11 months old

Today, our angel is 11 months old! Time has flown by, even though his physical body does not dwell with us, his spiritual body is with us everyday! So, today, 11/28/2009, we celebrated Lil Will. We set off 11 balloons each filled with a picture of him and the address to his blog. Our continued prayer is that these balloons reach the people God has selected. For He is the only one who truly knows what each of us need, when we need it and He will supply each and every one of our needs. Some wonder, I am sure, was today a hard day for us, absolutely, but we still stand in faith that God knows what is best for us and never, ever gives any of us any more than we can bear. So, happy 11th month old birthday lil one, we love you, we miss you and you live in our hearts forever! To God be the glory for the great things He has done!

Joy, Joy, God's great JOY!!!!

It is very important to our family to never allow Lil Will's memory to fade from our lives. As many of you know, Lil Will's earthly body is at rest in our family cemetery so his meemaw and granddaddy keep a close on eye him everyday. William and I try to go visit him as often as we can but sometimes our ministry and work obligations prevent us from doing so. Thanksgiving was the first time in two months that we had the opportunity to spend sometime with Lil Will at his grave site. We knew we wanted to decorate his site for this holiday season and the seasons to come even after we have selected his headstone. Although it was hard to be at his site, it was also a very joyous occasion. His spirit was there with us and God's arms were wrapped around us as we decorated his Christmas tree and placed his reindeer at his head. God walked with us during this past year and He was walking around with us on today as we decorated His son's grave site. God filled our hearts with joy even though were sad that our angel was not with us physically to celebrate Thanksgiving. Our son spent the day with our Father. We do not have to worry where he is, we know he is in the perfect arms of our Master, safe and sound. So, Father, I thank you for life, I thank you for the gift of my son, William Thomas Myers Carlisle. I thank you for your grace and your mercy. I thank you that you are a God who cares for us, who supplies our every need and never gives up on us. You are so awesome! I thank you for the joy, you give me even when my heart may be aching, I know there is hope in you. I love you Father!

Today, find joy in everything you do, big or small. God loves you and he wants you to be joyful not only during this season but in every season. God Bless you all!!

Just goofing around

As the days go by we are starting to feel like ourselves again. For me the clouds are lifting slowly day by day. Today was hard but our love and our faith keep us going from day to day. This is just a few pics we took of ourselves on Thanksgiving night. We truly have many things to be thankful!

What are you thankful today?

As Thanksgiving quickly approaches, many of us are thinking about family, what we are thankful for and what preparations we need to make to celebrate Thanksgiving. Thankfulness should be in our hearts and minds everyday not just when November comes around and we celebrate Thanksgiving day. We should be thankful for waking up each morning with a sound mind, with activity in our limbs and to find that our loved ones are all safe. What are you thankful for today? When you awakened this morning, did you take 10 seconds to say, "Thank you, Dad?" Thank you for keeping us safe as we slumbered and slept in the image of death. Thank you for every blessing in my life. My family, my health, my freedom, my job......Did you stop to do this or did you just rush about your morning thinking about what YOU had to do not what work GOD wants to do through you? I am not perfect so as the Lord is ministering through me to you, he is also ministering to me too. So, today, I say be grateful, be thankful, just be satisfied in the place God has you right now. Happy Thanksgiving to each of you! I love you all!

P.S. Our family on last Thanksgiving, we were looking forward to the birth of our Lil Will!

My ANGEL sent by God on 7/16/09

I know I have shared this story with several of you but I received an email from Charlotte the other day and it made me recount 7/16/09. I did not recount the day in a bad way, it is ok to look back, you just cannot get stuck there. So, on the day, I learned my angel had received his angel wings, God sent me an angel to sit with me and comfort me as I flew home from Austin. She has such a wonderful spirit, her name is Charlotte. Charlotte has 2 beautiful children, 1 boy and 1 girl. Her little girl is affected by Batten's Disease. This is a fatal degenerative disease. As much as she and her husband fight to raise money for a cure, they know their angel will die. They are christian family who know God is in control and believe that He is the miracle worker so they are living each day to the fullest! Charlotte, I thank you for listening to the Holy Spirit who had you change seats to sit with me. Your presence even though you may not realize it helped to calm me on the longest plane ride of my life. I still hold on to the cross you gave me, it will always hold a very special place. As each of our families embark on the new journey God has prepared for us, we know that He is in the midst of it and has many more blessings in store for us. I pray God's covering on you and your family daily. God bless you and again, thank you for being such a wonderful angel!

For those of you who are continuing to follow our story, please go to http://www.beyondbatten.org/ to read about the families affected by this disease and to help raise awareness!!!

I love you all!

The many faces of Lil Will......

A simple smile.....

Sometimes in life, we are dealt with circumstances that we can not control. It is how we react to those circumstances that classifies us as strong or weak individuals. We chose to stay strong while Lil Will was in the hospital because we wanted to share his story as leaders to help other people in this world learn how awesome God is, give people hope in their own rough journey and to share love in any possible way. We wanted to be strong no matter what happened and give God all of our fears or sadness and trust in Him that He will take care of us. And you know what? He did. When we put God first, He controlled our feelings and everything fell perfectly in to place. Some may say, how did everything fall into place perfectly, Lil Will is gone. It did because God's PERFECT will was done through Lil Will.

With everything that has happened this past year, we realized that life is too precious to not do what you love to do and help others in the process. Whether you share your story to help others grow as individuals through a blog or in your workplace, we need to do what God's plan is for us the best way we possibly can. So continuing to share our lives with you all is the direction we are going with this blog. Whether it is through troubled times or exciting times, we will continue to pour our hearts out with the sole purpose of helping others. We may not be the perfect family all the time, but with God leading our train, we know we can be.

Having said that, it has been some time since I last posted. I have been traveling quite a bit for work. It does keep my mind busy. Honestly, I have been having a hard time. You know it comes in spurts, in phases so to speak. There are days when I think about my angel and my thoughts are filled with happiness, thankfulness, joy and many other emotions! And then there are those days where my thoughts are tremendously sorrow filled. Lately, I have had far too many of those days. When does this get easier? That is a question I have been asking God alot lately? He just tells me it takes time and that it is OK to cry. BUT, I must not feel as if there is no tomorrow, I cannot allow myself to dig in and just wallow in self pity. It is so hard!! Grief is a process and everyone goes through the process differently. I am just, I guess, slower than some. BUT, the most important thing is that I do go through the process. I was reminded of this by one of my dear friends. Several years ago (2004) she wrote a poem, but never shared it with anyone. She always wondered why she never threw the paper away that had the poem on it but a couple of Saturdays ago, God shared with her that she was to share the poem with me. It is truly beautiful! This poem was sent especially for me. When she gave it to me and I read it, as you can only imagine my eyes filled with tears and I was so overjoyed that God would save this poem just for me! Just another example of how God orders our steps.
He knows what is best for always.

Today, I want to share it with you.

An Angel Diary

I fall asleep as angels sing

waiting in line to get my wings.

I understand God's meaning of this,

I went away with a loving kiss.

Before I left your warm embrace,

I wanted to see a smile on your face.

Although, it hurst still the same I am

glad you gave me my name.

My name is William Thomas Myers-Carlisle (in her original poem this was a fill in the blank)

it came from your heart.

You took the time to name me.

Although my stay was short, wipe your weeping

eye, it hurts to see you cry.

My Father here in heaven loves me

so please don't ask him why?

So, here in heaven is where I stay

come talk to me when you pray.

Lil Will put that smile on my face 7/14/09, just 2 days before he went to be with God. For months and months I tried to get a picture of him smiling. Never could I catch it! He would grin, I would take a picture and get some other facial expression (still cute!) and I would be mad. William would always get him on video smiling in his sleep not me. AND just 2 days before he went to heaven, he put that smile on his momma's face! See how God knew what to give me when I needed it? What if he had allowed me to get the picture months earlier? Would this one have been as special? I would say it wouldn't have been, no! God did what only He can do. That picture is one of my most favorites and I can only imagine all of the things Lil Will was thinking about as he smiled while he was drifting off to sleep. Was he playing with the angels and listening to God tell him that his work on earth was almost done? Was he telling him that soon you will be home with Me? Was he easing his mind and letting him know that He would come and take him home to heaven when we were not with him so we could let him go? Whatever he was thinking, I take comfort in imagining what the conversation was between Lil Will and God.

God knows what is best for us always. I encourage each of you to live to the fullest potential that God has for you. Never allow fear to overtake you. Stand strong and firm in your beliefs. And know that God is our friend, so talk to Him like you speak to your friends. Develop your own language with Him, our God is awesome and He has a super sense of humor! Each day is an awesome opportunity for us to grow stronger in our faith! I love you all!!