Love through the Eyes of a Five Year Old

“Love is when you like someone a whole whole whole lot and they are nice to you.”

                                                -Lilly Kai

So as most of you know, I have a pretty incredible 5 year old daughter, named Lilly.

 

  My conversations with Lilly are one of my favorite things in life. Her spirit is magical, her heart is kind, and her innocence is just plain awesome. One of her favorite places to talk to me is oddly enough…when I’m in the shower. She will just sit on the bathroom floor and poor her little heart out. Odd? Yes. Precious? Absolutely :) So tonight in typical Lilly fashion, she pops a squat on the floor while I’m getting ready for work. Out of nowhere, she says, “I love you, Mommy.” As any parent out there can tell you, those are the best “I love yous.” Unprovoked, straight from the heart, I love yous. My response of course was, “I love you too baby girl” and then I began to think about what she really thought love was. So our conversation went something like this…

Me: Lilly, what do you think love means?

Lilly: Love means that you like someone a whole whole whole lot and they are nice to you.

Me: Okay, that makes sense. Can you tell me why you love mommy?

Lilly: Because you cook dinner

Me: What about Joshy?

Lilly: Because he plays with me….oh! oh! And he takes me fishing.

Me: Mia?

Lilly: She lets me spend the night at her house on school nights

Me: Papaw?

Lilly: He has lunch with me at school eeeevery Thursday

Me: What about Grams and Grumps?

Lilly: Well, Grams lets me sleep with her when I spend the night there which I love and Grumps takes me fishing in the spring time.

Me: Meagan?

Lilly: She lets me hold Carter, duh

Me: oh yeah duh, mommy. Why do you love baby Carter?

Lilly: Because he’s sooo cute

Me: Bebo?

Lilly: She gives me honey buns

Me: Ok…what about Aunt Sydney and Bubby? (my favorites)

Lilly: I love Sydney because she loves me back and I love Bubby because he lets me touch his ears.

Me: Well those are all great reasons to love someone.

Lilly: Oh! Oh! I forgot about Jesus. I love Jesus in my heart way way way more than everybody.

Me: Well that’s great baby! We should love Jesus more than anybody else! Ok last question. When you are just sitting there and out of nowhere say, “I love you, Mommy” what makes you want to say that?

Lilly (without a trace of a smile on her face): God tells me in my heart to tell you that I love you.

So there it is. Love through the eyes of a five year old.  When you think about all the different ways you can love and have loved, do you think about the way you loved as a child? Before romance and heartbreak and the world turned your innocent little heart into a cynical one? I hope that you can read this and really think about how simple love can be. My daughter loves me because I cook dinner. You know what? I’ll take it. Love the person at the grocery store who helps you get something off the top shelf when you can’t reach it. Love your neighbor for pulling your trashcans off the curb for you. Love others simply because they love you. Love doesn’t have to be this grand gesture. Stop over romanticizing it and fill your life with as much love as possible. View love as my precious 5 years old does. 

Love simply…to love.

Healing

“For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.” –Jeremiah 29:11

This scripture, among many others, has gotten me through the last 3 weeks. This is the scripture that I repeated over and over in my head the day we found out we lost the baby. I quickly stopped trying to make sense of it all because I knew I never would. Have you ever felt a feeling of complete hopelessness? A feeling of desperation and heartache? That was me…in that moment. So what did I do? I Prayed.

Dear Lord,

Please help me understand Your purpose for this loss. Please help me not question Your plan for our family. I love you, Lord, and know that You are here in this room with us. Hold us tight and heal our hearts. I know without a doubt You will lead us through this. I lay this burden in Your hands…and for that I thank you.

Amen

We made it though that day. We made it through the next…and the next. The amount of support we received was overwhelming. The love that we felt around us is indescribably. Throughout those days my body was healing but my heart was hurting. I continued to plead to God begging Him to help me understand. How could one day I wake up pregnant and go to sleep not pregnant? What is Your purpose for this, Lord? And then I found my answer.

 I received an abundance of messages from people from all walks of my life saying the sweetest things. So many of them had gone through similar if not the same thing I was going through. Their words were healing. Then I received a message from an old friend telling me that she, just the month before, had had a miscarriage. She went on to tell me that she had been struggling with depression from her experience but reading my posts were really helping her get through. She realized that God had a different plan and she was beginning to understand that. After I read that I just fell to my knees and wept. I began to pray trying to make sense of everything. I wanted to know why I didn’t feel the kind of depression that my friend was experiencing. Sad, yes. Heartbroken, yes. Depressed, no. Was it because I wasn’t as excited about the pregnancy as I thought? Did I not love this baby enough? At that moment I felt the Holy Spirit all around me. No, Kayleigh, it isn’t that at all. I realized that the reason I didn’t feel that crippling depression is because as the very moment that I was given the news that turned my world upside down…I handed it over to the Lord. 

“I lay this burden in Your hands…and for that I thank you.”

The Lord took my burden and made it His own, allowing me to move forward with my life in the most positive way I could. Instead of me hurting and grieving, I was able to help someone who was in the same place I was. My love and faith in the Lord helped 1 person, 1 person’s struggle easier. That, I believe, is the answer I was looking for. 

I will continue to help woman who go through this heartbreaking experience in any way I can. But know that through this, I feel more loved by the Lord than I ever have. I am so abundantly grateful for His love and Mercy. So remember, when things get tough, when they get to a place where you don’t think you can go on, place your burdens in His hands. The peace you will feel in a feeling like none other in the world. It’s supernatural :)

To everybody who wrote me and message with words of encouragement, I will be forever grateful. I love each and every one of you and hope to be there for you one day as you were there for me.

God Bless each and every one of you!

Kay

Sabbatical Smatical

Wow. I can't believe that it has been over a year since I have last blogged. For someone who uses writing as an outlet...you would think I would keep up with this better. But life happens and time slips away.  I'll recap a bit on what my blog is about real fast so you know what to expect :) This blog is simply my thoughts written down. I'm not writing about clothes or food or really anything of any substance...so I am and will not be surprised if I dont have a huge following. My whole life I have used writing as a source of relief. If I am unable to make sense of something...I get out a pen and paper (or laptop) and just write. I can close my eyes and just pour my heart out and discover things that I otherwise never would have known I even felt. I am blessed to have such an outlet. 

Anyway

SOOO much has happened since last January. I wont go into great detail on anything otherwise this post would be outrageously long and I would lose the few followers I DO have (you're welcome) As y'all know I got engaged in December of 2010 to the love of my life, Josh. He proposed to me at the finish line of my first half marathon and it couldn't have been any more perfect. We had originally planned on a fall wedding but moved it up to August. I just couldn't wait to lock him down ;) We had the wedding of my dreams. I will have a post later on just on the wedding...because it deserves one all it's own! Josh and I had a wonderful honeymoon in Antigua full of romance and love. We were happy to get home and settle into our new life as a family.

 

Our New Journey

 

After we returned from our honeymoon I received my acceptance letter to Christ for the Nations, a bible college her in Dallas. I couldnt have been more thrilled! I had prayed and prayed and truly felt that this is what God was calling me to do. I was so excited to grow in my faith at such an amazing place! Once again, I wont go into too much detail, but it was a life changing experience and am so blessed to be a part of such an amazing school! Right before my second semester started we got the most exciting news of our life. We were pregnant :) I decided to hold off on CFNI and go back to working my second job to save for our new miracle. 

Waking up our Faith

On the morning of February 23rd, we went in to see our doctor to get our first sonogram. I'm pretty sure I had never been more excited about anything in my life. I couldn't wait to see our sweet baby. Then our would was turned upside down. During the sonogram the doctor descovered that I had an eptopic pregnancy and I needed to have surgery immediately. Before I had time to fully process what was going on...I was being prepped for surgery. Needless to say that day was filled with a lot of tears and even more prayer. I, not for ONE SECOND, questioned what God was doing in our life. I have faith in His plan and I believe that it just wasn't our time. But our faith was reaffirmed and I have never leaned on God more. I will blog more about this later. I have a lot to say. 

Okay, okay...that will be it for now. You are for the most part up to speed on where we are in life. From here on out is where it will get good, I promise :) I am excited to be back and I hope that my words will help someone in a similar situation find some understanding. If I can make a difference in just ONE persons life...I will be happy :) As you know...comments are welcome. I LOVE hearing what yall have to say  :)

Till next time...

Kayleigh