Positivity??!! Really??

Have you ever taken the strengths finder test?  It really is amazing how it totally nails your personality and "strengths"!  Several of my top traits have to do with my love for people and realtionships...WOO(winning others over) and includer...one of my other top strengths is positivity.  Well, my strength of being positive comes very natural!  My parents are two of the most positive people on the planet.  The glass in our house when I was growing up was ALWAYS half full!! We were always making lemonade around the Tyner house!! Well, my "positivity"  has been tested to the max since losing Lucy!  How in the world could I find anything positive about burying my daughter?  I could very easily write a page about all that we are missing out on with her...rehash the nightmare we lived in the operating room...give details of the moment we had to sit our 3 children down and tell them their sister died!  Yes, I do have to live with the knowledge of knowing all these things but instead of focusing on those things I choose to focus on the good that the Lord has shown us through her short life!  The Lord brought Hunter and me to our knees in a way that only came through deep loss and grief! and while I was on my knees, for the first time, I completely understood what it meant to rest in his sovereignty! I found...and still find...myself and my family in a situation that I cannot and will never be able to change. Lucy will never be with us this side of heaven! But God is Sovereign and ultimately he is Good!

And So, at noon today I will meet my husband at the cemetery. And this sucks really bad! But I will take my positivity with me( which for me is really the HOPE that lives in my heart) and I will lay flowers down at her "spot."  We will weep and grieve for our daughter! But we will do this all with Hope! Because of Jesus and his redeeming work on the cross I get to see my daughter again and spend eternity in the presence of our God and King...and Lucy!

For those of you that read this...I pray you have this same Hope!...that you, too, can rest in knowing that one day you will get to spend eternity in the most perfect place of all!! With the One who is absolutely perfect, loving, kind and gentle!

Happy 2nd Birthday Dear Daughter

Today is my little girls 2nd birthday! Wow! On one side I can't believe it's been two years and on the other side it feels like forever ago! My heart hurts today! I miss her always but today it is extra painful! And actually the last few weeks have been a little heavy!  But I've said it over and over that the Lord is in the good and he is in the painful! He hurts with us and is near to us. Scripture even confirms that..."the Lord is near to the broken-hearted!"

We have seen the Lord use Lucy's life to draw people to him! She certainly changed our lives and our family! A lot has happened in the 2 years since we met our 2nd daughter! We miss her like crazy but we can rejoice because she is alive with Christ! I am so very thankful I have the hope of heaven! And now, 2 years later, I can rejoice over her life...with tears in my eyes...but I can rejoice! I will spend today missing my daughter deeply...but thankful for her precious life!