Emptiness . . . Failure . . . Heartache . . .

I never ever in a million years would have imagined I would be feeling this pain again . . . this emptiness, sense of failure, & total brokenness that my heart aches to the point that I am sick to my stomach.

Eight years ago Tim & I were newlyweds of only a few months & were sucked into a darkness of not only one court battle for custody of Taylor, but also a second as I fought with all I had to protect Tyler from a situation I felt wasn’t safe for him.  Then right smack in the middle of it all we lost our first child together, our son Talon.  I remember the mix of emotions that raced through my mind & consumed my heart – often sending me into crying fits or rages of anger.  The pain was almost unbearable.  It all seemed so unreal.  For all 3 of our children, we fought so hard, yet seemed to have lost them all in one way or another.

Fast forward a couple years . . . We are blessed with a beautiful baby boy who instantly stole all of our hearts, 18 months later we are blessed with another beautiful baby boy, Taylor comes to live with us (*without a fight) and Tyler’s situation gradually improves.  Life is good.  Not that we didn’t have our fair share of storms along the way.  But through it all – we had our children.

Tonight the boys are all tucked in their beds, but our daughter’s bed is empty.  She is gone.  She went to live with her mother.  And although she is still very much alive, I feel like we have lost her.  We both know the environment that she will be living in & how quickly it will change her – our sweet girl has changed so much we hardly recognize her anymore.  And once again our hearts are filled with emptiness. 

I’m not sure how much I will decide to share on my blog about this, but for now I want to ask you for your prayers as we all adjust to this new life apart.  I will probably be absent from my blog for a little bit.  I’m quite the array of emotions as one minute I feel so sad and the next I’m so mad I could scream.  I feel like I have failed.  I have failed our daughter.  And more so, I feel like I have failed a task the Lord gave me.  I’m just a mess right now so I’ll try to spare you the ramblings of “the other mom”.