11 Years Ago Today....

I was in the hospital. It was probably about this time that I was getting to see and touch my baby boy for the first time. I went into the hospital on Monday, 9/17/01 and they started to induce me at 4:30 PM. I thought for sure I was going to have my baby boy on Jodi’s birthday! I remember being so excited and scared and nervous and excited and just having so many emotions going through me! They started the pitocin drip to start my labor…and it started very, very slowly. So, they decided to break my water. Boy, that wasn’t pleasant. Then my labor got harder….but every time I had a contraction, Isaac’s heartbeat would go down substantially. I remember getting the epidural and finally having some relief from the contractions and eventually sleeping! Isn’t that funny! So…after a long night of this….and no baby on Jodi’s birthday…..they came in and woke me up (again, funny because I was in labor!) to tell me that they were going to take the baby via c-section. I remember my mother-in-law crying and I was just thinking – do whatever you have to do – just get this kid out of me! I was actually very calm because my mom had two c-sections, so I was pretty prepared for that route for some reason. In fact, I never thought I would actually push a baby out of me….but maybe that was because I had watched Janice do that and I wanted no part of it. HA! So, they prepped me and Scott (lol) for my c-section and took me into the operating room. It was no time at all and they had our baby boy out! Our baby boy. I can’t even describe the emotions that overwhelmed me at that moment. They showed him to me… well, us because Scott did not watch much of the c-section! I remember them taking him over to the “baby area” and not hearing a lot of noise like I thought I would hear. Isaac wasn’t really crying, but more like grunting. We didn’t know what to expect, but we could tell that something wasn’t right. Soon after, they took Isaac out of the room and I was having these waves of nausea and convulsions. I remember them taking me out of the OR and to the recovery area and just laying there wondering what was going on. I was shaking uncontrollably and scared to death. Scott went to see what was going on with Isaac and I remember Mom and Dad and Scott’s parents coming to see me and tell me how pretty he was. They had whisked him off to the nursery to take care of him. There wasn’t anything really ‘wrong’ with him, but the grunting was concerning to him. They wanted to hear some good old big cries! He finally did! My first glimpses of Isaac were on video and cameras because I was still in recovery and he was in the nursery. They finally moved me to a room and got me all settled in. I will never forget the longing that I had to hold my baby! In all the tv shows and movies you see the mom hold the baby right away and all that jazz…I was dying not being able to hold him! I wanted to try to nurse him (kinda) and I wanted to hold him and look at his 10 fingers and 10 toes and just swallow him up! FINALLY a very nice nurse brought him into the room. They had to feed him already (so I didn’t get to feed him first) and they had him all cleaned up. This nurse was so nice….and older. My husband can talk to the wall….he struck up a conversation with her because we were pretty sure she was a nurse there when he was born (um…who cares…give me my kid) and so she proceeds to talk about that and all that stuff while swaddling Isaac to get him out of the bassinet to give him to me. I am aching to see/hold/touch my baby. About the time she prepares to hand him to me for the first time….he pooped or something. So, she went through this painful process of unwrapping him…changing him….cleaning him…talking…taking forever! Then she started the whole swaddling thing all over again. I know that at least 3 hours has passed (okay, 5 minutes) when my mom finally spoke up….”She hasn’t even been able to touch him once yet. Can you just let her hold him?” The nurse was like, oh of course! And FINALLY handed me my baby boy. My Isaac Wayne. My bundle of joy. Ahhh….awesome! God is so good. Isaac. That name is so appropriate for the little man that we have in our lives. It means “he who brings laughter” and boy, oh boy, does he ever bring joy and laughter to all who know him. I love that kid so much. He has blessed our lives beyond measure. I thank God every day for the joy that is Isaac and for allowing me the opportunity to raise this young man. I pray that he will continue to bring joy to those he touches and also show Christ’s love in all that He does. I know that he makes mistakes and I know that he will make lots and lots more mistakes…but he is a child of God and God has big plans for this little man of mine! Early on…my dad started the nickname of Angelman for Isaac. And he is just that. He is my Angel! So, Happy Birthday Angelman! I love you more today than I did yesterday and I will love you more tomorrow than I do today. You have brought me so much joy and so much happiness. I cannot imagine our lives without you in it!

Money

Ha! Money. Funny how the more you make, the more you spend! Just when I think, phew...we have some breathing room...something happens. Yep. This summer we had to buy a new furnace and a/c unit for our house. A month later we put in a new driveway. God blessed us and we were able to pay for all of that without having to finance anything. That is great! So, we had one normal month of income and "outcome"...and then low and behold....Scott's car broke down in a driveway of a customer in Cincinnati yesterday. Seriously? I just have to laugh. God is still good and something like that ain't gonna get me down! That is just a little blip in this big old crazy life we live! Fun date night with Scott last night. He won tickets to the Red's Game in what is called the Diamond Club. We were 6 rows from home plate and all the food and drink was included and brought to your seat! PLUS they had this gorgeous buffet of food and desserts inside before the game started! It was a fun evening with his boss and his wife - friends of ours from church - and we just had a blast. It was nice to be Missy and Scott and not Mommy and Daddy for an evening! We don't do that enough... In Matthew 17:20 it says, "He replied, 'Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard see, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to tehre,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you." So, I know that we have all read and heard that scripture before. But I am telling you....I am 36 years old and for the.first.time.ever....that scripture came to life for me. I was driving and listening to kLove and Jason Castro (yeah, American Idol) was talking about his new song that talks about that scripture and how there are things in our life (financial troubles - hello) or temptations or whatever they might be. Those are mountains. God can move them. Umm...hello. 36 years old and for the first time ever I realized that this scripture wasn't just about a physical Mountain like Mount Everest. But about those "mountains" in our life. Wow. Just wow. I want to share that with people, but I am sure they will laugh at me and think I am crazy for not realizing that sooner in life! God is speaking to us...we just have to listen!!!!

I survived...

Well, I survived the first week of the Bible Study that I am leading at church! I was well-prepared and I think it went well! We had 10 women there and there were 3 more that I know will be there next week. So, that is great! And...I didn't cry! I came very close once or twice, but I didn't cry!!! This week at church...one of the lessons that I heard loud and clear is that God is in control in every circumstance. So, one day when we look back at our lives and see even the tough moments....we can see His hand in them. He doesn't CAUSE bad things to happen...He ALLOWS them to. That is a big difference. And then He uses even those bad circumstances to teach us life lessons and show us His sovereignty. I also saw something the other day that I have been thinking about...."We are so vain. We are so focused on ourselves, that we think the whole eternal plan of redemption is about us. But is isn't. It concerns us, it transforms us, but it is all about God." Another powerful lesson that came out of our study last night....True surrender happens at the point when we stop negotiating with God. Powerful things. God is working. Will I let Him?

Inadequate...

So...in June, I was at a graduation party for a sweet girl from our church. I was talking to a group of my "Monkeys" (that is a different post) and we were all talking about our woes of needing to lose weight. I shared how I had done the study, "Lose It For Life" in a group at my old church. One thing led to another.... and I am leading this study at our church starting this Sunday. Inadequate doesn't even begin to describe how I feel. This is such an emotional topic for me....which is why I think they asked me to lead it. I am praying that God speaks through me in this study. I was already anxious about it....then I looked at my class-list today and a very dear friend of mine, who is the wife of our Sunday School teacher, is going to be in my class. That makes me even more nervous....adding even more feelings of inadequacy. Will you pray for me?

Just another crazy day....

Ever feel like you need more hours in the day? I am joking...because I know we all feel that way! But yesterday was one of those days where I needed a few more hours in my day! For fun..let me recap my day: 5:00 AM...Get up and get ready 6:00 AM...Get Scott up and do devotions/prayers before dashing off to work 7:00 AM...Work 4:00 PM...Leave work and head to pick up girls at school 4:20 PM...Clean house, start homework, start dinner, start laundry.... 5:40 PM...Take Isaac to football and run errands with the girls 8:00 PM...Put groceries away and start showers, lay out clothes for next day, sign homework logs, do flash-cards, fix hair, fix dinner for next day, dishes, laundry, organize stuff, 10:00 PM...crash so I can start it all over again tomorrow.... I mean, come on people! I know that I am not along but geesh! This makes me tired just reading it! And on the way to football, my 10 year old son tells me that my life isn't as hard as his because he has to play football in the heat. Really? I just laughed. So, as I look back over that crazy busy day....I see that I started my day with prayer & devotion....but boy, oh boy do I need to add a lot more of that into my day! I guess I didn't write down all the times I prayed throughout the day. But I need to make sure I am in a constant state of communication with HIM throughout my day. The beautiful part of my day...listening to my kids laugh as we ran from place to place to place and being attacked by Gracie in the parking lot because she wanted to hug me. Now, next time it would be nice to get a warning before being attacked from behind...but I will take that anyday! I love my busy life...I love my busy life...I love my busy life...does that help?

Today

If you woke up tomorrow with only the things you thanked God for today…would you be happy or sad? My dad posted on FB today this quote (or a variation of this quote) that he saw in a store and it has me thinking. Boy, does it have me thinking. Today (and I am only going to commit to one day at a time) I have decided that I need to keep my blog updated. You just never know what can happen. And you just never know who might stumble on it and need to see what I am going through. And you just never know if one day my kids want to look back at our life and see what I was thinking. You just never know. That seems to be on my tongue a lot these days. So many people that I know and love are hurting and I can’t do anything to help them…or so I let myself believe. But there is one really important thing I can do – I can pray. And I am committing to becoming the person who says “I am praying for you” and mean it. Not just to be the person who says that but never does it. So, if I tell you that I am praying for you – I mean it. I am really praying for you. God is really working in my heart – in my life – in every part of who I am. This summer at church camp, we talked a lot about the Lord’s Prayer. That has just had such a lasting impact on me. I remember the skit that Alan did about “Our Fathereth up in heaventh” and how we try to use such big words when we pray – instead of just being like…”Dad. I need you. I am broken. My heart is breaking thinking about this person who is going through this thing. Help. Give me Your words. Fill me up with You. Less of me – more of You.” We can say that! We don’t have to pray some big pretty prayer. We can just pray to HIM and He will answer. Seriously – I cannot imagine going through the valleys of life without having God by my side. When people – good people – die. When people – people you love – get diagnosed with cancer. When people- good people – do stupid things that tear families apart. All of these things that I have lived this past summer…..I have lived it with God by my side. I can’t imagine living it without Him. I also saw a funny play on the old Footprints poem. “Why are their those funny looking tracks next to your footprints sometimes, God?” “Oh, those…that is when I had to drag you.” Wow. Funny…but so, so true. I also watched a video on You Tube yesterday where this woman was giving God the Control Seat (or for visual affects, a stool) to her life. But then she crawled on top of Him, held onto Him – everything short of pushing Him off. She begged him to take it from her and He said no….you have to choose to give it to me. WOW. So life is hard. Life is painful. Life is preparing us for a much better place. We are only here temporarily. Thank the Good Lord, we are NOT home yet. I am so looking forward to the day when I am home. Home with Him. In the meantime, Scott and I are doing great. We have been doing daily devotions and prayer time together for 3 or 4 months now. That has made – is making – a big difference in our lives. Isaac is getting ready to turn 11 and in Middle School (how did I get that old?!?!?). Faith is 8 and in 3rd Grade and Gracie is about to turn 6 and in Kindergarten. They keep us busy. Our prayer every morning for them is - Lord, please help them to make wise decisions today and help them to be lights in this dark world. That is all for now. For today. Committing to one day at a time.

Wonderful News!!!!

This is an email I sent to my family this morning....I just wanted to get this out on paper so you can read it! I am sorry that I posted it to Facebook without calling you guys….but I was just so excited!!!!

So, last night…Mom and Dad came over and Dad gave Faith a cross necklace and told her how proud he was of her for memorizing scriptures. After they left, both girls wanted to read their Bibles and work on memorizing scriptures. Gracie quickly lost interest when she realized she had to repeat them to me (HA!) so she ran on. Well, Faith and I sat and we read verses and then, in her new Bible, I noticed a devotional on John 3:16. So, we read John 3:16 and then we looked at the devotional. It told us to read John 3: 1-16. So, I read it to her…stopping and asking questions along the way. When it mentioned being “born again”, I asked her what she thought that meant and she said the same answer that Nicodemus said….to have a new body. Then we kept reading and I could tell that she was still a bit puzzled about the meaning. Then I went back to the devotional and it explained that when you are born, your body is born. When you are born again, your spirit is born. I loved that! That seemed to make a bit more sense to her.

So, we sat and talked about that for a while and I asked her what it meant to be a Christian and she said that it means you believe in Jesus and God. Then I asked her what it meant to be baptized and she said that it means we are wiped clean of all the bad stuff we have done. So, I asked her if there were things that she had done that were bad and she said yes. I asked her what those were called and she said sins. I asked her if being baptized meant that if you did something bad the next day, like hitting Gracie, if you would need to be baptized again in the water. She said no….but she would need to ask God to forgive her.

I asked her if she wanted to be baptized and she said that yes, she has been wanting to be baptized for a while! So, I asked her to repeat the confession after me and she did. Then Scott came into the room, so we did the whole conversation over again so that he could hear it. And then we both smiled and rejoiced and told Faith how proud of her we are…..

It was so beautiful! I asked her if she wanted to be baptized right away or if she wanted to wait until Mimi and Papaw come back and she said she wanted to wait until Mimi and Papaw come back! So, we will plan for that in early April!!! God is so good!!!!!!

Umm.....So it has been a while!

I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth! It has been so long since I updated that I have decided I am not going to try to recap the last year or so of my life! That would be too daunting! I am not really sure why I don’t journal more, except maybe I was overwhelmed by the idea of trying to recap. Duh, just don’t do it!

I do still read journals and check them each and every day. So, to those that still update…yeah! I read them!

2012. Am I the only person who cannot believe that it is already 2012? I mean, seriously. It feels like it was just yesterday that we were scared of the dreaded Y2K?!?!? I totally get what they mean by “time flies” as you get older. It totally does! Scott and I were just talking last night about how long we have had this little table thing. I remember vividly putting it together in my dad’s apartment in Michigan. So, I was a senior in high school. So, Scott says…that table is about 18 years old and I about died. In fact, I just had to check the math again. Surely I haven’t been out of high school for 18 years. But, sadly….he is right! OH MY! This whole paragraph makes me laugh….

God is so very good to me. Do you ever just stop and think, as we go about our super busy days, just how blessed we are? I know that it is very easy for me to get caught up in a self-pity-party (especially these days) but I am really trying to make a conscious effort to stop that party before it starts and focus on how much He has blessed me. Way more than I would ever have imagined in my wildest dreams!

So…my health journey is still in progress. I was diagnosed with Auto-Immune Hepatitis in April of last year. They started me on prednisone and told me I would be on it for about 6 months. Well, here we are 9 months later and I am still on it. Boo! I am also on another drug that I will be on for the rest of my life. So, of course there are complications from the medicines (now) and lots of risks for more (later) and of course, I am still not feeling great. So, I continue to go to the specialist and continue to go get blood drawn regularly and just continue to trust that He is in control of the situation! Some days I just wonder if I will ever feel “normal” again! Then, I think that maybe a lot of this is just because I am getting older and “normal” is relative! Scott has been super supportive (and scared) throughout all of this. One night, out of the blue to him…because he doesn’t live in my head….I told him that if anything ever happened to me that he needs to remarry because he can’t raise the kids by himself. It freaked him out, but it is one of those things we hadn’t talked about and I thought we should! I guess that I need to invite him into my head more often because then he wouldn’t be so freaked out! LOL

The kids are great. I mean, they are really, really great. God has certainly had His protective hand on our family because one of the drugs that I am really suppresses my immune system….and so I have to be cautious to try to stay as germ-free as possible. Well, the kids have been the healthiest they have ever been since I was diagnosed. That has been wonderful because that complication could be really bad for all of us! So, aside from the constant bickering and “sibling love”…..they are great!

Isaac is thriving in 5th grade and has become quite the social butterfly. I love that boy for so many reasons….one of which is that he has such an awesome personality. No wonder everyone loves him and wants to be his friend! I cannot believe that he has a girlfriend (it will be 2 months on the 16th, he will tell you…LOL) and that this is his last year in elementary school. *GASP* Next year I will have a child in middle school. How did that happen?!?!??!

Faith is such a joy….it is so much fun watching her grow into the person that God created! If there has ever been a child that you cannot tell them what to do…it is Faith. What I mean is….if you tell her that she “can’t” do something, she will prove you wrong! She will try and try and try again until she does it….like zip-lining last year at camp or ice-skating or memorizing a big block of scripture. So far, it seems to be channeled in the right direction….so lots of prayers are coveted as we hope it continues to be channeled correctly! We bought all of the kids Bibles for Christmas. Hers is going to be worn out before the end of the month because she wants to read it all the time. She is working on memorizing the books of the Bible right now along with Isaac. I dare-say, she will get it done first and then Isaac will be so mad! LOL I ‘heart’ her!!!! She has such a funny sense of humor too! One night we were watching TV and a commercial came on for “Say Yes to the Dress” and the bride was a bit older. Faith looked at me and said….”She is obviously getting RE-Married!” She cracks me up!

Gracie is such a DIVA….but our lives would not be complete with her…maybe less filled with screaming and hitting and bossing, but not complete! LOL No, she is getting better about stuff like that, but she definitely still wants things done HER way and in HER time! We (Scott, me, Isaac & Faith) have all created this monster…so we need to learn how to fix it! LOL But there are lots of times when it is so very sweet how much fun she and Faith have playing together and imagining things. She loves preschool and loves for her big brother to help her with “her letters” and anything else that he will help her with. She also has a wild-spirit….the other night I saw her full-moon when Isaac made her mad about something. Oh dear lord, what am I in for? And where did she learn that from? Oh, that’s right…..the very same big brother! I can assure you that Scott and I do NOT walk around mooning people! LOL

Well, I guess that is good enough for my first entry in forever! I hope to be back soon, but please don’t hold your breath!