Butterfly Chronicles Volume 64: Christmas and Butterflies

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given...

Twas the week before Christmas and in my heart deep
old memories stirred tears my eyes could not keep
Zach laid to rest, his second Christmas not here
Face to face with the Lord should bring me good cheer



The evergreen tree stands all naked and sad
While boxes of ornaments unpack and feel glad
Madison strings lights twinkly bright round the trunk
Red balls, blings, and butterflies, tree sways and looks drunk



Thinking past, present, future, fast forward, rewind
Mental memory movies - traipse through the mind
Living past and present at the same ticking time
Meshing then and now, a new mountain to climb

Scrapbook of new memories still scantily clad
Christmas all new for Taylor, Maddy, Mom, and Dad
Christ came at Christmas then hung, bled, and died
Resurrected, He'll save us if we swallow our pride



Merry Christmas is different with Zach's empty place
Not merry but full of God's infinite grace
Moment by moment God proves that He's there
Butterflies, butterflies, every day, everywhere.

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved - just like Zach.
Merry Christmas, son. I can't give you any better gift than you are already living, and I love you to the moon and back and back and back.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 63: Joy?

Joy comes in the morning?

Ever been caught between a rock and a hard place?  How does a person in the “Child Gone to Heaven Club” learn to stop feeling bad about feeling good?  Other mothers do it, make it, maybe not all the time, but don’t they grow to feeling good most of the time?  It seems irresponsible. A shirking of one’s duties, the passing of a baton that feels wrong to release.

Other mothers, some mothers, bubble over with joy.  Do they put down grief, put down that constant throbbing cement filled handbag dragging the ground that hangs on their shoulders?  Isn’t the grief always that heavy, or is this all wrong?  Is the grief ever less than the joy?  How?

It feels so bad to feel good, and so good to feel bad. Why would a mother give that up?  Holding on tightly to pain, heartbreak, depression, and refusing to allow joy to bubble, that’s the road to take, right? That's what defines a mother now, isn't it? This is the new normal life, right? Holding on to feeling bad about feeling good honors Zach, keeps him close, insures the price of guilt is continually paid, doesn’t it?

Marsha and Colleen, doesn’t it?  Your children in heaven with mine and you smile and talk about grace and forgiveness and God gently scrubbing your soul's guilt away.  But feeling bad about feeling good feels better, doesn’t it?  Isn’t this sadness a cloak super glued to the skin to be worn as an itchy, skin tearing reminder of everything that would be made different if given the chance?  Or is it?

Questions march in perfect time across the expanse of a brain.  Is this how it is supposed to be?  Or, is it okay to feel good, to not feel bad about feeling good?  Is it okay to let God have the guilt, to feel good about smiling, to let God erase the bass drum of what if, what if, what if, that never stops beating?

Mothers, some mothers, said the second year is harder.  Is it?  Does it have to be? 

Marsha and Colleen bubble with joy, grief in the background of their smiles, grief behind a joy growing stronger, grief sometimes barely visible if not sometimes invisible.  How did the strength grow to get them there?  They both told me, God.  Eerie, that freedom from grief that's grown in Colleen and that freedom that grows in Marsha.  Believable?  Real?  God.

God, grow me to that place where I don’t feel bad about feeling good, or I'll just stay here where it feels good to feel bad, where bad feels right.   

God, grow me to a place where joy bubbles, where I feel grace and forgiveness. That is how it is supposed to be, isn’t it? 

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 62: The Vision

"My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the 

strength of my heart and my portion forever."

The butterflies come. Today, the vision came again.

The field is alive with a wheat glimmering gold painted across miles and miles under a sky so blue my mind can't hold it all, the wheat a color not rivaled by the sun, a light so overwhelming I slowly grasp it is Him, Christ - a light alive all about and around that waving wheat.  Zach stands in the field, wheat up to his knees, the light in him.  He's so still, smiling, peaceful, content - words too small to tell what I see. 

Although I only see it in my soul, I know joy drips and pours out of Zach silky thick, a joy I could reach out and hold and feel alive in my soul, carressing my cares away like quiet ocean waves gently tickling the sand.  Happiness is a word minutely incomparable to what I can feel Zach feels.  It must be like what the stars felt when God breathed them into existence and why they hang in the sky proclaiming God's glory.

This vision, I know is a glimpse of Zach in heaven.  In motion from brain to tapping keyboard keys, words are inexhaustibly incapable of fully painting this picture for you or for me.  Words fail.  God is everywhere in that shimmering chandelier of light and wheat.  It is new and startling to me each time the vision comes. God makes it new every time - the discovery of Him all around and Zach in the light.  This God all around and in Zach unnerves me - it's too big for me in this flesh body.  It speaks its way into the pieces of my broken heart caressing and washing me clean of grief and filling me with the light, Jesus.

This vision is more real than anything I've lived in this life.  It is not something my mind could imagine.  The song of life mingling with God everywhere and Zach smiling a happiness so big it squeezes me breathless, but not the breathlessness of grief.  It is the breathlessness of love so perfect my soul floats above any pain as if I know what it will feel like when heaven is my home and pain is not something I can remember.

This is the hope that is within - this God who is bigger than words.  He infuses this vision full of hope and joy and in grace He shares with me what it will be like to meet Zach in a place more real than reality.  My heart knows this place is true and grace and perfection.  What a miracle for God to soothe my soul this way.  Awashed in grace, bound up in grace, perfect in His grace.  I love you, Zach.   Your heaven happiness gives me hope.  I've met the God who has made you whole, and I will meet you again someday - the vision becoming real, and we will glory in God's light in His golden field of wheat. 

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 61: You Can't Take it With You

Thanksgiving over.  Climbing steps, returning to winter rest the attic dwellers - chairs, tables, to sleep til Christmas.  Topping that last attic step, eyes skipping over Zach named boxes stacked, a life, all packed away in brown cardboard. 

The last time I stroked Zach's hair, he coffin slumbered on white satin.  Dead. Cold.  Stroke those silky kid heads, and feel the life under your hand.

Commit to memory the feel of warm hands in yours.  Skip, smell the flowers, the spring, the frost of the season, and store the child eyes filled with wonder and awe tight in your brain - lock 'em up those memories.
All that stuff that covers shelvesfloorswallscabinetsatticsclosets and fills boxes, doesn't breathe, doesn't have a beating heart.  As dead as Zach's earthly tent in that coffin bed. 

Trust me when I say that if you lose a child, you will never ever ever ever feel like you had enough time with him.

Learn from the child faith your children have in a God so big Zach will never know all of Him.

Really, that Jesus stuff, that's what matters.  All the rest of the stuff...someday it'll be boxed up, your life, my life, stuck up in somebody's attic.  'Cause just like Zach, we can't take it with us.  Jesus took Zach.  My arms feel so empty.  I'm gonna go hug my girls and husband and feel them warm and hearts beating and alive. Live the stuff that matters.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 60: Wimpy Christian

All those grief books, stacked up, not speaking how I feel, telling me blessing comes, me miles away from destination joy.

Heroes they are; I am not.

Abraham: an alter left empty at my hands.

Noah: me laughing in disbelief.

Joseph: my plotting revenge, planning destruction.

Shadrach, Meschach, Abednego: a fear gripped heart - mine, facing fire.

Daniel: these ears roared to frantic panic.


A recanter of  faith - me - to escape bonds of a burning stake.

Do you ever doubt as strong as their faith: those Abrahams, Noahs, Josephs, Furnace Facers, Daniels?

It is easy for me to forget Jesus, cross splayed and the cost to those who died for faith. Filled with doubt,   I forget, my faith floats away on the wind.

Since Zach died, eternity beckons.  Calling me.  I doubt.  I forget. Is it real, true, this grace story?

To live is Christ; to die is gain - that's what He says, Jesus.  That shot rang out; Zach fell into the arms of his savior. Some days belief wanes. God, forgive me for missing him so much that it is hard to believe You. Does your faith quiver, waver, fail, ever?

Eternity beckons.  Live Christ.  I am a wimpy Christian. I doubt.


I'm waiting for the blessing. God deliver.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 59: This Doesn't Feel Like Love

For the second time, I dreamed about Zach - a vivid, filled with real warm bodies kind of dream.  Crawling out of it at 5:00 am, I rushed downstairs to write it all down so I wouldn't forget - those precious dream moments with my son.  He hugged me hard.  I said, "I love you."  He said,  "I love you too."

Then he said with so much love I could taste it, "You' ll get here, it'll just be harder."  He meant heaven, and I knew that.  "It'll just be harder."

I'm a wuss.  He's right.  It's harder.  I don't want to be a light.  I don't want to be a witness.  I don't even want to leave my house.

Then, Zach's voice floats, painted in happiness; I feel him and see him saying, "You'll get here.  It'll just be harder."

Isn't that the best description of this life for all of us.  It'll be harder.  For all of us still in "The Fall,"  it'll be harder.


God, this is too hard.  This doesn't feel like love.

Zach said, "You'll get here.  It'll just be harder."

I love you, son.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 58: Grace Clings

Some days butterflies aren't enough. 

Some days faith is faithless.

Some days I don't want sunshine.

Grace clings like a spider web, stubborn.

My dreams are bad.

I demand a wake up, a redo, an undo, a rewind to sense that makes sense and has an ending I can understand.

A child should not die.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 57: Heart Holes and Hugs

                        The Lord is close to the brokenhearted 

 and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

It gets more difficult to write this blog as each day rolls by. Living in a world I can barely survive, I feel indulgent when talking about the pain as if the world needs to hear any more about it; I mean just look around.  How does it all get fixed? 

I already know the answer, but it is a heavy burden on a broken heart to see so much sad and bad and hate and too late in the world.

On October 10, I posted on Zach's FB wall and wrote I wish I could hug you.

The next night, I dreamed.  And there was my Zach.  Waiting for his hug. Not an I'm 13 so I'm wriggling out of it before it starts kind of hug.  No, this was a hug where he hugged me back as hard as I hugged him forward.

Then he hugged me again. Warm and full and arms wrapped all around me.

He smiled, kept smiling.  His smile like sun fingers caressing the cracks in my broken heart.

Today, lots of days, but not all days, I can't stop crying.

I never knew how big my heart was until his piece went missing. The hole is so big.

This isn't the way it is supposed to be.

I wish I could hug you, Zach.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 56: Root of Bitterness

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, 

be put away from you, with all malice: And be ye kind one to another, 

tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.

Frame of reference.  We all have one, but what is it?  We waltz, or trudge, or skip, or skid through life absorbing the sights, sounds, best and worst that life has to offer. Upon a metaphorical peg board we hang information, grouping ideas and experiences together to enrich and enlarge our view and understanding of the world around us. Tick tock tick tock the clock twirls the seconds by and our perspectives, perceptions, and preferences mold and morph into new or altered or changed ideas, and we mush and mash this all together and add it to our peg board.

What is your experience?  How do you view life?  Upon what do you base the meaning of your existence?

Unlike most people, from our peg board hangs the suicide of our son.  An experience I am thankful does not hang for most people.

But how do other people on another peg board deal with a suicide?  We've heard things like, "Why are you still sad?"  If you know me (and I mean know the real me and not the "all the world's a stage" with a mask on me), you know it is highly likely that my one and only desire when those words tumble into daylight is to sucker punch the person, kick him when he is down, and then walk away nursing the bruise on my fist with a gritty, pissed smile on my face.

Did I really just write that down?  Yup.  But, the thing is, I know what I believe, and I know why I believe it, and I know those horrendous, angry, bitter, aggressive thoughts aren't who I want to be although I truly could be all that. Choice. Those things aren't what and who God wants me to be.  So much life is being learned on this nightmare ride we're strapped into.  To be saved from the darkness, we have to let go of the desire to punch the crap out of that person who has a peg board filled with daisies and moonbeams, and pimples and shaving rash bumps as the most traumatic islands in their lives.  I should be happy for them, knowing they are ignorant of a suicide kind of pain.

Get rid of the bitterness. Get rid of the wrath. Get rid of the anger, and clamor, and evil speaking.  Get rid of the malice.  A haggard picture these paint.  Let them go.

It is hard to turn toward the light.  It is hard to put on a smile.  It would be so easy just to give up.  But really, what would the point of that be.  I don't want people to ever say, "Well, it was just a matter of time.  We knew she'd be a drunk, or a pill popper, or as wrinkled and shriveled as a prune because bitterness ate her life.  We knew it was just a matter of time."

Nope.  Not for me.  I have to remember that some words shouldn't come to the light.  Some words should be swallowed hard, pushing them down, eating the bile, slamming the lips tight against the dark spew that could so easily come and has, and I'm not gonna hit anyone.  Stop it.  Swallow it.  Silence it.  Marshie said don't be bitter.  Okay, Marshie, I'm wearing my big girl panties and working it out.

Just to keep it in writing - not a day has gone by.  Not one single day has gone by without butterflies.  Not a single day.

 

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 55: Zach's Testimony

For God so loved the world and me and you, that he gave 

His uniquely born son and whoever believes on Him will not perish but have eternal life.

Rainy, misty, cloudy day.  Weekend nights spilling into morning before sleep.  I'm so tired.  It has been a day of just sad.

How do I explain how I miss my child?

But God knows and knew what I needed today.  In searching for a document on my computer, I came across this - which I had looked for before, but couldn't find.  God found it for me. 

Testimony of Zachery Sinclair
January 15, 2009

        I learned about Salvation at Berachah church.  When I was saved, I was about 5-6 years old.    At the age of 9, I was baptized by Pastor David Dunn at Grace Bible Church of Houston.  Pastor Dunn made it very clear to me that being baptized did not make me saved.  It just showed that I had accepted Jesus as my Savior.

       Because I am a sinner, I need a Savior.  Sin ruins our relationship with God.  To be saved, I had to understand that I was a sinner and believe in Jesus Christ because He died on the cross to take away my sins.  Salvation comes from faith alone in Christ alone, which means I have to do things God’s way and can’t do things my way.  I can’t earn my salvation by works, but only by believing in Jesus Christ.

 

Zach wrote this for his Sunday school teacher, Ike Spiker.  Why? Because Ike wanted to make sure the kids understood salvation, what it meant, how to get it, and the results.

Zach was almost 10 when he wrote this.

Thank you, God for this, today.

Butterfly Chroncles Volume 54: The Map

 God made a map to heaven, John 3:16.

Overcome with memories so thick and warm, I felt them and slumped face down to the floor, tears and snot tangling curls.  Our baby doesn't live here anymore.

He came on a night when all the natural birth labor and delivery rooms were full.  What was left - a c-section room - ill equipped for a natural birth.  Away was our regular man doctor so ma'am doctor took charge.  Back and forth nurses hurriedly went and came bringing supplies not required or stocked for a c-section delivery room, making the doctor wait and wait again.  Unnerving these travels in and out.

Code blue.  Rapid running, the pallor of worry painting faces in blue scrubs.  Bubum, bubum, bu bum, bu....bum, bu......bum, bu.............bum, heart beat slowing slower. Scrubs scurrying.  The code blue panic button pushed just in time, and the baby heart pounded again in right rhythm.

Then, exit blocked, baby shoulders stuck, vacuum in hand, doctor sucking him into light.  He slid into his outside of me life, and the doctor dropped him.  In slow motion I watched doctor and Michael dive for baby - doctor touchdown catching the blue body, then popping bare butt.

Zach's cry, the unexpected sound, like a tinkling, twittering bird, fragile, with wings floating, not hard or loud or scream, almost quiet, a soft chirp, chirp.

Our miracle baby with the extra short umbilical cord, grown thick, tied in a knot.  "This is how I know there is a God," doc says softly, "because he shouldn't have made it with a cord like this."  Thick cord, daddy sawed clean through.  Our gift.  Our boy blushing pink as blood and oxygen stretched though tiny veins, arms and legs kicking, alive.

We took the tiny wiggling bundle home. We snuggled. In our bed, that pulsing life pressed against my heart, him nursing, hungrily slurp-slurping, dripping white foam smeared on cheeks and chin.  We cuddled.  His sweet boy, sweaty, baby head dreamed on my shoulder.  He grew in a wide green prairie of love. We loved him.  All of us, we loved him.  We love him still.

Crystal clear is the day and memory as if I could touch his 8 month old cheek - him straining forward in stroller - captivated by the baby orangutan at the zoo.  Bottled breast milk perched in his mouth balanced on the branch of my hand.  That was his last day to nurse.  He realized he could watch life while eating instead of burying his head in the twilight of my chest.  He never went back though I tried.  A sad day, him already growing away from me.  So blessed I was to be called mommy through diapers and solid food and Hot Wheels and Thomas Tank trains and tracks, and dump trucks, and monster trucks and Legos, and he grew - farther from the babe I burped.

I want another day, year, lifetime. Another smile, another clap of high five, another whiff of boyhood pubescence on his neck as we held each other in hug - only briefly those hugs now - he was growing up, and some days it is hard to think about the long miles of steps until I see him again - all those steps.  Some days one more step feels better if I go backwards.  Some days I don't want to try.  The ache a chasm so dark and wide it swallows. Yet, there are the girls, smiling, hugging, in the right here and now, alive and living their lives, growing into their futures.  A bridge, those girls, God given to Michael and me carrying us over the chasm.

We love our children.  We long for Zach. Love your children.  Hug your children. Breathe them in and watch them grow.  They are a gift from God.  A God of grace who gave me this Zachery son, gave us His son; a God full of grace; He fills the chasm I can't cross alone.  I am thankful for every moment God gave us with Zach.  What gifts, these children. The one gone home and the treasures still here.  These people, these gifts, make me a better person than I would ever have been without them.  Gifts - a family, a mother, a father, a child, children, and the surrounding hedge of family, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins.  Don't ever take family for granted. Especially, don't take God for granted; the giver of all good gifts who calls those who take His son - His family.  Forever, His family.

Be heaven bound, and let God carry you across the chasm to your eternal address.  

John 3:16 is the map.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 52: Free Indeed - Did Jesus die in vain?

 “So if the Son makes you free, 

you will be free indeed."

One Year Tomorrow 

Waiting for this week, this day, I didn't know what to expect.  Not that I hadn't heard from others about their milestones, but I refuse to take on somebody elses' grief responses.  We are all different.  I still don't know what tomorrow holds, but I know who holds me.


Initially, I thought I would do a blog with just pictures of Zachery from birthdays.  Not this year, too hard, too many tears.

Wondering what God is doing in me, I feel strangely calm and at peace.  Tomorrow Zachery Michael Sinclair celebrates his one year birth into eternity and the presence of Almighty God.  All I can think about is how God is changing me because of Zach.  He's answering prayers. He's lifting the guilt - for now - I hope it lasts.  Guilt from past mistakes, guilt from all the things as a mom I did wrong, guilt that I couldn't save my man-child.

God is lifting the guilt and the veil of guilt, and what I see is Him.  Michael says Zach's death has changed us into better people than we were before.  That is Zach's gift to us - HE, Zach, gave us the gift of a test that has made us know our God in ways we never would have.  Strange to think of his death as the gift bringer, but he has given us so much in the last year.  He is our gift in life and in death.

Zach's death is teaching me that being a Christian is really so much more than we, as 21st century Christians, really walk and practice and live.  We say we have faith; then we worry.  We say God will never forsake us or leave us, and then we act like He has.  We say we study and worship and praise, and then we gripe and complain and moan about how that darn preacher goes over his allotted time every Sunday - as if we arrogant Christians can put a time clock on our Holy God breather of the Universe into existence.  Like we control God's messages to us.  Shouldn't we be BEGGING for more?  Truly begging for more Jesus.  More God. More Bible.  More of His glory in our lives.  Just MORE!  Now, maybe I'm only talking to me.  Maybe this resonates with you too. Either way, I know I'm tired of making God so small and me so big. I WANT MORE GOD.

When He says cast your cares on Me, he means it.  So why is it so hard for me to get out of His way?  I live a life where God is convenient, and I'm not doing it anymore.  If I am anxious for anything, Jesus died in vain.  If I can't trust God with the every hair on my children's heads, Jesus died in vain.  If I can't celebrate the soul flight Zachery took to the very throne of grace, then Jesus died in vain.

I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and the finished and complete work of His death on the cross  I believe in His burial, and His resurrection.  I believe that nothing, neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Zach is free and will never be separated!  I to am free.

So why don't I live free?  Why am I bound by the chains of the fall - or did Jesus die in vain? Today, I am strong.  Perhaps it is a channeling of anger, stubbornness, or denial about what tomorrow is, but in any case, I don't want my God, my Jesus, my Savior to have died in vain.  I want to live looking up to the God who makes something out of nothing, who knit me in the womb, who loved me so much even when I was unlovable, that His son hung from nails on cross, slowly suffocating and drenched in every sin ever committed - for ME and for YOU.  I don't want my Jesus to have died in vain with me living like He's not big enough to carry me - through this - through all things.

I want to live and proclaim and rejoice at the fact that God is God, and I am not.  Free.  He has set me free.  Zach is free.  I can live free in Him and His grace.  And if I don't live like I am free, how can I truly believe that Zach is free.  Today, I'm strong and sure and thankful and overwhelmed by the grace of God.  I know that so many others have it worse.  What right do I have to forget about the blessings God heaps on me day after day and to forget about WHERE Zach is?  I am weak.  I will not always be strong and maybe not tomorrow.  But Zach is safe, Zach is FREE, and I hope God has unfurled the scroll of time so that Zach sees how indeed God works everything together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose.


I want to live free though I can't see the scroll but knowing that my God is God alone.

Scatter seeds.   Jesus sets people free - if you've put your faith alone in Christ alone - you are free.  Let's live that way.

Thank you, God, that Zach is free.  Celebrate, Zach.  Celebrate the glory of the Lord!  I love you son, and I love the God who holds you for eternity.  See you in God's right timing, son.  Bask in your Savior!

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 51: In What Will You Wallow?

The LORD is my strength and my shield;

 My heart trusts in Him, and I am helped;

 Therefore my heart exults, 

And with my song I shall thank Him.

This week, our son, Zachery Michael Sinclair, celebrates his most important birthday EVER.  On September 13, 2012, Zachery will have spent one full year in the presence and glory of the Lord, Jesus Christ.  Like the song says, "I can only imagine what it will be like..."

If you pray, I need them, we need them, without ceasing.  The struggle this week especially is whether we will wallow in the joy of the Lord or wallow in the pain of the fall.  I would tell Satan to go to hell, but that is kind of redundant, don't you think?  I want my enemy to get thee back, so I can wallow in and be covered in and be stained by the joy that is only found in the Lord. 

God, hear our prayers. 

We are thankful that You alone hold the universe in Your hands, and You are in the business of simply speaking and bringing something out of nothing.  You know every hair that falls from our heads.  You have promised that You will supply all our needs through Your riches in glory.  You have our best in mind at all times for infinity.  You answer our prayers higher and fuller and wider than we could ever imagine.

Thank you, God, that because he put his faith alone in Christ alone, Zachery is celebrating his first year in eternity wrapped in Your grace and glory.  God, use Zachery in your kingdom to Your glory.  Give us courage and determination and strength as we face another bump along the grief road.  You are our shield, our refuge, our ever present help in trouble.  We are so blessed that You even give us notice.  Walk with us this week, carry us as we cast all our cares at the foot of Your throne.  Through it all, whatever it is, Your grace is sufficient.  Infinitely sufficient.

 

In the saving name of Jesus Christ,

Amen.

Butterfly Chronicles Volume 50: Hypocrites, Headstones, and Tattoos

This Sunday, I DID something, and it made me have a really great and happy day full of friends and grace and smiles and art.

On September 13, Zachery Michael Sinclair celebrates his one year anniversary in the presence and glory of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.  On September 13, Zachery Michael Sinclair's family will face that day in ways as yet unknown.  Already, the grief ghoul stuck its ugly mug out of the shadows during our vacation - emotional moments full of missing and an empty chair and a dad without his son and sisters cutting new life waves through the ocean.  Anger, tears, fear, hurting hearts, these seep like the beginnings of an oil well gusher.  Our well cap isn't quite screwed in all the way, our strength pulsing an uneven beat, we walk uncharted paths this one year anniversary upcoming.

To his grave I've travelled once, alone.  Above his dirt pillow sits empty grass, headstone absent.  Can you imagine it?  Shopping for a headstone?  What that means?  Can you fathom the choosing of that child marker for that soul empty hole in the ground?  I used to wonder why people waited for such a long time to do that stone placing.  I don't wonder anymore. In a way it seems silly, marking that empty dirt hole, when the soul has a heaven address.  Zach lives alive, but his no headstone led me to need to DO something.

I'm a hypocrite.  Always have been and always will be...all we like sheep going astray and all that...meaning that so often I have looked through laser lenses honing hot on what my self righteous, proud, unloving heart SEES instead of what I should be trying to KNOW.

I've never hated tattoos - I find that some distract me so far from the wearer that I can't find her in all that ink.  I suppose I would adjust to seeing the person given the time and the building of relationship.  I've just always thought tattoos belonged to those people over there...not to me.  I would feel so judged with a tattoo, and I find that so very sad.  Hypocrite.

Now I wear two - artist Justin painted on Sunday, a permanent marker on me, a symbolic headstone, a reminder of flown Zachery's soul right on my body.  I don't want to be the me I used to be before Zach died - focused on the things ABOUT  people rather than the SEEING of people I am supposed to love.  I don't want to see through me anymore.  I hate the me I used to be, but I haven't quite found the me I need to be.  It's the journey.  I reach for His hand to steady the change He needs in me and His way he needs me to see.

Note to self and readers, advice from a hypocrite trying to change:

Before judging anyone for anything, tattoos or child rearing or gossip or actions or reactions or a child who took his own life or any other infinite number of things, STOP.  If you meet someone with a tattoo or any of  the so many things we so often judge, take a moment or 20, and ask that person to tell you his tattoo story or life story or day story.  Maybe the listening will lead to talking and the talking to relationship and the relationship to gospel giving.  I can't wait for someone to ask me about my inked art, so I can tell the story, the Zach story, and the butterfly gifts from God stories.  And I already know some will judge, and the joy is:  I don't care!
 
I'm a tatted 47 year old girl with high hopes that my Zechariah - God remembers and butterfly tats lead to mustard seed spreading.  
Christ told us and tells us to GO into ALL the world - the worlds we know AND the worlds we don't know.  ALL the world - peoples of every kind, from every life walk, of every color, and those who are rainbow inked, peoples with stories we should share and care and turn into relationships.  I don't want to be the me I used to be.  The tats surely speak that loud speaker loud - I want my life to speak a different me loud.  I want my life to speak CHRIST LOUD.  LOUDLY.  LOUDER.


God wants His story told to every kind of people.  Scatter seeds.  Go into all the world.  Everyone has a story.  Everyone needs a listener.  Everyone needs Jesus.  God is all about relationships.  We should be too. Life simple.  Just Jesus.  ALL the time.

Go.  Now.  Today.  Go into the world, listen, relationship, gospel.  Simple.  And I'm still a hypocrite, but God's not done with me yet.

To my man who stands by me and to all the "Real Wives of Kingwood" who got wild with me, I love you and thank my God for you.