Rose-Colored Glasses

Due to her 14-week-premature birth, my surviving twin daughter requires glasses to see clearly. I knew she would likely need them, but when the time came for her to actually start wearing them at the young age of 20 months, I was hurt. As if my daughter had not already been through enough, now she would have to wear glasses for the rest of her life. I knew glasses were not that big of a deal. But I was tired of the extra difficulties my daughter was having to face. Why couldn't God just "fix" everything for her...for us? I tried to remind myself that if glasses were the only lingering thing my daughter would have to deal with, then I should be truly thankful that it wasn't something more severe. But I saw the glasses as a constant reminder of all that we had been through with the twins' premature birth...

My daughter has been in her glasses for 8 months now. She looks adorable in them. And we don't go anywhere without someone stopping me, literally stopping me in the store, to tell me how cute my daughter is "in those little pink glasses."

I now see these glasses as a gift. Not only a gift to my daughter so that she can see, but a gift to me as cause for others to take notice of my daughter. After my daughter arrived home from the hospital, we were advised not to take her out in public for nearly the first two years of her life. I had waited three months for my daughter to come home with me, but even once she was home, I couldn't share her with the rest of the world. I couldn't go out in public and let everyone "dote" on my newborn baby. But now, because of the glasses I once so deeply despised, everyone stops to tell me what an adorable 2-year-old child I have in my life.

God knows what we need. He knew my desire to share my sweet daughter with the world and He has allowed that to happen; in His way; in His time. We must always trust in Him. "Praise be to the Lord, for he has heard my cry for mercy. The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song" (Psalm 28:6-7, NIV).

The Meaning of A Life

One of the greatest tragedies in loosing a baby is that you don’t get the chance to form enough memories to carry you through a lifetime of living without them. It isn’t that you forget to remember; it is that you don’t have many memories to recall.

Though I think of my sweet daughter every day, there are some days I feel as though I created her in my own mind. I ask myself “Was she ever really here?” I know that she was, but she was here such a short time and so much time has now passed without her, that it sometimes seems like a dream.

But every now and then, something will happen to help reaffirm to me that her short, sweet little life was real. For instance, I recently heard someone say the name “Alyssa.” I thought to myself, “Oh, how I really love that name.” And then it hit me—I had a daughter with the same name. I have a daughter named Alysa. And today, as I read of another family who recently lost their daughter at just 6 days old, I know for sure that the life of their daughter was real. And so I am reminded again that my daughter’s life, though tragically short, did really exist.

I love the moments when I am able to realize that Alysa is real. Though she is no longer with me in the physical form, she will always be with me spiritually. Alysa is still my daughter, she just lives someplace else. Alysa lives in a more wonderful home than I could have ever prepared for her here on this Earth. She is alive and well, shining down on us from Heaven.

By His Amazing Grace...