When Your Kids Are Sick...And It's Time To Rejoice

I'm about to write something that few people know about: When I was pregnant and had my 26(ish) week ultrasound to find out if Emma was a boy or girl, they found that her kidneys had cysts on them.

 Imagine the heartbreak, fear, disillusionment, fear

....did I mention fear?

 Because that was what it was. Outright fear for this little baby who I did not know...yet I did.

OH! And anger...oh the anger.

There have been very few times where I have felt that I was truly going to battle for something, and this was one of those times.

Momma (prayer) warrior.

Standing on God's word and His promises.

Jehova Rophi (The God Who Heals).

SIDE NOTE: When something is physically wrong DO NOT TURN TO GOOGLE FOR ANSWERS! I was convinced that Emma was going to die within days of her being born.

We had to go to prenatal specialists in Ft. Collins. I think we went to three different ones all together. They were stumped. The last one said, "Well, we see that it looks like a cyst, but we can't find anything wrong. She looks fine...honestly we are stumped!"

Oh my Jesus, how good He is!

They sent us home, and told the doctor to run labs on Emma when she was born to make sure her kidney were working, and also do an ultrasound.

At 34 weeks or so I began having trouble with my amniotic fluid. It would get dangerously low, so I ended up having to take 2 hour baths to get it back up (don't ask me how it worked, it just did). At 37 weeks I still could not keep the fluid up, so my doctor gave me the choice: induce or wait.

I asked the doctor what the risk would be in each scenario:

We wait and she could be stillborn (!?!?!)
We induce and she could be in the NICU on a ventilator (!?!?!)

Yep...fear and anger strike again! I used to work for some lung doctor's in the area and immediately called them. They could advise me on this. They assured me that the NICU here was amazing, and that there was no reason she would be on a ventilator.

So, I told the doctor we'd like to induce on Wednesday. That gave me time to get her a  carseat, and get the house clean (I KNOW, I know LOL) Before we had to go to the hospital. We went in Tuesday morning! GAHH!

Fast forward to two nights after she was born, I woke up at around 3AM, and Emma hadn't been in to nurse yet. The nurse came in right at that time to let me know that Emma was in the NICU.

Yep...you guessed it: Fear and Anger....seriously...I'm exhausted just thinking about it LOL

Her bilirubin was high, and so  she got to camp out under a blue light. The girl looked like she was on a beach somewhere. All she was missing was a beach umbrella.

The thing that these incidences have in common is the fear and anger I felt. However, the brightest thing these have in common is that after the initial fear and anger is that I trusted in God.

None of these things took Him by surprise. God is the great I Am, my Provider, my Comforter, My Healer...My EVERYTHING. By now, stepping back and trusting Him has become routine, and comfortable...
After the initial freak out.

So today, we started Emma on asthma medicine to see if that is what is causing her coughing so much she is throwing up. Since we started it she has been  back to her sweet little self. Not whiney, mopey, or lethargic. All things I attributed to her teething.

She is happy, energetic...she is her normal self.

This means she may have asthma.

Where is the anger? The fear?

None for me. God is my Rock.

My Great I AM.

My trust is in Him. Emma is in His hands, and my rest and trust is in Him.

This is something I rejoice in.

HE is WHO I rejoice in...because He is in control. He loves Emma more than I do (which is crazy, but true). Who better to trust in than He who does?

My God is Great. My God is good, My God is Always there for me!

Being a Good Steward

I profess to be all about being a good steward. I feel that I should be a good steward to the animals we eat (chicken, beef, etc), so I go out of my way to get free range, hormone free, etc. etc. etc. eggs and such.
I believe that being a good parent is being a good steward of the gift of children that God has blessed us with.
I believe in being a good steward of my money.
I believe that making the most of the education I am blessed with being able to get is being a good steward of that blessing.
In short, being a good steward to what God has given us has a LOT to do with self-discipline. It also has a lot to do with our HEARTS.

I am not talking about works, and doing stuff to earn our way into heaven. That doesn't happen. There is no amount of anything we can do to pay God back for this free gift of salvation.

I am talking about doing things because it is right. I am horrible in the self-discipline area, however I have been working on it this past week. The pastor preached on good time stewardship last week, and it was something God was already dealing with me about. So, I put some things into action this week and have found more time on my hands than I really know what to do with!

IT.IS.AWESOME!

Back to the heart issue though, because truly, being a good steward of these things has to come out of the love of our hearts. As we draw closer to God, we become more godly. Do we stop sinning? Not necessarily, we will never be perfect. BUT, God transforms our hearts, and out of that we have a greater desire to please Him, and to serve Him. Not out of duty, but out of LOVE.

Here is an example: At one point in my life I hated to clean. Such a pain to clean up after myself (I know...how lazy, right?). However, God saw fit to bring a neat freak into my life, who I have fallen madly in love with, and married 7 years ago.  When we married, we immediately moved to Italy where he was stationed. I stayed home all day, and with nothing to do I cleaned our apartment every single day.
UH-OH! I realized later that I set a precedent I was not sure I was willing to keep up (HA!)...at first I did it because I was bored. Then when we moved back to the States, I did it because I felt like I had to.
Now though...now I do it because I love my husband very much. I am home all day, and I want him to come home and be able to relax. I know that if I leave a mess he will feel obligated to clean it. I think of it as serving (in a good way, not in Leave it to Beaver, slave kind of way). I want to be a blessing to my husband, because I love him so much. Keeping my house clean is one way for me to do that.
As my love for my husband grew, my desire to please him and bless him grew too.
As we draw near to God, as we begin to see and experience His love, mercy, grace, etc. our desire to please Him grows, our hearts are transformed and softened, and we do things that are right because we love Him, and desire to please Him.
I have a long way to go. I am not perfect. Yesterday I threw the whole "good steward of my time" thing OUT the window, because it was a rough day. But, I am back on the wagon today and I am trusting God to give me the grace to stop being lazy and "Just do it"!

Love and Rejection

I am angry. I shouldn't be, but so I am. I know that people come and go in our lives. I try very hard to be a good friend, and seek out those I call my friends. What makes me angry is when there is no reciprocation. No phone calls back, or even a facebook message that takes hardly any time to write. I think it is because I invest so much in those people I call friends, and when they do not make any effort, or just completely stop one day it hurts and confuses me. I understand that sometimes friendships run their course, but at least let me know what happened! Gahh!
So, as I was wallowing in my hurt and anger today, I decided that I was just not going to care anymore. I was no longer going to invest so much into my relationships with others. Unfortunately, this does not work for me and I know it.
I have also tried it. For years I kept people at arms length, not allowing myself to care, because let's be honest folks! It hurts! No one wants to make themselves vulnerable to the pain of rejection. Then, one semester at F.I.R.E. (a Bible school I went to), I began exegeting (sp?) a paper on 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7. Yep! The "love" passage. It was during that time that God dramatically changed my life. He has called me to love. To love selflessly, and vulnerably.
Fun, huh?
Not so much. I whined and told God I did not want to. I did not want to hurt. Funny, but at this same time I was going through one of the most emotionally painful times of my life. I mean, I hurt so much emotionally/mentally that I could physically feel it. I would curl up in a ball in my bedroom and beg God to let me die. I had no desire whatsoever to live if life was going to be so painful.

But guess what? He revealed Himself to me in a way I had never known Him. He comforted me, and loved me. He carried me through this time of my life, and proved Himself to me. He would never leave me. No matter what comes, He will always be there, He will always be my strength, my comfort.

He is "I Am"...because He is EVERYTHING I will ever need.

Knowing this changes things. I still hurt and get angry when a relationship I have so lovingly tended to seemingly ends. I don't get it....maybe I was too honest in what I said? I still replay our last conversation over and over in my head, and can only come to the conclusion that this person did not like my honesty. Maybe I was wrong in the conversation. I don't think so...but maybe.

However, God is there to comfort me. I do not have to understand, though I want to. I just have to let God heal that hurt and move on.
My struggle though, is that things like this make me want to fall into my old ways. I have reached out to people in the past year, and only just recently am I making friends who seem to WANT to be friends, rather than trying and trying to connect with people.
I put myself out there because God has called me to do so. He has called me to love others unconditionally, to show them His love. But I do get weary of the rejection, I get weary of leaving message upon message to people only to get a response several weeks or months later.
The question is: Do I give up? Or do I keep trying to keep in touch? These are relationships I valued, and still want to cultivate. But when is it because that person is just bad at keeping in touch, and when is it time to move on?
I look to the Old Testament, and the Israelites relationship with God. They would cry out to Him, and when things got good they forgot about Him. When things got bad again they cried out to Him. God loved them through it all. He got angry, but He still loved them. He still sought them, and spoke to them. I believe He does that to this day, only with all of us, not just the Jewish people.

He has not moved on....

Thankfulness and Social Media

Yep, it's that time of year again! Halloween is over, it's getting colder outside. Thanksgiving dinners are being planned, and Christmas is starting to get planned too. I love it! I absolutely LOVE this time of year! This year is even more special with an event I started on Facebook called, "Thankful in November". Here is the link:
https://www.facebook.com/events/452258581492888/455960794456000/?notif_t=plan_mall_activity

Over 1300 people have been invited and almost 200 people are participating. They are posting what they are thankful for on their walls, and on the wall of this event.

 IT.IS.AWESOME!

Truly, it's amazing to see so many posts that emphasize positive things. I have been very weary of all the negative political posts this year, more so than any other year. The election is not even over, but all I see is "thankful" posts now.

Social Media can be so wearying, especially if you are a stay at home mom who is on WAY too much! It seems that people have no qualms about reprimanding others, offending others, etc. They say things and post things they would never do in "real" life.
SO! Join us at Facebook if you have an account, and be thankful this month! God has blessed us so much, and sometimes it is good to look past the hard things and find the blessings and thank Him for it! Hope to see you there!