healing- well.

I am not sure if you have ever experienced doing something the wrong way....but I tend to forget or ignore the natural processes that things are supposed to take. 


For example, in highschool and college when I was supposed to write a rough draft or sentence outline, etc., I would simply write the paper...the Final Draft.  Then, on the computer, I would deconstruct it, piece by piece, detail by detail, error by error until I had, what I considered, to be a decent replica of a 2nd draft, first draft, outline and so on.....It worked, and no one was the wiser....


However, when I injured my right quad in high school, I never took the time off for it to heal. I did not stop punting(which initially injured it), never took a season off, just pushed through with Icy Hot and a lot of ace bandages....Even today, when I occasionally punt a ball or shoot again it twinges...forever scarred by the lack of process I put in to its healing.


This is not how I want to be with Branson. I do not want to be less than what God has in store for me to be. I do not want to slowly process something on my own that He wants me to give to Him, and I do not want to quickly push through something that He wants me to slowly digest.  


I want to heal well.


There is no manual on this process, because no other person is Johnna.  There is no person that has my experiences, fears and wounds...There are similar people, but no one is me......and so it has to be all new, all real, all me.....


I have finished Angie Smith's book about losing her sweet Audrey, her 4th daughter after her twins and daughter Kate......It has been so helpful.  She also has a blog and yesterday I visited it for the first time. It had just felt wrong to see her healing 3 years later without witnessing her pain first.  I pulled up the blog and gasped- hand over my mouth- when I noticed, for the first time, another name in her list of children.....Charlotte.......tears instantly began streaming down my face.


Another sweet baby girl in their family......


It was too much....I broke instantly like the bandaid that I had been afraid to remove finally was ripped off- and it hadn't hurt nearly as bad as I had feared it would.  They were able to have another child- a daughter even.  This woman, that I trusted because she knew how to grieve well, had been able to lean on the Lord, prepare her body, conceive and carry another child....who lived.  She has been able to continue healing well....


I haven't yet connected her loss and the birth of her sweet Charlotte....There are 2 years worth of blog entries to read....but just knowing of Charlotte's life allows me to stop and focus on my Branson without allowing the fears and what-ifs to drown it out. 
 I just want to grieve my baby girl.....and talk and not talk, and praise Him, and ask questions, and rest and share and love my children well, and be sensitive to Will's needs....I want to heal well...as we follow where the Lord leads us......