Lost and Found - Celebrating the gift of Sophie

Today we are celebrating our little granddaughter Sophia Kyla Dennis' 2nd birthday in heaven.  It seems like yesterday we were in Orlando as a family waiting for Sophie to come.  We waited and waited, and found ourselves together as a family for 3 weeks!  We went to everything free we could find around Disney World as we waited each day. We went to the Disney Resorts and used the swimming pools.  We went Downtown Disney and rode the ferry boats across the lake numerous times with Isaac and Jordan. We went to Celebration and rode around on bicycles built for 6.
                                              

Bike riding in Celebration

 

Walks around the lake

 

Resort Hopping

 

 

Downtown Disney

 

 And we went for evening walks around a lake as a family.  We talked, hugged, and loved each other well in those days of filling time together.  Then it came time to wait for Lindsey to labor long and hard with Sophie.  All day and all night and finally, the early morning of September 1, she arrived.  We huddled behind the glass window packing out the little viewing room, and standing on chairs, anxious to get our first view of Sophie.

In Lindsey's arms at last

Family first views

                                                       
                                                                   

Aunt Laurie and Uncles Dan and Luke

Proud Papa and Nini

 

The proud Daddy - Kevin

 

                                                        

  She came out and cried and was very much alive and pink and all chalky from her birth by C section.  But she breathed and she moved and we were all smiles.  In the 10 hours that followed we held her, we watched her as Lindsey and Kevin held her, and we finally went home to bed at about 3:30 or 4 in the morning.  And when we came back to the hospital around 10 the next morning, we learned that Sophie had gone to be with Jesus. 


In the days and weeks that followed, our grief took all of our family to different places of personal growth.  But our sweet Sophie has taught each of us far more in her 42 weeks and 10 hours of life, than we would ever imagine a little life could.

I love the quote from Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep, the photography ministry that captured so many of the priceless photos we have of Sophie's time with us.  It says,

  "There is no footprint too small that it cannot make and imprint on the world."

 

Sophie has made a huge imprint on my world, and she continues to make an imprint on the world as Lindsey and Kevin have had so many opportunities to share their story of Sophie and choosing to celebrate her life, even though they knew it could be very brief.  For Sophie was diagnosed at 20 weeks with a condition known as anencephaly.  Her brain and skull would not fully develop and she would only live a short time after her birth.

 

In the last 2 years since losing Sophie, I have discovered that I have found more than I could imagine.

 



 

 I've FOUND that God is faithful and I can trust Him for the story He has given our family. I still have questions, and struggle but I know that God is good...always.  

 

 I've FOUND that praising and worshipping the Lord through His Word releases me from doubt, fear, anxiety and enables me to move forward each day. 

 

I've FOUND that Jesus really is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in Spirit and that He meets me every morning right where I am and renews my heart, giving strength for the day. I don't find that strength in any effort on my own, but in the living Word of God. 

 

I've FOUND that God's grace is bigger than I imagined and poured out more extravagantly than I could ever experience when in the midst of suffering.  He shows up in astounding ways and baffles the watching world.  I've FOUND that He is on display when I walk through the valley hand in hand with Him.  I've FOUND He is most glorified in my weakness.

 

I've FOUND that in loss you can find gain and that my ties here on earth are not as tethered as I look at the treasure now in heaven to be enjoyed forever. This world is not my true home. 

 

I've FOUND the deepest, sweetest, most intimate walk with Jesus. 

 

I've FOUND a new sweet relationship with Sophie's other Grandma, Kathy Dennis.  A kindred spirit and love for our granddaughters has bonded our hearts.

 

I've FOUND new acceptance in how others grieve and how to grieve, as Mike and I have gone through the GriefShare program. I've found myself in a healthy place as I continue to move through this loss.  Now we hope to lead a group starting September 15 so we come along side others going through loss.

 

I've FOUND that in suffering, the best thing to do is to find a way to serve. Serving releases a focus on self and can be as simple as making a meal for someone.

 

I've FOUND that grief and tears, joy and laughter can co-exist. 

 

I've FOUND that my husband and children rise up and live out the best of who they are when called into trials and we gained courage and strength from each other.

 

I've FOUND a new meaning to hope....and it has everything to do with who God is, not what

He may or may not do.  My hope is in a person, not a thing, or a dream or a desire.  I've seen Lindsey and Kevin lay down every hope and dream they had and place their hope in the God of hope. And so do I.  We said many months ago, "The best is yet to come." 

 

So today I am celebrating Sophie with our family and with Lindsey and Kevin.  We miss her and wish we could be giving her presents and watching her grow and change before us.  But one day, we will be with her and her sister Dasah, and then the real celebration will begin!

 

Happy 2nd birthday in heaven sweet Sophie!

 

We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen.  For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.  2 Corinthians 4:18

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 8th Blossom

Last month, July, I created and placed the 8th blossom on my Tree of Hope in honor of Dasah's 8th month in heaven with Jesus. My Tree of Hope is looking fuller and healthier, and that is where my heart is today.   So much of what I am learning and living in brings together two very opposite experiences.  There is the processing of this very painful loss of our second granddaughter and the random tears and emotions coming with those feelings.  Not only the missing of time with both our little granddaughters Sophie and Dasah, but the ache in my heart I feel for my daughter Lindsey and her husband Kevin as they wake up each day and walk in faith through the pain they both feel.

There is also the experience of God's very personal restoration, healing and hope that I know brings Him great glory in this family story.  The Scripture in 1 Peter 5:10 speaks to this truth so powerfully.

It says, "In His kindness God called you to His eternal glory by means of Jesus Christ.  After you have suffered a little while He will restore, support and strengthen you, and He will place you on a firm foundation."  In the devotional I am reading daily,The One Year Book of Hope, Nancy Guthrie writes,"We must learn to see our suffering as glory." In what ways have I seen God's glory come of this suffering? How has God been restoring me?  What are the ways I have found support and strength?

One of my first revelations came as I struggled to understand why my little granddaughters had been taken away from me.  I longed for them, and I had really expected the Lord to give me a granddaughter some day.  Then in the still voice and a whisper of love, God spoke to my heart and said, "Tracey, I have given you 2 granddaughters, just not for as long as you expected."  I still struggled, for I had only held them in my arms a few brief minutes, of their 10 and 12 hours of life.

But the Lord continues to set my heart toward heaven and this thing called eternal glory, for though it seems so long until I will see them again, I know when I do, it will be forever.

Another great lesson that I believe brings God glory is how He has been my comfort and strength.  Matthew 5:3 says that, "God blesses those who mourn, and comforts them."  My mantra has been, "In the morning when I rise, give me Jesus!"  It is a verse of an old hymn and I have entered into His very presence each morning, spending time in the truths of God's Word where He leads me to the riches of the glory of Christ Himself.  Then the seeds of His word take root and give me a reason to worship, praise and trust Him.  To worship even in suffering is to invite the Lord to heal my pain, and He does!  So almost daily this summer, I get up from this time in God's Word, put on my walking shoes, and head over to Miller Park to walk and worship as I listen to praise music. And now Psalm 100 comes to life.

It says, "Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth, worship the Lord with gladness, acknowledge that the Lord is God, for the Lord is good and His unfailing love continues forever and his faithfulness to each generation." I have experienced His blessing as I have mourned, just as He said He would do.

The blossoming of surrendering each day to this journey God has called my heart to, and the healing and restoring He has  done, has manifested itself in surprising ways. One of the sweetest is to be at that place where laughter and tears can mingle together.  And I am beginning to see beauty rising out of the ashes just as the Lord said it would.  My mentor in the faith, through her writings and radio broadcasts, Elizabeth Elliot, died several weeks ago.  She said, "One thing I am perfectly sure. God's story never ends in ashes!"  That is the wonderful promise of life in Christ. He conquered death, and brings new life, new hope and the unfolding of a redeemed story.  I have Sophie and Dasah's handprints stamped in my Bible over the verse in Isaiah 25:8. It says "He will swallow death for all time and the Lord will wipe tears away from all faces."

                                                                

I see beauty rising in Lindsey and Kevin's lives as they step into opportunities to comfort others who have gone through great loss, and as they take every opportunity to share their story.  Recently, Mike and I were able to hear them share at their Cru staff conference.  With tears, smiles and great honesty, they both declared the wonder of their daughter's brief lives and the hope in Christ that they press into for strength and courage to walk into another day.  You can access more of how Lindsey walks each day in honest faith, by going to her blog: www.vaporandmist.wordpress.com    

                                                           

Kathy Dennis (Kevin's Mom) Lindsey, Kevin, Mike and I at

Cru National Staff Training on morning Kevin and Lindsey shared to

to the staff of 5,000 - Ft. Collins, Colorado July 20

 

                                                               Lindsey shares their story

In a few days, August 13th, I'll place the 9th blossom on my Tree of Hope.  I do believe the best is yet to come for Lindsey and Kevin and for our family. In fact on July 1st my reading was on how God's agenda is always to bless us. From Genesis 12 when He promised to bless Abraham,  the rest of Scripture is the story of God keeping His promise.  He is for me, He is for my family and for Lindsey and Kevin.  He is the blessing.  Just as He blessed us with His presence through the pregnancy and births of Sophie and Dasah in ways that we call astounding, so He will continue to bless us with grace and strength.  I wrote in the margin that day,"I do believe our family is poised to experience the blessing of God in an astounding way!"  

 

 On September first, we will celebrate Sophie's 2nd birthday in heaven.  Still hard days and tears come.  I look forward to more of God's grace and glory unfolding just as the song at the end of this blog declares.  I hope you will take time to listen to Stephen Curtis Chapman sing: The Glorious Unfolding.  I believe every word of it!

                                                               

My Tree of Hope

 

 

 

                                                                         

 

 

                                                                      The Glorious Unfolding by Stephen Curtis Chapman

(tap to listen)

Will everyday feel like Saturday?

April 11, 2020

So strange that I named my blog, "The Air I Breathe," 5 years ago! We are wearing masks to keep from breathing the air around the people we encounter if we are out! But the air I meant, was
how I live each day, taking in the life of Christ, who gives me life and breath!


It is Saturday again, and although my circumstances are very different from the following post I wrote in 2015.  Our second little newborn granddaughter, Dasah Brielle Dennis ,daughter of Lindsey and Kevin,  died 12 hours after coming into the world.  Our families held her, celebrated her, and loved her oh so briefly.  We knew she would pass into Jesus arms soon after she was born. We all stepped into the world of grief. But she is never far from our hearts even now.  And I am feeling so much the same this Easter.   I  have a sense of loss. I feel sad for so many in the world who are suffering. I feel the instability of this world.  But I continue to press into the truth of the cross.  And that truth is the victory that comes as we celebrate Easter tomorrow!
So I walk daily in that tension of casting out fears and believing Jesus holds me fast.  But the truth is,
today is Saturday.  The posture of my heart is waiting and anticipating as I live in the present, but look forward to the future...no sin, no death, no disease.  Jesus came to be with us through this present storm!


April 5, 2015

There is something stirring in my heart that begs to be expressed. I hope I am coming out of a "think fog!"  I haven't been able to put any of my thoughts together for awhile but today for some reason, I had this urge to write.  This Easter I have wanted to enter into everything I could to wrap my mind and heart around Jesus, in hopes of finding greater peace and comfort.  The one who grieves is constantly looking for comfort, for rest, for answers and for hope.
Last night, Good Friday,  Mike and I went to "Journey to the Cross," a meditative walk through 12 stations of reflection on Jesus's experience as He made His way to the cross. Our church sponsors it each Good Friday at the YMCA.  We read Scripture, wrote words of thanks and surrender on walls of paper, and nailed a little paper to a big wooden cross, with words describing our laying down of a specific struggle in our life.  In my devotional time with the Lord that day, I read words from Scripture reflecting on the suffering of Christ. 1 Peter 2:21-24 says, "For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in His steps.  He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth. When He was reviled, He did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to Him to judges justly. He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree...by His wounds you have been healed."  I felt sad for all the suffering Jesus went through for me. But the big thought here is that I can endure suffering because Jesus understands and went through it and He is in the process of healing me. And that there will come a day when this great sadness begins to lift from my heart. Then I began thinking yesterday, about what that day in between Good Friday and Easter really looked like over 2000 years ago.  In years past, Saturday has come and gone.  It's just been another day, sandwiched in between these two days of very different reflection.  But today, Saturday, I am thinking a lot about it.

Most every day for the last 4 1/2 months has felt like the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter..  It was a very sad day for the disciples, for Jesus's mother, for all those who had followed Jesus.  They were grieving His death.  They were in shock over the horror of it, the finality of it, and all the questions that go with this grief.  Why had this happened?  What do we do now? Where is there any comfort?  How can we go on?
This isn't the way we thought it would end. 

I have all these questions too.  And as Mike and I have been going through our GriefShare classes, I am learning that it is ok and good to have questions.  It is good to pour them out to the Lord.  This is called "lamenting."  It is a crying out to the Lord, with all my questions, fears, anger, hopes, and feelings.  I imagine the disciples were intensely lamenting on Saturday, the day after they saw their Lord crucified.  Sometimes I forget, just as they forgot, that though Jesus reminded them He would suffer and die on a cross, He told them He would also rise again after 3 days.  But this was just the second day, this day after He had died.  They had forgotten there was hope just around the corner.
And they probably could not conceive of what that hope even looked like.  I kind of understand that now.  I have read all the wonderful promises...that beauty will come out of these ashes, that God will wipe away every tear, that joy comes in the morning.  But every day still seems like Saturday.

Every day seems like a Saturday, until I remember all that Jesus has promised.  Tomorrow I will celebrate His great victory over death, over sin, and over all suffering.  I just read Ann Voskamp today.  Her thoughts head me past Saturday to Sunday:

    "Today we will be astonished that because of Christ, Hope rises from the dead
    places, impossible stones can be rolled away, all the sad things are becoming undone.

   Today I will be shattered by the grace of it; the good news is we don't have to try
    harder but we get to trust deeper in our Saviour who literally saves.  The good news
    is that we get to live dangerously, because we  get to live safest in Christ.  The good
    news is that we get to be the weakest, and get to be loved the most."  - April 4 post on Facebook

So tomorrow I plan to leave Saturday behind.  I plan to celebrate and worship and adore the One
who understands each of my Saturday kind of days, but who holds me in love and grace and comfort.
I'll have Sophie and Dasah in my mind, picturing them hand in hand, joyful, and safe in Jesus' care.  I know I will have more Saturday kind of days.   But I going to live dangerously close to
Jesus so I don't forget about the day after Saturday and find myself daily in front of the empty tomb, celebrating, believing and living in the Hope of Easter. 

Yesterday I let these words wash over me.  If you have a few minutes today or tomorrow take a listen.  https://www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/revive-our-hearts/reflecting-cross/

   

My Tree of Hope

 

I've thought a lot about this word HOPE.   And it holds a totally different meaning for me now, than it did even 2 years ago. In fact, I really didn't think about what HOPE meant until experiencing the loss of our two precious granddaughters, Sophie and Dasah.   But after watching my daughter and dear son in love,  lose their two babies, I wondered if I even could move into a mindset of hope at all. I know I was holding on to hope, that both Sophie and Dasah would be healed here on earth. And though I accepted their heavenly healing, I still struggle with what it means to hope in something and then, that hope be unfulfilled. I decided that 2015 would be my Year of Hope.  And to move into 2015 I have been learning what hope means.  I recently listened to a message, shared by Paul Tripp, at CRU's Denver Christmas Conference.  Lindsey encouraged me to listen to him and so I did.  He spoke to my heart about what it means to suffer in this life.  He took me to Romans 8:18-25 where the apostle Paul says that, "I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us."   This passage is a reminder that  in this life there will be suffering.  It is not abnormal because we live in a broken world that doesn't function the way God intended for it to function when He originally created it.  And so there will be all kinds of suffering that we will experience.  But the good news is that there is hope for the sufferers.  There is, "glory that is to be revealed to us."   Paul Tripp defined hope as, "a confident expectation of a guaranteed result."  What does this mean?  I have to go back to what I know God  guarantees.  The only confidence I have is in God and His Word, which I believe offers the truths that will enable me to "wait in hope."

 

1. God guarantees eternal life to all who believe in Him. (John 17:3)  

2. God guarantees that He will never leave us. (Matt 28:20)

3.  God guarantees He will wipe away every tear. ( Rev 21:3-4)

4.  God guarantees that we will overwhelmingly conquer and that nothing can separate us from His love.  (Romans 8:37-38)

5.  God guarantees the promise of His Holy Spirit to lead and guide us into all truth. (John 15:26)

6.  God guaranteed His great love for us, by sending His son to die on the cross for my sin, thus enabling me to be reconciled back to God. ( Rom 5:8)

 

These guarantees enable me to look forward to seeing Sophie and Dasah again in heaven.  I know on days that I question and doubt, that God is with me in my questions and will never leave me Hopeless.

And for every tear I shed, because even this grandmother is still feeling such loss and sorrow, wishing I could have one more minute to hold these little girls in my arms, the Lord will wipe them away with His love. When I feel helpless, so far away from my children, wanting to offer comfort or a hug, the Lord is giving them strength to carry on each day. The promise of God's truths speaking to my family and leading and guiding them, is far more powerful than anything I can say or do.   

 

I don't know what 2015 holds but I do know I can have HOPE in the One who guarantees that He will be with me each day of this new year.  

 

And so, I am keeping my Tree of Hope lit throughout the year.  And today, on the second month birthday that Dasah is in heaven, I am putting on a second little flower.  And each month I will add another, so that I can see the tree begin to bloom with signs of new life, new fragrance, new truths to be learned, and prayerfully a story in my heart that begins to blossom in redeemed ways, ways I may not even know about yet. 

 

 

 

Paul Tripp said in his message, "In the middle of all the brokenness, God is up to something good!"

God is committed to the success of His redeeming plan.  So I am also on the lookout for the "something good."  That is my HOPE for 2015. To help me grow in my understanding of biblical hope, I am reading, The One Year Book of Hope, by Nancy Guthrie.  It is a powerful resource from a woman who also lost two infants and reflects on the truths from Scripture that enabled her to find strength each day in her grief and loss.   There is going to be a "glorious unfolding" of God's purposes and plans.  I think we will see some in my lifetime, and I know I will see the complete fulfillment of those plans the first day I set foot in heaven.  Oh how I long for that day even more now!

 

(To listen to Paul Tripp go to http://www.godcc.com/  click  videos, click Paul Tripp Session 2 , he is about 30 minutes into the video, with music preceding his message)

 

This song by Stephen Curtis Chapman, gives my heart hope that Dasah's story, just like Sophie's story, isn't over yet!

 

The Glorious Unfolding by Stephen Curtis Chapman