One of the hardest challenges

well, scrappy challenges that is, was one by Michelle for Simply Obsessed's School of Scrap month long contest. It was difficult because her challenge was the Science lesson that asked us to incorporate a MAMMAL into a layout. At first, I thought, "Oh great! I could do owls, or birdies, or some fish with my lake pictures..." Duh! I quickly realized that NONE of those were mammals. And the cute butterflies, chickies, or other "in" animals aren't either! I was stumped! Then I thought about doing a play on words with monkeys, only to realize I don't HAVE anything monkey-ish. So I finally decided to scrap a fave picture of Sarah Kate and use a lamb.

For those of you who don't know the whole story, Sarah Kate was a twin. Only her twin, Claire, survived until week 20 of the pregnancy then we lost her. Josh and I took multiple trips to Cincinnati to have a surgery performed to try to correct the problem but Claire didn't survive. Ironically it was the Twin-to-Twin that was keeping her alive while Sarah Kate was showing signs of congestive heart failure.

Anyway, as I lay in bed at the Ronald McDonald house in Cincinnati unable to sleep the night before the surgery, I decided to open my Bible. I fell upon this verse, Isaiah 40:11 and wept like I never have before. It read, "He tends his flock like a shepard, He gathers His lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart. He gently leads those who have young." Wow! I needed that like more than anything else at that moment. I was assured that the Lord was carrying my babies in His arms. Notice the verse says lambs--plural. Not only that but that He was gently leading me and Josh too. We'd left Caroline, only 11 months old at the time, home with my mom so that we could travel. Not only was I a ball of nerves, anxious about surgery, the pending survival of my unborn twins, but I dearly missed my little one at home too. So needless to say this verse brought me hope, courage, and comfort that night in Cincinnati. It still does. I'm confident in the fact that my Sweet Jesus is still holding my little Claire in His arms until I'm able to hold her again myself. I still refer to Sarah Kate as my little lamb, even though she's not really mine but His.

And all of this spurred on by a simple little challenge that had me baffled, but now I'm happy to share a little of the story with you, with Sarah Kate (to read later), and to confidently look forward to the day when I get to hold my other little lamb.

Oh and here's the layout: "Little lamb"