Ethan Henry Skaggs: 2020 A New Decade

Wow! Another decade down in the books of this thing we call "LIFE".

If ya'll that have known us for a while, you know the trials and tribulations we have faced in the last 10 years. Those who may have known us the last 5 have also seen many highs and lows.
But one thing is for sure, God has been THE MOST contact thing in our lives.
If you would have told me that 10 years ago on this day my life would be where it is I wouldn't have believed you. Now, yes...we all say that don't we?
But it's usually the truth.
In the last decade, my marriage was renewed from things I thought we could never come out of.
We started a new journey in a new town, Midland Texas in 2010. We welcomed Colton while living in Midland in 2012 and then decided it was time to move back to FTW 1 year later.
We sold our home in Midland to move back to Fort Worth and we adjusted to Brent working out of town, it was really hard on the kids and I. A little over 1 year later Brent was laid off in the oilfield and we were lost. I began working again for the first time in 5 years also!
We somehow managed to celebrate our 10 year anniversary with a ceremony we NEVER had the first time around!

(Now obviously that are a million other things that happened in between, losing friends gaining new friendships, travel, etc. But these events definitely were the biggest!)

Brent then found a new career path as a lineman, we found our church home and what do you know...God opened our hearts to add once again to our family. We grew closer in our marriage through Re|Engage at church and we couldn't wait to welcome our son into the world. But around us my immediate families were slowly coming undone. It was hard to see all the sadness around us and we were just so happy to be where we were, we had a hard time as we were in such a new place in our life.
What started out exciting and happy ended in tragedy for our entire family when we lost Ethan to Trisomy 18, 3 days after birth.
After going through that you would think ok your bound to catch a break, nope. 5 months later Brent lost his job as a lineman and we were devastated! On top of all that we had just found out we were pregnant with our rainbow baby! You can't make this stuff up, we even lost our first family pet, Buddy.
Some would think we would lose our faith during so much loss. But instead what it did was draw us closer to him and closer together as a family unit!
After all the sadness, all the disappointment in our lives, God blessed us with a beautiful and healthy baby boy...GUNNAR HENRY SKAGGS. This sweet little boy of ours lights up our life! He is a reminder of God's promise, he is a reminder that you can find joy and also be sad on some days, the two can exist together!
All of what has happened has reminded me to stop living for what I want and start living for what HE wants for our lives...GOD is ALWAYS in charge of our life, our years, our moments and yes...each decade we are so beautifully gifted by our Heavenly Father.

I pray that 2020 is a wonderful year for you all!

Oilfield life 2010