Hi, I’m Courtney
I pray my story inspires you to keep walking through the valley until you see your new day dawn.
Isaiah 43:2 says:
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.
Not if you go through deep waters, but when. Which means that in this life there will be times that you have to go through deep waters.
Waters that are so deep you feel you might drown in them.
And this is my story.
On July 1, 2017, our precious 4-year-old son, Sam, went to heaven.
When Sam was 2 he was diagnosed with epilepsy.
Other than a few seizures every now and then, Sam was perfectly fine! So none of us (not even his neurologist) thought his story would end the way it did.
On Friday night, June 30, 2017, we dropped our kids off at church for Parents Night Out. They had a big blow-up water slide and lots of cupcakes.
So basically it was Sam’s perfect night.
They said he slid over and over on that slide that night. He ate at least four cupcakes, running around, laughing. He had an amazing night.
And the next night he was gone.
He had a seizure, quit breathing, and we never got him back.
“Sam is no longer with us”
The moment the doctor walked in and said those words the immediate pain that swept over me totally consumed me.
It was as if every nightmare and fear I ever had as a mother came into existence with those six words.
I remember just wailing and crying and screaming “NO!”
My husband collapsed to the floor in sobs.
How in the world would we ever be able to survive this pain?
The next few hours went by in a blur.
I remember walking in and seeing my baby laying on the hospital bed.
I remember hearing people whispering behind me.
I remember turning around at one point and seeing the hospital room FULL of all of my family and friends with tears streaming down their faces.
I remember holding his little freckled hand and kissing his freckled cheeks over and over.
I was memorizing every single part of him. From his red hair all the way down to his little toes.
Because I knew when I walked out of that hospital, I was having to walk out into a new world. A world where there was no Sam.
And the thought of that shattered my heart.
How in the world would we ever be able to survive this pain?
Throughout everything I had to go through that next week…
Picking out the outfit I had to bury him in.
Picking out pictures and songs for his memorial video.
Walking in and seeing him in the casket.
Watching them place him in the ground.
Every moment…
Every breath…
Jesus was with me.
Carrying me at a time when there was no way I could have carried myself.
But unfortunately, our broken road didn’t end there.
About six months before we lost Sam, God placed a desire in my heart for another baby. We tried for several months with no positive pregnancy test.
And then we lost Sam.
So when it came time to take a test I wasn’t expecting to see anything. After all, I just walked through the deepest despair that I have ever experienced.
But a little over two weeks after we lost Sam, I saw two lines.
I was ecstatic.
God gave us a little ray of sunshine on this dark road we were walking.
And then the unthinkable happened.
A week after I found out, I started having severe cramping. Then I started bleeding. And I had to face the horrible truth.
I was losing my baby.
I crawled in my bed and wailed and cried and broke. Again. Except this time it was for my baby that I would never know.
How in the world would we ever be able to survive this pain?
We went on to lose two more babies over the next six months.
We lost our last baby a few days before Christmas and then I was done.
Done trying.
Done hoping.
I just needed to heal.
But God had a surprise waiting for me.
On January 4, 2019, after four boys, we gave birth to our beautiful baby girl, Abby Kate.
And then in 2022 we welcomed another sweet baby girl, Sophia Grace (sharing her big brother Sam’s initials: SGW)
So my friends, in answer to the question I’ve asked so many times throughout my journey:
How in the world would we ever be able to survive this pain?
Jesus.
He held me all the times I wept so hard it swelled my eyes shut.
He carried me every time I felt I couldn’t walk another step.
He picked up every piece of my shattered heart and put it back together with the strength of his love…piece by piece.
This broken road that we have walked was definitely not in my plans. And it has been so very, very hard.
But God has shown his love and strength in our lives in ways that we never would have seen had we not experienced so much loss and pain.
If you are currently walking through a storm, lean into him. Let him give you strength to walk it and when you feel you can’t take another step, let him carry you.
Because even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.
And while I miss Sam with every beat of my heart, I know he is walking with us as we keep living our life.
I can feel him with every sunset, when the breeze blows, the birds chirp, the waves crash.
He’s cheering for us to keep living every moment until we join him in heaven and he can run up to us, give us a big Sam hug, and say…
“Welcome Home”
