One Thousand

They say a picture is worth 1000 words. I sometimes question that since more often than not pictures leave me speechless. An image forever frozen is a piece of art that conjures up secret memories and leaves me breathless. And now I have 1000 posts filled with images of thousands of seconds of life stopped in a frame and forever cherished.

Like the very first picture I ever posted on my first blog post. The heart stopping image of crossed blue lines. Those terrifyingly precious lines that mean your world will forever change.

And the "1000 words" of pictures and posts roll on through the breakneck pace of life when 2 became 3 and my heart experienced the fierce love and pain of becoming a mother.

The words on these 1000 posts won't let us ever forget when jobs ended and there were none to replace it. When housing was taken away, and new doors were opened.

Or when life ended too soon and our broken hearts were drowning in a sea of  'why'. When we had no idea how to grieve a child we never held and ungracefully waded through letting go, asking God to hold us just as He was holding our child.

Or when life again screamed existence from little blue lines and our nervous hearts groped the ledge of doubt and trust as we counted the weeks between the first heartbeat and viability. And the undamming balm that poured sweet love into ache as we held our precious second gift for the first time.

Or the time that God shook us up and poured us out into a place of complete and total trust in Him. Our lives became a demolition site of anything we ever tried to build ourselves as we spent two years striving, failing, yearning, and falling over ourselves learning to get out of God's way and surrender all to Him.

And the precious oasis of companionship and accountability God hand picked for us in the desert of our stubborn wandering. The moments and days of life with these friends who have become family are captured forever within these 1000 posts and will always be a cherished part of how God used them to grow us beyond the present.

And somewhere in that desert wandering, God laid waste our pitiful plans and passion for diving head first into His will took root. He lavished gifts of travel and celebration, and we experienced what life can be when lived in the freedom of holding onto Him. Within months, death of self gave way to life again in the form of another set of little blue lines and then to the re-birth of a heart's desire gifted from our Father.

The posts written through tears and stubbornness of accepting a greater plan won't ever let me forget the embarrassment that lies in between the lines of fighting God; and I don't want to forget. These 1000 posts have followed through the insane battle of self and sacrifice, documenting the embarrassing, the insecure, the cherished, the treasured, the falling, and the fear.

Our lives are written in these 1000 posts as a testament to show our children the unending ways God chases after us, in our denial, in our doubt, in our loss, in our wins, in our questions, in our joy, in our moments of glory and moments of wonder...God always was. God always is. These 1000 posts are a story of pictures that leave me speechless...

...because 1000 words for every picture would never be enough to shout my praise for all God has done. In death, in life, in the left behind, in the new, in the growing and going on, every breath, every glimpse, everything is in You. For the last 1000, for the next 1000 take us, teach us, use us, all for You.