Our first week as a family of four.

We began the week with remembering our family as one of five.

The service was beautifully worshipful.

The girls were sweetly helpful. Big sisters. Taking care of their little brother’s special space.  And making him the most heartfelt and special of gifts to send to Heaven on the strings of 31 balloons. Each one representing a week of his precious life.

All this as we felt our family and closest friends circling around us with their arms, their prayers, and their hope. For us. In our God.

As we then looked forward to the birth of yet another baby boy in the coming days, we kept quietly to ourselves. Injecting as much happiness and joy into our girls’ lives as we could while we desperately craved some of our own. I learned something (again). It’s hard to think about Jesus and not feel joy.

We started the day with our Happy Birthday Jesus party. As we ate a breakfast given in love by a church friend. We ate a piece of joy that day. We continued with a bit of gifts. Celebrating the gift given to us. And were greeted with the most beautiful thankful hugs from our sweet girls. I don’t know how many other kids give “great big thank-you hugs” for pajamas. We drew pictures of heaven. And we tried delivering a piece of heaven. To a dear lady friend who was in the hospital from a very harsh gift – leukemia. Our four caroling voices certainly wouldn’t be called heavenly, but our hearts felt closer to Jesus and our Kyle.  It wasn’t quite the grandiose plans we had had in mind for our Christmas project this year. But it was just what I needed.

For those interested (and you, my praying friends, are certainly all invited), Kyle’s Memorial Service will be held on Saturday, January 5th, at 2PM. The location is Morningside Baptist Church.  We want this service to be a testimony of our son’s short life, but really of the amazing things God has done through it all. (And I promise, it will be incredible when you see what your prayers, gifts, and encouragement have done.) We won’t be wearing black. We’ll be in baby blue.

We have set up a memorial fund, in partnership with Compassion International, to help pregnant women and infants whose lives are at risk because of poverty and treatable illnesses in South America.  This fund will be used to support these women and babies by providing clean drinking water, basic prenatal and postnatal care and education, and basic food supplies to make breastfeeding their new infants possible, where infant formula is not an option. They will also hear of the love of Jesus. The love that made our little Kyle’s life possible. The love that’s making their little one’s life possible.

In lieu of flowers at the service, we are requesting that donations be made to the Kyle Rackley Memorial Fund. These donations can be made in a number of ways

* Through our special secure Memorial Fund Fundraiser link.  — Where you can also see how others’ generosity are going to further the cause of Christ. It’s exciting for us – when exciting is hard to come by. Come take a look.

* Through Paypal – send a personal gift to kylerackleymemorialfund@gmail.com.

* Through the mail at

The Kyle Rackley Memorial Fund
c/o Greenville Federal Credit Union
1501 Wade Hampton Blvd.
Greenville, SC 29609

* Keep up with where the money is going through Kyle’s special Memorial Facebook page.

Again, thank you for your grace. Your gifts of prayer, love, support – you all honored my son and brought joy to my heart more than you’ll ever know.