I Can't Go Any Further!

     For the past nine weeks the one thing I have desperately wanted was to be able to see Cate in my dreams.  I wanted to know, since she gained her angel wings, what did she look like?  In heaven was she a baby or was she a child?  What color of hair does she have?  What color are her eyes?  I've prayed for this but it has eluded me for weeks now but I also know that God would answer my prayer in his time, so finally this morning,  I woke up at 4:20 (yes, I looked at the clock) finally remembering a vivid dream.  In my dream, I was at my Mamaw Hall's house ( mamaw died a few days before my son was born 6 years ago) and I haven't been to her house since then.   In my dream my mamaw said "do you remember me" of course I remember you, I told her, she said "I was afraid you had forgotten about me, so come over here and give me a hug."  My mamaw was little but in my dream she was standing so tall and her hair was just perfect!  My mamaw said "do you know who this is" and I said yes and just fell to my knees.  It was Cate!  She was about the size of my six year old but was smaller,with small features, she has blonde/ashy hair, with two different color eyes, one blue and one gray and she was perfect! We just kept hugging and I didn't want to let go but she pulled away and said "mommy you have to let me go, its ok but you can't go any further it's not your time".  They also had two other children with them but I didn't know them and it didn't feel like they were mine so I really don't know how to process that, I don't know if they were the children I have lost already or if they are my future children, I just don't know.  Its just a dream I know but sometimes dreams can be the best medicine.  Because today and it might just be today I feel like I don't have an elephant standing on my chest and full of my favorite word HOPE.  So for now and how hard it is going to be, I am going to TRY to let go because I can't go any further, its not my time!

  Also to all who read this Merry Christmas from my family to yours!  Hold your family tight and just enjoy the sights, sounds and smells of Christmas!  Merry Christmas!

Our HOPE and FUTURE

I have been trying sooo hard to find the words to even comprehend what went on at Sandy Hook Elementary School but there is just silence.  I keep looking at my 6 year old and his classmates and think about those precious angels.  Everyone is saying that we should put God back in schools and I agree; however; God never left, we  left him.  God is awesome and compassionate and I believe forgives  rather easy and daily, so why don't others wake up and see this?  I don't have the answer for that but have this Bible verse memorized:  Joshua 24:15  "As for ME and MY house WE will serve the Lord" and they can't and won't take that from US.    God is our HOPE and our FUTURE and without him we have neither.    I don't know a lot of things but those precious little children are in a place where evil does not exist and God was welcoming them with open arms.  Even in our wildest imagination we could not paint a better picture than that.   It makes me smile and warms my heart to know that my little Cate and all of God's heaven children were there welcoming them into everlasting happiness. We have solutions of our own on how to solve problems but our problem as already been solved long before the beginning of time, we just have to wake up and realize it! 

Always a Melody

      I am not a singer, musician or artist.  But I always have a melody or song in my head.  I found this song on www.stillbirthday.com and its just perfect!  

Selah:  I Will Carry You

There were photographs I wanted to take
Things I wanted to show you
Sing sweet lullabies, wipe your teary eyes
Who could love you like this?
People say that I am brave but i'm not
Truth is i'm barely hanging on
But there's a greater story
Written long before me
Because He loves you like this
So I will carry you
While your heart beats here
Long beyond the empty cradle
Through the coming years
I will carry you
All my life
And I will praise the One who's chosen me
To carry you
Such a short time
Such a long road
All this madness
But I know
That the silence
Has brought me to His voice
And He says
i've shown her photographs of time beginning
Walked her through the parted seas
Angel lullabies, no more teary eyes
Who could love her like this?
I will carry you
While your heart beats here
Long beyond the empty cradle
Through the coming years
I will carry you
All your life
And I will praise the One who's chosen Me
To carry you
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLuaGiu73jc&lr=1&feature=mhee

Give Up, Give In, Or Give it All You Got!

You only have three choices in life, give up, give in, or give it all you got.   I think the thing that really bothers me the most is well I am a control freak.  I like to control everything and if I can't.... I get pretty upset and struggle to try to gain the control back.  I try to control my own calendar and events.  A month ago, I was trying to hard to make my own plans.  I had been planning a nursery since what felt like conception.  We were planning on remodeling our home so we would have room for Cate.   I had planned what I thought was a beautiful baby shower.  BUT like Proverbs 19:21 states:  You can make many plans, but the Lord's purpose will prevail.   Like many of us mother's,  Mary would have never wanted to give birth to her precious son in a stable or put him in a manager to sleep but she said yes to God's plans. While I struggle with being afraid of just giving in, I pray that God can show me how to be more like Mary and say yes to his will.  So while the holiday season is upon us and we are busy making OUR plans....my advice would be write them in pencil because our plans can and will be erased and replaced with Gods, but there is HOPE that God's will never be erased!    

It Will Be OK

It's been a month today that my angel gained her wings. It's hard to believe how fast time has passed.  My life has changed so much in a month and it feels like I have a new life and honestly I do.  I am trying to live of course more HOPEful and less fearful.   It is so very hard to live that way but ultimately God is in control.    But   I want you to remember my baby with me.  God blessed me with the role of mother and that I did,  give birth to not only one baby but two babies.  When you mention Cate, it is healing.  If I cry, if I smile, however I respond it is healing. When you talk to me about Cate, you are giving me something back. I am heartbroken and forever changed because I am missing out on so many things with my  angel but now she's is in a much better place and wouldn't want to come back. One thing my mom said that I will never forget is "while you may be upset now and you won't get to experience earthly things with her now, eternity is a much longer time than earthly time."  I am thankful for the life of my child, however brief and now she lives eternal with God.     I am humbly grateful for the things I have learned through this experience.  Today while trying to remain hopeful its hard.  I never prayed, dreamed, wished that the circumstances are what they are now but they are and I have no other choice.  But what if we did live our life without fears and worries?  What if we honestly knew that everything was going to be ok, whether for the good or the bad?  Could you imagine how much better our lives would be? So today by helping me honor God and my Cate, live without a worry and know that everything WILL be ok!

It's All in How We See Things!

There are angels all around us, sometimes you just have open up her eyes and see.   It can be co-workers who bring you food when you have lost a love one, or co-workers who take up money help with expenses,  church members who send you flowers, food and cook dinner for love ones after a funeral... or someone who simply offers up a prayer for you.  It could also be a random act of kindness that someone gives to you, but rest assured they are there.  
Or all it could take is a second look at something to see something extraordinary, heavenly angels who are among us looking over us.  I'm not one to try to find Jesus face on a piece of toast but I will admit that its all in how you look at something.    This leads me into this picture I am posting, I had looked over this picture on my camera time after time but never really looked at it.  When trying to delete it,something stopped me to make me take a closer look...like I said its all in how you see things, so if you don't see what I see that's fine because like I said before I see things through a lens of HOPE. So maybe if your loss your HOPE, you might just have to open your eyes just little more to see that its all around you!  

If you need HOPE, faith, love...he will be there!

There's Always, Always, Always Something to Be Thankful For

Losing a child can test your faith and HOPE in God.  It can make you wonder,  why me?  It can make you wonder, why God would bless you with a child and then take it away.  But the truth is God knew my daughter before she was ever conceived.  He knew how long she would live before he ever blessed me to feel her move or see her heart beating.  I KNOW that she is one of heaven's children, most people spend a whole life time trying to reach heaven but Cate gets to grow up in the arms of God and Jesus and who better than to watch over  her until we get there.  And for that I am very thankful!
I am also thankful that God chose me to be her mother because sometimes he makes us go through hard times and valleys so that we can realize how blessed we truly are.  That dreadful Friday night he could have chosen to take my life and spared Cate's but he didn't because he knew that we together had to raise our wonderful son, for this I am thankful.

 So whenever  you lose HOPE and don't know where to turn, know there is always, always, always something to be thankful for!  God gave you this life because YOU are strong enough to live it, even through the hard times.  And once you choose HOPE anything and everything is possible.

Catheryn Hope...The Most Perfect Name

Where to start?  This is my first attempt at blogging so bear with me.  I will probably ramble and babble from time to time but right now my mind isn't running on all cylinders and feel like I have a case of ADHD.  Growing up, I have always used writing as a tool for dealing with everyday life.  I haven't done it in a VERY long time so why not now with the biggest life changing event in my life, dealing with the loss of a child. I promised my little girl that I would show great honor to her most perfect name.  We had her named picked out even before we knew she was a girl.  Catheryn, because that's my husband's grandmother's name who pretty much saved his life when he was 15 years old and Hope because we never gave up HOPE that we would have another child.    I promised her that if I could show HOPE to just one person then I would make her proud and that's what I am determined to do because I never break a promise.
I have always heard the saying that your life changes when someone dies, yet the others around you go on and now I know how true that really is.  My life does go on by the grace of God and my life has changed.  I now see it out of a different lens, I see  HOPE through everything.  I may never know what God's plan is and it may one that he can only see but I trust and have faith that he can and will do great things through me, because I have HOPE that he will.