Author: dawnhirn

Scars On Jesus’ Hands
Encouragement · Faith · Hope · wounded healer

Scars On Jesus’ Hands

dawnhirnLeave a comment

 

A major turning point for me came when I tied together the way Tyler held out his hands to me and the way Jesus held out his hands to his friends.

Focus on those hands for a minute.  See the holes in his hands and remember the giant hole in his side from a well-aimed Roman spear? There’s nothing he could do to make the scars go away because, just like ours, his scars are permanent.

Think about the way he honored his scars.

I’m thinking about “Doubting Thomas.” He told them that he would not believe unless he saw and touched the scars. Because somehow Jesus’ scars are at the Center of his life story.

images-3

And my scars are the Center of my life story and I can’t get away from them.  I don’t need to tell you that people do not want to look at our scars. And they even encourage us sometimes to hide them, as if Jesus wore gloves for the rest of his natural life.

Jesus had scars like ours: Physical scars. Emotional scars. Mental scars. His scars were the proof of his single-minded Love for the whole world.fullsizeoutput_3dc4

Our minds don’t tell us the truth always.

 

But our scars always do.

They tell us what is most perfect about our body and soul.

There is a story behind every scar that we carry. 

Listen to your scars.

 

dawn

Share this freely.

#myscars #ryanshines

6 Things I’m Grateful For Today!
Hope · Motherhood · wounded healer

6 Things I’m Grateful For Today!

dawnhirnLeave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving to All!

Gratitude! Did you ever think we’d get to Gratitude? And I’m not talking about happiness. For me, it’s taken 17 years to make this move into Gratitude. But I’m getting closer. And so I’ve gathered a list of things that I am grateful for since Ryan’s death.

  1. I am Grateful that we had Ryan for 7 years.

    IMG_0608
    Rr-Ry

 

      2. I am Grateful for our little boy, Tyler, who saved us all.

IMG_8684
Ty-Ty

        3. I am Grateful for Ryan’s brothers, Trenton and Colton.

Trenton & Colton
Now: Trent & Colt

       4. I am Grateful for the wisdom Ryan is still bringing to us.

       5. I am Grateful for all the Undercover Angels that I’ve met along the Way.

       6. I am Grateful that my faith is becoming natural to me.

Am I grateful for Ryan’s death? NO. And, by that, I mean, “Hell-No!” But, I am grateful for what God has shown me from it. It’s impossible to even say this aloud so I’ll write it–

“If I had it all to do over again, I want Ryan back now.”

But I’m beginning to see Ryan’s death differently. Looking at our 3 boys now, I realize that Ryan did not die in vain. It is so like Ryan to leave living, breathing gifts to us– the gifts of Trenton and Colton. And he’s still opening doors. He’s still changing our family and our family MAP into the future.

IMG_6630It’s the most unexpected gusher of Gratitude, to see Ryan’s death as I do now, knowing that I don’t have to give up the tragic sense of it. Ever.

Have a Thankful Day!

dawn

#ryanshines #myscars #childloss #thankful

 

 

Encouragement · Hope · Motherhood · wounded Mother

The Best Gift I’ve ever received!

dawnhirnLeave a comment

 

Besides offering a funny face when I was so grief-stricken, my 2-year-old son, Tyler, gave me another gift that turned out to be the Best Gift I’ve ever received in my life.

And he gave it to me every morning of every month after “the accident.” (That’s my baby boy!)

What he gave me was a new way of looking at myself and life. He saw beyond my pain. He saw beneath my scars. He saw the heart of a mother in the chest of someone who didn’t deserve to be called a mother anymore. For him, nothing had changed. Nothing. Because every time he pushed my door open,  he saw the one thing he needed most; his mommy. He saw me as a fountain–everything he needed.

IMG_8005
Tyler

I saw my failure at the ‘scene,’ he didn’t. I was more than the scars that came from the scene, he taught me that, and he hardly knew how to talk. He knew me ‘by heart’ not words. I was his mother, not the ‘scarred’ mother, but the mother who knew exactly what he needed, and when.

He showed me that I still had the Goods. He never bailed on me once while I was bailing on me every day.IMG_8684

How can a 2-year-old do that?

 

I think about the Little Prince and what he said, “ It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Tyler saw me rightly and I became his vision of me.

He took me by the hand into the kitchen for breakfast.

 

 

He led me to the window to show me, in a loving way, that Life goes on.

IMG_4708
me and tyler

It didn’t matter to him if I was ready to see it or not; it’s what he saw in me. It’s the Best Gift anyone has ever given me.

dawn

#myscars, #ryanshines, #motherhood

Badges of Love
Encouragement · Family · Motherhood

Badges of Love

dawnhirnLeave a comment

old woman hands:piano

Take a look at these hands. They could be the hands of your mother. Hands that carried you, changed you and nurtured you. These are hands that have been lovingly lived in.  If you look carefully at them, they look like a MAP. With veins like highways and age spots like Scars collected along the way. Hands that have been somewhere and I don’t mean on vacation.

Screen Shot 2018-11-05 at 6.09.48 AM.png

Don’t be taken in by that silly commercial.

The one where a mom and daughter are holding out their hands while the “hypster” asks us if we can tell which is the mother and which is the daughter.

And their point is you shouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

I say that if you’ve completely invested yourself in the life of your family, your hands will tell the truth about you. If you’re a mother, your hands will tell a hundred or more stories.

They get cut and bruised. Scarred. The idea that a mother’s hands should look as young as a daughter’s hands is crazy-sad. In the name of beauty, we try to erase the wear and tear of a person’s body as they grow older. I get that.

img_1456.jpg
Ry and me

But when I look at my hands, I see the evidence of the sacrifices I’ve made, and my Scars are somehow transformed into Badges of Love.

dawn

#myscars, #badgesoflove, #motherhood

 

Good news and Bad news
Encouragement · Faith · Grief · wounded Mother

Good news and Bad news

dawnhirn1 Comment

I mentioned last time that I am beginning to find the beauty in my scars and to honor that beauty. It’s easy to say, but it’s taken me 17 years (one day at a time) to get to where I can even talk to you about it today.

IMG_7213

I showed you what the fire did to my legs. That scarring has been hard enough to deal with.

But there’s another scar deeper than the scars on my legs, it’s the scar behind any scar on my body.

It’s the scar that won’t heal, that chases me wherever I go.

It’s the scar way deeper than any scar you can see with the naked eye.

It is the scar that Ryan’s death left on my heart.

I see the scars on my legs every day but they always lead me back to Ryan’s face.

Ryan
Ryan

I WILL NEVER OVERCOME THAT! How can a mother overcome the death of her child? She can’t.

Let’s say God came to me during the first days of my loss and said, “Dawn, I have good news and bad news for you, which do you want first?”

And I say, “Lord, give me the bad news first.”

And God says, “ It’s gonna take you 17 years to really begin to see the Light.”

And I say, “ I can’t make it 17 years, not 7 years, not 7 hours.”

And God says, “ But that’s exactly where the good news comes in. You’re gonna make it.  You’ re not going to kill yourself. We’re gonna go thru it together. And you’ll come out on the other side a stronger person,  with a Mission the size of which you can’t comprehend right now.”

RY shines 2

To you, friend, I’m going to say the same thing to you that God said to me, “ We are going to get thru this together.”

I mean it!

dawn

Stay tuned..

http://www.ryanshines.com

Encouragement · Hope · wounded healer

Beautifully You!

dawnhirnLeave a comment

 

 

When I was 19, I was backpacking Europe and by the time I got to Munich I was about out of money. So, I started modeling again. Mostly lingerie and bathing suit jobs. Check out the photographs. (Here’s a magazine cover.) It appears that I was scar-less but don’t be fooled; I had plenty of scars that nobody could see. I even hid them from myself.

Modeling is about perfection. And scars are the enemies of perfection. You know our universal dis-ease is perfectionism. Look at the world of plastic surgery: $16 billion was spent last year,  all because we can not accept our imperfections, our SCARS. And we’ll do anything to appear pristine. But in the back of our mind, we know everybody has scars. Noone is unmarked.

 

About my scars from the fire… God didn’t create the fire or the scars from the fire. But God did show me the beauty of them. I’m beginning to honor them and I challenge you to do the same. Your scars are beautifully You.

dawn

#myscars #childloss

Encouragement · Hope · wounded healer

#Myscars

dawnhirnLeave a comment

Every Friday afternoon at St. Francis School, our 5th class would have ‘Show and Tell.” It was always fun except for one Friday when Kenny, the oldest kid in the class, showed us something that I can still see when I close my eyes.

girl eyes.jpg

He got up in front of us, rolled up his sleeve and we saw several long, red scars on his right arm. We couldn’t imagine what the scars were from until he reached into his pocket and pulled out a paperclip that he had opened.

Then, he showed us how he cut himself. Only there was no blood this time.

The only thing he said to the class was,  “Don’t do this. There are better ways than this to prove to yourself that you’re alive.” He sat down and nobody moved. Some of us thought he was crazy. Some of us were just sad. I was sad. I remember feeling sad for him.

I knew I would never hurt myself like that but there was something about him, a certain freedom to show us that he could no longer keep this secret to himself. It was almost a warning.

That’s how I’ve come to feel about my scars now. I want to show you. I have a very loud voice in me that says, “hide them.”

images

A quieter voice tells me that my scars are a gift. A gift for both of us. It’s a part of who we are.  

dawn

#myscars

 

Encouragement · Hope · wounded Mother

Show and Tell

dawnhirn4 Comments

If I’m an authority on anything, it’s me. And what’s taught me more of myself than anything are my scars.

Dawn, the ultimate recycler!

It’s a funny thing about scars, especially physical scars, and I have plenty. My instinct is to want to hide them. I’m bombarded with commercials that tell us that a life without scars is possible. It’s a lie.

Everybody has scars.

Whether they’re physical or psychological. Early in our lives, we’re taught how to hide our imperfections(thank God for Clearasil). Which is strange because one of the few things that we all share in common is imperfection. In other words, in our scars.

I’m going out on a limb here to show you my legs, my scars from the fire that took my 7-year-olds life and burned over 25% of our other son, 2-year-old, Tyler, and my husband and me. What I’m showing you are the scars that I carried away from this tragedy.

IMG_9900
My Scars

I guess what I’m thinking is that if I show you mine, you might show me yours. Will you?

dawn

#myscars

Feel free to share this.

Infertility! (part 3)
Faith · Family · Hope

Infertility! (part 3)

dawnhirnLeave a comment

(Four years later) What is staring me in the face is that the ‘live birth rate’ for a 42-year-old is 6.6%. Looks like I’m gonna have to call in some Chips.

images-1

My Doc’s goal was to get 3 good eggs from me, to implant them, and if I happen to get pregnant with any of these 3 implanted eggs, my chances of a live-birth are still very slim.

I need a miracle here.

Do you remember Sully who landed the plane safely in the Hudson River? I need that kind of miracle. ”Calling Dr. Sully!”

I shocked myself and the doctor by breaking the record with 32 viable eggs. After the 5-day ‘culturing of the egg,’ we had (drum roll) 15 Class-A eggs! The Doc was conservative and only transferred 4 and ”ba-da-bing-ba-da-boom” . . .

IMG_9623.JPG
Tyler and Trenton

And then, Trenton was born!

Another miracle two years later, when my 4th son, Colton, was born! My Colton survived three other embryos and was born healthy at 9 lbs too. Colton had a 4% chance of being born because I was 45. Obviously, miracles are not about statistics except for us. Bring on the stats!

Trenton and colton
T and C

And so there you have it–our Petri babies, Trenton and Colton, two more miraculous gifts. They owe their lives to Ryan.

And, of course, to their Maker.

dawn

Infertility! (part 2)
Family · Hope · wounded healer

Infertility! (part 2)

dawnhirnLeave a comment

When we were ready for another child, at 38, we visited a specialist. This time my clock was ticking really loud so we felt we had little time. So we started an aggressive IVF(InVitro Fertilization) treatment.

download-1

This proved to be a crazy adventure: with enough eggs for 3 Easter bunnies, a fearful doctor, and a bank account drying up to the tune of $20,000. When we stopped thinking about getting pregnant, we actually got pregnant.

fullsizeoutput_3e44.jpeg

I didn’t know if I was heading for Labor & Delivery or Geriatrics.

Tyler was a healthy, heavy(10 pounds) baby and was welcomed into our family by his big brother, Ryan. And now, at 39, we had it all.

Hirn Family
Ron, Dawn, Ryan & Tyler Hirn

 

Then Ryan died and we didn’t “have it all” anymore.

Tyler didn’t have the brother or sister that we wanted for him. So, we “came out of retirement” to give Tyler a sibling.

And though we’d made up our mind so quickly, it was neither quick nor easy. So many emotions, not the least of which was fear. That’s when I remembered that “Perfect Love casts out all fear.”(1 John 4:18)

That’s the day I became fearless. 

dawn

(Final part coming..)

#ryanshines#petribabies