Grace. It seems to be the subject on everyones minds these days. Whenever I’m at our shop, The Found Cottage, its all everyone talks to me about & it truly makes me so happy that so many people love her like we do. She came into our lives unexpectedly & has been an unexpected joy ever since. We’ve had her now for a little over a month & yet it seems like she’s been in our life forever. She is a part of our morning routine, daily grind, & nightly ritual. She’s our Grace.
Honestly I felt a little strange sharing this, but Grace has truly saved me in a way. You see with our infertility journey comes some pretty low lows. I refer to it as my “dark days” when I talk about it with Jose & he understands when I say that I’m just not in a good place. This year I’ve been having more of those days. I can’t pinpoint what brings them on, but I also can’t pinpoint what brings me out of them. I wish I could, but they come & go with no warning and no solution. When I’m having a dark day I don’t get excited about much, I don’t feel like myself, I can’t seem to complete a task, & at the drop of a hat I feel like I could cry. It’s honestly scary to feel this way & I pray that these dark days are just part of this season of my life right now as we travel through this time of infertility and miscarriages.
When we got Grace I just assumed we were getting a sheep and that was that. She was a sheep who just happened to need a bottle.. nothing more. If you haven’t read what a miracle Grace was [HERE] you might not know that Grace was actually not supposed to be here according to doctors. Doctors had told us that her mom had miscarried, but a month later out popped Grace & two other siblings. A straight up miracle people. Well, when we picked up Grace after she was rejected by her mother I was heading home from the farm she came from & I was like ok, I just have a sheep in the back seat & when we get to our farm I’m going to put this sheep in the barn & that’s that. We will have a sheep in our barn that I have to feed a bottle to once in a while. Wrong. So wrong. The whole way home in my Jeep that day Grace cried in her little cardboard box, so to calm her down I tried feeding her a bottle as I drove down the highway [don’t worry I was being safe] I snapped into reality and I was like what am I doing… this is a sheep in my backseat that I’m trying to feed a bottle to as I drive. Who am I?! What did I get myself into? When we got home I tried putting her in the barn until Jose arrived home… nope. She was glued to my side. From that point on I was her person. Her momma. Her guardian. Her shepherd. Her family. I didn’t quite know the extent of it, but as soon as I walk she is right behind me. When she loses sight of me she cries. When she hears my voice when she’s in the barn she cries. She’s not content with anyone but me. She is my shadow. She truly thinks that we are one.
That brings me to why I’m sharing this today, why I felt weird sharing this post, & why I think farming has helped me on my infertility journey. When we got Grace I was in a dark spot. I’m not saying I’m out of that or that things have magically turned around, but Grace gave our farm a beautiful purpose & new life. Grace gives me an exciting reason to wake up super early & a fun way to end my day in the barn. Grace depends on me for eating & Grace truly gets excited when she sees me. Grace needs us & that has truly brightened some of my darkest days. I know Grace has kind of taken over my life, my blog, my Instagram, & my Facebook, but theres a reason for that. I may have thought she was just a sheep coming to live on our farm, she may add craziness to our already crazy schedule, & she may be the naughtiest little sheep I ever did see, but Grace has saved me in a way & Grace has truly been a gift from God on this infertility journey we are on. I hope Grace brings joy to your day as well & has brightened your days like she has mine. Thank you guys so much for being a part of every step of our journey from farming, to home decor, to DIY, to our fertility struggles. I know this is only the beginning of our Farming journey and there are so many more exciting things to come. Thank you!
More posts about Grace…
O the joy of Grace! Thank you for sharing her with us. I check first thing every morning, eagerly anticipating a Grace story and I am so grateful when one is posted! Y’all totally brighten my day!
Can’t stop smiling about this post 🙂
I love following your blog. You are the most loving person I’ve ever seen. You have so much love to give and that’s probably why you long for a baby so much. Grace has given you something helpless to love and nurture and you are SO GOOD at it!!! I pray for you all the time that God will give you the desires of your heart. Thank you for sharing your life and your Grace with us. God bless you!
My Dear Liz. From the moment I saw Grace and how you needed to take of her and her bonding with you, Jose and all the furry creatures on your Farm I felt this would be so good for you. You have to give her bottles, you change diapers. God is so wonderful. I can’t wait until you have more “sheep babies” so you can share more of your goodness and love. Grace stories make my day. Blessings.
God has given you the opportunity to be a mom in a different way from what you were anticipating. You’re able to,in a small way, feed your need to nurture and be a mom. Praying you and Jose will be able to have a little one, or more, in your arms and in your lives in the future.
She’s adorable, but I’m concerned about the harsh winters you get. Is the barn warm enough for an animal who’s now used to coming inside the house? Maybe you could house train her (like dogs) so she can live inside and go to the bathroom outside? I’m worried about her being cold and all alone in the barn during winter 🙁
Oh what a Savior!! Isn’t He Wonderful!!! The words of that song seem appropriate. Grace (God’s grace and your Grace) is a blessing!!! Hold on tight to Jesus sister!! He is your strong tower.
I always love any post about Grace! Thank you for sharing! Praying for you and your family always.
I just love all of your Grace stories… And I look forward to watching your Instagram account every day. It’s just so darn sweet. Keep up the great work, Farm Mama! Those animals are so lucky to have you!
(And… I love your home!?)
What a amazing story! So happy she is helping you! Praying for you and your family. God is Good!
I told you before God’s grace just may be exactly what you are doing right now. It is all in His time. GRACE is definitely blessed to have you and Jose and her other animal siblings. Don’t dwell on the darkness dwell on the blessings. With love.
I raised a baby goat on the bottle after he was rejected by his mama. He grew to be quite a large goat, but still had to have one bottle every day! He has been gone many years now, but I still have customers (we have a plant nursery) who remember him and talk about Wilber when they come by!
Having also gone through a long and lonely battle with infertility, I can completely relate to those dark days. They do just rear their head at the most random times and often when you’re least expecting it. You are such a remarkable person. Your honesty and openness in the middle of the struggle and the pain never ceases to amaze me. Infertility can be such a lonely journey, at least for me it was… difficult to even talk about because the emotions that accompanied it were so raw and powerful. It’s a beautiful thing, the way you share your heart here. It’s a beautiful thing, the solace and comfort you’ve found in Grace. I wish I had had a lamb to help carry me through. I am praying for you.
Praying for you and I love your blog and stories.
I love your blog! I love Grace,too!! I believe Grace is truly a gift from God ❤️
Grace is adorable! It is not strange that she has helped you. God will send something or someone into our lives when we least expect it. HE sent you Grace at a time when you needed her and she needed you. I love my fur babies and I know loads of people who do and that is awesome. They depend on us and give us purpose. My son is grown up now so my fur babies fill that void. Enjoy her and keep sharing your stories and pics.
Thank you so much for posting this. I needed this today–such a sweet post. I enjoy all of your posts, but this one was one I had to share with my husband and kids. 🙂
Beautiful Post – and Beautiful Pictures – sometimes and animal can see a need in us that we don’t even know we have – they come into our lives for a reason – I’m glad you found your Grace and she is just adorable.
I’m truly so sorry for the fertility struggles you and Jose have endured and am glad it appears your bond remains strong despite such tremendous struggle and sadness. I thinking the meaning and purpose you’ve found as Grace’s surrogate Mom may very well be God’s handiwork. Anyone who loves and cares for the most vulnerable among us has a very special heart. I wish you and Jose all the very best, and will pray for you both. As for Grace, she is absolutely special; that sweet little lamb has touched a lot of our hearts. Thank you for sharing her with us, and for the daily glad heart she brings me!! (I love your other fur babies too!)
I truly believe Grace was a gift from God to you – right when you needed her! My family thinks I’m crazy, but I love watching your Grace stories and seeing those sweet stories lifts my spirit too! Maybe Grace was a gift for us all! (Just a thought, some day, Grace’s story could be a great children’s book!
I love this! Thank you for sharing such a sweet blessing. I truly believe God puts things in our path to help us cope with life’s struggles. My daughter and her husband are struggling with infertility as well, and she just got the most precious puppy. I call him her little “joy package”! He put the light back in her eyes. Grace is your joy package! Blessings, comfort, strength and hope to you on your journey.
Thank you for being so transparent. You not only share Grace with us, you share your heart. And by sharing your heart ❤️ you touch more people than you will ever know. We not only love your style, we love who you are. Keep pressing on and being the blessing you are to so many others.
This is beautiful Liz! And it is so true! God has given you Grace to care for and love in preparation of having a beautiful bundle of joy!
I envy your strength Liz, keep smiling and hanging on! I have a really good feeling your time is coming ♥️
Your stories about Grace have touched my heart! I truly believe that God has placed little Grace into you’re lives for a reason. I’m so happy she is making you feel better. Will keep you in my prayers.
God works in mysterious ways, he sustains us in ways we couldn’t imagine. Your post is very heartwarming and I think we all saw this coming even if you didn’t at first. Grace is there with you for a reason and it’s a beautiful one, plus she also gives us all a smile and a few tears when we hear about the joy she has brought you and your husband. Shes beautiful and I’m so glad your her someone 🙂 .Thanks again for sharing both your journeys, in vulnerability we find compassion and understanding.
A beautiful story! I LOVE watching the Instagram stories of Grace! She is SO sweet and you are such a good mama! She loves you so much. Prayers for all of you!
I confess that I’ve fallen a little in love with Grace and I really look forward to her daily adventures at White Cottage Farm ? I’m new to your blog and just coincidentally started following you right when you brought Grace home. It seems to me that Grace came into your life at exactly the right time, you both needed each other. When I watch your stories I can see and feel the love you share. What an amazing blessing she is!! Thank you for sharing your heart ❤ with us and remember to keep your face towards the sunshine! Sending prayers and positive thoughts to you all………..
“Sometimes it’s the smallest things that take up the most room in your heart” by Winnie the Pooh
God is so good, he knew you needed someone besides Jose to feel the hole in your life and, he sent you Grace. She keeps you excited and busy and that is Our Lord and Savoir saying i know and understand. He is so wonderful.
I check for a Grace story every day. I love hearing about her and watching her grow. My husband just laughs when I say I have got to see what Liz and Grace have been up to today.
Liz I know how hard the infertility thing has been in your life, even though I have one child from my first marriage, my husband and I now had 3 miscarriages over a 27 year marriage. Having Grace in your lives is a blessing from God, so enjoy every minuet you have with her. I am now 51 years old so I know my husband and I will not have children and we have excepted it, but there is so much time still left your life to have kids. Enjoy each and every day, and know God is watching over you, and when it’s right you will have that little blessing from God. I read your blog quiet often and I know one day I will open it up and you are going to announce you are expecting! May God continue to bless you and your husband, and enjoy Grace as long as you can!
So sweet!
Thanks for sharing! We went through a journey as well to gain our sweet babe who is now a year and a half old. I found the more that I talked about our experience the better I felt that I wasn’t carrying or “hiding” my burdens anymore. I also have had so many people reach out to me after and how my posts or me just speaking about our journey helped them know they weren’t alone. Maybe it was Gods way of saying I needed to be a voice and a friend to many others before becoming a mom. Many thoughts to you and your farm fam ! You’re already a mama in the eyes of your little fur babes ❤️
Liz, I love your blog and how Grace came into your life. From my own experience, I feel like God speaks to us through the innocence of animals. They are little souls that always stay pure and innocent in this world. I think your beautiful Grace is a message to you from God and I pray that you will soon have your own little one. Many blessings to you and your family.
My heart goes out to you on your journey of infertility. My husband and I went through our own struggles with wanting children so bad but were childless for years. It is one of the most lonely and sad places to be. However, I look back now and I am SO grateful for all the unanswered prayers. We have been blessed to adopt two times. We have two of the most gorgeous, sweet babies on the planet. We adopted our first in 2013 and just adopted again this past March. Our life is overflowing with joy we could never have imagined. They are 100% ours and we couldn’t love anything more!
Thank you so much for sharing your story to us. I to have had the dark days you speak of therefore you sharing yours mean so much. My name is Rachel, which means, Little Lamb, in the Bible. From the day I was born my grandma has called me that. As of last October she is now one of Gods Angels. I came across you and Grace a few months ago and you have brightened my days with her pictures and stories. Keep sharing and being a light with your little family ❤️ God bless girl.
Grace just makes me smile every time I see her pictures. So very glad she has been a blessing to you. God’s got a plan, however different than we plan, we trust His ways. I will continue to pray for you! Just know you bring so much joy and beauty to social media
I wish I had a Grace when I was on my infertility journey. You’re right about the dark days. They are so very dark. A place unreachable by most. A place no one recognizes. Unless you’ve been there. For a moment. For some hours. Days. Months. Years? Yes. It’s been many years since my last baby went home. Ahead of me. Before she has to chance to know me. Or meet me. But her sibling was there to greet her.
Tears. Over 21 years later? I’m afraid so. For them. For me. For whatever might have been. But we will meet again. Will they know me? Will they call out to me? Mommy what took you so long?
Prayers do get answered in God’s way. I’m the proud, proud mom to an amazing 20 year old. He grew in my heart, but I couldn’t love him any more than I do. For that I’m grateful. And I smile. Even thru dark tears that still find there way to the surface from time to time. Be well my sweet girl. <3
That is such a sweet story about your Grace! By the Grace of God she will help you! Precious little sheep! And a Beauty too!!
Thank you for sharing Grace! She definitely brightens my day! Continued prayers for you and Jose ?
Ahh Liz! I had a feeling she would help with the infertility journey! Not sure if you remember but I messaged you about how my chickens helped me too!!! Just caring for something helps so much!! Your bond with her is so precious and I’m so happy you have Grace!!! Xoxoxo p.s. Can we SOMEDAY go for coffee for petes sake lol 😉
she is so sweet and spunky! what a blessing in disguise! I love seeing her prance around in your instagram stories. prayers to you and grace
I’ve followed you for a long time, but not super close until Grace came along. I am a fellow Infertile warrior (close to 2 years of TTC) and I am about to come off my summer break from trying and gearing up to start IVF (supposed to be today). About a month ago, my husband and I finalized some additional testing and updated our plan with our Fertility Dr. and that’s right about when I learned about Grace. The reality that we were about to dive back in and subject ourselves to the pain and heartbreak all over again was just something I wasn’t sure I could do. One day I was really sad and decided I needed some creative stimulation, so I jumped on Instastories and there was the beautiful little baby lamb in this gorgeous house and for some reason, I was captivated at that moment. I didn’t really know about your journey (I just really loved your house all this time), but I saw this sweet little lamb being loved and it just made me happy. Fast forward to last week-I had 2 faintly positive pregnancy tests only to a week later learn that baby is up in Heaven with your 7 and all the others that were too perfect to be on earth. I was devastated. So I got on my phone and there was Grace. She calmed me down and I felt God remind me that I am Grace. I have someone with me at all times, taking care of all my needs and I just need to always look for Him.That sweet little Lamb is a miracle. She didn’t just help you with your Infertility journey, she helped me with mine and I’m sure many others. Thank you for sharing her with us!
Your post made me cry! I cannot have children due to some medical issues that caused me to have a hysterectomy at 35. I don’t know how I found your blog long ago, but I do know YOU and Jose have gotten me through some dark days just by reading about you and relating to your journey. God is so good, that he leads us down the right paths to find things that bring us peace. I love reading about Grace, but even more so I love reading your authentic observations about life, lemons and all. You and your little lamb give such a big amount of inspiration. Thank you Liz Marie and Grace!
Thank you for your honestly Liz. I have lost two babies to miscarriage. My second was five months ago. I’ve suffered from terrible anxiety since then and have just decided this week to see a counselor as my dark days are beginning to be too much. I know just a small bit of what you feel and I’m sorry for the heartbreak you’ve been through. Praise the Lord for little glimpses of Heaven like Grace…for sun peeking through the clouds…for purpose and for husbands that love us so well. Every good and perfect gift is from above. Praying for you today.
Your post today made me cry…. I can so relate to your Grace. I too have dark days and our family rescued a dog -Tebow about a year ago. He is my Grace. And so often I have said it was he who rescued me…. I’m not even sure I realized how sad I was until I got him.
I love your stories – and I thank you for opening up and sharing them with us!
❤️
Julie
Grace…an angel sent from God in sheep’s clothing.
Animals have an incredible ability to heal a troubled heart . I’m so glad you have each other.
I love your story about Grace. Reminded me of when my sister & I were little girls and had a bottle fed pet lamb, my sister named him Lambo. I so enjoy your blog and pray for God’s blessing on you and your husband.