Carrying Her Heart

I am dedicating this site to my beloved daughter Rachel whose earthly life ended on Sept. 17,2009.This is just a glimpse of the path I walk through this journey of grief.

Thursday, September 17, 2015

I blinked...and another year has passed.
We had to tell someone else that we love dearly goodbye.
Grief can be brutal.
It can also be healing.
Trying to mange your own grief and help those that you love cope with loss can, at  times ,be overwhelming.
God has continued to send me many "daughters" to love and to minister to. I am thankful for the lessons about love that they teach me . I wonder if I will ever understand the true meaning of love while I live on this earth.
This year also brought the birth of Miss Rachel Ann Jackson. Rachel's dear friend  Ashton named her baby after her. They gave her Rachel's name and her middle name is actually after her dads mom...and it also happened to be Rachel's middle name. Coincidence??? I don't think so...
Holding that precious child for the first time  was pure LOVE...
Every day is still a challenge. To" live love"when I am sad beyond words   sometimes seems impossible.
Twice in the book of John Jesus tells us to not let our hearts be troubled. I am working on having a calm heart. It is something I have to be intentional with. It's hard when everything thing reminds me of her. I see her in my girls. Every other song on the radio is a story about her. It doesn't get any easier . I have just learned to live with this huge hole in my heart. People will say to me" I don't know how you do it". And my response is still the same. Faith, family , and friends. And there are days when I don't do it very well. Those are the days that I am thankful for my family that always goes down into the grief pit with me. And I am thankful for loving friends that pray for me and give me time to just be sad .
I cant imagine where I would be without my faith, my family, or my friends. I honestly don't want to imagine.
God keeps putting people in my path to help me understand His love and to share His love with them. And I am thankful for each and everyone one of them.
Thank you for thinking about me today. And thank you for remembering Rachel.

“Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star...”



photo by Tammy Silvestrini


For this reason I kneel before the Father,  from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name.  I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,  may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,  and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Eph. 3:14-19