Several posts ago, I wrote about our friends young daughter, Joy, who had been diagnosed with a rare form of kidney cancer at the very tender age of 6 months!! Over the last 2 1/2 months, baby Joy and her loving parents, Fred and Ethel, have endured chemo treatments every three weeks( I believe that time frame is correct) at the local children's hospital.
On the third Monday of the month, Joy and her Daddy make the hour and a half trek to the local children's hospital around mid morning. Since Joy's Daddy is one of many in our state right now without work, he is her primary care giver while her mommy works to maintain her full time job as well as here sanity. They begin in triage with some blood work, then they move the pair to a room where they begin her first injection of chemo mid afternoon. Joy's mommy makes the exhausting two hour drive from her work during rush hour traffic to the hospital that is their home for three days each month. Praise the Lord, Ethel's employer is kind during this crazy time in her family's lives and allows her to work from the hospital if necessary or not at all while her little girl is in the hospital each month.
This week was Joy's third or fourth round of chemo, which was moved around a bit due to the Christmas holiday. God has blessed Joy during this time with little sickness, she may not want to eat alot after her treatments and her hair is thinning, but she has not been unbearably sick. Quite the opposite, from what I am told. She gives smiles to the nursing staff and doctors often and laughs out loud when her Grandma imitates Elmo.
So, this week when the phone rang Saturday at Fred and Ethel's home, they were use to the phone number from the local children's hospital appearing. On this day, it was one of baby Joy's team of doctors to tell the little family that there is no sign of any further cancer in the baby's little body!! GONE!!!!! Praise the Lord!!!!
The inflection can only be described in Fred's voice as relieved as he called our home Saturday afternoon.And thankful to the Creator and Savior for healing their little girl.
Amazing Grace, is all that kept ringing in my ears as my husband retold the story to me, as I cried in awareness of God's greatness.
Yet another gift we have seen this Christmas season that can not be bought in stores. Yet, the best gift that they could have been given apart from their individual salvation's.
I am amazed as I sit back and allow God to teach me that Christmas is not about the material things, as society would have us to believe. It is about the gift that came that day, a baby, who was laid in a manger who grew to be a man, that died on a cross but still lives inside each and everyone of us if we will allow Him too.
God has been good this season, even with the loss of Rod's job and the uncertainty of our financial future. However, there is a passage in the bible that says it all: Weeping may endure for a night but Joy cometh in the morning!!!!
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Month 10
I began on November 29th, month number ten of being a post-op gastric bypass patient. It has being a great ride, and I am eagerly anticipating arriving at my goal weight. I ended month number nine, at 207. On October 29th, I was 215; which is a net loss for that month of 8 pounds. Which is good, considering my weight loss has slowed dramatically! As of today, I am 205 and atttempting to reach Onederland by Christmas, which will be my christmas gift to myself! I can not remember the last time I weighed under 200 pounds, and I am really looking forward to it. With all of life's activities, I forgot to take a picture to add to by collection of progression pictures so I will use the ones from Korbins Birthday (which was the 18th- so it is a 10 day difference). Yesterday, I went to the gym and had a really good work out. I did 25 mintues on the treadmill, 10 minutes rowing which I am trying to build myself up to do a full thirty minutes, and 17 minutes on the stationary bike where I rode for 5 miles. I did a few of the weight machines, and I came home just as exhausted as I left. See, I am trying to build my stamina to reduce my fatigue while working extra hours at work right now. However, it is gonna take a week or so for my body to catch up until then I will suffer extreme exhaustion and I am just praying for God's grace to make it through. Today, I am gonna do my Lesily Sansone walking dvd, for 2 miles. I have already worked for 2 hours this morning,and after my dvd and some lunch I will head back for another 7 hour shift at another home until 8pm tonight. I will get back home just in time to put Korbin to bed. These days are long, rising before 5am and getting to bed after 11pm, but I am thankful that God has given me a job to supplement my income. I know His grace will be sufficient for me/us and He will give me the physical strength to endure. As for now, I am gonna go play trains with my boy while I have a moment!
Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Crisis of Faith
I refuse to let our current job statis, with Rod being without work, be a crisis of Faith!! I am battling the emotional, up hill battle that this christmas this year will be so different for us than in years past. I look at the news paper ads or see the t.v. commercials, and realize that there is no money for the things that they offer. I immediantly become sad and disheartend, why did this have to happen to us? Yet, I am trying to train my brain to catch up with my heart and stay focused on the big picture of God's mercy, grace and love.
I do not need a bunch of packages under the christmas tree to celebrate the birth of Christ! At this point, our daily needs are being met( by the grace of God, I might add) and for that I should be thankful. And my heart is! It rejoices in the morning's with David as I read the Psalms as he proclaims God's greatness and sovernity. It listens to Paul speak to the churches of the New Testament as he lovingly rebukes them in order to bring them closer to christ likeness. It is over whelmed with the story of John Newton, the man who wrote the lyrics of the world renoun Amazing Grace whose story is just that of God's amazing, saving grace.
Unfortunately, it is taking awhile for my mind to catch up to what my heart is saying. As loudly as it beats in my ears after a long run, it is saying: God loves you! He will provide for you!! Trust in Him!! Have Faith in Him!!
I really believe the the devil is trying the same thing with me as he does with Job in the Old Testament, who's body is badly afflicted with boils and he is sitting outside scraping them with a stick. Then his wife comes to him and asks him to "Curse God and Die". He is trying to get me to be angry with God. Or trying to get me to be so angry at Rod's former boss that I sin against God. Unfortunately, for Job it gets worse before it gets better. I am praying that it does not get worse before it gets better for us, but it did indeed get better for Job. Because he did not sin against God, God restored him double.
The only thing I am looking for at this point, is double the faith. I do not want our personal financial crisis to become a crisis of faith. Instead, I would hope to grow stronger and closer to my savior and my husband through this situation. I know that christmas is not about the packages under the tree, but about the one who was born to be hung and die on a tree. I think the thing that is fighting me most is that I had such expectations of an enjoyable christmas, me being a new person both inside and out.
Now, the manifestation I have gone through this past year will be put to the test this christmas to celebrate joyfully without sorrow instead being bought in a store and wrapped with a bow. Maybe that is the gift, in and of it's self. And I like, the Jewish rulers of the day, missed it. I was looking for a grand, expensive gift with a large bow and instead I got the gift that lives within my heart that cost more than money can buy but never wore a bow at all but a cross instead.
Thank you Jesus, for being my gift this season. May I never take you for granted nor put you on a shelf. But allow you to live within me and use my life as your own so that I may give your gift of love and sacrifice to another that they may celebrate this christmas with an eternal gift that moths and thieves will never corupt just as you so freely gave to me!"
I do not need a bunch of packages under the christmas tree to celebrate the birth of Christ! At this point, our daily needs are being met( by the grace of God, I might add) and for that I should be thankful. And my heart is! It rejoices in the morning's with David as I read the Psalms as he proclaims God's greatness and sovernity. It listens to Paul speak to the churches of the New Testament as he lovingly rebukes them in order to bring them closer to christ likeness. It is over whelmed with the story of John Newton, the man who wrote the lyrics of the world renoun Amazing Grace whose story is just that of God's amazing, saving grace.
Unfortunately, it is taking awhile for my mind to catch up to what my heart is saying. As loudly as it beats in my ears after a long run, it is saying: God loves you! He will provide for you!! Trust in Him!! Have Faith in Him!!
I really believe the the devil is trying the same thing with me as he does with Job in the Old Testament, who's body is badly afflicted with boils and he is sitting outside scraping them with a stick. Then his wife comes to him and asks him to "Curse God and Die". He is trying to get me to be angry with God. Or trying to get me to be so angry at Rod's former boss that I sin against God. Unfortunately, for Job it gets worse before it gets better. I am praying that it does not get worse before it gets better for us, but it did indeed get better for Job. Because he did not sin against God, God restored him double.
The only thing I am looking for at this point, is double the faith. I do not want our personal financial crisis to become a crisis of faith. Instead, I would hope to grow stronger and closer to my savior and my husband through this situation. I know that christmas is not about the packages under the tree, but about the one who was born to be hung and die on a tree. I think the thing that is fighting me most is that I had such expectations of an enjoyable christmas, me being a new person both inside and out.
Now, the manifestation I have gone through this past year will be put to the test this christmas to celebrate joyfully without sorrow instead being bought in a store and wrapped with a bow. Maybe that is the gift, in and of it's self. And I like, the Jewish rulers of the day, missed it. I was looking for a grand, expensive gift with a large bow and instead I got the gift that lives within my heart that cost more than money can buy but never wore a bow at all but a cross instead.
Thank you Jesus, for being my gift this season. May I never take you for granted nor put you on a shelf. But allow you to live within me and use my life as your own so that I may give your gift of love and sacrifice to another that they may celebrate this christmas with an eternal gift that moths and thieves will never corupt just as you so freely gave to me!"
Sunday, December 7, 2008
Merry Christmas???
Christmas is without a doubt my favorite time of year. Even during the horrible times, like the year when my grandfather passed away on December 23 and was buried on my 16th birthday or the first Christmas after my mom died. Some how I was able to bounce back, if you will, and celebrate the ultimate gift of the Messiah's birth.
I love the smell of baking cookies, sweet smelling candles and lights glistening against the white snow. You can hear the message of Jesus Christ in the songs on the radio, the kindness of strangers and pageants, plays and cantata's at our churches. I liken it as a cat to catnip as I get an itch to begin my Christmas shopping in late October and begin making my lists of baking, crafts and other fun things to do with Korbin.
And as 2008 began on such a high note for me with the answer to the prayer of having my gastric bypass, I foolishly thought that this Christmas would be the climax to a wonderful year. However, that is just not the case as we begin the month of December with my husband unemployed and looking for another job. On Monday, December 1 after he put in yet another twelve hour day at his former company he was called into a meeting where he was told that his company is unable to pay his pay check any longer and discontinued his employment. Deflated and disheartened, my wonderful husband drove an hour and a half home to inform Korbin and I that he no longer had means to financially provide for our family.
He was sad, and I was enraged!!! Twenty four stinking days prior to Christmas, he was laid off by an employer who claimed to care for his employee's, which is what the CEO and Rod's direct boss told me over and over again when I called his office on the hour when Rod was in the hospital in September. The wording that rings in my ears over and over again is his boss's voice saying " Don't worry Mrs. B**** we are a family here and we take care of each other!" If this is his idea of taking care of each other, discontinuing a man's employment with a wife and a small child right before Christmas, I would hate to see what he does for people he does not want to take care off.
I want to yell, scream, and curse evilness upon his company and this man's head. Yet, as mad as I am, I can not seem to do anything but feel anything but sadness for us and for him and his company. Rod wishes him nothing but personal and professional success. That shows extreme Christan growth on my husbands part, because as for me I am more than mad at how this man and his company took advantage of and disrespected the man I gave my love and my life too.
In the middle of this turmoil in our country as we face an economic crisis, and the uncertainty that we face to determine if we can make ends meat or not, I have a peace in the depths of my soul that does not make sense to my head but makes my heart breathe a sigh of relief. It is the same peace that I have been missing in recent months, but experience to the innth degree proceeding my wls.
I know that I serve an Amazing God that is prayer hearing and prayer answering to those who serve Him with their lives by giving their hearts to His son Jesus Christs who bore our sins upon the cross of Calvary.
So, in knowing this, I know also that this did not happen without God allowing it and having a plan for it. However, as much as I know that digesting what this means is what I am having the problem with.
This means, foregoing the climactic Christmas I had been anticipating celebrating for the first time in years. I had searched high and low for the items on Korbins Christmas list looking forwaed to his happy response on Christmas morning and excitedly anticipated receiving clothes for Christmas that I could actually put on and wear for the first time since I was in high school or buy a new dress to wear to chruch. Or receiving the bracelet or anniversary band I had been hinting around at getting for the last 3 years. To go beyond that, even enjoying my birthday, which is two days after christmas, for the first time since I lost my grandfather 16 years ago.
Sigh.. those things were not to meant to happen this year, this year I guess. However, it is not going to detour me or my family from celebrating the greatest gift ever given to mankind; the Christ child.
Each year I decorate our Christmas tree in red and white to remind us of the purity of that baby born in a manger. With the red to show us that they baby grew up to be a man who came to save his people for their sins ans shed his life's blood on the cross of Calvary for you and for me. Regardless of what or what not is under that tree, those two facts still remain. And those are causes for celebration!!
I love the smell of baking cookies, sweet smelling candles and lights glistening against the white snow. You can hear the message of Jesus Christ in the songs on the radio, the kindness of strangers and pageants, plays and cantata's at our churches. I liken it as a cat to catnip as I get an itch to begin my Christmas shopping in late October and begin making my lists of baking, crafts and other fun things to do with Korbin.
And as 2008 began on such a high note for me with the answer to the prayer of having my gastric bypass, I foolishly thought that this Christmas would be the climax to a wonderful year. However, that is just not the case as we begin the month of December with my husband unemployed and looking for another job. On Monday, December 1 after he put in yet another twelve hour day at his former company he was called into a meeting where he was told that his company is unable to pay his pay check any longer and discontinued his employment. Deflated and disheartened, my wonderful husband drove an hour and a half home to inform Korbin and I that he no longer had means to financially provide for our family.
He was sad, and I was enraged!!! Twenty four stinking days prior to Christmas, he was laid off by an employer who claimed to care for his employee's, which is what the CEO and Rod's direct boss told me over and over again when I called his office on the hour when Rod was in the hospital in September. The wording that rings in my ears over and over again is his boss's voice saying " Don't worry Mrs. B**** we are a family here and we take care of each other!" If this is his idea of taking care of each other, discontinuing a man's employment with a wife and a small child right before Christmas, I would hate to see what he does for people he does not want to take care off.
I want to yell, scream, and curse evilness upon his company and this man's head. Yet, as mad as I am, I can not seem to do anything but feel anything but sadness for us and for him and his company. Rod wishes him nothing but personal and professional success. That shows extreme Christan growth on my husbands part, because as for me I am more than mad at how this man and his company took advantage of and disrespected the man I gave my love and my life too.
In the middle of this turmoil in our country as we face an economic crisis, and the uncertainty that we face to determine if we can make ends meat or not, I have a peace in the depths of my soul that does not make sense to my head but makes my heart breathe a sigh of relief. It is the same peace that I have been missing in recent months, but experience to the innth degree proceeding my wls.
I know that I serve an Amazing God that is prayer hearing and prayer answering to those who serve Him with their lives by giving their hearts to His son Jesus Christs who bore our sins upon the cross of Calvary.
So, in knowing this, I know also that this did not happen without God allowing it and having a plan for it. However, as much as I know that digesting what this means is what I am having the problem with.
This means, foregoing the climactic Christmas I had been anticipating celebrating for the first time in years. I had searched high and low for the items on Korbins Christmas list looking forwaed to his happy response on Christmas morning and excitedly anticipated receiving clothes for Christmas that I could actually put on and wear for the first time since I was in high school or buy a new dress to wear to chruch. Or receiving the bracelet or anniversary band I had been hinting around at getting for the last 3 years. To go beyond that, even enjoying my birthday, which is two days after christmas, for the first time since I lost my grandfather 16 years ago.
Sigh.. those things were not to meant to happen this year, this year I guess. However, it is not going to detour me or my family from celebrating the greatest gift ever given to mankind; the Christ child.
Each year I decorate our Christmas tree in red and white to remind us of the purity of that baby born in a manger. With the red to show us that they baby grew up to be a man who came to save his people for their sins ans shed his life's blood on the cross of Calvary for you and for me. Regardless of what or what not is under that tree, those two facts still remain. And those are causes for celebration!!
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