Savoring Summer

Psalm 119:93 "I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life."

Is it just me, or did March/April feel like the slowest months ever during the quarantine, and now time feels like it is flying? We are trying to make the most of the last days of summer before we start school. We are days away from three kids starting school at a local private school. Micaela and Joella start school on the 17th, Abigail and Grace start at Liberty Online August 24th, and DJ starts school August 31st.

So what have we been doing this summer? We have been busy making memories! 

We attended a wedding in Chicago after Wayne's last MRI. We were able to take two of the girls best friends home with us for a week. They spent hours taking pictures, being crazy teenage girls, and we went to the Ark and the Creation Museum.

We then went to Florida with my sister and her family. We relaxed by the pool all day! It was glorious and relaxing. We weren't planning on going to Disney World to use our tickets we purchased in January, but after seeing empty parking lots, we decided to put up with facemasks for the day. We are so glad we decided to go! The park was open from 9-7 and by 5, we had gone on every ride in the park multiple times. We walked on to almost every ride. The "longest" wait was 20 minutes for Splash Mountain and that was our second time because they were cleaning the ride. The kids all had an amazing time and we had fun making memories with them. They will always remember this time in their lives since all of our pictures include masks!

We also took the kids to look for alligators. We visited a place where we were able to feed the alligators hot dogs and then we ate some alligator! The kids had a blast!

Once we returned home, we continued with our once a week VBS at church. 

The last fun thing we did on this last week of freedom was spend time with our friends from Chicago. We played games, visited the park, made homemade pretzels, played mini-golf, and went to the Ark. 

We are going to relish every last minute of summer we can in the next few days. I am busy getting kids ready for school and making last minute school lessons for Micaela and Joella. I'm super excited about our upcoming year! We are studying one of my favorite cycles...traveling the world learning about different countries, their biomes, and missionaries that traveled their to share the love of Jesus. I just hope my excitement passes on to the girls!

Waiting to Exhale

Psalm 40:1-3 "I waited patiently for the Lord; He trend to me and heard my cry. He lifted me our of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God. Many will see and fear the Lord and put their trust in Him."

Have you ever subconsciously held your breath about something going on in your life? During the last few months, I have been feeling like the next shoe was going to drop and I have been subconsciously holding my breath for something wrong to happen. 2020 has been a difficult year on all of us with COVID turning all of our lives upside down. So many people have been living in fear of dying from this virus while everything around us has been flipped our lives around. If COVID wasn't enough to cause us to hold our breath, we have been walking a difficult journey with one of our children. I haven't shared much because I want to protect his story, but there have been some really hard days the last year. There have been many days that I have wrestled with God for allowing more "difficult" in our lives. I told Him that I'm done going through the fire to be refined, but at the same time, I know that God uses these difficult times to draw my heart closer to Him. So, the wrestling has continued. Some days I surrender and I feel strong, and other days I just pitch a fit like a toddler to my dad for not doing what I want. But through all of this, God has been refining me; and slowly, He has helped me see that I don't have to be the perfect parent and I don't have to be responsible for my child's decisions. I can ask for help and know that there are others out there who might be able to help him in ways that I cannot. That is HARD! I am a perfectionist and I don't want to have to ask for help from others. Our counselor told me two weeks ago that there is no fixing this. I just have to trust God with this child and do all that we can, but know we aren't responsible for the results.

Sometimes when we are in the midst of the hard, it it is difficult to see why God is allowing it. Every once in a while, I feel like God gives a glimpse of how He is working about what He is doing. In those moments, I feel like a silly, ridiculous child who was asking for one thing when God really knew I needed something else. God gave me a glimpse in the last few days of what surrender and asking for help looks like. And you know what? I feel so much peace with the direction God is moving us in regard to this child. God has a purpose for bringing him into our lives, and He has a purpose in moving us to Kentucky to be near family. Sometimes it does "take a village" to raise a child with so many issues and trauma. Our village comprises of us, our family, our friends, his counselor and psychiatrist, and our church. I look forward to seeing where God leads and how He moves mountains.

The additional "stress" in my life that has caused me to hold my breath was Wayne's upcoming MRI. About two months ago, Wayne had a seizure, something he hasn't had in three years. This freaked me out and in the back of my mind, has been causing me to fear. What if his cancer is growing again? How am I going to raise our 8 kids alone? How can I raise our special child alone? All of these fearful thoughts started raging through my brain. I stopped them and prayed about it, but in the back of my mind and heart, I didn't truly let go. Have you ever had a homework project coming up that just kind of nagged on you in the back of your mind? That is what this MRI was like. I wasn't focused on it, but I was subconsciously worried about what the results would be. The last MRI happened right before COVID shut our nation down. Today's MRI is on the heels of the country opening back up. Normally we wait four months between his MRIs, but we had a wedding in Chicago to attend, so we came a few weeks early. Thankfully, the doctor walked in the office today after the MRI and announced that his scan is still clear and that he is setting records with how well he is doing and how long he is living! I finally felt like I could truly breathe after that announcement. 

As a Christian, it is hard sometimes to balance fully trusting and believing God, and also knowing that we live in a fallen world filled with cancer and death. I have had so many friends lose their loved ones and another friend discovered recently that her husband's brain cancer is back. I have discovered that it is a daily surrender of my will and fears to God to allow Him to have His way in my life. I cannot change what is going to happen, but I can trust the One who knows the future. 

The Real Deal

Psalm 6:6-7 "I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eye wastes away because of grief."

Job 16:16 "My face is red with weeping, and on my eyelids is deep darkness."

Emotions can be tricky. Some people are very in-tune with their emotions and can express them freely, while others struggle to reveal how they are feeling. The other night we picked I Still Believe for our family movie. We had all heard great things and the girls wanted to pick a more sentimental movie instead of our normal action or cartoon selection. I probably should have been more conscious of my children and the theme of the movie. We all really enjoyed the movie, but it was also difficult to watch. During the end of the movie, all you could hear were sniffles in the basement. After the final credits, Joella and Micaela just broke down sobbing. They hugged me and told me how hard it was to watch the character die from cancer and that they don't want their dad to die from his brain cancer. As I hugged them in their vulnerable state, I realized I was jealous of the freedom they felt to express their emotions so openly. 

I struggle to be transparent with my emotions. My natural tendency is to bottle it all in. Unfortunately, difficult circumstances in my past has lead to this self-preservation mode. Although I did spend many months as a young adult having to feel many bottled emotions, my natural tendency is to flee crying. As you read throughout the book of Psalm, you read of David's weeping and grief. Sometimes he sounds like he is in great distress, which I believe he was in and he was openly pouring his heart out to God. I have experienced moments of weeping that were so distressing, I thought I would rather have Jesus take me home than experience the pain. When you are done crying and you cannot see because your eyes are swollen, you cannot breathe because you nose is clogged, and your chest aches from the deep groaning, that really isn't something you want to experience again. 

I share all of this because I am trying to be more transparent in my life. I know that I cannot be the only one to struggle with bottling emotions or having to face difficult memories from the past or current battles now. Maybe you feel alone in your struggles. Know that you aren't alone. I know that in this turbulent time in our lives many more people are experiencing struggles in their life. This is the best time to be transparent and open with others. We are all struggling and it is good to know that we are not alone! The Bible says that we are to be like iron sharpening iron...we should be building each other up and helping others run this crazy race of life to the finish line.

At the beginning of the year, our church shared about a ministry called Celebrate Recovery. Each week people would share how this group helped them in different ways. I found it fascinating to learn that Celebrate Recovery isn't just for those recovering from alcohol or drugs, but it was for anyone who has a hurt, habit, or hangup that they need help and support. Each week, I felt like God wanted me to go. I fought God the entire time because I am someone who cares too much what other people think of me. I was worried people would find out that I was going and wonder what "issue" I have that would drive me to Celebrate Recovery. I finally surrendered and attended my first service with the group. It was so hard to walk through the doors, but I am so glad that I did. I have found some amazing friends in a short time who are real. It is comforting to know that there are people who are willing to pray for you when things are good, and when things are hard. God's timing is always best! If I had not attended when I did, I wouldn't have been able to get plugged into a Step Study and meet some amazing women who have encouraged and prayed for me throughout this ordeal. After attending even just a few weeks before all this COVID19 hit, I firmly believe that every believer should attend. We all have issues, whether big or small, that we can share and work on. Maybe you have thought about attending Celebrate Recovery, but maybe, like me, you have been intimidated. Let me tell you, there is so much freedom in just going! Just go and see what God has in store for you.

Please pray that I continue to trust God with the pain of the past, trust Him with Wayne's future, and that I can freely express my emotions instead of bottling them up. There are other things going on that I will share at a later time, so please just pray for me and our family. If you are struggling with anything, feel free to contact me and we can pray for you and walk along you too!

Intentional Living

Ephesians 5:15-17 "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is."

Last weekend our family was blessed to participate in an e-retreat by Inheritance of Hope (IOH). We were supposed to be in Florida for the retreat, but the retreat was postponed until the fall. The amazing leadership at IOH decided to hold part of the retreat online so that families could benefit from the resources they offer. Not only that, the sad truth is that many families attending the retreat have loved ones with serious terminal cancer. It was gut-wrenching to hear some of the stories of others and hear their children share of their fears of losing their parent. There were two specific parts that spoke to my heart. Although I am not the parent facing a terminal illness, I am walking along side a spouse who is, and two speakers spoke to me the most. The first was a young woman who lost her mom to glioblastoma, the same brain cancer that Wayne has. She poured out her heart about how she had wanted to ask her mom to make her a video, but she didn't want to add to her mom's plate since she was so sick. Then she said it became too late to ask her once her mom couldn't speak anymore. She told us how her heart broke when her mom passed and how she told her dad that she regretted not asking her mom to make her a video. She then went on to tell us that her dad told her that her mom had made a video for her at the IOH retreat they had attended. She said that the video is such a precious gift to her from her mom. I hate showing emotions, which I know isn't healthy. It was all I could do to keep from bawling on our zoom meeting when I heard this girl's story.

The next speaker that spoke to me was actually the woman who started IOH. It was an old video of her speaking at another IOH retreat right after she had traveled to NY to hear from her doctors that after eight years of fighting, there was nothing else that could be done for her. Here this brave fighter stood encouraging other fighters about what gave her hope during this time. This amazing woman was INTENTIONAL with her time here on earth. She took her last few years to make sure that her children had letters from her, gifts tucked away for future special events, and so much more. Not only did she think about her family, but she thought about so many other families who would be in the same predicament as her family. She wanted to help them be intentional in their lives as well...to make special memories with their children and document their love for their children.

Sometimes we will hear the term intentional and think that is a great idea, but what does that mean? The definition of intentional is done on purpose, deliberate. I think that intentional means that we need to do something on purpose or deliberately make a plan to do something. I walked away from the retreat with a new purpose...to be even more intentional with my kids. If I were to die, what do I want my kids to remember? Again, I was not a participant with a terminal illness, and yet, aren't we all terminal? How many of us have heard of a loved one or a friend that passed in a tragic accident or freak illness? The daughter who shared about her mom made me stop and think. I decided the next day to take a few hours and write each of my kids a letter. Lord willing, I can pass on the wisdom and counsel I gave in those letters in person, but just in case, my kids now each have a little gift from me. 

Wayne was able to make a video for the kids with IOH. I know for many of the parents it was hard to make the video and think about what they wanted to say to their loved ones, but what a gift! If something happens to Wayne, the kids will each have a special memory of their father taking time to speak to them and tell them important things about his childhood, his life, stories from their childhood, and most importantly, about his relationship with God that has sustained him through all of life's difficulties.

We are choosing to be even more intentional than we already had been. When the kids ask us something, instead of being busy and shooing them away, we take time to listen and be involved. We not only have to be intentional with our time with them, but also in the words that we pour into them. We want to be intentional in modeling and teaching them about loving God with all of their heart. We want them to feel loved not only by us, but by a heavenly Father who loves them more than we ever could!

I also think being intentional extends to other areas of our lives. As believers, we are commanded to love others and share the good news of Jesus Christ with them. That takes being intentional...it doesn't just happen. Wayne and I have been talking about ways we can be more intentional in sharing about Jesus with others. It isn't always easy, but God asks us to do it and there is such joy in being obedient. 

What about you? Are you being intentional with your children? Are you being intentional with your walk with the Lord and sharing that joy with others? I think all of us can benefit from being more intentional every day of our lives. I know that I don't want to get to the end of my life and regret the time I wasted on invaluable things instead of making the most of my time here on earth. 

Quarantine Quandary

Psalm 55:22 "Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous fall." 

James 1:2-4 "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work os that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."

The definition of quandary is a state of uncertainty over what to do in a difficult situation. I think that many of us have recently experienced times of uncertainty. This whole quarantine and not knowing what is going to happen next is driving my Type A personality crazy. I can only plan so much when everything changes from day to day and week to week. If I allow my thoughts to wander too much, I can start to feel anxious and fearful. I love the verse in James. It reminds me that no matter what we face in life, God can use it to produce attributes in us that He wants to work on. 

I think the big lesson God is trying to teach me is to cling to Him and rely on Him. I have been doing a lot of reflecting the past few days on God's faithfulness over the years. It is easy to slip into questioning why He is allowing all of this craziness around us and to get fearful over my family's health. God has been gently reminding me, as He has to frequently since I'm a slow learner like the Israelites, that He has this. He is still on the throne and He is still God. 

I decided that I would write down the many ways that God has been faithful to me over the years. Maybe it would be a great exercise for all of us to do to remind ourselves who He is and what He has done in our lives. Feel free to share your list with me! I love to rejoice and see how God has moved in other people's lives. When we think and reflect on all the good things He has done in our lives, it helps us trust Him with the future and focus on the positive instead of all the negative. So here are some of the things on my list that God brought to my mind:

1) How God drew my heart to Him from a little child until a teenager when I fully surrendered my life to Him. He constantly pursued me and showed me how much He loved me.
2) Wayne's cancer - I could go on for hours about how God has been faithful on this journey. If you want to see all that God has done, read our story from the beginning (February 2015).
3) God financially provided during Wayne's cancer. We knew that when he went on disability we would make it, but it would be tight, especially when it came to groceries. God provided through Wayne's co-workers to provide us with Peapod gift cards that lasted his entire treatment and recovery!
4) How God opened the door and moved us to adopt. That is another long story and you can read about it in 2017.
5) How God moved us to Chicago back in 2001 and closed the doors to moving back to CA. We had some amazing years in Chicago with friends that we made and that is where Wayne had some of the best doctors to do his brain surgery!
6) God helped me forgive those who abused me as a child and He walked me through the painful memories and helped heal me.
7) God faithfully provides each day for our needs. Sometimes it feels like the widow with her flour and oil that just kept multiplying. God faithfully provides for us on a daily basis. 
8) When God knew I was near a breaking point, God provided Wayne to be at home to help raise our kids, especially our special needs child. There was so much going on in life and I was just feeling stretched to the limit. I was crying out to Him and He answered in unexpected ways.
9) How God provided the perfect counselor for our special needs child
10) How God provided the perfect school for our special needs child and how we have seen him blossom. 
11) When God moved us to Chicago, God also miraculously provided my job transfer to Chicago from San Francisco. Only God could move a job offer to Chicago from San Francisco for a recent graduate who hadn't started working!
12) God protected Joella at birth with a perfect knot in her cord. The doctor told me God must have been watching over her because most babies with a true knot end up still born.
13) God sold our house in Chicago right before COVID19 shut IL down (literally just days before).
14) God has provided friends at different stages of life
15) God has enabled us to homeschool our kids without losing my mind
16) God provided the perfect house for us in KY (everything we were looking for, including walking distance to my parent's farm)
17) God has provided an amazing church for us to be part of at different stages on our lives.
18) How God changed the hearts of our kids after moving and is growing them in amazing ways. God answers prayers in crazy ways sometimes.
19) God provided protection when my tire blew five years ago on the freeway on our way to a field trip. God also brought the trial to a close without me having to travel back to Chicago for a week. 
20) all the little things God does but that He doesn't have to: desires that our on my heart that He works out. This reminds me that He is a good, good father!

These are just some of the ways that God has shown up in my life and revealed what a wonderful Father He is to us. 

We have been trying to find joy as a family in the midst of this crazy time. We have enjoyed the extra time together. Our kids have noticed that they don't like this kind of "quarantine homeschooling". They enjoy our weekly trips to the gym for PE, the library, field trips, community service, and going to church. They want all the other kids to know that this is not what homeschool is like. We have made the most of the time by getting our school work done, reading some great books, doing more crafts, baking/cooking, taking advantage of some free websites available, playing outside, and now we have been working on making masks for the community where they are needed. We also took an early morning hike about an hour away from our house. We didn't see anyone the entire time we were out. The kids enjoyed getting out of the house and expending some energy.

Will you join me in a challenge? I am choosing joy and thankfulness today over fear and anxiety. I am going to focus on the good around me, instead of thinking about all that I'm missing out on (tomorrow I should be running in New Mexico and getting another state under my belt). I am committing to reading less articles about COVID19 and more from God's Word. Let's also use this time to encourage people around us: call a neighbor, FaceTime a friend, and keep in touch with your family. If you are stuck in fear and anxiety, listen to the cd below. It is older, I think from the 90s, but it was the music that got me to sleep during a very difficult time in my life. God used His word put to music to not only allow me to meditate on His Words, but also to bring a balm to my soul. May this bless you as it blessed me!