Rejoicing from a Distance

Coming face to face with God's sovereignty is where the testing of our faith is. 

I have friends who have faced hard Providences.  Pain and suffering from the hand of God.  Friends who have had their homes completely wiped away by tornadoes.  Friends who have buried a beloved husband and father in the midst of unbelievable loss. 

I have friends with a child so disabled, she will never live without constant care.  I have friends with 8 children who buried a mom and less than one year later buried one of the children.

I have had a friend survive a terrible medical emergency with a very pre-mature baby, but also with the loss of hearing.  And I have seen my friends bury babies not meant for an earthly life. 

My Providences  have not been so hard, but for now where I am they are a raw wound waiting on the first layer of healing.  My Providences has been 5 babies in heaven.  One buried in my own backyard.

My little boy will wear his boots without socks and rub a terrible blister.  For awhile it is too painful to touch, but eventually it will heal, unless he wears those same boots without socks.  Then the wound opens up all over again.

My wound is healing, but sometimes when my good friends are rejoicing over baby #10, it is like those boots.  I have to start the healing all over again.

So to the two of you waiting on a little one.  I am "rejoicing with you who rejoice", but for awhile I may do the rejoicing from a distance.  For that I ask for grace.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

For some reason, October 29th is always busy.  For some reason, my first born always shares her birthday with an "event".  A "missionary of questionable personality", a miscarriage, a family struggling with missing their mommy.  This year she shared it with a newborn baby - a child for us to care for - if for only a little while (but hopefully not)!

Still she made me a Mommy.  She changed my world.  She changed my world view.  She rocked our world.  We grew up.  The world was no longer about us! 

She is as wonderful at home as she seems to you when you meet her.  She is the most wonderful big sister,  a blessing to our family. 

We kid her: there will be a day that she will take the man she loves to SAMS and try to buy in bulk.  Maybe he too will be from a big family and understand.  For now we take her to SAMS, and we grasp for the few years, the few moments we have left before she spreads her wings to fly.

Daddy and I don't like to think about the day she walks down an aisle, but that is what we want for her.  We want her to know the blessing that they have all been to us. 

For now I will enjoy her every moment.  Much as I did when it was just the three of us running errands together, swimming, walking Clancy.  It was fun then, but it is far more fun now.  For she would not be who she is if it were not for all of the other ones.  They all make us a family.  They all felt her pain today when her birthday was a let down.  They all scurried to make a dinner, cake, presents and bring her laughter. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my precious first!

BIG FAMILY SUMMER

What does a big family do all summer?  That was the question a friend posed to me at the beginning of the summer.

Have a book published.

Make 5 movies

Swim

Host a Christian Film Festival with 250 people in attendance.

Encourage 2 girls to compete in a Bible Bee

Swim

Get our home Foster Care Ready finishing 30 hours of training...









Garden and can salsa

Swim

Grow awesome sunflowers

Support chik-fil-a

Swim

Raise butterflies

Live Laugh and Love

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Who were those kids getting married 22 years ago?  Two people who had not a clue what they were doing.

Duane and I were the best of friends.  We are the best of friends.    During our home studies that is what we continue to tell our social worker; we just enjoy being together so much.

That is what we tell our kids.  The finer points of theology will come, child rearing will come, but being the best of friends that is what makes it enduring.  When God gives you the gift of a spouse that is your kindred spirit, when God gives your marriage grace beyond words, that is what carries a young couple through 8 children, 5 miscarriages and the foster care journey, tough economic times, and lack of work. 

We pray they find godly spouses who they love being with because that is what carries you through.

That and a lot of laughter.... and being left handed!

 

The day I remember

April 27th changed the life of my friends, but April 28th changed mine.  We had stayed up all night - friends calling, "Have you heard anything?"  "Duane is there with a chainsaw, only men with chainsaws can come through" "Injured people everywhere" A text... someone is dead.  And that became our reality.  Someone we loved was gone.

Today I read, Do not boast in tomorrow.   Proverbs 27.  Had Mr. L ever boasted?  I think not, but he knew His Savior and so does his family.  He had voiced a hope that there would be a tomorrow.  That he would see his youngest grow up, but no he had known that the Lord holds time in His hands. 

So with one hour of sleep, I told my children, "Mr. L. had died in the storm, several of the children were in the hospital with serious injuries, our friends' homes were gone, and life will be forever different."

We headed to the sight of the tornado, and all day long we picked through the rubble of our friends former life.  We looked for a wedding ring of newly made widow.  We cried.  We stood in awe as we looked at where the family had been and knew that God had spared 14 even while taking one home to Him.

We hugged and loved the C. family.  I cried as her little told me as she came over to my house, "Daddy is out buying us a new house."

Today, a year ago, my front lawn was covered in laundry.  I had so many children in my home that I stopped counting and just kept feeding.  We had company in our home everyday for over a month.  God had already begun to teach me a new lesson... open door hospitality.
Now that will rock your boat!! 

Rise Up and Call Her Blessed

Recently a "comedian"  made some type of trashy comment about a presidential candidate's wife.  The comment was neither insightful nor funny, but that is not the point in this world.  The point is to offend, but really who did it offend?

Women all over the world?  Women who since the beginning of time have prepared a haven, a home, a hospice for their families?  Maybe, but more importantly Scripture tells us, "A foolish son is the grief of his mother."  The beautiful woman of Proverbs 31 raised sons who grow up to call her "blessed."

Do you think highly of the comedian's mother?  That is his view of women.  That is what his family instilled.  What are we instilling in our sons?


Let us prayerfully and humbly raise up sons who call us blessed.

Happy Birthday Jamie

Jamie came to us during the winter Olympics of 2002.  Daddy said, "Hey, why don't you have this one on 2-22-02 then I might remember her birthday."  So I did.  I am a very submissive wife!! 

Jamie is a joy to have in our home.  She craves companionship that I too often forget to give her, but I am learning every day.  The children that grace my home are only here for a moment, and that makes me sad.  Jamie has entered the two digits of the age range.  Most of my kids can now read, most can now brush their teeth fairly well:).  One is even about to wrap up high school level education. 

None will ever stop being my baby.  None will ever be to hold to hear that Mommy and Daddy love him.  The days of diaper bags and car seats are almost over, but this Momma loved those days, and I wonder what God may have in store for my sweet family... 

I am beginning to listen to more of David Platt and less of box thinking Christianity.  In that I am beginning to pray "my heart will be broken by the things that break His" (Amy Grant).