"It's sad when your Daddy has to be gone for along time for work..."

"...but then your Mommy snuggles you extra tight 

and it feels like your Daddy is there too." 

--Kai Quincy (5)

We are living channels of love. 

Sometimes, a hug, a listening ear, a phone call, a letter, an apology, a smile, or just showing up can usher in something the recipient is desperate for.

I haven't been very public with this, but I had a miscarriage between Kai and Sunny. 

I lost the baby at around six weeks and I remember getting angry about the fact that I even knew I had been pregnant--that I'd ever had a "hunch" to even take that test. It felt like a cruel joke someone had played on me.

I will never forget sitting in my car in the parking lot of the ER, knowing in my heart that the baby was gone and dreading the impending confirmation. I texted the few family members and friends who had known about the pregnancy while I sat there, asking them to pray.

G was away for work--hours away--and was unreachable by phone at the time and I had dropped Kai off with my parents. I guess I just wanted to go in and get confirmation of the loss and get on with it. Something like that.

But then, just as I took my seat in the waiting room, around the corner peeks the familiar face of a dear friend. I hadn't asked her to be there with me, she was just responding out of love to my blast prayer request text and knew from her own loss what I might be going through.

We didn't say much, but sat together that summer day as the doctor informed me that there was no baby. I just remember hearing the word "empty" and feeling it literally echo off of the walls in that cold room; and how I'd never felt more hollowed out and lifeless as I had at that moment.

I remember her holding my hand, and walking with me out of the hospital into the seemingly reverent sunlight, and how she hugged me extra tight as we stopped in front of our cars.

I remember that right there in that hospital parking lot, in the midst of the sadness and confusion and anger, God showed up beneath that warm sunshine as I stood, desperate, in the arms of my friend.

When we love each other through the pain of a daddy who has to be away for a long time for work or through the mourning of a child who went to heaven before we did with that tight-embrace, show-up-anyway extravagant kind of love, GOD SHOWS UP.

And from our ashes, comes beauty. {Isaiah 61:3}

Today, Kai and I are thankful for those "extra tight" hugs.