PLEASE HELP

When we first learned our twins were going to be born with Congenital Heart Disease we were filled with extreme mixed emotions. The excitement we were feeling suddenly turned into overwhelming uncertainty. Once we started to digest all the information we were given, we started to turn to the Internet. We felt lost, alone and afraid...we were about to travel down a path we knew nothing about. As we searched the Internet we had, of course found medical information, but I longed for something more....I searched for children and families who had Congenital Heart Disease and sadly I could not find anything out there....

Fast forward three years...We had met a few amazing Heart families throughout our journey. We were no longer alone and we found comfort within eachother....an instant bond with these families. Then, shortly after our sweet Gracie went to be with Jesus, We were blessed to meet the Nelson’s. We became instant friends. They had sent a link over to their “Blog”... A place where they shared their journey and life with their beautiful sweet amazing daughter Moriah.

As Adam and I read their blog, we started to feel encouraged and inspired. I admired them, their strength and there undeniable Faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. As I started to scroll down their web page I noticed all the blogs they followed. It started off slow, but then I was hooked, I started reading as many as I could. It was this world of Simply Amazing children and families who have been affected by Congenital Heart Disease. Finally a place where you no longer felt alone, a place where an instant bond was formed. The blog world...a place where you could read raw true emotions. It is where I believe we have all witnessed:

Faith

Courage

Love

Support

Strength

Peace

Obedience

Clarity

Honesty & Openness

Education

Compassion

Willingness

Surrender

Simplicity

Gratitude

Tenderness

Purpose

Joy

Humor

Patience

Balance

Transformation

and so much more

Which brings me to why I am writing this post. As most of you are aware, we started a foundation, Hopeful Hearts after our sweet baby girl went to be with Jesus. We wanted to have a way to reach out to other families who have been affected by Congenital Heart Disease. We wanted to find a way to provide Love and Support to all these families.

We are currently in the process of updating our website. If you click here you will be able to see the little Angels we currently have on our “special hearts” page. When a family first learns of their child’s heart condition they are filled with so many “mixed emotions” it is our desire that we can all together, provide them with hope, peace and comfort. These of course all are found through Christ, but he also gives us means to help eachother...and that is where you come in.

If you feel led to share your story and you are a family with a child or if you yourself have been affected by Congenital Heart Disease, we would be honored to have yourself, your child or family on our website.

If you are interested, please help me in doing the following:

-Send an email to me at terrachez@hopeful-hearts.org

-Please state “you give Hopeful Hearts permission to display a photo of your child or self along with your Blog address”

-If there is a specific photo you would like please include, if not, I can choose one from your blog (child or family photo)

-*Important* Please list your child’s exact condition as you would like for it to appear i.e. Tetralogy of Fallot, with PA MAPCAS

Please note at anytime if you feel you would like to have your information removed it can be done within 24 hours.

To my fellow bloggers~Please help me spread the word

Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God’s grace in it’s various forms 1 Peter 4:10

Thank you!

Sending much love,

Terra

My Favorite Sound

Before I was blessed with my children, my favorite sound was...the sound of the ocean waves. I honestly thought there was no better sound out there. Then it happened...something even better...Luke and Gracie's first laugh. Once I heard their first laugh it was all over, I could not get enough.

As they got older and we would put them to sleep, Adam and I would walk out to the living room and turn up the intercom to hear them laughing. There were so many times we would say to each other, "we really should go tell them it is time to sleep." We just never could bring ourselves to do so. Hearing them laugh together was...the best sound ever.

After sweet Gracie went to be with Jesus, many things changed. Sadly, the laughter died down quite a bit. As I mentioned in my previous update, "happiness seemed like a feeling that should not be felt" well that is kind of how we felt about smiling and especially laughing. I know that may sound sad for Luke, but truth is we did the best we could. It's not that we didn't smile and share a few laughs, but there were no more "belly laughs" like there used to be. Not until recently...

As I mentioned before Abbey and Luke just adore eachother. It's so beautiful to witness. It's such a blessing! Smiles and laughter have come back into our home. The other night, Luke and Abbey were playing together and there it was...the "belly laugh" They were crawling after eachother and Luke was playing peek a boo with Abbey and then they would both break out into a "belly laugh." I could not help but to join in. Just like a smile, a laugh can be contagious. Of course my eyes filled up with tears thinking about how Gracie and Luke used to do the same thing...but then I thought...there is know doubt whatsoever that Gracie has the biggest smile out of all of us, so I thought back to her laughter and it was as if I could hear hers, while listening to Abbey and Luke's. That in itself made my heart smile.

Lately, Luke's school, friends and myself have noticed that Luke is smiling and laughing so much more. What a blessing...Abbey is such a big blessing, with all the joy she brings especially all the smiles and laughter she shares with Luke.


"Thank you Jesus for letting us rejoice in Luke and Abbey's laughter!"

Every time I try to video tape the kids laughing, they become more interested in my videotaping then the laughter, so unfortunately I have not caught it on video. However, I did sneak in a video on Abbey one day...before showing her video...enjoy these smiley faces...hope they put a smile on your face... I know I have one. :)

Who is ready to smile?

I am.....

Smiling is so much fun

The laugh begins...

Starting to come out a little more

now we are really feeling it

Can't hold it in any longer....

Luke making sissy laugh

Please scroll to bottom of screen and pause music before playing video. It's sideways..not sure why...but it will still make you smile~ :)

Finding Joy in the midst of Grief

I've been wanting to post this update for sometime, but I thought it was too long, so I was trying to see how I could trim it down before sending it out. However, as I celebrated the greatest blessing of being a Mother today, I also felt the sorrow for not having Gracie here to celebrate it with me, for my mom, family and friends who have experienced loss and the separation of a loved one, so instead of trimming it down....I decided to leave it all and my prayer is that not only everyone receives some type of encouragement from my ramblings, but most importantly that it helps all those who feel sorrow today. May you find happiness in the words I and God share. ~Happy Mothers Day!

I believe "happiness" is a state we all wish to not only be in, but remain in as well. We long for it and when we feel it, we don't want to let it go. So what happens when a loved one leaves us and goes to be with Jesus? How do we ever find happiness again and most importantly, how do we hold onto it?.............

My heart hurts as I write these words...A "heart mom" friend of ours contacted us when we returned home from our vacation. Her beautiful 8 year old daughter recently passed away. I would like to share more about their beautiful family when the time is right however, right now I just ask that you pray for them and for their hearts to be filled with God's love, comfort and peace.

When I went to visit the friend a couple weeks ago I had no idea how difficult the visit really was going to be. I stayed strong while at her house, but the moment I got in the car the tears came pouring out.....I was crushed for them, their loss and for what they will be enduring in the time to come....the reality of it happening to us again was suffocating...then the memories of our last night with Gracie came back...

The night Gracie left us was the darkest night of mine and Adam’s life. I remember while brushing my teeth before laying down, I looked up at my reflection in the mirror and saw a different me. Deep in my heart, I knew I would never be the same again, I felt all my feelings were washed away. As we were in bed, it hurt to look at Adam and see the pain in his eyes, he too looked as if all his being had been washed away. No words can explain the deep wrenching pain our hearts were feeling. I remember trying to consume myself with the verse my friend Tamara shared with me that evening....

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassion's never fail. They are new every morning, great is thy faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23. The verse helped for a few moments, but then the hurt kept coming back and the weight on my heart felt unbearable. I found myself walking into the room Luke and Gracie shared. The sharp pain came back even stronger as I looked at Luke lying in his toddler bed next to Gracie’s empty bed. His best friend was no longer here, the one who he spent every moment with from the day that he was born. Hurting for him and longing to just have the day erased, I sat down near Gracie’s bed, rubbed my hand along her princess sheets, looked at her favorite stuffed animals that she laid with every night and then I picked up her pillow and buried my head into the smell of her beautiful hair and skin that still remained. As the tears fell, the pain was so intense, I had to keep praying over and over, “please God help this pain go away, please make it stop and please do not leave us here to suffer this way.”

That evening I was convinced that our hearts would never again feel happiness....Little did I know I was wrong...........

Thankfully during the days that followed up until now "God has remained our refuge and strength." Psalm 46

After Gracie was no longer with us, He blessed us with the most amazing support system. We were overwhelmed with the Love that poured out to our family. We are still amazed at the love and support we receive and we know it all comes from God’s gracious grace.

During all this time as we have received many new blessings our hearts have started to slowly feel happiness again. Now the problem was no longer feeling it in our hearts, the problem was the feeling was only "temporary." We try to hold onto to it but then sometimes our grieving, circumstances and current trials take over and bring much sorrow. When your heart has felt such grief, happiness becomes a weird feeling. It can feel like one of guilt or just simply one that should not be felt after being separated from a loved one.

All of this got me to thinking, “how do we continue to pursue this path of happiness and how do we hold onto without our everything else taking over?”

So I started to search for answers to the following questions:

What is happiness?

1. How is it defined?
2. How can we keep receiving it?
3. Is it ever going to be possible for Adam and I to feel it long enough to enjoy it? Or will our hears always go back to the hurt and make it not possible?

Starting with the basics...

Definition of Happiness:

a: a state of well being and contentment

b: a pleasurable or satisfying experience

Webster Dictionary

Also, read...The 10 basic things you need in order to be happy are:

Love and understanding; change; recognition; appreciation; challenge; fulfillment or satisfaction; to feel accepted or belong; companionship; a goal; and lastly to be helpful to others.

Okay, so I agree...I would say that these things can make us all feel happy. Very difficult after a loved one goes to be with Jesus, but in time you can feel a little bit of happiness through these ten basic things. These things will make you happy temporarily however, they all loose their enjoyment factor over time.

So that was a little helpful, but how do you keep it and is that really how I would define our "true happiness?" Then I remembered reading something by author Joyce Meyer, she explains, “Happiness is a decision to trust in God’s power, not merely in the power of one’s positive thinking or doing.” (great words!) She also went on to say, “it is also important to maintain a positive attitude which can contribute to feelings of happiness, but ultimately it is found through God.”

I went on to read somewhere else (sorry cannot remember where) That the real word for happiness is “JOY.” How do we define it and purse it? Well, Joy is a state of happiness that comes from knowing, worshipping, and serving Christ and his body. Joy is the fruit of a relationship with God. It is not something people can create by their own efforts. The bible clearly distinguishes joy from pleasure. The Greek word for please is the word from which we get our word hedonism, the philosophy of self-centered pleasure-seeking.

Other great quotes:

God didn't save you to make you happy. That's a by-product. He saved you to make you holy. You were predestined to be conformed to the image of God's Son.
Vance Havner

Why should my heart be fixed where my home is not? Heaven is my home; God in Christ is all my happiness: and where my treasure is, there my heart should be.
Margaret Charlton Baxter

After reading those words, I realized how important it is that we stop focusing on our own circumstances and our own pleasures and keep our eyes fixed on Gods promises. When Gracie went to be with Jesus we were given two choices, we could either be consumed with anger and bitterness or we could turn to God and trust in his plan while leaning on him for strength. Since we chose to trust in his plan we need to find joy even in the midst of our grief.

For some it is easier to turn to God, but for others sometimes it's difficult to turn to him especially when there is not an explanation as to why we have to be separated from our children or other loved ones. For our family it is truly the only way. I know all of this is just going to be a matter of great discipline and constant reminders, that when we feel Joy and it starts to go away or it gets clouded by our sorrow, we need to let God meet us at our pain and then let him work on making us new, so we can experience His love, which will encompass joy/happiness in the midst of our grief. As we do this we can continue to Mature in Christ.

God never asked us to rejoice in our loss or trials however, he provides reasons for us to be thankful, and when we respond to those reasons I have found that he deepens our joy which then leads us back to rejoicing, prayer and thanks. Bottom line is, it is through God where we receive our joy and hold onto to it. It is our hope in Christ that keeps our hearts filled with joy. Jesus is the only way for us to be reconciled back to God and to have true joy. God's spirit enables us to live a life in the hope and joy of knowing that eternal life awaits us in Heaven.

"In my opinion" We should never turn away our sorrow and grief as it is important to deal with it. I do not believe in a time table for grief as some do...lastly our hearts will always yearn to be with Gracie, but we will hold onto our hope in Him so we can focus on where Gracie is and that we will see her again.

whew...hope all that made sense....for those of you that even made it this far...thank you for reading :) it’s so difficult for me to articulate all the things that are running through my mind, I usually loose people half way, so again thank you for making it this far.

On this Mothers Day I have sat here and thought about all the sorrow and then after reading my update :) I realized that through it all I still see Gods beautiful glory shinning through.....

In Gracie...Her life has touched so many and brought so many closer to God, most importantly she was "Our saving Grace"

In my Grandma's life....She left a beautiful legacy..a bond of how a family should be....and so much more

My friends who have recently been separated from their children...a bond not only in Christ but an everlasting bond of friendship and companionship with another

Friends and family who have been separated from their mothers....A legacy of love and determination to cherish each moment

Friends who have faced so many trials with their children....An encouragement to everyone around them...a God given blessing of their children....God regards his children so high ...he has used yours to make such a difference...let's do our best to consider it an honor that he loves us so much and that he gives us a reminder that as we carry his heavy cross he carried the burden for us all.

Happy Mothers Day~
Terra