Little Andrew

Yesterday I received a call from my next door neighbor (and good friend). She was in tears and I could barely understand her. She finally got out that her son, Andrew (age 3), had taken a turn for the worse....Let me back up here and tell you the story of our special little Andrew, or "Baby Andrew" as we have all called him for 3 years now.

Baby Andrew was born in November 2006. His mom knew that something was not quite right while he was still in her womb but the doctors would hook her up and monitor his heart and say she was just being "paranoid"..."he was doing great". There's that mother's instinct for you. Anyways, when he was born it was apparent that there was something very wrong. They finally diagnosed SMA which stands for Spinal Muscular Atrophy, a pretty rare condition and one that most of us have never heard of. To put it simply, Andrew cannot move any muscles in his body. He is the most severe, type 0. Since birth he has been on a respirator to breathe and has a feeding tube into his stomach for nutrition. However, his brain is perfect. He thinks/feels just like the rest of us. They actually say kids with SMA are usually of above-average intelligence. Due to the extreme needs of his care, he lives at the Children's Center in Bethany, Oklahoma. An incredible place if you've never been there, I might add. I am always impressed by the amount of love/care given to the children by the staff.

So obviously this really changed my neighbors' lives. They now had a third child whom couldn't even live at home with them. Can you imagine? Here I complain about my kiddos driving me crazy and my neighbor would give just about anything for her son to BE HOME driving her crazy.

So, after the initial shock of Andrew's condition, things fell into a "comfortable" routine. Catherine would go spend every morning in Bethany at the Children's Center and her husband would go by every day after work. Also there were relatives and friends that would visit time to time. Personally the visits I've had with Andrew at TCC (the Children' Center) have been some of the most cherished moments of my life thus far. There is something about when I visit him....I feel God's presence with him when I am there. Perhaps I feel God's presence in the whole center. It is a special place. Anyways, there have been bumps in the road for sure. He has had pneumonia, horrible skin ulcers, and other issues. However, there have been some huge victories. He gets to go to class where they put a visor-type thing on him that responds to his eye movement while he is watching things on a big screen. He has physical therapy, occupational therapy, gets to go in a big gym, and they recently have been letting him play this really neat game (all with eye movement).

However, in the past month Andrew has been hospitalized twice for pneumonia. Obviously pneumonia can be deadly for anyone, but especially for Andrew. This has happened to coincide with my friend's husband having to be out of town for work....first for 2 weeks (the whole first time Andrew was in the hospital)...then he was home a weekend and back out of town for another week (in which time Andrew had gone back to TCC but then had to be re-hospitalized again for pneumonia)....then this past weekend he was home for 1 night and had to go back out of town which he still is. So, I say all of that to show that my dear friend has been under a HUGE amount of stress. Trying to be at the hospital with her very sick son...trying to be home with her other two children...oh, and not to mention that we have had a BLIZZARD and now another huge ice/snowstorm which has made travel dangerous (and of course she is driving back and forth to the hospital) and had her other kids home from school...which has meant her having to find other people to watch her kids.

And then yesterday I got the phone call. The phone call that made my stomach drop and my eyes instantly well-up with tears. Andrew had taken a turn for the worse. They were beginning to think that the infection had spread throughout his little 3 yr. old body. My friend could barely choke this out on the phone....however, she was calling me to send out an email asking for prayer. Which I did. And right now I am just waiting to hear any news. She stayed at the hospital all night with him. I'm not sure if she was alone or not. I asked her if she would have someone with her and she said "I think so". My other neighbor and I struggled all night last night wondering if we should go there and be with her. But my neighbor is a very private person, not like me at all. We were worried we might be more of a hindrance than a help.

So now we wait. And we pray. We pray for the doctors to know what to do for Andrew. We pray for him not to be in pain. We pray for him to feel God's presence with him. And we pray for his mom. That God would give her the strength and comfort she so very needs right now. It is in His hands....

Celebration

My brother and I went to a funeral a couple of weeks ago for my great uncle. It was a "nice" funeral and we actually decided we liked some of the things they did. Like putting an embroidered bass (fish) jumping out of water on the inside of the coffin lid. You might laugh, but I kind've thought that was a nice, HONEST touch. He loved fishing. Why not put that on there for him to stare at for all of eternity?

So that got me thinkin'- what would my husband put on the inside of my coffin lid? A picture of my kids? Something to do with bootcamp.....what dumbbells embroidered? Maybe a picture of Blue Bell Pralines N Cream ice cream or a box of sweetarts? Cuz these are all of the things I love........... well, hopefully not.

I think I'd like a Bible verse embroidered on the inside of my coffin lid. Not that i will be looking at it. But for all of the people at my funeral to see. I even know what verse: Matthew 5:16 "Let your light shine before others that they may see your good works and glorify your FATHER in heaven." Hopefully all of the people at my funeral will read that verse and agree that they could see Christ in my life. It was evident.....by my words and actions.

I also want upbeat, happy music. This should be a celebration if we really, truly believe we are going to spend ETERNITY with OUR LORD AND SAVIOR!!! My husband can play one tear-jerker - "I can only imagine" and the rest need to be songs like, "Strong Tower", "Revelation", "Born Again", etc. Oh, maybe two tear-jerkers cuz I love David Crowder's "Never let Go".

Anyways, then I want the Gospel told. If there is anyone at my funeral that doesn't know Christ as their personal Savior, I want them to accept HIM right then and there. Wouldn't that be awesome?

So, I'm not planning on dying soon or anything. I just want to make sure that when I do, my funeral is not some morbid, depressing affair. I want everyone there to know that I am with My Jesus.

Oh, and one last thing. Do it as cheaply as possible. We just finished Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University. I do not want my funeral to cause any debt!!!

Lady with one earring

I was sitting in church Sunday morning listening to the campus pastor start his service when my attention was drawn to the lady sitting two rows in front of me. You know how you scan the rows all around you and check out who's in church? Anyways, I realized that this lady (guessing from the back of her head she was about 40-something.....short hair and sitting next to a teenage daughter) was missing an earring. She had one large black hoop in one ear and nothing in the other. For some reason I could not let this go. And look, here I am 5 days later blogging about it.
I started wondering what happened to the other earring. Did she just forget to ever put it in? Did she put it in but forget the back so then it fell out unbeknownst to her? Did she put both in but then talk on the phone so she pulled the one out and forgot to put it back in? Was it her cell phone? So was the earring in the car or at home? Maybe the earring was on the sidewalk on the way into church? Whew.......lots of possibilities about where the missing earring was and how it went missing.

Anyways, this led me into thinking about how we are all just like that lady with her missing earring. We all get ready and try to look "put together", but we are really not. Put together, I mean. Everyone has something "not perfect" in their life. It might look perfect on the outside, but I guarantee it is not.

And you know, I think Church is one of the worst places where everyone tries to act "put together". You know Sunday morning my four children fought in the car the whole way to church over the seating arrangement in our suburban. You know, a REALLY IMPORTANT thing to fight over.....It ended with Chris getting frustrated and yelling at "the instigator" of the fight. I tried to calm everyone down (I'm putting that in here because it is usu. opposite - I'm usu. yelling and Chris is calming). Anyways, we get out of the car, all paste on our smiles, and tell everyone "Good Morning". Nobody knows that World War 3 was just going on in our suburban. Then, we sit in an awesome service, pick up the kiddos from their classes, get back in the suburban and guess what? Yep, you guessed it. The STUPID FIGHT RESUMED! So, this time normalcy reigned and I was the one yelling.

So, I guess my point of this whole thing is that we are all missing an earring. It's just that
some of us are more open and honest about these "missing earrings" than others, but nobody has it all together. Thank goodness that Christ loves us no matter what.

Jeremiah #2

First let me say that Jeremiah is a LOOOOONNNNNNGGGG book with LOOOONNNNGGG chapters. I have had to amp up my Bible reading or I will never get through it I'm afraid. Also, I read the commentary after every chapter so it is taking me doubly long. However, if I were not to read the commentary I wouldn't understand half of what I'm reading.

That being said, I am truly amazed at those crazy OT people. Chapter 34. So Jeremiah has been warning King Zedekiah and all of the people of Jerusalem OVER AND OVER that they will not succeed in fighting against the Babylonians. God had already determined to hand over the city of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. In vs. 8 - 11, Jeremiah brings to light the evil practice of the enslavement of Israelites by their own people. This was a violation of God's law (Ex. 21:2-11). Perhaps in a desperate attempt to win God's favor, King Zedekiah grants all of the slaves their freedom. Everyone was to free their Hebrew slaves in accordance with God's law. So, after the people had made the covenant in the temple before GOD, sure enough, the Babylonian army broke off its attack. They had to break their attack to repel an attack on them by the Egyptians.

So now the people of Jerusalem start hoping for an Egyptian victory, and then they start thinking "hmmmm... if the Egyptians are successful and take down the Babylonians, we are gonna' have some major rebuilding to do here. So we probably need to get our slaves back!" So the people reneged on their promise to God and took their slaves back.

WHAT???? Seriously. They make vows before God in His temple that they will let their slaves go in accordance with HIS Law.......amazingly the attack from the Babylonians stop.........did they not think maybe they should be THANKING God for this reprieve? For another chance? But, NOOOOO, they forget all about God again (seems to be a general theme of the OT) and take their slaves right back to start rebuilding! Truly amazing.

So, as you can imagine, they pay the price for this. Vs. 12-20 shows God rebuking the people for their inconsistency. When they rescinded their promise they profaned God's reputation because the covenant had been made before God in His temple. God's punishment matched their sin. By revoking their covenant, the people had not proclaimed freedom for those Israelites who were wrongfully enslaved. Therefore ironically God would give them freedom to die by the sword, plague, and famine. Uh-Oh. BIG MISTAKE PEOPLE!!!

So I started thinking about how we do this exact same thing really. We tell God we will stop doing certain sinful behaviors "if only He will (insert your request here)". But then once our prayer is answered, most of us continue about our sin like nothing ever happened. At least I think just about everyone is like that. I know I have done that exact thing. Maybe not as fast as the Israelites reneged on their promise, but.......over time. It might be a slow, gradual fade back to the sins, but it happens.

COMPASSION

Last week sometime I heard the phrase "be the hands and feet of Jesus". Could be a song. Could've been from something I read. Not really sure. But that phrase has gone through my head a lot over the last week. You know, it would be a lot easier to lead a "self-filled" life, rather than trying to be Christ's hands and feet. It means putting other's needs before your own. It is the opposite of what our culture tells us today. There are so many needs all around us.......many greater than our own. We need to have compassion. God has taught me compassion in numerous different areas in the past year. Compassion for those with addictions. Compassion for those going through financial hardship. Compassion for single mothers. Compassion for those with loved ones in hospitals. Compassion for those with cancer. Compassion for mothers with really sick children.... So, those are just SOME of the areas I can think of right off the top of my head. Guess you have to go through some hard things to gain compassion. Or at least it has worked for me.

C - caring about/for others
O - offering to help
M- meeting needs
P - prayer for those in need
A - acts of kindness
S- serving
S - sharing the burden
I - not about I
O- owning the problem
N- noticing needs

God's Word

Man, how I love God's Word. I am happy to be able to say this because just a short few years ago this was definitely not the case. I truly thought it was boring. Now I am just fascinated by what I read. God definitely "opens the eyes of your heart" the more you delve into His Word. I only wish that I had a better memory at this point in my life. So many times I find myself fascinated by something in my morning reading and by afternoon I can't remember what it was! Sad, I know.

Right now I'm in Jeremiah. As my dad said the other day, God really commands Jeremiah to do some weird things. Like going to the city gate and yelling out a doomsday message. Or wearing the yoke around his neck. In today's society, we would be calling the authorities and that person would end up in the nuthouse, right? Really, imagine if God told you to go to your local church or courthouse (or Wal-mart for that matter) and stand outside and yell "Repent! Quit your sinning. Turn to God. Don't worship all of your idols (today's world: money, stuff, money, other people, celebrities, money, your job, money, etc....). If you don't God is going to pulverize this whole place. Oh, and go ahead and let yourself be taken by the enemy, because if you do then you will end up being blessed. But if you run and hide, forget about it. You will suffer extreme hardship and DIE!!!

Hmmmm.... I'm pretty impressed that Jeremiah had the guts to do all that God wanted him to do. Would like to think that I would, but probably not anywhere near those extremes unfortunately. Just being honest. It's hard enough for me to hold my hands up while we are singing in church. I'm up to one hand now. Pretty big for me really. Pathetic, I know.

I like this verse from Jeremiah 15:16 "When Your Words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty."

Anyways, I'm now praying that God will give me understanding and memory when it comes to His Word. This is a prayer from Paul in Eph. 1:17-19 - "I pray that you, Father, will give me the spirit of wisdom and revelation , so that i may know you better. I pray that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened in order that I may know the hope to which you have called me, the riches of your glorious inheritance in your people, and your INCOMPARABLY GREAT POWER for us who believe." Amen. Awesome.

So much more I could write on this, but gotta' run....well, spin. I'm teaching a Thursday morning spin class now.

Isaiah and Prayer

Well, I'm finally to the book of Isaiah. It is definitely one of my favorite books of the Bible. Lots of really good verses. Actually several of my favorites.

Isa. 40:11; 40:28-31; 42:16; 43:1-5; 46:3-4; 55:11 .....just to name a few.

In the past year I have grappled with the concept of "Why Pray".... now, now, before you start yelling at your screen, let me explain. Since I believe God is sovereign, and He already knows everything that is going to happen, what good does a prayer from little ole' measly me do?

In all my research on prayer over the past year, I have come to realize that we pray because God wants us to! We are being obedient to Him when we pray. Prayer is our communication with Him. Two good acronyms I've learned are P.U.S.H: Pray Until Something Happens and P.R.A.Y: Praise, Repent, Ask, and Yield.

I've learned you can pray for BIG things, minor things, specific things, and just about EVERYTHING. In fact, He wants us to!

So, sorry to have rambled here, but back to Isaiah. This is what I read a couple of mornings ago and it just showed me why I should pray. In ch. 38, Hezekiah, King of Judah, "became ill and was at the point of death..." The Lord tells Isaiah to go tell him to get everything in order because Ole' hezzy is going to die. Vs. 2: "Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 'Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.' And Hezekiah wept bitterly. Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: 'Go and tell Hezekiah, This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life."

So, this is pretty insightful for us, don't you think? Several things struck me about this.

1. God heard him and saw him. If he heard and saw Ole' Hezzy, then he must see and hear us!

2. Hezekiah prayed earnestly and fervently - this was not just a close your eyes and quickly whisper a rote "bless me Lord" prayer....this says that Hezzy reminded God of his faithfulness and devotion...and he "wept bitterly" which obviously showed God that he was sincere in his plea.

3. God will change the outcome based on our prayers. Now, this part gets tricky for me. Obviously God really does know the final outcome. He is God. He knows everything. So, does that mean He has a whole lot of different endings. For instance, is He sittin' up there saying, "well, if susie chooses option A then her ending will be outcome B, but..... if Susie chooses option B then her outcome will be option C"..? But He already knows what option I will choose. And He gives us free will. HMMMMM..... Is anyone following me on this, or is it just me?

All of this makes me wonder what blessings would be in my life if I would just pray for them. Earnestly and fervently. I've actually been reading the "Prayer of Jabez" and the author gives an illustration about a man that goes to Heaven and is being given the grand tour by Peter. There is one building Peter won't take him in, but the man keeps persisting and finally Peter takes him in. In this building are rows of containers with people's names on them. The man finds his container and upon opening it finds all the blessings that God had wanted to send to him on earth, but for which he had never asked....... Makes you think, huh?

Prayer is quite possibly the MOST IMPORTANT action of our whole day, but which we probably dedicate the smallest amount of time. Even when I have good intentions of praying it seems like something (could be satan?) happens to distract me. Well, if praying is our communication with God, then of course satan would want to stop that from happening. Makes total sense.

So, there you go. My random musings on prayer. I have actually just caused my own head to ache.