Thinkin' About My Baby

No, this won't be a pity-me post, I promise. 


Here in K-ville, Evan and I have had the opportunity to meet a guy who's going to be in Evan's class. His name is Clarke. He's investigating the church and asking a lot of questions. On Saturday, Evan had the opportunity to go with the missionaries to teach Clarke about the Plan of Salvation. 

As usual, this has me thinking about Scotlin a lot.


As Scotlin's first birthday came closer and closer last year, I was starting to slip into a pretty severe depression. It wasn't until February 2011 that Ev and I decided we both needed professional help. (I'm not embarrassed to admit this. Trauma --> grief--> getting stuck--> depression--> worse depression--> get help). We started meeting with Tasha. Tasha is a LCSW, and became a great asset to Evan and I and she also became a great friend. After talking through A LOT of our feelings/coping styles and talking about how we were planning on handling the move, we decided, with Tasha's help, that we wanted to keep Scotlin's story to ourselves as we were meeting people/making new friends. This is very reasonable. It makes sense that we don't want our identifier to be "they're the couple whose son died" for the rest of our lives. It's been three weeks, and it's working out okay. But, even 20 months after the fact, it's hard when people ask if I have kids for me to answer, "no" and leave it at that.  Usually, other people's response has been somewhere along the lines of, "yeah, we're not ready for kids either". 


Long (IRRELEVANT) story short: all this has just got me thinking about my beliefs, and I wanted to share them here.


 As children of our Heavenly Father, we have a plan specific to us. Because we can't remember our life before we came to Earth, we don't remember what all our life entails; what joys we'll have/ what trials we'll endure. But this is what I do know: We're here to get a body and then spend our lives proving to Heavenly Father that we can live righteously and return to Him. Some of God's children, like Scotlin, and his friends Benton, Jake and so many others only needed a body to pass their test here on Earth and were required to return home quickly to help out on the other end. But for us left behind, it hurts. It devastating, and heart-wrenching and sometimes it's infuriating. My human brain has a hard time comprehending a plan that requires parents to bury their children. But my heart understands a little better. Somehow, every time I think of Scotlin and his friends, my heart hurts, but is quickly reassured that I agreed to this plan and that I will get to be with Scotlin again someday. And even though I feel alone, missing my sweet little boy, I'm not. My Heavenly Father loves me. He's watching out for me and He's hurting with me. And since He can't be here to put his arms around me and hug me better, He's sent my family and friends to do it for Him. So here's a big shout-out to all of you who have supported me and carried me though this. Even though I whine and complain, I do know that it's going to be okay. Much Love,
Whit