2 years, 92 pounds, and a New Lease on Life

In 6 short days it will be have been 2 years since our sweet Zechariah passed away.  In the last few weeks I have been trying to focus on how far I have come in the last 2 years.  It has been painful.  God has allowed so many aspects of my life to be stripped away so I can learn to be truly dependent on Him.  I have had to rely on God in so many aspects of my life especially in the last 2 years but one aspect I am truly proud of is the journey to health I have walked through.  In the last 2 years I have lost 92 pounds (somewhere between 92-95, depending on the week).  It has been a hard.  Weight loss is hard.  Learning to cope without a vice is hard.  Learning how to stop emotionally eating has been the hardest lesson for me.  I love to eat.  I love to eat when I am happy, sad, mad, angry, you name it I love food for all reasons.  I am truly recovering from a food addiction.  I have had to realize that I need to start facing my stuff instead of stuffing my face.  Zechariah has been the driving force for this huge change in my life.  I remember sitting on airplane heading back to my home in Texas after Zech's funeral thinking life is going to be different.  I am going to be different.  It was then I realized that Zechariah didn't have a choice about his heart, his health or his life, BUT I DO, I HAVE A CHOICE!  So I chose my health.  I took my life back.  I got so many rewards in the process; I got my health back, I was able to have skin removal surgery, I became confident in who I am as a person, gained confidence in my body and living in my own skin, and I gained fitness.  I am now a person who longs for my morning cycling classes, Saturday runs, and a life full of happiness and health!

It has been amazing to watch my body and life change.  It is truly amazing to see how your life can change with a lot of hard work, dedication, prayer, and commitment.  As the 2 year mark of Zech's death approach's in 6 days, I can rest assured knowing that his life was not lived in vain.  His life was a catalyst for change in my life and my families life.

Feeling Lonely

Right now I am so lonely...I miss California.  I am going through some really hard things right now and I feel so alone.  I know I have support from my friends and family, but life is just getting to me.  I feel as if I have to hold it all together for my family.  I have support back home in California, but here is Washington, I only have one true friend I could call up and she would be here in a heartbeat, and of course she is on vacation.  I have made some friends from a ladies fellowship group I am in from church.  However, I feel like the odd ball out, all the other ladies in the group are in ministry with their husbands, they can relate to one another.  They're having babies, and while I am happy for them my heart hurts.  A few comments have been made to me along the lines of, "well be grateful you have a girl, boys are so messy."  Or my personal favorite, "just wait until you have a boy."  With each comment my heart breaks a little more.  I feel like, who can relate to a 30 year old who has been married for almost 5 years and has had 2 children, a girl and a boy, one of which has passed away.  My whole identity has changed.  Truly my whole life.  It is weird, I am not in ministry, I am not a typical Army wife, I am not a typical mother, and I just don't know where I fit in anymore...If I could pin point it I would say it is 2 different feelings, one being the feeling of being unloved and unappreciated.  I know that I am not either of those things, but sometimes it is just nice to hear it once and awhile, you know.  The other being that of trying to fit in the world again after such sadness and defeat the last year and a half.

Okay, enough whining, I am going to count my blessings.  First, I have wonderful friends and family back home and even though we go through periods of not talking because of busy schedules and life getting in the way I know I can pick up the phone and call and they would listen and care for me.  I have a wonderful friend Audra, she is more like family than a friend.  I am so blessed by her, she blessed me and came to Washington to help me after I had my surgery.  She left her 4 children, husband, and life that she has in California to come and take care of me.  She has truly taught me what a servants heart is and I pray someday I can be as much of a blessing to her as she has been to me.  Secondly, moving often has given me the opportunity to met wonderful people, I am so blessed to have my friend Chelsea, I don't think she knows this but I treasure her.  She is a wonderfully prayerful friend and her cards that pop up in my mailbox all the way from Germany always encourage me just when I need it. Last but not least, I have a wonderful daughter and husband.  Derek and I have been through hell and back these last 2 years.  It is truly by God's grace that we are still married, at times I felt like our relationship was just falling apart at the seams.  I praise God that we are still married, there is an 80% divorce rate among married couples who lose children.  Our marriage is not perfect but worth fighting for and I want to get back to the place were we can remember the reasons we fell in love instead of just surviving each day and suffering separately as we deal with our sadness of losing our dear Zechariah.  My dear wonderful Faith, I am so blessed to call her my daughter.  She is so full of life and I know that someday she is going to set this world on fire.  She brings me such joy, and I am so touched by her kind heart and loving spirit.

Be blessed my friends...This is my truth, this is where I am at.  I hope this year we can all be more open to living our truth unashamedly.

Cheers, Tab

Facing my stuff instead of stuffing my face...with cinnabon!

Okay y'all so you know when you have a scab and sometimes the scab comes off and there is no bleeding, just fresh skin underneath, all the while the wound is healing, but if you are to bump or scratch that fresh wound it is like a gaping wound that bleeds and bleeds...that is how my heart feels right now!  I feel like I have been on the mend and I have been working through my grief daily.  Two weeks ago when I ran into the family from Texas with the child who has the same CHD disease as our Zech it was like ripping off the scab that had started to form over my heart and the skin underneath was fresh but healing...but then today happened.  Before I explain it I have to tell you how ironic that Derek and I started our grief share class today.  So after church Derek dropped off at the front door so I can run into Old Navy and exchange a shirt that didn't fit well...guess who was there, the family from Texas.  I almost had a panic attack right in the middle of Old Navy.  Right then and there my wounds was gushing, I took a some cleansing breathes and paid for my items as quickly as possible...I feel like every time I see these people along with some other people from Texas and even from home at times, they look at me like I have the plague, or with sympathy or like I am pathetic.  I feel so sad when this happens because I feel like I have dealt with Zechariah's life and death really quite well.  I feel like I am a strong woman, with strong faith.  I just want people to see grief is not the plague you don't catch it but we will all have to deal with it at some point!

I do have good news to tell you...I fought the urge to drown my sorrows in Cinnabon!  I just said no to eating my feelings and my thighs are thanking me!  I am facing my stuff instead of stuffing my face!!!

Life is beautiful make sure and tell your loved ones how much you love them because life on this earth is short!

Blessings, Tab

People Pleaser, Yes I am Indeed

This last year has been a year of inner self reflection, self growth and time to step aside and look at my life up to August 1, 2010.  It has been a really lonely year to be honest.  I have only one person in my life that knows how I feel besides Derek, and I am pretty sure she can attest to how lonely of a place that life is after the death of our precious children!  People walk on egg shells around you, try to pretend like life never happened, all the while you are just trying to hold the pieces of your together.  Trying to find joy in the little things, for me remembering that my precious Faith deserves my best too! 

I have always been a people pleaser, I think pretty much since I was born.  I have always had a hard time telling no, so even as my life had been falling apart I found myself trying to make everyone around me happy in the midst of all my pain.  While some of this is good, Faith deserves happiness, she went through the tough times with us, some of this stuff could have waited or I have said no!  I guess it is that inner part of me that strives to be perfect; striving to have the perfect house that is always clean and tidy, trying to be the perfect wife, to be a great cook, to just please everyone.  I just want everyone to be happy.  I love making everyone happy.  I love making everyone laugh.  I love throwing parties.  I love hunting for gifts for the people I love just so I can see the joy on their face. I have realized though that has been my down fall, I spent so much of my life making others happy, and dodging my true feelings and letting people walk all over me verbally that I have neglected myself. The fact is that no is perfect, not even ME!  Shocking I know!!!!   I have been stepping back these last 6 months and just been saying no.  No it is not okay to guilt me. No life is not okay, but it will be.  No I am not going to fake that life is full of roses and sunshine anymore, but I will admit life is hard, but there is always a silver lining, and God is always waiting for me to give over control to HIM! 

In my adventure to self discovery and healing I have come to realize it is okay to say no to people.  It is okay to say no to food and stop using it as a means to soothe myself.  It is also okay to tell people who are being hurtful that it is not okay, and let them know I am going to grieve and live in my own way. 

I am now in a place where I can start to say yes again.  Today at church our pastor was speaking on vision and what the next year for our church will look like.  At one point, I swear it was like he was looking at me and said, "As you serve God gets blood flowing to the most hurt places within us."  I am ready to start serving, and volunteering my time and using my gifts and talents.  However, I do realize there is a difference between serving and volunteering my time and going back to the place where all I do is people please.  I am ready to start living life to the fullest again!

Speaking of living my life to the fullest...On November 4, 2011 I get the opportunity to take my life back.  I am getting a medically indicated Panniculectomy Surgery.  This is basically a fancy way of saying that I get to have the excess skin, or as the doctors call it, "panel" or "apron" removed from the bottom part of my stomach.  I am also having a scar revision so I get to have the more extensive Panniculectomy, so I will have a nice flat tummy!  I am so excited to live life, and stop wasting my life away by pleasing others and start caring for myself.  This year has been about losing weight, finding myself, and working towards healing and true happiness.  Life is so worth living, I am glad I have decided to join the living again!  Seize the day friends, life is so good!

Food for thought from Pastor Lance today, "Could you imagine if you believed God was limitless, you would be afraid of NOTHING!"

I am diving in and going to chew of this food for thought!

Cheers, Tab

Good Bye Texas, Hello Washington!

Hi y'all, well we finally made it to Washington!  The drive was beautiful, and vacation was fabulous!  We spent time in Huntington Beach visiting my sister in law and her fiance, went to Disneyland, headed up and spent time with my nieces and nephews in Manteca, visited with old friends, and then headed up to Redding to spend time with my in-laws.   I do have to say that I have still been losing weight since we have been on vacation and traveling. I haven't gained any and proud to say I have lost 71.2 pounds.  It has been hard and taken a lot of mental rehearsing and compromise as far as food is concerned, but I am now only 20 pounds from goal!

Washington is certainly beautiful, and while it is beautiful it is dredging up old feelings of Germany.   Between the rain and the beauty of the trees it is stirring up feelings from just last year and our fight to get Zechariah back to the US.  I certainly don't want to forget Zechariah or pretend he was never with us, I just don't want to be that girl who's son died.  That is who I was in Texas, and I don't want that for my time here in Washington.  I want to be the girl who is being healed, restored, and living life to the fullest.

As I sit and write this I am feeling a bit anxious about our future.  We found out Derek will most likely go to Afghanistan in March (if you are reading this and are on my Facebook, please don't post any of this we are not ready to tell Derek's parents), and we still don't have housing.  Not having housing is not what is stressing me out it is the finances that have me stressed.  I don't want to go financially in the hole for this move, Derek and I pretty much live on the if you charge it pay it right away motto, but I just keep going where is the money for all this coming from!  I also have to keep my mind off of this deployment.  I already lost part of my heart this year when Zechariah died all I can think about is what happens if something happens to Derek.  I guess that brings me to church yesterday.  On Saturday, Derek and I took to google to find Foursquare church's in Tacoma.  We attended a Foursquare church in Manteca, CA, as well as an Assembly of God church, both are pretty much the same in beliefs, the difference is how each denomination appoints their pastors.  Anyways so we found the church Puget Sound Christian Center.  It was fabulous friends.  The minute we walked in there was a wonderful guy named Steve who gave us a tour, and when we had Faith all checked in to kids church we headed over to the sanctuary for worship.  While we were worshiping a guy came up to us shook our hands and started talking to us, low and behold this young nice guy was the pastor.  When worship was nearly done he went and started talking about how he felt someone was struggling with fear, if it maybe about upcoming deployments, finances, and what the future holds, and needed to know that God wanted to take those fears and wants our complete and utter surrender.  Those words spoke truly to my heart.  The sermon was on surrender, and boy did I need to hear it.  After the service was over we ran into the pastor again and he said, those words were for you.  We never told him Derek would most likely be deployed, it was Jesus, speaking to us through this man who was willing to be Jesus' mouth piece.

So today, I don't know what the future holds, but I do know that I will surrender it to my Savior, and pray that I can make it through all this unscathed!