Joy

Are you filled with joy?  Not happiness, JOY!  I am striving to live with more joy!!  I see some people who just radiate with joy!!  My daughter may just be one of those people. I believe the spirit of Jesus runs through her veins and as He heals her, He shines through her!  She not only fills me with joy, but all those who meet her are amazed and comment on her joyful spirit!
A book I am reading defines joy as more than just delight, contentment, and gladness- it is the substance underneath!  Joy gives us strength, not just to survive but to live meaningful lives!!  What gives you joy?  My joy comes from the Lord!!  It comes from serving Him and doing what God's whats me to do!!  I find joy in sharing my joy, well, God's joy with others!  Can I challange you to love others above and beyond?  Look at your life as a way to serve others and ultimately serve GOD!!!  Find your joy, live for God and find His purpose for your life!!

Love you!!  May God lead you and bless your life with JOY!!!

Do You Ever Wonder?

Is there a God?  We all wonder sometimes.  Even me, I have known nothing different, I grew up in a wonderful, blessed Godly home.  I have been to church since I was born.  I had heard every Bible story, but had never sat down read the Bible and made it mine!  Until this year.  I have read up until Proverbs... so far.  It is a lot of take in, but I have had an opportunity to make it mine. One of the things I have come to understand in the Bible it talks about fearing God.  God disciplines those He loves and we are to obey Him and FEAR Him.  Just like you are supposed to have a fear of your father, a respectful fear, this is to keep us on the right path NOT live a life of fear.  God is there to take away our worry and anxiety and stress and in turn we do our best to follow his rules and ways.  Now this is NOT easy for everyone to do all the time ever.  But we are to do our best and ask for strength to do what is really hard or seems out of our reach.  Back to my first question... Is there a God?  My answer is still YES!!  And if there is not I do not think that I will have wasted my life trying to be the best person I can be or to show enormous amounts of love to EVERYONE!! I pray for people I REALLY dislike, as well as, those I love and cherish.  I try to encourage and value EVERYONE!!  This is not easy for me I am a quiet and shy person in general.  I do not evangelize well.  But I am a testimony and will give God the glory for my life, my daughter's life and all my friends and family.  I have seen God's unwavering faithfulness throughout my life and through all the complication of my daughter's life.  I can see the hand of God in my falls and my faults.  I have made bad choices, lots of them, going against what I knew in my heart was right.  NONE of my bad choices have left me in a better place, NONE of my bad choices left me feeling better in the morning, NONE of them!!!  That is enough reason for me to live my life for God.  I will live, love and long for what is good and right and Godly.  He has been there for me in my pit of despair and he has been there in my most fantastic day.  God is there for me!!  God is there for YOU!!!!

 I LOVE YOU!!!!!

crying

Today I cried!  I sobbed!!  They were tears of relief!!!  Tears of a weigth lifted!  I won't have to breastfeed forever!!  Don't get me wrong I LOVE and ENJOY breastfeeding, but the thought of not knowing if it was going to be another, 2 months, or 6 months or over a year of exculsive breastfeeding, just brings exhaustion!!  Today after therapy Katie drank 2 ounces from  a straw cup, with consecutive swallows and kept it all down!!!!!!!  It was at therapy, just after session, I was overwhelmed, but didn't brag too much there because nearby there was a little 3 year old girl who couldn't even sit up independently.  So, I told her therapist and left and called her dad!!!  Then the tears came, to the store, to the bank and all the way home.  Just relief that she will be able to drink from a cup at some point soon, regularly.  At lunch some came back out and some went down, an improvement over most or nearly all coming back out!!!  So, she hasn't mastered it, but she is capable!!!!  Katie is amazing!!  I just felt God was telling me, "See you can't control this, no matter how hard you try, you can't make her drink.  That's between Me and her! Trust ME!!"  So, God I will trust you!!  I trust you with my most precious treasures, my 3 children!!  They each need You!!  I trust you with my finances!!  I do not know how we made it this far, but You will continue to provide!!!  I trust You!!  You will give the strength, time and energy to give to others, to show Your Love, to spread Your Name!  May You be given the Glory!!  Thank you Lord!!!  Thank you friends for your prayers and kind words of encouragement!!!  Thank You!!  I have no words to express my deep gratitude to you!! Thank you!!!

Difficult questions

My head is full of stuff!  Researching online... does Katie have oral aversion, liquid aversion, oral motor issues, swallowing issues? Will Katie ever really see me from 30 feet away, will she be able to attend regular school, will she be able to read, will she be able to drive, what will she be capable of?  What can I do?  I want to be told what I need to do, so I can do it!  Just tell me!  What do I need to do?  Guess what no one can tell me, well, no human can tell me.  I guess God is telling me I need to trust him.  Well, now in the process of typing I KNOW that is what He is telling me.  It is hard, so hard.  But it is not with my strength I do things, but by GOD's strength, so I know that He is in charge and He will light my path and guide my way.  But man, I am frustrated!!  But I guess not as much now.  God will help me!  I will trust in Him because hours on the internet with no answers and time frustrated with unmet expectations and endless worrying helps no one.  So, I WILL TRUST IN GOD!  Oh, may God be with me!! :-)

Mosh Pit

Yep, never quite thought I could say, "Ya, I was totally in a mosh pit!"  But I was!  In celebration of our 10 year wedding anniversary John and I went to see Rise Against, Bad Religion, and the Descendants.  It was definitely an awesome experience!!!  The crowd was a large variety of people!  From people in collared shirts and sweater vests to people wearing no shirts or short skirts, people old enough to be my parents or grandparents to kids who could be my own.  It was very interesting to see the crowd dynamics!  The Descendants were up first and really I don't have much knowledge of them other than 2-3 songs from John's ipod.  We were stand offish and the crowd was just starting to warm up.  For Bad Religion we scooted forward 10-15 feet, and soon after they started a mosh pit started right in front of us.  At first I thought, "Wow, I am less than 3 feet front a full blown mosh pit."  Within a song or two we were at the outskirts of the mosh pit- helping people up and pushing people back in.  It was very interesting to watch the dynamics of a mosh pit.  I would say 1% were pure pricks, 5-10% were intoxicated beyond reason and incoherent to what there true actions were, about 75% were intoxicated in some way and just having fun, and the rest were not intoxicated but high on adrenaline and the overall rush of the concert (us).  I don't count the $10 beers at 7pm to have any influence over Bad Religion that came on near 9pm and Rise Against who came on around 10:30.  (That was the worst part was having to wait 30-45 min between the 3 bands.) Okay, back to the mosh pit and the consideration and compassion in the mosh pit.  Yes, I said consideration and compassion.  It was amusing to watch these big tatted up guys, shoving, pushing, lunging, but if someone fell, they would form a barrier line to help the person up, and make sure they were okay.  People would stop along the edge of the mosh pit to fix their shoes which got flat tired, put there hand on a stranger's shoulder, fix their shoe, say " Thank You," then head back into the pit.   I received several apologies throughout the night.  I was impressed watching the concern and care of the scary looking skins head guys, who knocked someone too hard.  The big tough intimidating guys took more than a moment to make sure people were okay.  I am certain beyond doubt that every mosh pit isn't this way, but seeing that mosh pits can be a caring environment for controlled violence, dancing, and lots of energy to enjoy REALLY loud music.
Well, It was Bad Religion where I enjoyed the outskirts of the mosh pit.  It was exciting and intense!  Then in between sets a group of three girls moved in behind us.  One girls was sitting in a chair, there are no free standing chairs on the floor so don't know where she got it, but the chick sitting in it was intoxicated well, well beyond legal limits.  She had no clue that there was a concert going on around her.  Her friends were trying to protect her by keeping people from bumping into her.  They were being mildly successful given this is all between sets, we are shoulder to shoulder with no live band, or mosh pit.  But I asked one friend what they planned to do when the pit started back up.  She must have been plenty intoxicated too, because she explained to me that people weren't there to see Rise Against (the headlining band), so she could handle it and wasn't worried about it.  We tried to tell her that no one has left the floor or the arena and it was CLEARLY still full and packed and crazy, but... what more can you do.  SO, Rise Against starts and simultaneously so does the mosh pit, RIGHT in front of us, so the girl in the chair in directly behind us!  It was entertaining TRYING to hold the pit so I don't knock down the little 90 lbs girl and her basically passed out friend.  By the end of the first song a young man forcefully encouraged them to move NOW.  So, we are still front line of the pit, after a few songs I get floored by a 6 1/2 foot man, who landed on my calf and I couldn't go anywhere but down and couldn't get up till his disoriented butt got off my foot.   This was followed by the roughest moment as I got smacked in the head with a shoulder and got the wind knocked out of me.  So, John's answer to the pit was to just join in.  He pushed us in together we make it around once and I get floored by a very large, massive guy.  John gets pinched off as people try to help me up.  So he gets shoved away as I get helped off the floor.  Was I scared you may ask?  No, not really, as soon as I hit the floor I felt a cocoon of people holding the line as 3 or more people pick me up.  Overwhelming? Absolutely!!!  I made my way around the pit a few more times looking for John.  Unsuccessful, I stood on the stage side edge of the pit and enjoyed the band for a few minutes until John found me.  Then we took a few steps back, tired and out of breath, and I think John was a little scared of me getting hurt.  I wanted to go back in once more but John was reluctant, then the pit got CRAZY as the last songs were played.
It was fun!!!  It was great!!!  It was awesome!!!    An exciting way to spend some quality time together to do something new and different!!  Oh, and I would SOOOOOOOO do it again!!!!  :-)
Now we get to truly celebrate our 10 year anniversary in 13 days!!!!!!!!!!   
It was an experience I will never forget!!  

Simple Things

Today I laid in the grass and looked at the ground.  The grass, the dirt, the leaves, the flowers, the bugs, everything little tiny and insignificant, but it is those little things that surround us.  Joy in the simple things!  I touched the fuzzy stem of the grass.  Studied different parts of the grass and found teeny tiny flowers you can't see when you stand up!  I had the kids gather around and look and touch and hold.  I don't know why it so intrigued me, but it was simple and astonishing!

Eventful morning

Wow! What a day!  My mom called at 8:15 this morning to let me know she had fallen.  She had found the nearest urgent care center and needed to get there.  I hurried off the phone saying I will be right there.  John was at therapy with Katie and Johnny was still in pjs.  I had one day care client and he came along for the ride.  I have always said they are an extention of my family and today was the perfect example.  I was glad Katie wasn't there while we waited for 45 min in the waiting room, she would have scooted all over the place or screamed about wanting to.  Kids were figety but well behaved and I am glad I always have something fun in my purse- candy, pez and lollipop, a little bike, and a bug book.  If I had my car I would have been set but I had to take John's car with nothing fun or useful in it.  I had to go home and get Katie and another day care kid and then headed back to get my mom.  Now in my car with four car seats, stroller, diaper bag, snacks, and a MOVIE.  Perfect timing as she finished up as I pulled in and they rolled her out to my car immediately.   An hour and a half after our arrival she spent less than 10 minutes with the Dr. who said there is certainly no fracture and so he wouldn't order an xray.  SO she is supposed to spend two days off her feet, then go to HER Dr if her legs still hurt and he can order an MRI to make sure there is no ligament or tendon damage.  I don't know, I'd rather see an xray to make sure nothing is broken now, rather than wait two days or more and see her in excuriating pain.  I can sympathize more with people who care for their parents.  It is scary!  To see your Mommy in pain and not be able to really help her.  To feel the panic and worry as I drive to her house not having thought to ask 20 questions about what happened.  Thankful she held herself together and composed so I could keep it together to help her.  Wow!  She is an amazingly strong, wonderful woman- MY MOTHER!