Flippin....

Faith loves Curious George. She keeps checking out the same book and it is getting very old for this mom, "Curious George Makes Pancakes." In order to break the monotony of this story, I inserted the word "flippin" as many times as I could. When I started to laugh hysterically at my own creativity, she burst into tears. I missed reading the last page the way I wanted to. So, here's what I missed:

"At the end of the flippin day, George got to present the flippin money from the fundraiser to the president of the flippin hospital. "Thanks to you, George, this has been our best flippin year ever!" she said. "Will you come back and make flippin pancakes again next year?"

George nodded and everyone flippin cheered.

There...now I have flippin closure.

Down for the count...

Our four year old took out the 14 year old today with one swift punch. He is now singing a first soprano.

Dear Future Grown Up Daughter...

Dear Grown Up Faith,
When you were little, you cried, fussed and whined all.the.time. If you didn't have anything to fuss about, you'd find a bump on your neck, a scratch on your thumb, something, anything to lament about. This morning in church, you really didn't like the dress and new tights. You were itching everywhere. And when you weren't itching, you were telling me you were thirsty. On the way to the bathroom, you were greeted by several people who love you. You did not have time for them. You didn't even acknowledge their comments about how pretty you looked today. In the bathroom, you fussed because I insisted on helping you lift up your dress because if it dipped in the toilet, the fussing that would follow would be even more painful than the fussing that happened while I lifted your dress. We had a reprieve as you sat at the tables and colored during family LifeShaping. But, then, while holding your candy cane, it broke. And everyone heard about it. Especially during Pastor Larry's prayer.

You were happy on the way home. This was wonderful. In the old days, like about 2 weeks ago, you would've fussed all the way home about something. When we got home, I made the mistake of mentioning that we were going to pack away the Vick's machine after nap. You are all better, no more cold! And..yes..you fussed about this as well.

My prayer for you dear daughter, that all of this attention that you give to details, will serve you well as an adult. Perhaps you will be a nurse, and be sensitive to people who complain, or maybe you'll be a teacher and that child that nobody else can handle, you will have special insight into. Or, maybe you will be a stay at home mom, and God will bless you with a child like yourself. I'll take her for you for a few hours and with great joy, I will hand her back. But most of all, I hope you know how much Jesus loves you. And that life will never be perfect because as Daddy says, "It's all broken." And if you feel like fussing as an adult I pray that you will take it to the cross. For right now, I'm doing that for you and for myself. That..and will someone hand me some advil, please.

March 9th

This day marks the birth of our daughter. Five years ago, a mother gave us the ultimate sacrifice and gave us her baby girl to raise and to love as our own. Five years ago, God wove this precious baby, into our hearts and lives.

Two years ago today, it was then that our baby girl covered her ears and screamed as we sang, "Happy Birthday" to her. Deep inside my mommy heart, I knew something was desperately wrong. This begun another journey into autism.

Last year, on this date, my dad wore an oxygen mask because he had influenza and could not get enough air. It was this day that marked the beginning of the most difficult week in my entire life as Dad continued to decline, was put on a respirator and we made that terrible decision that it was "time" to take him off. I don't wish this on anyone.

And yet..somewhere there is a family of a boy named, "Caleb" who are faced with this terrible decision as their son had an accident snowboarding. I cannot imagine having to face this with your own child. This day marks a huge moment in their lives as well.

So..it is this that brings me hope today. The whole chapter of Psalms 103. But this verse specifically....

"as a Father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it and it is gone, and its place knows it no more....But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children's children."

Flip charts...

I have this flip chart of verses right by the kitchen sink. I'm there 90% of the day so this works well. I have had this verse there for weeks. I can't seem to flip it because I want this to permeate my soul.

GOD OF HOPE,
fill me with all joy and peace as I trust in You, so that I may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

Little by little, the darkness of anger and disappointment is going away. The light of Jesus is slowly rising like the most beautiful sunrise approaches. I love how His light chases away the darkness. It's totally in slow motion which I'm growing to appreciate. At first, I wanted the darkness to flee quickly. My DH kept telling me that the struggle had a purpose and to keep hanging on. Little by little, I can see that as well.

So as the sun rises, his love chases the darkness away, and trust seeps in with beautiful warm rays of light. When trust comes back, so does hope and hope does not disappoint. Hope gives me the courage to fight another day. The battle is fierce and sometimes it is very ugly and dark, but the darker it gets, the brighter Jesus is. And the tighter I hang onto to Him.

More on faith...

Conversations with my husband have proven life changing over the past 17 years. We had such a conversation this past week. We were discussing the idea of "safety". I grew up thinking that God would always protect me from harm. I must've twisted this in my head as a child that if I was obedient, did the right things, that God would watch over me and keep me safe. I said something harsh with emotion ....."God doesn't keep me safe. He promises to be with me, but he doesn't promise to keep our children from being abducted, or disease infesting us or even rape....evil happens all around us."

His wise response went something like this....."I wonder what our lives would look like if we saw all the evil that God constantly holds back. I wonder if we would then realize how safe we really are."

Another stone to add to my pile of bricks that are building up my weak and feeble faith. Slowly, one by one, God is putting them in place. My prayer is at the end of my life, God will call me faithful, not because of anything that I can muster up, but because He has made something beautiful in me to present to King Jesus. I know that in my own strength, I would have empty hands.

Faith...

I bought this Vinyl lettering today at JoAnn's.....I'm going to put it somewhere in our family room.

Faith...is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.


I like this because I'm tired of all the old sayings..I won't quote them because my luck, they're probably in scripture. One way that I've been making peace with my dad's cancer is to realize that we live in a world that's broken. What if I taught that to my children? The reason we need Jesus is because everything is broken. Chris Tomlin's song comes to my mind..."He wraps Himself in light, and darkness tries to hide...".

We aren't promised life without disease, or autism or anencephaly. We are promised to have troubles. But, we can take hope in the fact that Jesus came to overcome this. He is the light. All hope then, is in Him. He promises to never leave us. To always be with us It doesn't matter if I feel it or not. I can still believe this with my whole heart. Little by little my heart is warming up again to this truth.

It's such a process.

"Everything is possible for him who believes." Mark 9:23

This is the verse at the top of my reading today out of, "Streams in the Dessert". I want to quote some of it. I had just sent an email today to some friends, expressing my desire to want to trust God with my dad's death. I was saying that it was a process for me, and the process feels long, especially when I look into my precious mom's eyes and see how very sad she is. Here's my reading....

The "everything" mentioned here does not always come simply by asking, because God is always seeking to teach you the way of faith. Your training for a life of faith requires many areas of learning, including the trial of faith, the discipline of faith, the patience of faith, and the courage of faith. Often you will pass through many stages before you finally realize the result of faith - namely, the victory of faith.

Genuine moral fiber is developed by enduring the discipline of faith. When you have made your request to God, and the answer still has not come, what are you to do? Keep on believing His Word! Never be swayed from it by what you may see or feel. Then as you stand firm, your power and experience is being developed, strengthened, and deepened. When you remain unswayed form your stance of faith, even in view of supposed contradictions to God's Word, you grow stronger on every front.

God will often purposely delay in giving you His answer, and in fact the delay is just as much an answer to your prayer as is the fulfillment when it comes. He worked this way in the lives of all the great Bible characters, Abraham, Mosses, and Elijah were not great in the beginning but made great through the discipline of their faith. Only through that discipline were they then equipped for the work to which God had called them.

The discipline of faith...this just put things into perspective for me.

Just for fun...

I have a two year old. If you've gotten my answering machine..you'll hear her sreaming in the backround. We affectionately call her the "screamer".

Last week I took her to County Market. She screamed because she didn't get one of those truck carts. They were all gone. You can imagine her reaction when we would turn a corner and see a mom with a young child in a truck cart and she didn't have one. Kicking and screaming like you wouldn't believe. If you're ever at Target, Walmart or County Market and you hear a screaming child, it's probably mine. We rarely get through a store without something tripping her off. I refuse to leave her home. Shopping is necessary and so far, God has helped me to remain calm and just go about my business and ignore all the staring people.

Well, today I thought we had hit the jackpot! Screamer had a truck cart! You should've seen her clapping with joy as she loaded herself in behind the black sticky wheel. She turned corners and did all kinds of amazing things in her truck cart. For the first time in months, we made it through a whole shopping trip with no screaming. Or so I thought.

As we inched towards the check out counter I heard the familiar sound. "NOOOOOOO! TWO MORE MINUTES!!!" Followed by screams. Yep..now she was mad because her truck cart experience was coming to an end. I managed to pay for my groceries, bag them up, while..you guessed it..she was still screaming. All.the.way.to.the.truck.

As I was loading my kicking and screaming toddler into the truck and pushing her into her car seat..I just laughed. I can't wait to tell these stories to her children. Maybe she'll be blessed with a screamer, too. And if I'm really mean, I'll say the dreaded pat comment, "Oh, honey. Enjoy them while they're young. It goes by so fast."

And that's a bad thing?

Clean Queen...

So, my two year old, Faith, is quite the Clean Queen. She loves to use the vacuum that her auntie bought for her. She is constantly wiping her place off at the table, or claiming that her cup is "sticky sticky" (every phrase is in two's). Well, tonight, my little Clean Queen shocked the pants off me, you might say.

The girls and I were in the bathroom and Bethany was standing on a stool while I trimmed her nails over the sink. All of a sudden, I felt this little soft rubbing motion on my bum.

It so happens that the Clean Queen had grabbed a wad of toilet paper and was helping her Mama out. I think I'll live with her when I'm old.

Comic Relief....

My two year old dug out the safety latch that was under the kitchen sink, yep...you guessed it. Right next to all the cleaners...and latched the two cabinet doors together. I told her thank you. Now she will be safe.

(I gave up on the latches about 6 months ago, because she is a Gizmo and figures out seatbelts, buttons, latches, etc.)

Thanks for the laugh, today, Faith!