It's Been Quite A Ride

It's been a while since I've been on here and a lot has happened. Some really awesome and some took some extra time to see the good in. Sometimes I find myself only remembering the hard times, like right now, as I'm trying to remember everything that has happened over the past 4 years. Wow, 4 years, I can't believe it's been that long! But I know there was a lot of good that happened too. Isn't it weird and sad, really, how we tend to only focus on the bad. The only reason I can come up with for this is that guy that's always out to steal, kill and destroy us. Yep, that guy. He does his best to keep us living in fear and a lot of times, he does a pretty good job. But never once has he made me question the only one who can make sense of it all. God has always gotten me through everything, and I'm not just saying that. There's been times in my life where I seriously felt I couldn't trust anyone and He was all I had and I never doubted Him. I'm sure you're thinking, "But you could've gone to your pastor, a friend, family member or a counselor, but I didn't feel I could trust anyone. He was literally the only one I had; and He's never given me a reason to doubt Him. Nothing I've been through has ever shaken my faith or even come close because I know He sees the big picture and doing my best for Him is my biggest concern. Do I fail? All the time! Daily. But I'm still trying and if anything I go through can help to glorify Him in anyway, I'm up for it. Someone told me one time, "When things are going rough in your life that you should feel proud, that means that you're a threat to the devil and he's trying to mess you up. It's when things are going good that you should worry because he's not bothered by you." My response to that was, "Come at me, bro." Haha. Now don't get me wrong, hard times are tough. Do I feel terrible sometimes? Does my motivation take a hit? Yeah, yeah, it does. It sucks. Hard times aren't fun. But, I have always found that in the end, I come out stronger and that I've grown from it. If life was always easy, we wouldn't have much of a backbone.
In June of 2016 my family took a devastating blow. My 3 year old twin nephews drown in a friends pool. Now this pool was fenced off with a locked gate, all precautions were taken but it still happened. I freak accident. One passed on site and the other passed at the hospital. I remember a lot of people questioning God. "How could He let this happen?" "What good could possibly come from this?" "Why did He do this?"..... "Why did He do this?" Who ever said God did this? The curse of sin is random, God didn't do this to us. One thing that has always frustrated me is how we seem to think that God owes us answers or even miracles when God doesn't OWE us ANYTHING! He already gave us EVERYTHING!! How many people do you know that created a whole planet for you? How many people do you know that created animals, plants and water for you to live off of? Who has provided all the resources and things you take for granted each day? And best of all, who gave their only son to be tortured and die to save you? Personally, I only know one. And I think the least I can do is do my best to live my whole life for Him.
Some other things happened that year that I won't take the time to elaborate on but I thought I was going to lose someone that was very close to me and honestly, it sent me into a panic. I began to question almost everything but God wasn't one of them. 2016 was the worst year of my life so far and there are a couple others that come close but none that had me this panicked. What all was going to be lost this year? I'd have a weak moment when I'd find myself thinking, "I don't think I can handle anymore." And I was right, I can't handle it, not on my own, but WE can. Like I said, God has gotten me through everything and He did it again. I just had to trust Him, no matter the outcome. It's exhausting trying to do things on your own. And again, we came out stronger. It's crazy how the hard times can make things so much better, bring people so much closer together and make us stronger! All the obstacles and what felt like endless trials of that year just made us all closer and made us all actually study (the Bible) harder. Even in our marriage, we learned a lot about each other having to face these obstacles together, how we grieve and how to help the other. You can read a lot but nothing really prepares you for actually going through it yourself. And it in a way prepared us for the loss of our own child this year. About a month ago we went for our first (very overdue) appointment to see our little one for the first time via ultrasound. Due to some insurance issues we were going to see baby at almost 12 weeks vs. the 8 week appointment we had with our first born. I was expecting them to be able to locate baby very quickly since the little one should be much bigger than our son was at our first appointment with him, but it was taking too long to find our little cub and I immediately knew something was wrong right away. Soon followed the unfortunate news that she could not locate and heartbeat and we were being sent to a specialist to confirm it. I know there's a lot of absolutely ridiculous debate out there about unborn babies being even considered a life but there is no debate about it. It is fact and the guilt of people sins can't change fact. That little one was alive for 7 & 1/2 weeks but our little one left early and went straight to Heaven. Our child (who we named Fallon Dillon) went straight to Heaven because God knows that it was a life. Animals may be alive, plants may be alive but even they won't go to Heaven. Nothing, nothing gives me more peace than knowing our precious Fallon is in Heaven being loved by the only one who can love the little cub more than we ever could and that Fallon's safe. Safe from the sick twisted way of this world and I am so thankful for that!
Like I said, it's been a ride and I've mostly hit on a couple of the rough things that have happened, but focus on the outcome. The strength after the storm. I wouldn't be who I am now without my mountains and if you're open to it, God will help you see how to be thankful for them. We lost more than just a few lives in our family over the past 4 years but what we're thankful for is that they all are in Heaven now and they don't have to suffer anymore we don't have to worry about what the world might do to them, they're safe. Isn't that what we want for all our loved ones? Yeah, we miss them. We miss them a lot. But this is just temporary, we've still got eternity.