close to the justice in the mind of God. So if God rules my life, no justice applied by the advice and reasoning of a human will be able to sooth or explain the happenings in my life.

And I'm OK with that. That's how it should be.

Who wants to believe in a God that's no better then they are at logic and reasoning?

And I have a degree in those things. Haha.

My life, simply, is beautiful. Just as it is. Just as it has fallen to me. We have an amazing son, who was absolutely beautiful, perfect and so amazing, and everyone who knew him would tell you the same. The self validity and autonomy I've found from all the other experiences has made me even more sensative to the world and people around me. I've learned great patience and the ability to put on my dancing shoes when the forecast is rainy. Why, I think if Noah and I had been pals and God had turned to Him and said "Well, you need to build an Ark and it needs to be as big as a blue whale." I would have probably turned to Noah and said "Good thing there's nothing bigger then a blue whale out there, we'd be at this forever!"

I'm glad I can laugh at the small stuff. That stuff is small. That if the cable is cut off for a few days, eh, it's no biggy. Or if both our cars are in the shop....and then again....and again....it's not such a bad thing. That I can even laugh at all of it, and be glad in what I do have.

I'm not worthy of any honors, nor is their any justification as to why so much happens, it just is. And we do what we need to.

I'm not even the strongest person you know. I cry quite often at sappy songs that remind me of my blue eyed son. This holiday is probably going to be tough too, like last year. I'm scared of cockroaches, and I hate the hem of my pants getting wet and touching the backs of my ankles. Some of the children I work with frustrate me to tears. But! I'm still happy about it all. I can still laugh about how irritated I get at inanimate objects, how ridiculous kids can be and how precious their logic is, and I have great stories about how I exterminate cockroaches.....plus it's even more funny considering I can waddle my pregnant butt to my neighbor's house and chop off a snake's head with a spade no problem but a cockroach has me screaming to get the shoe....come back...kill it....and while I flush it down the toilet. That's funny my friends. Snake be-header but cockroach scaredy cat.

It's just life. There's somethings that no sense can be made of.

Philosophers sit around and make logic and reasoning for what would be a perfect world. No Philosopher would say that the world is naturally logical or reasonable and therefore all things are within the grasp of logic.....especially with the way that life happens. They will make reasons for what would be the best explanation, or what better way it could have happened. But somethings just are.

Life is. Faith is. Just one of those things. Logic and reasoning doesn't always encompass. But it doesn't mean that it's not beautiful or amazing. Even when it's tragic.

Due to be a mommy again in 6-7 weeks. Still doesn't feel real and probably not as ready as we should be. But hey, that's life. And we're good with it.