Angie’s Memorial Slide Show

For the family and friends of my sister-in-law Angie who may not see these videos on Facebook, here is the slide show I created for Angie’s memorial service. The first one is in HD, so if you have a slower internet connection, you can try watching the second one instead, which is a lower quality.

Angela Christine Wiebe
November 4, 1976 ~ April 2, 2011

Song credits: He’s Alive (Laura Hackett)
and Joyful, Joyful (Laura Hackett)
from the JOY CD

Processing Grief

Warning: this post is me processing and therefore it may come out as random ramblings and may be rather long.

I feel like it’s been so busy and crazy for the last month and a half that I haven’t had time to sit and think and process everything that has happened. I was barely at the beginning of my journey in grieving the loss of my baby girl Ezana when we got the terrible news about Angie’s death. Now I am trying to figure out how to mourn for both of them and it’s hard. People continually ask how we’re doing and I find it so difficult to answer that question. At times, I feel steadfast in my spirit and even though my life has been shaken, I feel like I’m still standing, by the grace of Jesus and His strength carrying me.

But that doesn’t change the fact that my emotions feel all over the place. I’ve had moments of great joy and laughter, many moments of tears, several moments of fear, a few moments of bewilderment, and some moments of numbness and just feeling overwhelmed. I feel like I don’t really know what to feel or how to feel it. How do I process all the thoughts and emotions? How do I capture the things that God is speaking to me and doing in me through this season of hardship? Is it important for me to capture them or is it okay if I simply take them in, in the moment and then let them fade away into the recesses of my lacking memory?

I had actually wanted to talk to my sister-in-law Angie about what she experienced when she had a couple miscarriages of her own, but we never really ended up getting the opportunity for that conversation before she passed away. I wonder now if she has her hands full in heaven with a couple kids of her own, as well as our baby there to welcome her? In some ways, it was actually comforting to think that my baby had an Auntie in heaven with her. It doesn’t really make any sense, but for some reason I think I thought my baby needed someone to take care of her and to love her, though I know that she was being more than abundantly cared for and loved by her heavenly Father already. Just silly thoughts, but I’m sure God understands my aching mommy’s heart and that He doesn’t mind letting Angie love on her – it’s all His love anyway.

It’s still really hard to let go of my baby. Maybe I’ll share sometime soon about the picture that God showed me as I released her to Him. I think that might have only been the first of many times that I’ll need to release her though. I don’t think I’m even ready to begin thinking about the fact that I actually have to let go of all my kids and release and entrust them to God’s care. It’s hard not to think of them as being primarily my kids when they actually were and will always be God’s first. I’m sure all moms experience this pain at some time of wanting to hold onto our kids so tightly and never let them go. Perhaps this is something too that will happen many times during their lives – as they go to school for the first time, as they get their drivers, as they go on their first date, as they move out of the house, as they get married, and the list goes on. Maybe if I can practice letting go now, it’ll be a tiny bit easier at those future stages??

It’s also completely different grieving the loss of someone I never met, never held, never saw, never heard, and just barely knew as a spirit within my womb compared to someone that I had the chance to know for several years and love for who they were. On one hand, I am grieving the countless lost opportunities that I’ll never experience in this lifetime with my baby daughter and I’m feeling the ache of wanting to know what she looks like, what her voice sounds like, what her personality is, who God created her to be? On the other hand, I am grieving the loss of my sister and I know exactly what I’m missing – I remember the laugh that I won’t hear again, I know the generous heart that I’ll miss, I know the sense of humor that brought so much laughter, I recall the warm, strong hug that I won’t feel again. I’m not sure you could say one is worse or better than the other – they are both equally hard.

Yet, how blessed am I to know that they are both in the presence of God! Though my heart aches and feels the pain of their absence, I can feel the joy of knowing that they have unending joy and that they are gazing into the face of the One I love and long to be with more than any other person. In some ways, this ache is famliar. I’ve felt this pain of separation before. I’ve felt this longing for someone I’ve never seen, never touched, never heard His audible voice, never met in person, yet I know Him and I know His heart and I know what I love about Him and I know what I’m missing. That pain and that mourning for my Bridegroom is stronger than all the others.

Some might question how you could love somone so strongly who you’ve never met, but I think any mother knows that feeling – the moment that deep love is sown in your heart when you find out you’re pregnant, long before you meet your baby. Some might even try to tell you that your baby isn’t real, isn’t a person yet, but your heart and the love that’s there, knows different. And if there are those who question God’s existence and the reality of Jesus because He can’t be seen or proven by our five limited senses, let me tell you that the love and longing in my heart is more real than anything my senses could perceive. Though I’ve not seen Him, I love Him and I wait eagerly for His return – for a grand reunion that will cause all the other reunions I look forward to, to be so dim in comparison.

Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” John 20:29

  Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:8-9

Update on Rayah’s Teeth

For those of you who may be concerned or wondering about how Rayah is doing after her fall on Tuesday and the nasty hit to her teeth, I wanted to give you a bit of an update.

First of all, I just want to thank you again for all your prayers! Rayah has seemingly had virtually no pain and has been her usual happy self with very little complaining about her bumped teeth. She’s eating well, though she can only eat very soft food for the next little bit, and her gums appear to be healing well too. She has been whining about her mouth, but I think it’s because she’s actually teething and working on those back molars.

We had a follow-up visit with the pediatric dentist on Thursday and they took an x-ray which showed that there was no major fracture in the bone that holds her teeth in place and that the roots of her teeth are intact. You could see the adult teeth that are there, but there is no way of knowing at this point if they sustained any trauma or damage. So, the bone is back in place where it should be, which is great, but her teeth are still a little loose and not in their correct position,  jutting out a bit from the rest of her teeth.

We’ll be seeing the dentist again in a couple weeks, so we are praying and hoping for the best in the mean time. Some of the concerns about keeping the teeth in are that they could get bumped again, which would obviously not be a pleasant experience, they could possibly get infected, and if they don’t move back into line, they could cause problems with Rayah’s bite. I’ve already noticed that she’s tending to put her top teeth behind the bumped teeth instead of over top of them, so I definitely don’t want her to develop an underbite!

If you would like to pray for Rayah, please pray that her teeth with go back into their proper position, that they will become strengthened and no longer be loose, that there will be no infection, and that she will not develop any bad bite habits. Also pray for us for wisdom if we have to make a decision whether to keep them in or take them out. My struggle with it all is obviously how it will affect her eating if she doesn’t have those bottom three teeth and also just silly ol’ vanity and wanting her to have a full toothy grin.