Missing Annabelle

Today is 5 weeks since Annabelle's memorial service. I would be 26 weeks along with her right now if she were still growing inside of me. Oh how I miss her movements, how I miss seeing my belly expand, how I miss the joy and the amazing feeling I felt while being pregnant, I LOVED being pregnant. I miss her so much. 5 weeks and not a breath goes by that I don't miss her. I'm just really missing her today, it's a hard day. Some days are great, others are inbetween and then there are days like today where I miss her so badly it hurts. I still don't understand and I know I probably won't until eternity but I continue to trust the One who chose me and Jim to be her parents even if just for the little while. Like the quote I read the other day, says "When you can't see God's hand, trust His heart." So right now I'm trusting His heart, knowing He is perfect, His ways are perfect and His plans for Annabelle and us are perfect and that He loves her and us more than we will ever begin to imagine. I know if we just probably saw a glimpse of what was to come, where Annabelle and her siblings are now and how it will be when all things are made new, then we wouldn't grieve but we would rejoice while we wait. But since we cannot see that, since we have this cloudy view of what will be, we cannot fully imagine and so all we know to do is grieve the loss of our little girl and all our hopes, dreams and plans we had for her. We grieve not getting to go full term with her and deliver her healthy and bring her home. We grieve that we left the hospital empty. We grieve we had to bury her instead of watch her sleep in her nursery. We grieve because our hearts ache to hold her again. We grieve because we won't get to kiss her goodnight or dance to veggie tales with her. We grieve because we won't get to hear her say mama or dada or see her first walks. We won't get to send her off to school or stay up late at night talking to her about life and we won't get to see her walk down the aisle. We grieve because of all the things we will miss and never get to do with Annabelle...but God sees the fullness of it and sees how it will be one day and how He is using her short little life for so much good. So I cling to that God created Annabelle for a purpose, and He alone knew the number of her days and knew what He would do with her short life and how He would use it for His glory!

p.s. The picture at the top is a flower called Annabelle, it's technical name is Hydrangea arborescens. I never knew there was a flower called Annabelle until I googled her name and looked at images and found this. Now I want to see if it's one I can plant because that would be so beautiful to have in memory of her!