The Battle for Contentment

These last few, very long months have ushered in sorrow, hardship, darkness, and anguish of soul for our family.  Having a child with special needs is never easy, but having to care for a child with special needs when the world turns upside down, health services cease, and community supports are ripped away from you makes life feel impossible. 

A child with Autism thrives on structure and routine and knowing what to expect.  When things become outside of one's control, anxiety ravishes the mind and body.  Enter mid-March: school suddenly gets closed disrupting the weekly, daily schedule of school, mental health supports and therapies at school, and keeping the mind engaged. In home therapies must turn to virtual Zoom meetings. Our oldest's world was turned upside down thus turning our lives upside down.  His only hope was that he would be going to Allegany Boys Camp, a therapeutic wilderness residential program on April 1.  This young man valiantly tried to hold it together with the hope of having a schedule and not hearing about the chaos of the world once he got to camp.  Enter April: Two days before admission to camp, we got the anguishing phone call that the Maryland Health Department has shut down the camp and all boys are to remain home until it's deemed safe enough for them to return.  In that one moment, the one thread of hope keeping our son from coming unglued was ripped away from him resulting in the worst melt-down ever and the worst night of my life where I was truly unable to help my son in his anguish.  I will never forget the helpless feeling of that dark night when my son locked himself in his room threatening to kill himself and kill us if we came in.  His soul was being tormented, and he needed skilled mental help.  I called the crisis line and was told the most horrific thing: most ERs are not taking mental health patients right now due to the virus, and if we called around and found one, only the patient would be allowed in (by himself without a parent - impossible for a child with Autism!) and that psychiatric hospitals were not taking in new patients.  My only consolation according to the therapist was that if my son killed himself, I wouldn't be held liable.  That was supposed to ease my fears????  I felt my heart die that night.

During all of this time, Tim and I still had to work.  I was becoming more busy since births don't stop, and some moms were switching from hospital births to home births.  On top of it, I have been filling  in for another midwifery practice while that midwife was on maternity leave since the end of April (I had agreed counting on the fact that Josh would be at camp). The juggle of work, trying to keep Josh calm, and the guilt of neglecting David began to overwhelm me.  It didn't help that we couldn't just access the help of community supports as we've been able to do in the past, although we did enjoy times of reprieve going to Tim's parents' house in order to save our sanity. As weeks turned into a month plus with no hope of the camp reopening, it began to become harder to pray.  I felt like a broken record with my prayers never getting past the ceiling.  I was losing hope of deliverance.  The prayers of friends and family carried us through and were a lifeline to us.  My prayers for the camp to open faded into, "Lord Jesus, please return today or call us home to be with you!"  Hope of deliverance from this current suffering faded, and I found myself just trying to survive each day trusting that God's grace had to be sufficient for each day. 

Meditating through a Precepts study on Hope helped to sustain me and remind me that no suffering in this present world can take away the hope (certain expectation) I have of God's salvation.  I have to remind myself almost daily that

"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.  For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." - II Corinthians 4:16-18

These troubles do NOT feel light or momentary, and it is so easy to lose heart.  The daily violent meltdowns wear me down and rob me of joy and hope.  To see my son in anguish and my other son silently hurting in the chaos brings sorrow and anguish to my soul.  I get discouraged for feeling discouraged and losing hope.  Then I am reminded that I am not alone in those feelings.  After all, the Sons of Korah wrote:

"Why, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?  Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God." Psalm 42:5 and repeated in Psalm 42:5 and 43:5

The NASB uses the phrase "why are you in turmoil within me" instead of "disturbed within me."  I think both translations appropriately describe the state of my soul.  Especially as bad went to worse resulting in our having to hospitalize our son once again (thankfully psychiatric hospitals are taking new patients out of necessity) just last week, I found comfort in knowing I'm not the only one to feel so low and distressed and that even in the midst of such feelings, I can still hope in God and praise Him.

In these low times, I can remember:

"But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him, on those whose hope is in his unfailing love, to deliver them from death and keep them alive in famine.  We wait in hope for the Lord; he is our help and our shield.  In him our hearts rejoice, for we trust in his holy name.  May your unfailing love be with us, Lord, even as we put our hope in you." - Psalm 33:18-22

As I search my heart through all of this, I have found a huge obstacle in my sanctification process.  A dear sister and fellow sufferer in Christ sent me an encouraging email and reminded me of an important lesson that Paul had to learn that is essential for each of us to learn and that is to be content!  That reminder spoke directly to my heart! Paul says in Philippians 4:11, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances."  He goes on to say in Philippians 4:12b-13, "I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength." It is so hard to be content when daily life is such a battle.  My life is easy to what Paul endured, so if remembering that he can do all things through Christ who gives him strength, then so can I!  My new prayer is now, "Please help me to be content in the circumstances of today."  With daily news of this virus nonsense and resulting (and unnecessary and damaging shut-down, in my opinion), it is so hard to be content!  Yet, somehow, I have to keep on going and remembering that God is in control and working ALL things for my good and His glory (Romans 8:28).  I may not like how He's doing it, but I must find a way to be content in His sovereign will for my life and that of my family's.  I have to remember Paul's words from II Corinthians 4:17 (passage shared above) that my "light and momentary troubles are achieving for [me] an eternal glory that far outweighs them all."  That battle for contentment is real, but I must keep fighting!

Until I reach my eternal glory, I must

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." - Romans 12:12

I resolve so to do!

2019: A Year of Many Changes

If we learned anything in 2019, it’s that God is still the God of miracles.  We entered 2019 feeling pretty hopeless about our situation with our oldest, and by Spring, things went from bad to worse giving us no hope of ever bringing him home again.  Out of desperation, we rallied together a group of prayer warriors, changed up the way we were praying for our oldest, and watched God do the miraculous taking us from the lowest of low—even leaving the doctor and therapists hopeless—to a complete turnaround when our son surprised us and his therapist five days later by stating that he has changed his mind and wants to come home.  The transformation was so radical, we were all skeptical that it was going to last, but praise be to God, it continued to the point that our son was finally able to come home for good December 18.  He has changed in so many ways not just in his desire to come home, but in his relationship with God, desire to be in church, and desire to serve. Only God could transform him and cause all of these remarkable changes in his life.   Bringing our son home was exciting and scary at the same time.  We had to make many changes to the way our household functions, but this was the answer to prayer we never thought we’d see. We know that his mental health status could change at any time, but we know that God will continue to meet all of his and our needs according to His good purpose and glory.

David, now 13 and in 8th grade, faced changes to his school and adjusted to having his closest friend no longer be at his school.  He also had to change Taekwondo facilities, but the change allowed him to be under a more skilled instructor with more rigorous instruction, and by this Spring, he will have earned his black belt!  He continues to love playing his violin and most recently (and unexpectedly) played his violin in an orchestra for a 9-movement choral piece performed by two schools (including his) and many alumni and other people in the community.  David has also passed me in height this year leaving me to be the shortest in our family.

Josh, now 15 and in 10th grade, has grown over 6” this year!  He excels in his tech shop at school.  He has matured in many ways this year.  He is starting to think about his future and what he wants to do in life.  He enjoys helping to lead worship in his Sunday School class and loved singing tenor in our church choir for the Christmas Eve service.  It’s wonderful to see him using his talents for God’s glory.

After battling a back injury as a nurse for two years, I was forced out of my employment at Bayada Pediatrics at the end of January as we made settlement with workman’s comp for my injury, which has left me with permanent restrictions for how much weight I can carry preventing me from working as a nurse.  As God closed the door on nursing, God opened the door for me to fulfill my lifelong dream of becoming a midwife.  I started the training in February and finished the necessary requirements in November.  I just need to submit my final paperwork and take a test to become a Certified Professional Midwife.  I will be continuing at the clinic where I trained for more experience while starting my own practice over the next few months.  It has been a blessing to finally be doing what I believe I was made to do and use this profession to minister to so many women.

Tim has experienced changes at work as he continues to take on more ownership and responsibility at The Life Financial Group.  He has been learning how to lead his office team effectively to help them better serve their clients.  He has had a wonderful year at the office and loves being able to help people wisely manage their money and invest for their future.

We also changed churches this Spring after praying for direction about being in a church where the spiritual needs of our whole family could be met and our family could enjoy community.  We are enjoying building relationships and being challenged in our walks with God.

As we begin 2020, we know there are a lot of unknowns about the future, but we know we have a miracle-working God who is directing our lives daily.  We have confidence that God will guide us each step of the way.  We are eager to see what God has in store for us in this coming year and this new decade. To God be the glory!

Philippians 1:6: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

Good Gifts from the Hand of God

This summer, I have been going to a women's Bible study on the book of Ecclesiastes where we use the book Living Life Backward by David Gibson to guide us in our study.  It has been such an enriching and encouraging study for me and has made the book of Ecclesiastes come alive in a whole new way for me.  Ecclesiastes is quickly becoming one of my favorite books of the Bible!

I have already learned so much from the study and am hoping to write a blog post on that as well in the future, but for today, I have to put to words what I experienced a few weeks ago where God gave me simple but meaningful gifts that I knew immediately were straight from His loving hands for my enjoyment and happiness.

In the second chapter of Living Life Backward, Gibson states, "By relativizing all that we do in our days under the sun, death can change us from people who want to control life for gain into people who find deep joy in receiving life as a gift.  This is the main message of Ecclesiastes in a nutshell:  life in God's world is gift, not gain" (p. 37).  Later, he points out that the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 2 bursts the bubbles of pleasure and profit, materialism, and laughter with the blunt reality that we all die, but in the end, the Preacher bursts death's bubble by pointing out that if we live knowing the reality of death will come upon us, we can stop striving so hard for the good things for which we long but can learn to enjoy them for what they are.  Gibson says, "Death reorients us to our limitations as creatures and helps us to see God's good gifts right in front of us all the time, each and every day of our lives.  Instead of using these gifts as means to a greater end of securing ultimate gain in the world, we take the time to live inside the gifts themselves and see the hand of God in them" (p. 45).

Ecclesiastes 2:24-26 tells us that God is the one who gives enjoyment and satisfaction and wisdom and knowledge.  After reflecting on the fact that everything in life, the good and the bad, are gifts from God, I prayed asking God to help me find the gifts in life, because lately, with the heavy burdens and difficult trials, I have lost sight of the gifts and just cling to God's grace to sustain me each day and help me keep putting one foot in front of the other on a daily basis forgetting that God's grace itself is a gift.  The very next day, I saw a very visible and tangible answer to that prayer and stood in awe of God's goodness in even the small things.

I had been extremely stressed out trying to help everyone else get ready for a week-long retreat that I was quickly running out of time to get our family ready for the retreat.  We were going to a place where there weren't many food options, not to mention healthy ones.  Our inn did not provide breakfast, so I wanted to make sure I made enough things to bring with us that would suffice as breakfast that wouldn't spoil being kept in a cooler on ice since I knew we wouldn't have a fridge.  It also needed to be food items that didn't need to be heated up or cooked since we wouldn't have access to a stove or microwave (not that we use a microwave anyway). I also wanted to make sure we had food options to cover some of our lunches.  We were coming down to the wire for our departure, and even though I had my recipes chosen, I had yet to start the cooking and baking not to mention packing for the trip.  I have not been able to have gluten the last year due to increasing adverse reactions to it, and we were going to be having a campfire one night during the retreat and making S'mores.  I had really wanted to make myself some gluten-free graham crackers, but I knew there was no way I was going to be able to have time for that.  I also had wanted to make some special gluten-free chocolate chip cookies so that I could enjoy dessert when others had desserts that I couldn't have.  Again, not a chance of that happening.  We are very careful in what we eat and don't use refined sugars, gluten, most grains, and only healthy oils.  That being said, it's not as simple as running to the grocery store for gluten-free labeled products, so I was disappointed but content to be resigned that I won't be able to have special treats.

However, God had other plans for me.  On June 21, two days before our departure, I ran to the local farms where I get our groceries and decided to swing by a discount food store on my way home in case I could find some organic ingredients I needed that I wasn't successful in getting at the farms or couldn't get at the farms.  While there, I decided to peruse the aisles as sometimes, they have organic treasures that fit within our dietary choices.  Lo and behold, God had everything I needed there, and more than I could have ever dreamed.  With each shocking find, I immediately thanked God for the special gift.  It almost became comical with how many special gifts directly from God that I found in the store.  I literally laughed out loud at God's goodness to me that day.  I found the organic milk that came in juice box size that would keep better than the raw organic milk I get from the farm to go with the granola I was planning to make.  Ordinarily, I make our yogurt from the raw milk I get from the farm, and I had run out of yogurt that week and knew I didn't have time to make more to go with the granola and/or fruit I was planning to bring as a breakfast or lunch option.  The discount store happened to have plain organic whole milk yogurt sitting on the shelf waiting for me to claim it.  The top two gifts from God caught me totally by surprise and made me tear up right there in the store.  There on the shelf sat a box of gluten-free graham crackers with acceptable ingredients and not too far down the aisle from that were two boxes of chocolate chip cookies also made with the right ingredients.  I have never seen either of those two products before, and I have looked since to find them again since they were so good, but I have not found them (up until today when I found one box of the chocolate chip cookies).  I know God put them there and led me to them because He cared about me and my silly longings and gave me those precious and delicious gifts for my enjoyment and happiness.  God is so good!

Finding those gifts from God have been a great encouragement to me to keep looking for God's gifts in every day whether they be something as silly as needing healthy and gluten-free chocolate chip cookies or protection from an accident or an answer to prayer.  I find myself always looking and praising God for those gifts as I see them.  I marvel at how easy they are to find when you are looking for them and how we so often go through life blind to them.  I am working on living life in light of death and enjoying the daily gifts God gives to me to enjoy in the moment because I never know if it will be my last.

Learning to be Content

Last month, I had the pleasure and blessing of attending a women's retreat where I was truly ministered to through the sessions digging into God's Word and exposing our obsessions with self and comfort that are preventing us from flourishing.  The music was also so spiritually challenging and was so cohesive with the truths being presented and did a great job pointing us to God reminding us of his sovereignty, love, and care.

As I had mentioned in my blog post "Waiting for the Morning," God has been convicting me of my lack of contentment.  The depths of my discontentment were exposed at this women's retreat.  The speaker at the retreat was author and Crossway editor Lydia Brownback, and each women was given one of her devotional books she has written on various topics.  The book I happened to get was on Contentment.  I laughed at God's sovereignty in that when I simply chose the packet in which the book was beautifully tucked based on the green cover I saw (my favorite color is green).

I have been meditating on the devotionals since then and working hard to be content on a daily basis.  I have far to go, but I am making progress and experiencing greater daily joy as a result in a shift in my focus--upward not inward or outward.

When comparing the present to the past and future, Lydia says, "[The present] is better because God is the one who brought us where we are today.  And the God who led us here is good, kind, and let's not forget, purposeful.  Everything he does in our lives, everywhere he leads us, is designed to fulfill his primary intention for us, which is to know him better.  Contentment does not lie around the next corner.  It is not waiting for us on the other side of today's difficulty, nor is it lost with yesterday.  Contentment is where God is, and God is with us today" (Contentment by Lydia Brownback, p. 24).

Earlier in the book, Lydia says, "Contentment in the valleys comes when we stop fighting so hard to climb out.  God is the one who leads us into the valleys, and he will lead us back out in his time.  God ordains valleys for our good; why else would a good and kind God allow them?  Trusting God in our hard times is the way to contentment--not just trusting him to get us out, but trusting his goodness while we are still in them" (Contentment by Lydia Brownback, p. 16).

The truths of these words were enough to knock the wind out of me and make me really reflect on how I was living my day to day life.  I have continued to trust God in the hard times.  I learned from an early age of trials to not let difficulties rob me of my trust in God.  However, what I have been failing to do is look at the hard times through the lens that God would have me view them.  I am not content in the hard times.  I am often distracted with praying for them to end quickly and waiting for the light at the end of the tunnel that I don't realize what God is doing in me in the moment.  After all, James 1:2-4, 12 says, "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 so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything...Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him."  The process within the trials has purpose, and I am missing that truth too often because I am too busy fighting the process!

Hebrews 13:5b says to "be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."  Going back to the phrases I find myself saying often these days: "God is ENOUGH!"  or "God's God this!"  I conclude as this verse promises -- God is with me, and He will never let me go.  As I shared one of my favorite songs in my post "Waiting for the Morning," God will hold me fast.  I CAN be content in being kept in His wondrous care just as Paul says in Philippians 4:12-13, "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength."

Many of you are aware of the current situation with our oldest especially if you have read my post "Learning to Let it All Go."  Things with him continue to get more difficult, and he is becoming more hardened toward God and his faith in Him.  We are very concerned about his spiritual state.  Our prayers are often pleas with God to hold onto his heart and not let him go.

I read Jen Wilkin's book None Like Him last Fall.  It's a book that digs deeply into the incommunicable attributes of God and how we often vainly try to take on those attributes ourselves.  That book totally changed the depth of how I view God and his majesty and awesomeness and convicted me in so many ways.  I turn back to that book frequently to be reminded of who God is and who I am.  Not too long ago, as we were really struggling with our concerns about Josh's spiritual state and current rebellion against God, this statement by Jen jumped out at me: "We cannot create hope where there is hopelessness...We cannot create repentance where there is unrepentance, but we can cry out to the God who can." I can be content that I am resting in the one and only Self-existent, Creator-God who is fully capable in continuing His miraculous work of redemption and sanctification not only in my life but in my son's life as well.

Tim and I spend some time each night having devotions together as a couple.  As part of our devotions, we use the Tabletalk devotional booklet.  I love what Dr. James Harvey III said in his devotional for May 5-6 called "Rediscovering Contentment," and I have made his statement my resolve:  "I am going to lead the life the Lord has assigned to me, the life to which God has called me.  I am going to find satisfaction and joy in Christ, whether in a season of trial or blessing" (p. 37).

Waiting for the Morning

Sometimes, I feel as if I am suffocating as I drown in our trials and sorrows that seem to come in continuous waves over my head.  Other times, I feel that I am just about to the top ready to pop my head above the water and gasp for a breath of air.  I haven't experienced the comforts on being on the other side in quite a while, but I'm learning that it's okay because God's got me where He wants me, and He will hold me fast!

As the wearying months go by one by one, I find comfort in phrases and songs that the Holy Spirit brings to my mind always at just the right times to keep me going.  Scripture continues to be a solace daily where passages I read end up being just what I needed to read to carry me through yet another day.

• For the last year and a half, one of my favorite songs has been "He Will Hold Me Fast" sung by the Gettys (ORIGINAL WORDS VV 1-2 BY ADA HABERSHONNEW WORDS AND MUSIC BY MATT MERKER©2013 GETTY MUSIC PUBLISHING (BMI) / MATT MERKER MUSIC (BMI) (ADMIN BY MUSICSERVICES.ORG).  It has been a comfort at many points throughout the darkest of times.  David and I recorded it a little while ago to encourage my grandmother who was struggling with health issues.  As you listen to the words, you will understand why it can bring anyone who is a child of God comfort.

• I have been realizing God's love in a new and real way lately, and some powerful songs have really helped turn my eyes upward to my great God whose deep, deep love never ends and that will never let me go.  More on that in my blog post "Love That Will Never Let Me Go."
• I long for the morning, for light at the end of the tunnel, for newness.  These verses of the morning bring comfort to my heart and hope for each day:

• Psalm 30:5b (ESV) - "Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning."
• Lamentations 3:22-23 (NIV) - "Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."
• Psalm 130: 5,6 (ESV) - "I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope; my soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen for the morning, more than watchmen for the morning."
• Yet as I long for the morning, God has really convicted me lately about my contentment or I should say lack of it!  I am prone to long and wait for the morning, but I need to make being content in all circumstances--including the difficult and dark ones that don't ever seem to end--my daily practice.  I'm starting to get it, but it's definitely a work in progress.  More about that in my blog post "Learning to be Content."
• "God's Got This" or "God is Enough" - I can't tell you how many times a day, I say these phrases in my head reminding me of the reality of my circumstances.  I honestly don't know how I could continue on if I didn't have God or if He didn't have total control of my daily circumstances.

As I wait for the morning, I will find comfort that I am being held fast by my great God who is so full of love and has perfect control of my circumstances.  In the good and the bad, I will chose to praise God and say, "Blessed Be Your Name!"

"Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful 
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name

Every blessing You pour out, I'll 
Turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name

Blessed be Your name
When the sun's shining down on me
When the world's 'all as it should be'
Blessed be Your name

Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering 
Though there's pain in the offering 
Blessed be Your name

Every blessing You pour out I'll 
Turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name...

You give and take away
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

God you give and take away
Oh you give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your name
Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be Your glorious name"

Words by Matt Redman

Coming Back from the Brink of Death

On Wednesday, November 22, 2017, I had to have an urgent, simple, outpatient surgery.  I was discharged that afternoon and cleared by the surgeon to travel up to my parents' house as originally planned for our Thanksgiving holiday.  Little did I know that our holiday plans would drastically change within a matter of hours.  As we began our 2.5 hour journey by car, I was in pain and nauseated--something my doctor said would be a possibility and had instructed me to take Toradol for pain and Zofran for nausea.  Because I wanted to make the car ride as comfortable as possible and given my current symptoms, I chose to take 1 Toradol and 1 Zofran.  Instead of getting better as the journey continued, I got worse.  By the time I arrived to my parents' house, I was feeling terrible.  It was all I could do to sit on the couch and be still.  As the night wore on, I began to feel like my head was in a fog.  I knew something was wrong but didn't have enough cognition left to figure it out.  Twice, I asked my husband what was wrong with me which befuddled him, and he just reminded me I was tired from having surgery that day.  Shortly after that, I lost all conscious awareness and memory.  My husband claims I mumbled responses to a few more of his questions to communicate basic needs, but I have no recollection of any of these discussions.

Tim carried me downstairs to our awaiting bedroom and put me to bed.  At 1 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day, Thursday, November 23, I screamed a "bone-chilling, blood-curdling cry" that will forever be etched into Tim's memory and made him jump out of bed and turn on the light.  He found me in a full Grand mal seizure.  Tim managed to lower me to the floor to prevent me from falling out of bed and put me on my side as I foamed at the mouth with blood running out the side of my mouth thanks to my biting my tongue.  The seizure lasted about 90 seconds according to Tim.  Because I am the one who makes the medical decisions in the house, Tim decided to wait for me to wake up to ask me what we should do.  I never woke up.  By 3:00 a.m., I had vomited all over myself.  After the second vomiting episode, Tim was really starting to get concerned, but was too afraid to leave me to go up 2 floors to awake the rest of the household.  Just before 6, David awoke, and sensing something wasn't right went downstairs to find Tim and me.  Tim hurried David to wake up my parents to let them know we needed to go to the hospital.  That started a flurry of activity as preparations were made for my dad to drive Tim and me to the hospital 20 minutes away in Scranton.  After another vomiting episode in the car, we arrived at the hospital where the real urgency quickly became evident to all.

I was whisked off to Trauma 1 and pounced on by many specialists.  I was unconscious and unresponsive.  However, I had a lot of meaningless movements that showed agitation and inhibited medical care making medical intervention difficult.  I was injected with Versed, a sedative, to assist the staff in getting blood drawn and an IV line in.  I was given a rating of a 7 in the Glasgow Coma Scale which falls in the severe brain damage category.  My pupils were not dilating or responding, I had no signs of cognition, and I had severely abnormal flexion of extremities to give you a small glimpse of how bad it looked.

Due to my depressed mental status and agitation, the decision was made to intubate me and put me on a ventilator.  I was also further sedated in order for a CT scan of my brain to be done to check for a brain bleed (thankfully, the CT scan showed no brain bleed).  My preliminary blood tests came back with the most alarming result showing my Sodium level to be 121 which is dangerously low!  My EKG also showed some issues going on with my heart which isn't a surprise with low sodium, and I was placed on a heart monitor.  At that point, the doctors were thinking it was too late and that I wasn't going to make it, but they made every effort to get me as stable as possible.  The parish nurse was called in to say a final prayer over me.  The doctors began to treat some other electrolytes out of whack and get me hydrated.  Tim said at one point, I had 4 usable IV sites in my arms and had 3 IV sites being used at the same time to get meds and IV solutions into me.  I also had an Nasogastric tube (NGT) down which they were using to get electrolyte tablets into my stomach.  Once I was stable, they transferred me to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit).

My ventilator

I had a foley catheter inserted into my bladder to keep my bladder draining, and thankfully, the thermometer gage on it alerted the staff to a quickly elevating body temperature.  They discovered I had aspiration pneumonia from aspirating on my vomit, so they quickly responded with IV antibiotics.  Tylenol was given via NGT and a fan was brought in to get my temperature down.

As the hours went by, and I remained alive, and my sodium levels started to increase, the thinking turned to maybe I will survive, but will I be permanently brain damaged or will I ever wake up or will I remain in this vegetative state?  I also continued to be very agitated and was allegedly pretty persistent in trying to pull out all of the many tubes and wires going into me.  While I was intubated and breathing on a ventilator, I had to be restrained in order to keep me from pulling the breathing tube out.  Tim claims that didn't stop me from trying to slide my body down so that I could try to reach the tube with my tied up hands anyway.  Who knew I could be such a fighter when unresponsive??? As the day wore on, I passed a spontaneous breathing trial and was maintaining proper oxygen levels, so I was weaned from the vent and extubated and placed on an oxygen mask.

Hand restraints to keep me from pulling out all of my tubes

Breathing on my own but with an oxygen mask

In the evening, my parents brought David to see me.  He sweetly sat by my bed and held my limp, unresponsive hand while I continued to lie there with oxygen going in via nasal cannula by that point.  As the sun went down, I got more and more agitated, so David couldn't stay at my side any longer.  He was such a trooper through the whole, scary ordeal.  [He won't talk about how he is feeling after going through all of that which concerns us.  We pray he will open up when he is ready.]

Overnight Thursday into Friday, I was taken off of oxygen completely
Note: David wanted to help calm me down while he was with me and did my hair.  Do you like my hair dew?

Holding steady

I finally had to be sedated again to keep me calm, and Tim entered another sleepless night waiting at my bedside praying that I would wake up.  Sometime early Friday morning, I woke up for the first time.  I was very groggy and pretty confused.  I was shocked to learn that I was in the hospital then succumbed to sleep once more.  Later that morning, I woke up again to relearn I was in the hospital, discover that I was in a hospital in Scranton (for a while, I couldn't figure out how I had even got up there since I didn't remember the drive up to my parents' house Wednesday night at first), and then I felt panicked when I learned I was in the ICU!  I was also disheartened to learn that I had completely missed Thanksgiving!  It took a few more periods of sleep and being awake before I learned the whole story of how I got there.

Sleeping peacefully after having become responsive once again

By the afternoon, I was allowed to get out of bed for the first time.  It set off the heart alarm making staff come running, but it felt so good to get up.  A physical therapist and occupational therapist later came by to help me walk a little bit for the first time.  I learned a new meaning of baby steps!  I had a visit from one of my aunts and then my parents and sister and David.  I am sure David was so happy to see me awake, and it was so good to give him a hug and truly hold his hand.

Working with the PT and OT to walk for the first time

My second walk was with my handsome date as my escort

I was so much better come late that evening, the doctor decided to move me from the ICU to the main floor.  Ironically, I ended up being moved to their pediatric unit.  It was very weird for me, a pediatric nurse, to be a patient in a pediatric unit!  I continued to set off the heart alarm each time I got up, but at least then, only one person came running.

Saturday morning in the pediatric unit

Enjoying our visit with David

On Saturday, I was feeling stronger and enjoyed a visit from David, my parents, sister, and brother.  We were then given the good news that I could go home that evening if my last blood test results came back fine and after I had a brain MRI to follow up on the findings of the CT Scan.  [Back in 2011, I was diagnosed with a brain lesion.  Cancer, Multiple Sclerosis, Lupus, and a parasite were all ruled out, but the four neurologists I did see couldn't figure out what it was.  The decision was made to repeat the MRI yearly and follow up with the neurologist I chose to be my treating neurologist.  After two subsequent yearly MRIs showed no changes, the decision was made to repeat the MRI every few years.  My last MRI was in 2013.  The CT scan revealed another lesion and changes to the previous lesion, and the MRI in the hospital that day ended up showing definitive changes.  I follow up with my neurologist this coming Wednesday to find out her thoughts on the changes and to discuss any long term damage to my brain that may have occurred from the dangerously low sodium levels.]

At 9:30 on Saturday evening, I was discharged following the completion of the MRI.  I arrived back at my parents' house by 10:00 to get settled into bed for the night.  The next morning, we woke up, packed up the car, and left to head back home swinging by the Lancaster area to pick up Josh for a home visit from his residential center he had been at for the month.  Once we were home, I got settled on the couch so I could enjoy seeing my family together and be able to interact with them as I was able.  It was a happy day despite the fact that I was tired and weak.

Settled at home and happy to spend time with Josh

So many people have asked what happened since all of this had been so sudden and unexpected, so I thought blogging about it would be helpful to give a thorough recounting and perhaps save me or Tim from having to rehash it several times a day.  There is still so much more to the continuing story, but perhaps that will be for more blog posts to come.  We are very much still trying to process all that has happened and figure out what God is trying to teach us.  We remain confident that God will work all of this out for our good and His glory and are praising Him for the miracles He worked in my life the two days when I walked on the brink of death unknown to me in my unresponsive state.  One other thing we are confident of is that God's not finished with me on earth yet!  I still have work to do!

It Takes a Village to Raise a Special Needs Child

The last two weeks have been utterly horrific and ones that I pray we will never have to repeat.  Josh came completely unglued emotionally leading to terrible and horrifying behaviors.  It was like reliving the unstable days of years past when his bipolar was not well controlled.  He has been stable for the last 3 years, but since we decided to do a family missions trip because Josh was so stable, it seems as if Satan is pulling out all of the stops to get us to change our mind.

We spent the last week and a half deliberating about whether or not to hospitalize Josh.  It was the most agonizing decision to make knowing he was completely out of control and out of our ability to control yet knowing that if we send him back to the hospital, it will be yet another traumatic experience for him complicated by the fact that the hospital simply drugs the kids to make them calm, keeps them in front of a TV screen all day to keep them under control, and feeds them all of kinds of food that we do not put into our bodies not to mention the gluten and refined sugars that would be served that are huge triggers for Josh and his mood/behaviors.  It was a no-win situation, but we were quickly running out of other options.

Throughout this struggle, we had dear friends from church who regularly checked in with us, sent me encouraging texts including reminders of helpful Scripture passages, and who came at a last minute's notice to allow us to get out of the chaos for a quick breath of fresh air and a chance to celebrate Tim's passing of his Certified Financial Planner exam.  I was encouraged by a phone conversation I had with one of Josh's youth leaders who was concerned about Josh and his behaviors and wanting to know how the youth leaders can help him be more successful in youth group then praying with me that God would help Josh through this difficult time and return to stability.  David's Christian counselor who had done a joint session with the boys the last week and could tell Josh was coming undone sent me an email to check in and see how we were doing and see if she can help in anyway.  Josh's school was extremely concerned and offered their help and support to us and did all that was necessary to help keep him under control as much as it was possible.  Josh's psychiatrist saw Josh on an emergency basis then gave me her cell phone number so that I could contact her at any time (and she walked with us through the battle of whether or not to hospitalize several different days over the last two weeks).  She is also a blessing in that she doesn't always see medication as the answer to problems.  Josh's nutritionist responded to my email asking if she had any suggestions for ways we can help Josh by offering her chiropractor husband's services before his office hours began to do some specialized neurological adjustments to help Josh, and as he did so, he spoke the Gospel to him.  The nutritionist then offered to squeeze Josh into her busy schedule to see if anything from a nutritional and supplemental standpoint could be done to help him.  We had another friend who still willingly came in the midst of the chaos to watch the boys so we didn't have to cancel our plans to go to a concert in Philly that we had bought tickets for back in December.  I had another friend who deals with similar drama in her household come alongside of me and check in with me all while being an encouragement just through her mutual understanding.  We also had many friends and family members praying for Josh and for us, and prayer is just what all of us needed!

I can't imagine having to do these last two weeks alone!  I am thankful for the village God has built up around us to stand with us in trials and support and encourage us.  Had it not been for the support of those faithful villagers, I am not sure what things would be looking like right now.  God through His goodness and providence has helped us have all that we needed to walk through this fire.

With the sudden return to stability Josh experienced yesterday (most likely due to the prayers, neurological adjustment, and supplement changes), we are more than ready to take deep breaths of fresh air.  However as I do so, I am praising God for our village and the way He used dear people to help us get to the other side.  Raising a child with special needs is not for the faint of heart, but it's also impossible to do alone.  It truly does take a village to raise a special needs child, and I am grateful that God has not left us alone!

No Matter the Cost

As our family missions trip draws ever nearer, we are busy making plans and ironing out details and making reservations.  We are excitedly sharing our plans and desires for our trip with friends and family and asking for prayer and financial support.  We are also, more importantly, trying to mentally and spiritually prepare ourselves for the weeks ahead and the actual trip as we know that we "do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Ephesians 6:12).

In my own personal preparations, I just finished reading the book The Insanity of God: A True Story of Faith Resurrected by Nik Ripken, which has been a HUGE blessing to me personally and a significant spiritual growth stimulator in my own life.  This book has incredible stories of Christians who suffered through significant persecution yet kept their faith and had God do amazing work in and through their lives and/or deaths. I have been reminded through these stories and lessons the author learned through his conversations with these believers that God doesn't call us to go and make disciples to areas that are safe.  He simply calls us to GO (Matthew 28:19-20).  At the same time, Jesus warned his disciples and us that the world will hate us and persecute us (John 15).  We are reminded by the Apostle Paul that we are crucified with Christ and no longer live but instead, Christ lives in us (Galatians 2:20).  He reminds us that we should desire to "know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming like him in his death" (Philippians 3:10).

When we decided to do this family missions trip, we knew the risks we would be taking in going to a country suffering from unrest and where our dear sisters and brothers in Christ suffer various forms of persecution for their faith.  One of the churches we will be worshiping in is on terrorist group hit lists.  In a country with less than 1% Christians, it can get very lonely for believers, and the temptation to lose faith is great.  On the flip side, the opportunity for faith to grow and be ever resilient is greater for them than it is for us here in the comforts of our freedoms and our assumption of safety.  We want to go and minister to and encourage these dear saints.  At the same time, we hope to be challenged spiritually by their faith and learn to be ever faithful in the midst of suffering.  We want our fellowship with the believers to be a time of edification for them and us alike as we bear each others burdens and sharpen one another helping each other to be more like Christ so that through our lives more people will be led to Christ.  Isn't that the Gospel in action?

Some of our well-meaning friends and family have asked us whether or not we are truly being wise and thinking about our boys in choosing to take them into a dangerous area.  While we appreciate their care and concern for our family's well-being and safety, we have to follow God's calling in this area.  We have discussed with the boys the risks and allowed them to have the final say in whether or not they think it's worth it, and they are 100% behind this and so very eager to go.  We truly believe God has called us to do this, and He has been confirming this call in so many different ways (some even miraculous!) since we made this decision.  God hasn't called us to do this to put us in danger.  He has promised to be with us "always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:20).  Our lives (and our boys' lives) are not our own -- they have been bought with a price, and hence, we must glorify God with our bodies (I Corinthians 6:19-20).  Our lives are nothing to us, and like Paul, our desire is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord has given us - testifying to the Gospel of God's grace (Acts 20:24)!  We have been reminded by a dear friend from this area that we are truly "bullet-proof"!  No bullet will take our lives or wound us unless it was God's ordained "bullet" because His work in us on this earth is complete or He has greater plans for us.

Are there fears and concerns?  Sure, we are, after all, human!  What's greater is God's call on our lives to take up His cross and follow Him and carry out the Great Commission wherever He leads us - right here in Elverson, PA right now and in other places near and far away as He directs our steps.

This great God whom we serve sacrificed His own Son's life through a terrible, painful death on the cross so that our sins could be wiped clean, and we could once and for all have right standing before God and a home in His presence for all eternity.  He intricately formed us in our mother's wombs giving us the breath of life and ordaining all of our days.  He made us His children when we were filthy in our sins unable to desire Him.  He has walked with us through our various struggles in this life and has never failed us.  He comforts us with His Word and His church universal.  He strengthens us and showers us with His grace to survive each day He has planned for us.  This is love too great for me to comprehend!

As Isaac Watts penned in his great hymn "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross," "Were the whole realm of nature mine, that were a present far too small; love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all."  No matter the cost, I give my life and the lives of my boys to our great God!  Here I stand.  I can do no other!

The Greatest Valentine

As I left the house yesterday morning on Valentine's Day heading to work, I enjoyed the Valentine God sent me in the form of a beautiful sunrise.  The sky was painted in the most brilliant and vibrant pink colors.  As my eyes drank in the beauty of God's Valentine for me at that moment, it made me think about how God has given me the Greatest Valentine in the form of His precious Son and all of the lavish gifts He has given me since His Son.

His love for me was poured out as Jesus' blood ran down his body as He hung on the cross innocent of any wrong-doing but bearing my filthy sins on His body and taking my punishment.

His love is poured out for me when He sees me as holy and just because He sees me through His victorious and Holy Son.

His love is poured out for me on a daily basis as he sovereignly controls my daily events to make me more like Him.  Even the mundane tasks that demand my time and attention are a result of His love.

His love is poured out for me through the many blessings He gives me when I deserve only punishment.

His love is poured out for me in the grace He gives me as I walk through the waters and the fires of life's trials that only make me come out more refined as gold.

His love is poured out for me when I daily open His Word - His Love Letter to me - to hear from Him, learn more about Him, and grow to be like Him.  Yesterday, I stumbled upon the verse Zephaniah 3:17 and was awed by the demonstration of love in it.  As God, He has every right to damn me to eternal hell, but yet, instead of rebuking me, He chooses to REJOICE OVER ME with SINGING!  After all of the countless times I have held my precious boys close to my heart and sang over them to comfort them, to make them happy, to help them know they were loved, my great God does the same thing to me!  What an amazing thought!

His love is poured out for me when I spend time in prayer fellowshipping with him, praising Him, and lifting requests before His powerful throne of grace.

His love is poured out for me through the love of my husband who works so hard to provide for me, pitches in around the house to make my life easier, and loves our boys.

His love is poured out for me through my two boys as He molds and shapes their hearts, as they give me hugs and kisses, and as I clean up after them.

His love is poured out for me through the joy I get from music whether it's playing the piano, singing, helping my boys with their instrument practices, or simply listening to worship music.

His love is poured out for me through the friends who take time to notice, to pray, to spend time with me, to lend a helping hand.

His love is poured out for me through the chances to be the Gospel in someone's life and to see the universal church grow and flourish.

Yep, I have the greatest Valentine ever, and He is my great God!  The most amazing and wonderful thing is that He can be yours too!  If He is not already your Valentine, make Him yours today!  I'd love to help you do just that if you don't know how!

When God's Strength is Enough

This summer did not go as planned to say the least.  In fact, it's been an intense, harrowing past 5 months!  Even as I sit here reflecting back on all that transpired these past several months, I can't help but shudder at the difficulties we faced and dread ever experiencing anything like it again -- Lord-willing, we won't!

The saga began in April when Tim injured himself pulling our dead lawn tractor, which had 2 flat tires, out of the shed all by himself.  If you read my post from May about the miracles God worked in Tim's life over those next few weeks, you understand how this frightful journey began.  His injury led to a ruptured appendix that we didn't realize was a ruptured appendix until 4 days after it ruptured which led to a 5 day stay in the hospital with doctors being amazed that Tim was alive not to mention not as sick as he should have been.  The doctors told us removing the appendix could kill Tim, so they instead inserted a drain into the abscess Tim's body had build around the appendix in order to drain the infection so that surgery could take place.  That began a routine 2-4 hour visit to the hospital first weekly then every other week to get the drain and appendix checked.  Our hopes of healing went up and down, and after another visit with the surgeon, we found out he would not need surgery but could live with the healed appendix.  We were thrilled to get that wonderful news since Tim was just starting to feel better and the thought of having surgery again was disheartening.  Then the wait began to hear the news that the appendix was closed and the drain could be removed.  We waited and waited and waited some more.  The hospital visits were starting to get old.  The hospital staff all knew us by name.  The routine that ate up a large part of a day every two weeks was starting to wear on us.

Then came the day we met once again with the surgeon and received the bad news that the appendix was not healing as expected, and surgery was a necessity.  The hope was that they could remove everything they needed to through laparoscopic surgery, but given the amount of inflammation, there was a chance Tim would need to be fully opened up. The surgery date was scheduled unexpectedly quickly once the decision was made, and Tim had an appendectomy on July 26, three days before we were supposed to leave for our Russell family vacation.  We were thrilled that the surgery was successful as a laparoscopic procedure, and Tim was discharged from the hospital the next afternoon!  We had decided to leave on Saturday instead of Friday for vacation to allow Tim one more day to recuperate at home before needing to sit in a car for 6 hours and endure the bumps.  However, by Thursday afternoon, Tim's fever he had been battling off and on since the night before, soared higher than we would have liked forcing me to call the surgeon who told us to come immediately to the ER.  We spent all evening in the ER talking with the surgeon and his staff and having another CT scan done as well as blood work, and IV antibiotics were started.  Things were not looking good.  Tim was readmitted, and the doctors were talking about opening him up again to try to find the source of the infection.  Thankfully, Tim's surgeon came back on duty the next morning and  decided to try taking Tim off the antibiotics and see if the fever would return since it had broken the night before.  He was hoping that if the fever didn't return, we could call it a fluke and avoid unnecessary surgery.  If it returned, surgery would have to be done.  Thankfully, God intervened, and the fever never returned, so after another day in the hospital for monitoring, Tim was able to be discharged mid-day on Saturday.  His parents had graciously taken the boys with them for our vacation on Friday.  By God's grace, Tim was able to endure the car ride down to Virginia on Sunday.  Even though he spent his vacation lying around and taking it easy, he was thankful that he was able to spend time with his family.

For 6 weeks after his surgery, Tim was not allowed to lift anything that weighed more than 10 pounds.  This became really frustrating for him once he finally felt back to his normal self, but I was persistent in being firm because I didn't want any other set-backs.  This drama had gone on long enough.  Last week, on September 2, Tim's weight restrictions were completed, and he was able to go back to functioning normally, and I felt as if I had been given my life back only to discover that I now had to pick up the pieces of my life to put them back together again.

Tim has always been the rock in our family.  He keeps us sane and keeps us functioning.  He's always there.  He has always been the healthiest of us all.  In raising two precious special needs boys together, Tim has been my supporter, helper, and teammate.  In everything he had to endure the last 5 months, I felt as if I lost all that I had come to rely on from him.  It scared me tremendously when it all began to know that he should have died - that I could have been a widow.  I'm grateful that God had other plans for Tim and so thankful to have Tim still at my side filling those roles once again.

As I struggled these past several months to care for Tim and his physical needs, keep the family going, keep up with our 1.8 acres of land, keep up with the meals and laundry and housework, continue to work part time as a nurse, and run my essential oils business, there were many times where I felt as if I would crumble under the enormity of the tasks resting on my shoulders.

With the 10 days total of hospitalization Tim had plus the 7 outpatient visits for drain checks, surgeon appointments, and repeat CT Scans, I had a lot of childcare arrangements to make.  It was so difficult to juggle caring for my boys and being at the hospital especially when Tim was so sick and in so much pain during his first hospitalization.  The emotional toll of Tim's near-death experience and continued issues and then surgery for the boys was really costly.  They both struggled to come to terms with why God was letting their daddy suffer so much.  They felt the void of not having Daddy be an active member of our family greatly.  It was exhausting for me to stay emotionally strong to help them become stronger emotionally.  The whole ordeal created a lot of childcare needs.  Finding childcare has always been an enormous challenge given Josh's special needs.  I am so grateful for Tim's mom and several of our friends who were so willing to step in and care for our children when I couldn't.  I'm also thankful for Josh's home health aide services which helped to fill in the gaps for his care.

With our special healing diet that we had started in March, I spend a lot of time in the kitchen making everything from scratch including our own crackers and yogurt.  I get all of our dairy, produce, and meat from local Amish farms on a weekly basis.  When Tim was in the hospital, we couldn't accept the offered meal help from church friends because the diet is just too complicated.  People would offer to make a meal and ask what we can't have.  I always said it would be easier to tell them what we could have.  So, I had to run back and forth from the hospital to home to ensure the boys would have the food they needed for their meals while Tim was in the hospital.  Several people encouraged me to just let the diet go.  I refused because we have seen such amazing results with the diet for Josh that there's no turning back!  Every minute I labor in the kitchen is so worth it to have a son who is thriving when he was predicted to be struggling.

Our property is beautiful.  We love every bit of it!  However, it's a lot to manage and has always taken all hand's on deck to help keep things under control during the Spring and Summer months.  Tim does the majority of the work.  With his being out of commission for most of this Spring and Summer, this put a huge hardship on us and our property.  We also had planted an extra large garden this year to help us financially manage our organic diet.  I will be forever grateful for our neighbor who so lovingly and faithfully mowed our lawn for us with the lawn tractor.  That was a huge task to take over and a huge burden taken off of our shoulders.  However, the parts of the lawn that needed to be push-mowed, the weed whacking and pulling, and maintaining and watering of the garden still needed to be done.  I gave it my best shot, but there came a time where we just had to let the weeds prevail.  I could only do so much in the limited 24 hours in each day.  The boys stepped up and helped also, but we couldn't do it all.  Thankfully, we were able to keep our garden going, and while it had more weeds than I would have preferred, it produced well for us providing ample food that we were able to eat fresh as well as plenty that I could can or dehydrate to keep us going until next year's growing season.

We love our house.  We love the ample space it has giving us the ability to minister to people.  However, the size provides plenty of rooms and space that needs to be cleaned on a regular basis.  Cleaning the house takes time!  Time that I did not have enough of.  Again, the boys stepped up to help share in the load, but just like the weeds overtook our yard, the dust overtook our home.  I can't tell you the number of times I wished I could have more than 24 hours in my day these past several months!  I made it a priority to keep up with doing the laundry because we do need to stay clothed, but sometimes, it would take a week before the clean laundry got folded and brought up to the rooms.  My family was gracious and never complained the countless times they would run downstairs to pull out needed underwear or socks or other needed clothing from the baskets waiting with laundry that needed to be folded.  Having the boys take over the responsibility of washing and folding their laundry over the summer also was helpful.  I am also grateful for two people in our church who graciously gave of their time to help me with housework when Tim was hospitalized and another who paid for me to get my house cleaned.  Just having someone help share the burden was a huge relief and a real encouragement.

I continued to work 18 hours 2 days a week unless Tim's hospitalizations required that I take off from work.  I also continued to run my essential oils business although I was getting sick of always having to apologize for the length of time it took me to respond to an email or phone call because I just couldn't do it all.  I'm grateful for the way God blessed my business during these tough months helping me to reach higher income than I've ever had at a time when I didn't have time to keep things going.  That helped keep us financially afloat as we dealt with missed work for Tim and me not to mention the unexpected medical expenses as we maxed out Tim's high maximum out of pocket expense medical deductible (No, Obamacare is NOT more affordable!), and the amount of gas we were spending in the countless trips to the hospital that was a 25 minute, mostly-highway drive from our house.

The physical and emotional exhaustion I experienced on a daily basis these past several months was overwhelmingly enormous!  The long hours I spent keeping our family going with the very little and sometimes broken up sleep I was getting at night was enough to kill me.  When I did finally get to bed, I would fall asleep in utter exhaustion the moment my head hit the pillow.  I have never found myself always on the verge of tears and feeling as if my legs were going to crumble underneath me on a daily basis, but that's just what I experienced these past months.  There were days that I felt as if I would never survive the day.  I truly have never been as overwhelmed as I have been these past few months, and I never want to feel that way again.

Through it all, God was so gracious to me.  I never would have survived had it not been for His help, grace, mercy, and largely, His STRENGTH!  I spent my days in a constant state of prayer asking for the same thing over and over again, "Please, God, help me to have the strength I need to do all that I need to do today."  I'm glad God never gets weary of hearing our petitions because mine were so redundant and desperate!  I had no strength to carry the burdens heaped on my shoulders daily, but God gave me His strength, and Jesus carried my burdens.  God's strength was my lifeline.  It helped me pull my weary body out of bed early each morning, work non-stop making sure the needs of all of my family were met, and brought me to bed even if it was for a few short hours.  God's strength kept me going even when I knew how impossible it was for one person to do all of the tasks set before me in a given day.  God's strength kept my heart from wallowing in misery, discouragement, and self-pity.  God's strength helped me be all He called me to be on a daily basis.  His strength never wore out.  It was fresh and new every morning.  Great is His faithfulness!

These past several months have helped me to come to love and respect God's strength.  It has drawn me yet again closer to Him helping me to realize I am nothing and must rely on Him for all things.  Feasting on His Word on a daily basis became so much more meaningful to me as it nourished my soul allowing me to keep pressing on each and every day.  This hard time has strengthened my belief in His promise that "I can do all things through Christ who strengths me" (Philippians 4:13).  I experienced daily what it was like to soar with wings as eagles and run and not be weary and walk (or even stumble) yet not grow faint (Isaiah 40:31).  God brought me through the waters, kept me from drowning in the rivers, and prevented me from being burned in the fire (Isaiah 43:2).  I never want to go through something like this again, but I am thankful for the refining work God did in my life as a result.  As I sit here letting my mind reflect back on all that I had to go through the last several months, my stomach is churning into tight knots.  I feel traumatized all over again!  However, God's goodness prevails, and I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God worked all of those hard times together for my good and His glory (Romans 8:28).  I want to forget the painful memories, and putting them into words will help me do that, but I want to always remember the wondrous comfort God gave me daily and the incredible strength of His that carried me through.

Through all of these hard months, one song continued to run in my head over and over again and still does.  I am trying to convince Josh to sing it with me sometime in church.  The words spoke to my heart over and over again reminding me of God's strength and the work He was doing in my life on a daily basis emptying me of myself and filling me with Him.  These words so eloquently and beautifully describe what I truly believe deep down in my heart and was so evident these past several months.  His strength is perfect!

His Strength is Perfect

I can do all things
Through Christ who gives me strength
But sometimes I wonder what He can do through me
No great success to show
No glory of my own
Yet in my weakness He is there to let me know

His strength is perfect when our strength is gone
He'll carry us when we can't carry on
Raised in His power, the weak become strong
His strength is perfect, His strength is perfect

We can only know
The power that He holds
When we truly see how deep our weakness goes
His strength in us begins
Where ours comes to an end
He hears our humble cry and proves again

His strength is perfect when our strength is gone
He'll carry us when we can't carry on
Raised in His power, the weak become strong
His strength is perfect, His strength is perfect

Written by Cedric Caldwell, Victor Caldwell, Cece Winans • Copyright © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal Music Publishing Group

The Day We Never Thought We'd See

God continues to do amazing things in our family.  He continues to bring healing in areas we never thought possible!  We are forever grateful for His amazing handiwork in our lives and for the incredible answers to prayer we continue to see that are above and beyond all we could ask or think.

Three weeks ago on August 29, 2016, we saw the day that we never thought we would see.  I still feel as if I am living in a dream and that soon, I am going to wake up and discover it was just a dream!

As you know, Joshua, our oldest son who just turned 12 this past Sunday, has Autism along with Bipolar, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and ADHD.  The gloomy future predicted by the many doctors and specialists Josh has seen throughout the years was daunting and frightening.  They had warned us about the scary years of puberty where Josh would be in and out of the psychiatric hospital and needing constant medication adjustments due to the raging hormones.  We were told we would see a reprieve once Josh reached his 20's, and his hormones stabilized.  Being under the care of a psychiatrist would be a lifelong necessity as medications would always need to be monitored and tweaked as time went on.

As I wrote in my annual Autism Awareness blog post in April, things have drastically changed for Josh due to our journey in natural solutions over the past now 2.5 years.  In addition, the healing diet we as a family have been doing since the Spring with the intent to help Josh has also been instrumental.  Beneath the surface of these solutions, God was orchestrating all of the events - giving me the drive to fight for my son, leading me to the right people and the right information, giving us the means to put the natural solutions to the test and finding success with them, etc.  This was God's capable hands at work in an incredible way in Josh's life as well as in our family's lives.

Before making the wellness journey into the wonderful world of natural solutions, Josh was taking 10 pills a day (7 different drugs) to manage all of his medical and psychiatric needs.  With the help of natural solutions, Josh experienced increased remarkable medical and psychiatric stability which led to a 2+ year journey of weaning off of medications.  It has been an exciting journey watching him transform before our eyes as drugs left his system revealing wonderful personality traits we didn't know existed.  On June 8, 2016, Josh took his last dose of Risperdal, a drug crucial for managing his moods of bipolar and the last drug of which he weaned.  We were told by several doctors that he would never be able to go without a mood stabilizer.  In the midst of puberty and raging hormones, at the time predicted to be the worst time of Josh's life and craziest emotional roller coaster ride, he stopped taking his most crucial drug and since has been THRIVING and has been more stable than he ever has been since developing Bipolar!  How is that for a miracle?  We are still praising God for that incredible answer to prayer!

Josh saw his psychiatrist for a follow-up to being off of Risperdal on August 29, 2016.  She was amazed at how well he was doing and thrilled for his success.  She looked at him and said, "Well, Josh, you don't have to come back and see me again."  I almost fell out of my seat, and Josh was just as shocked as he said, "What did you just say?" She repeated herself, and Josh clarified, "You mean for a long time?"  She answered, "No, never unless you need me again sometime later down the road.  You are doing so well that you don't need my services anymore.  There is nothing that I can do for you that you aren't already doing for yourself."  I thought I was going to need to be pulled down from the ceiling because I was flying so high.  I never dreamed I would see the day when Josh would not need to see a psychiatrist regularly.  She and the psychologist have also been mentioning dropping some of Josh's diagnoses because of the lack of symptoms.  More time still needs to transpire before the diagnoses can officially be dropped, but we are getting close.  It's been over a year since Josh experienced a cycle with his bipolar.  His anxiety completely disappeared after he weaned off of his anxiety drug in December 2015.  His Autism has become so highly functional that if he were to be diagnosed today, according to his psychiatrist, he would not qualify for an Autism diagnosis but would instead receive a social delay disorder diagnosis.

My heart continues to soar as I see my son happy, thriving, and better than I had ever dreamed.  We have lived to see the day we never thought we'd see, and it only keeps getting better.  Josh moved into the Middle School in August as a big 7th grader.  Knowing the changes of middle school from elementary school and given the fact that he would have a whole new team of teachers and support staff, I was really anxious about his transition.  This kid continues to amaze me and transitioned so well, you wouldn't have thought it was a new experience or a new team.

God is the Great Physician, and we have certainly experienced His healing hands in Josh's life.  We are forever grateful for His great mercy and grace to Josh and our family, and we eagerly look forward to the future plans God has in store for our precious son.