You are stronger than you think!

This journey has not been an easy one.  But our decision to accept has been the difference between us falling apart and standing.

I am reminded of the Serenity Prayer. It says , "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference."
I have heard those words so many times, yet they never resounded as much as they do these days in my life.

First off, serenity means to be in a state of no stress or emotion and to have steadiness of mind. WOW! What an absolutely amazing state to live in...even for just a moment. I can't say that we have lived in the state every moment, but when I reflect on the past year, considering the moments that were filled with so much uncertainty and many moments of great fear, I truly believe that there was a consistent Voice in us saying, "It's going to be ok, don't give up." At 18 weeks, we were so excited to have our sonogram that would reveal to us if we were having a boy or a girl. We made it a family affair and had Terry's mom and my parents go with us so we could all see our little miracle. That day, in a day that we thought we would walk out in great joy, we walked out of that appointment in a great grief. The doctor could  not see if Crea was going to be a boy or girl because her organs were outside of her body and her spine was crooked and undeveloped. It was that day we were told of her diagnosis of Spina Bifida and Omphelecelle; our hearts were broken.

 But even in that moment, we saw Crea moving around, kicking her little ninja legs, listening to her strong heart. Yes, we accepted what the doctors were saying, but more than that, we accepted, received and owned that she was still fighting, still strong, and still showing hope.

In the past few months, we have had many people comment to us about our strength through it all. We have heard things like, "I don't know how you do it" and "I couldn't be that strong". Where we are blessed for the encouragement, the last week has had me thinking. Terry and I never imagined that this would be our story. If someone told us what this year would look like before it happened, we would probably have said, "No thanks! That is way more than we have the strength to endure."

This is what I believe to be true.

 We are all stronger than we think. We all have something inside of us that causes us to endure more than we ever imagined. We all have something inside of us that will fight for joy and hope. I believe the key to gaining this strength is our willingness to accept. I don't mean accept everything. Terry and I never accepted the birth defects doctors said our daughter would have. We fought and believed to the very end that she would be exception. Even tho we would be set back for a moment with bad news, after we dealt with the blow, we shook it off, stood back up and continued to believe in the miraculous.

But when all was said and done and our daughter passed away, there was nothing left we could do to change it. We had to hit a point of acceptance to our reality. And our reality was this - We experienced a miracle. With all our believing, our daughter had been born to us. We got to see her face, hold her chubby little hands, kiss her head and smell our newborn baby girl. We did it. We three fought. We won. Some would look at our reality and say that it was all for not. Some would be disappointed because it would all seem like a failure. The question we were asked to answer is "what are we willing to accept?"

So I say all this to say what?

 We ALL have experienced and will experience tragedy, heart ache and disappointment. Regardless if we like it or not, it is part of this life. We have endured because we had to. When we were making arrangements for Crea's service, my dad and I were at my house and he was standing there as I was gathering my things so we could leave. I turned around and he looked at me and said, "You are so strong, mija." My response was, "Pues que hacemos?" (Translated - Well what do we do?)
As much as I wanted things to be different, our situation this time was not going to change. What I could change, what I still had the power to influence, was my response.

No matter what you are going through, know this. We may not be able to change our situation, but we can always change our response. Believe me when I say, "You are stronger than you think!"