A Ministry I Never Wanted

When I was in college I spent many hours listening to talks and reading books about giving my all for Jesus. As I listened to seasoned missionaries like Helen Roseveare and passionate pastors like John Piper, I was challenged to consider my comfort zone and flee from it for fear of passivity in the urgent call of Christ. I was deeply in love with Jesus because He had pursued me for many years as ran with all my might away from my church upbringing. As my heart softened to Jesus in college, I began to desire to live a life that honored Him. I started considering where God would use me. I knew from scripture that many who followed Christ went to hard places and went through challenging times. My worldview was being shaped by legacies of Christian missionaries like Nate Saint, Jim Elliot, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I needed these challenges to my Americanized view of comfortable Christianity. 

I remember telling God in tears in my dorm room, “I will go anywhere you send me with whomever you choose.” I thought I was offering my whole heart and life. I thought I knew what a mission field looked like and I felt ready for this challenging call of Christ to take up my cross.

I would find myself thinking about the kinds of hard circumstances I might be called to at some point in my life. My limited view imagined that God might call me to live without air conditioning, far from my family, for the sake of The Gospel.

So, it was clear that I desperately needed the challenges of other spiritual giants to get out of my very limited comfort zone. I thought that my worldview had exploded to include the huts in a country without proper toilets. I thought a difficult calling was limited to ministry in the inner city or with a tribe in Africa. I can say with firsthand knowledge that ministry in both of those places is extremely difficult but once again, my scope of calling, ministry, and challenging was extremely narrow.

My view of calling and ministry has expanded with years of walking with Him. I have now seen that God often gives us ministry opportunities that we never asked for and certainly never wanted.

For example, when I approached my late twenties as a single, I thought, “For sure I’ll meet my husband soon. All my friends are married.” When my friends started having their second and third child I thought, “He must be on the horizon.”

But, that wasn’t the case. When my heart was broken at the age of 31 by a man I thought I would marry, God gave me a ministry I never wanted. What I wanted was to be married and raise children but God, in His sovereign goodness, gave me women with broken hearts to walk alongside, study scripture, and do our lives together.  He gave me opportunities to use the pain, rejection, and tears. My worldview about ministry opened again. Living many years of singleness and ministering out of that stage of life was incredibly rewarding but also vulnerable and painful. And, I certainly hadn’t asked for this season of prolonged singleness.

Fast forward a few years and God called me to a new mission field called the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. I never dreamed of spending nine months in a hospital with my very sick son. I remember holding him and thinking about that same hut in Africa that terrified me as a new Christian. I remember wishing to be in the hut far from the pain I was feeling seeing my son hurt. Once again, God gave me a ministry I never asked for or wanted. I can’t say I did this unwanted ministry well on most days for it was consuming emotionally and physically simply being a mom to a critically sick baby but I have a few select memories of God working through my presence in this unlikely mission field.

I held a mom as her son’s heart rate fell to zero and the code alarm sounded. I prayed for so many heart babies and families whom I would never had known without the calling to the heart unit. I prayed for my own son and sang songs to him about our big God. I told him of heaven and he was my ministry. I wouldn’t trade that previously unwanted mission field for the world, no matter how painful.

Now that we have lost our son, I find myself with a new ministry. Once again this is a ministry I did not want or ask for. I never wanted to be in the “I lost a child” club like the rest of its members. In the year since losing our son, people will reach out to me because they have a sick child, they have lost a child, or a close friend has lost a child. I don’t have magic words but I am honest, vulnerable, and cry real tears with them. I don’t try to suppress their pain with fluffy words or put a quick band-aid on it with a verse out of place. I simply hear their stories, share mine, and together we feebly try to see the hope only found in Jesus.

I’m guessing that God has given most of us ministries we never wanted. I can think of a few just amongst my friends.

Folks like the…

Foster parents who are offering their hearts to the unknown for the sake of the children.

Single women giving their everything for Christ and not settling for less than God’s best.

Teachers who bring in extra supplies and deeply love their students.

Nurses who do their very best even when they are bone tired.

Divorcees who choose to engage in church and love on others even when their lives have been torn apart.

Parents taking care of chronically sick children.

Pastors who come to your side during all the beautiful and horrific things life brings.

Families who are pursuing adoption after long battles with infertility and miscarriages.

While I still am unsure about this ministry with hurting families of child loss, I am honored that God would use my broken heart once again in the lives of others to bring glory for His namesake.

For all of you stepping into ministry moments that you never wanted, I am right there too and I see you. Most importantly God sees you and He’s equipped you, even if you never asked for it!

To God be the Glory

Hudson's Christmas Stocking 2017

As a way of honoring our son, Hudson’s fight of congenital heart disease, we are collecting gift cards of any amount to fill Hudson’s Christmas stocking.

On Christmas day, families with hospitalized children will receive the gift cards from Hudson’s Stocking with a note about Hudson’s strong fight.

We hope to send at least 50 gift cards from Hudson!

To join efforts with us, you can mail a gift card* of any amount to:

Hudson’s Christmas Stocking

PO Box 1192

Kannapolis, NC 28082

*Gift cards for any store are great but here are some suggestions: Starbucks, Amazon, Walmart, Target, Jimmy Johns, Itunes

You can also give here: https://www.gofundme.com/havehalfaheart

Thank you for being part of Hudson's Heart!

Seventy Things I love about my Deddy

1.     He loves Jesus more than anything else

2.     He tells really good stories

3.     He doesn’t let others determine what he thinks about himself

4.     He taught me that you have to like yourself because you’ll always be with yourself

5.     He works so hard and has always taken care of our family

6.     He tells people about Jesus with ease

7.     He spends time with people from all walks of life

8.     He easily shares his tears

9.     He enjoys writing stories

10. He is a talented artist

11. He will do work for people and expect nothing in return

12. He enjoys playing with Graham

13. He took care of Graham when he was an infant so I could go back to work and would bring him by my office at lunch time

14. He fixed up the downstairs so I could have my own bedroom and bathroom

15. He calls me Miss America

16. He sacrifices his own desires for all of us

17. He dropped everything and moved to Philadelphia for two months for Hudson

18. He would get up before all of us and walk to the hospital just to check on Hudson

19. He takes Graham down to the creek even after playing for hours

20. He is a good teacher of many different things

21. He is patient

22. I’ve never heard him raise his voice

23. He shares stories about Vietnam

24. He makes me feel pretty

25. He encourages me to use my skills

26. He celebrates my successes

27. He encouraged Corey to stick around 😊

28. He has always been an example for the kind of man I should marry

29. He would do anything and has done anything for his kids

30. He is funny

31. He always jokes that we should move to a remote hut he finds in National Geographic

32. He built us the zip line, tree house, creek swing, life size doll house

33. He spoils Graham with so many toys

34. He is the best Papa Joe

35. He sings and dances with Graham

36. He always made Jesus a priority for our family

37. He taught us the Bible

38. He was committed to our church by leading Sundays schools, Bible studies, doing carpentry work, etc

39. He is a skilled craftsman

40. He would work on my house in Charlotte on top of everything else had to do

41. He always brags on me

42. He will fall in the floor laughing when telling a story or watching something funny

43. He sacrificed his own time to teach at the prisons

44. He spends time playing pool at the beer joint so that he can be there for people who need Jesus

45. He would pick up hitchhikers and let them stay in our basement and give them work

46. He has prayed and prayed and prayed for our family

47. He is an avid reader

48. I have clear memories from my childhood of Deddy lying in bed reading his Bible

49. He joined a singing group to learn how to harmonize

50. He has used his skills as a carpenter to bless so many families

51. Corey likes his hair, laugh and that he helps people

52. He is handsome

53. He always gets teary when he talks about his wedding and marrying mama

54. He is forgiving

55. He has lifelong friends who I love to see him laugh with

56. He would take us to the beach for family vacation

57. He would take us to church camp

58. He gave many years to children’s ministry for no pay

59. He has been a dad to many, many people who did not have stable home lives

60. Many people call him their best friend

61. He has supported me in my dreams even if that meant having to be away from home

62. He won’t talk about people unless it is bragging on them

63. He is quick to share what he is learning from scripture

64. He can take apart and put a tractor back together with no help

65. You can hear his laugh from far away and others laugh with him

66. No matter what, he clings to Jesus

67. His mind is set on eternity and not on this temporary world

68. He loves me very much

69. He has always made life fun even when hard things were going on

70. He has lived a life of sacrifice, forgiveness, laughter, joy, fun, faith, hope, love and is the best deddy in the whole world.

I love you very much, Deddy!!!!!!!!!

HAPPY

HAPPY

BIRTHDAY!!!

Love, Amy

(for Corey, Graham and Hudson)

He Should Be Two Years Old

Hudson Taylor Alexander Sylvestre

July 17, 2015-March 20, 2016

He should be two. He should be running. He should be saying, “Mama” and squealing with all his might. He should be having tantrums in Target and stealing his big brother’s toys. He should be wearing hand me downs from big brother. He should have been at the water park with us last weekend. He should be in every family photo. He should be slightly shorter than big brother with slightly darker, crazier hair. He should be growing taller and losing some of his baby rolls. He should be grinning ear to ear and running down the stairs when daddy gets home. He should be in the bathtub splashing his big brother. He should be promoted to the two year old class at church this Sunday. He should be friends with all those cuties. He should be sharing a room with his big brother. He should be hiding while we are seeking. He should be singing, “Wheels on the Bus” and learning his alphabet. He should be saying silly words and pronouncing words in his own way. He should be refusing to eat his dinner and getting gum in his hair. He should be mixing the playdough colors together to make them turn that yucky brown. He should be under my feet as I try to cook. He should be leaving his shoes in the hall so to trip to me and daddy.  He should be the little brother to his big brother. He should be at weddings and on the farm with grandparents. He should be asking for more “Daniel Tiger” and ice cream. He should be buckled in his seat at dinner time. He should be learning about God and singing, “Jesus loves Hudson, This I know.” He should be the youngest cousin to the big ones in the pool.  He should make us a family of four when we go out to eat. He should now get his own seat on the plane. He should be in my arms and not just my heart. He should be two.

Thanks so much to these sweet new friends who did a party in the park for our precious Hudson! That just meant the world to me!!!

Always Thinking for Our Boy

Several months ago I was cleaning out my inbox and I moved an email to Hudson’s folder. I had a quick thought, “I’ll show this to him one day.” I can’t explain why my brain does that. I am very clear that my son is in heaven. I miss him every second of every day. I’m consistently aware of his absence and where he would be sitting at the table, in the grocery cart, in the back seat, at church, etc. But, randomly I have these moments like the one with saving an email for later. I can’t explain why this happens but it does and it catches me off guard. I don’t think I had ever mentioned this happening to Corey and then yesterday it happened to him.

It was a hot, beautiful day to be outside so we took Graham to play in the water and to get ice cream. As we were leaving Corey took Graham to change out of his wet clothes and I went inside the store. We said we would meet at the car in a few minutes. When I came back Corey told me, “I just had a weird thought. I was getting Graham to the car and randomly said to myself that you must have Hudson.”

We both cried for the palpable absence of our sweet boy and then smiled a bit knowing that our hearts can’t help but still parent him and look out for him. We never forget he’s gone but there are moments we are still “mama and daddy.” We save things to show him and think to be sure he’s looked after as we walk to the car.

We’re still looking out for our boy. Always will. Our hearts won’t let us do otherwise even though our minds know he’s in good hands.

Missing you, Huddy Buddy!

A Grief Journey: The Gift of the Ordinary

"We often miss what is important on the quest for extraordinary." Brene Brown

I am a person of routine. I like making lists and checking off the things accomplished. I even write lists of things I’ve already done just to check them off. You too?

Well perhaps your day includes making breakfast, paying a bill online, getting an oil change, the drop off line and lists upon lists of to-dos. Ordinary life consists of things like grocery lists, school and church event calendars and family vacations.

Just last year I longed for the ordinary. The struggles of normal life of juggling work, home and ministry felt a million miles away. I was sitting in the cardiac intensive care unit day after day, hour after hour for months. Today I wouldn’t exchange a single second of that time with my son for anything spectacular much less something ordinary. But, some days sitting in that sterile, fluorescent-lite hospital room, I would dream of simple days of needing to mow the grass and run to the grocery store. These tasks don’t disappear when your child is hospitalized but they certainly don’t matter the way they once did.

Right after losing our son, the ordinary tasks of “adulting” were nearly impossible. Trying to write simple emails or texts took herculean mind power.  Yet I wanted the ordinary. I wanted to be normal and to be able to go to the grocery store without feeling out of body and in a fog.

I remember standing among strangers feeling as though I had come back from war and all my wounds were covered by my clothing. They didn’t know where I had been, what I had seen, what I had lost or that my wounds were so fresh that some were still bleeding through the hidden bandages. I wanted to run or scream or stop them and tell them, “Do you know where I’ve been? Do you know there’s a war? Do you know they are dying?” But, I just stood there observing the ordinary; life happening all around me.

Choosing fresh fruit

Checking the mail

Tying a shoe

Chasing after the bus

Scolding a child

Holding hands

Looking back over the months spent with our son, I realized there was a around a three month period where the only places I went were our apartment and the hospital. I stopped communication with everyone but my husband, my sons and the doctors/nurses. I only knew the war. All I could bear was the war; the war my son was fighting to stay alive. It was his fight but I was in the war with him. There was no ordinary.

It’s been around 400 days since we left the war. It’s not over and is still going on in that same hospital room. It’s a new child now because our son is done. Our son will no longer know the war and he will never know the ordinary.

I wish he got to know the ordinary for just a little while. Soccer games, Sunday school, crushes on little girls, playing with his big brother and bath time. But, really…are those memories ordinary?

The way I think is different now that I’m outside the war. When I’m observing every day, ordinary life I wonder things like,

“Are those her only two children or does she have more in heaven like I do?”

“Oh, she’s about 6 months pregnant. Oh Jesus, please knit that baby together with a full heart.”

“I can only imagine what it would be like with two wild toddler boys to running around this little town home! I might be crazy by now!”

I’ve realized that all the little things we do that make up this ordinary life really aren’t all that ordinary. Ordinary means commonplace, normal, standard. My special son taught me that at the end of the day nothing is truly ordinary. Doing laundry, going to work, caring for our homes, giving to the church, sharing our hearts, completing those to-do lists every week become extraordinary when we consider them as acts of love and ways to build lasting memories.

For example, a few weeks ago my son was playing in Chick Fil A with several little girls. Up the slide and down the slide. Squeals heard for miles. Seemingly so ordinary. No wounds visible to the outside. Yet, our big boy has lost his little brother and those little girls had lost their dad just a few days earlier. Simple playing. Hidden wounds. So extraordinary.

I can no longer do a task in and of itself without connecting it to the larger purpose of my life to love and serve others. Sometimes I still unload the dishwasher on autopilot but when I lay my head down at night, I think about the war. His war. My war wounds are still not visible to those around me. I’m sure your wounds are also hidden. So let’s remember together that life is not commonplace. There is always a bigger story going on in the lives of those around us. Let’s step into the ordinary of others’ lives to find the extraordinary; perhaps engaging deeply enough in hopes to stop the hidden bleeding. Let’s invest in others’ hearts by sharing our own wounds.

I’ve realized my strong son and the grief we have endured has exposed me to the gift of the ordinary and for that I am thankful.

“The most extraordinary thing in the world is an ordinary man and an ordinary woman and their ordinary children.” ― G.K. Chesterton

One Year in Heaven

One Year in Heaven. I know that there is no time there. No clocks, seconds, minutes, hours. No need for the sun to shine because our God is bright enough in Himself to be the light of all of heaven. There is no waiting. There is no crying. No tears. No sickness. No more dying. No separation. No confusion. There is worship. There is God. Jesus. The Holy Spirit. My grandparents, my anchors. My son, my heart.

One year in heaven might feel like one second or one million years. There is worship showing up in all different forms. Perhaps laying at the thrown of God in awe. Perhaps singing and dancing or building something beautiful or painting a masterpiece. Worship. Worship. Worship. No tears.

One year in heaven without pain. No surgery. No medication. No blood tests or needles. No beeping machines. No flat lines. No sin. No brokenness. No hospitals. There is joy unspeakable. Perfect peace. What we know in part, you know fully there. Glorified like your savior, knowing the whole story of redemption. What a beautiful story, indeed.

One year in heaven. So far, one year ahead of me. I don’t know how many years you will be there, my son, before I arrive. I imagine you whole. This isn’t a fairytale to hold in my grief. It is true. As I write through the tears, my broken heart knows that your heart is whole. I don’t understand it or like it. I can’t even fully appreciate it but it is true.

One year in heaven is one year away from this mama who loves you so much. I can still recall how you would jump in my womb and get the hiccups and the fear of your early delivery, not knowing if you would breathe. The first time we met face to face and you WERE breathing! All of our little talks about life and the world beyond hospital walls are still with me. Your cheeks are the best in the whole world. Your sideburns are legendary. Your big brother talks about you each time we see hand sanitizer. “Bubbles! We get those when we see Huddy!”  Your daddy is brave and works so hard and I catch him with tears rolling down his face as he remembers you, sweet boy. He wanted to teach you to fly a helicopter and take you to the farm. A dream lost. We miss you in the big things like Christmas morning but also in the little moments like bath time. I see your spot in our family at our table, in our car, in the grocery cart next to Graham. I see tired mamas with two little ones and I just stare at them to figure out if their kids are my kids’ ages. To see what it would look like if you were here with us. Just a glimpse of what it would be for us with two. With Huddy. Big Brother Grahambo and I have a game. We play, “If Huddy were here, what would we be doing?” Often his answers are things like hiding in the closet, dancing, playing with trains. My answer is kissing those awesome cheeks.

One year in heaven feels like forever for me. Part of me went with you. That’s okay, I’m your mama. The rest of me will arrive when God chooses. Sweet boy, worship has been so hard for this mama and done out of obedience and not delight. But, I’ve learned that is what we still have in common. You worship Him there and I’ll worship Him here (though it isn't always pretty). See, that’s what we’d do if Huddy were here or we were all in heaven, we would worship Jesus.

Let us worship...out of obedience and awe....

The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord, in heaven and on earth.

Mama loves you, sweet boy.

You enjoy Jesus.

Sweet, sweet Jesus.

He surely is enough, even when your son has spent one year in heaven.

You Don't Know Her Name But She Mattered

It was a normal day. As normal as life in the intensive care unit can be.

I was holding my precious baby with half a heart and telling him stories about how I fell in love with his daddy walking the streets of Manhattan. We had been in the unit for months now. I lost track of time and I had to look outside to see if it were day or night. By this point I could speak the language of acronyms thrown around by doctors and confirm dosing on medications for my son like a seasoned pharmacist. I knew what every beep meant and which ones shouldn’t make me tremble and which called the cavalry.

I had so many days like this one watching his numbers rise and fall, conversations with the new fellow who knew less about my son medically than I did and hearing about life outside these walls from what the nurses did on their shifts away from the chaos. Those medical warriors could be saving a life and at the same time talking about their favorite restaurant. It was a normal day for them too.

Normal became unimaginable as I picked out phrases being
said across the room. The specialist and his fellow were with Baby Girl in bed one. We were bed four. We had come to know Baby Girl after months of rooming together. We didn’t know her specific heart challenges but we knew her cries and that she loved to sit in her swing.

Life in the hospital is really never normal but a routine is built. I learned that I would have to step out of the unit when certain alarms sounded, a child was being admitted or coming back from surgery. On this particular day, I was tucked away rocking our boy and no one asked me to step out. I could hear the doctor answer the parents’ questions, “We could operate but we know it won’t work. She will require the same surgery again and again for it simply not to work in the end. We shouldn't put her through that. Of course, you can seek a second opinion but they will say the same.” Baby Girl’s mom pleads, “But, I read something online. Can’t you try that?” The conversation continued for around twenty minutes and the questions became more desperate. A mama and a daddy’s heart pleading for solution.

The last thing I overheard was the doctor saying, “There is simply no more we can do but make sure she is as comfortable as possible.”

Her stunned daddy just stood there over Baby Girl’s bed. No outward emotion. Just stunned. Lost. Her mama kept tearfully asking unanswerable questions.

The best of the best had nothing to offer.

I don’t know what happened with Baby Girl after she left our unit. I think about her often. She was just under two years old. She was a foster child with a severe heart defect. She was loved by her birth parents and her foster parents. Her short life was more complicated than it should have been. She didn’t have hundreds following her story or t-shirts made in her honor. No 5k’s were run in her name. No newspaper articles printed celebrating her fight.

But, I’ll never forget her.

She mattered.

She fought.

She is loved.

For whoever touches you, touches the apple of His eye.
Zechariah 2:8b

Baby Girl, your hips don’t lie J. (A little inside joke between us girls.)