A mother's love...

First thing this morning I got a text message from Wrigley and Maddux's school saying that it would be completely locked down.....we now have to call before we pick up the kids and only then can we enter the building to get them. Those texts marked a bittersweet moment for me. I think it's wonderful that they are implementing a plan to protect my kids while they are in their care but it's so sad that it's come to this. As a mother I have been heartbroken for the events that took place in Connecticut. Most of the children killed were 6 years old....the same as my Miss Wrigley Grace.....trying to fathom the crushing pain the parents must feel in unimaginable. I think about how our mornings go at our house....the kids come downstairs dressed in clothes that we pick out the night before....they eat their breakfast....and I fix Wrigley's hair (usually). Everyday is the same and as I think back to all the years the kids have been in school I have NEVER once thought they weren't coming home as I'm sure the parents of the children killed thought too. I remember Columbine and all the mass shootings since but this one has broken me. As I see their little faces flash across the screen I realize that they were beautiful, rambunctious, innocent souls who were probably counting down the days till "Santa" comes. It truly makes no sense....why those children? Why that school? Unfortunately we will probably never fully understand the motives of the man who perpetrated these atrocious acts. I was lying in bed last night thinking about how I'd like to put all three of the kids in a bubble... home-school them....never let them out of my sight again but I know this isn't reality. Our children have to grow. They have to learn lessons on their own that we could never teach them. I can't always protect them....as much as it pains me to say that it's true. One day each of them will graduate high school and go off to college...get married and hopefully move right next door to me! The one thing I keep hearing in the back of my mind is this....these children aren't yours. They don't belong to you. Yes I carried them in my body for nine months and have given them strong roots here at home. I've been up with them when their sick and they've made me laugh so hard I cry....but I have to remember as much as I love them, well, God loves them more. He knew their little souls way before I even thought about them. He knew Brady and I would the perfect parents for these beautiful little souls. God knew that we would love them as much as we could on this Earth, teach them about Him and lead them down the path to their destiny. It's so hard to let go because I can't imagine anyone loving my children more than me...that's just ludicrous, but God does. He knows their destiny and rather they live to be 100 or 6 that was his plan all along. I love this piece of scripture because it says everything I can't....these are God's children and I promised Him I'd love them, teach them, cuddle them, hold them and when it's time I will let them go.

Psalm 139:13-16 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you,when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.