Grace

About a week after Elijah passed I got a facebook message from Brandt. If you don’t know Brandt I will give you a summary. I viewed Brandt as my first baby boy. He is the son of my childhood neighbors Sherrie and Gary. The first time I ever babysat for the family Sherrie was pregnant with Brandt and had two adorable little girls I loved, Andra and Shana. These girls stole my heart! I was 13 years old I think almost 14, I watched the girls for just two hours while Sherrie and Gary went to an open house in early June which meant Sherrie was ready to deliver Brandt any day. I danced and sang with the girls I hugged them and loved them, everything went perfect on my first babysitting experience. Just two short weeks later a beautiful baby boy was born on June 20 1990. In late July I finally had my first experience with this sweet little boy. Sherrie needed to go to the grocery store and Brandt had just been laid down for a nap, so Sherrie called my mom and asked if she was going to be home and if so if I could come over and listen for Brandt to wake up. My mom said yes and off I went, so excited. The house was quite the girls were up north with their grandparents, it was just Brandt and I. About an hour after Sherrie left little Brandt woke up and I remember him just making little fusing noises, I went into his baby blue room and picked him up out of his crib. I carried him to the front picture window where I sat in a chair and lost my heart to this baby boy. It is the first experience I had with this feeling of surrendering my heart. I know I fell in love hard and complete, I would do anything for this boy. From that point on I became the official summer caregiver, driver, pretend mom, and big sister to these children. I learned and grew with them. I experienced my first divorce and felt the pain as if it were my own parents. My heart was filled, I felt their pain, I protected, I knew love, the unconditional kind. The kind that my own parents had toward me, the kind my siblings and I had, but in some ways more. Because I was the youngest and never was put in the position of the protector I did not know what this was until my beautiful Chapman family came. Years past kids grew and moved away and on, but my love was never gone. On holidays, graduations, recitals, weddings, and just when someone needed a ear, I was still called. So back to the message from my dear Brandt.

Brandt was raised as a christian and works for his church in Ohio. He had just saw a great message and sent me the video link for me to watch.  Brandt’s message to me read, Hey Tera take a look at this past weekends message. Sooooooo good and one of my favorite speakers :). This message was on Grace.  So first off what is grace, I thought?  I looked up the definition of this magically word. Because when I think about the meaning of Grace for myself, I think of when I was a dancer. I think of Grace of a beautiful ballerina looking effortless and flowing through the motions. When I looked up grace here’s what I found:

Grace