Thank God, the cold is gone! I could go to the hospital today to be with Nathan, and since the drive to the hospital is around 45 minutes, I got to spend my commute time rocking out to some Hillsong and praising God.
EVERMORE
With all my life I'll sing,
I'll be livin' for your name
With all to give you praise
I'll be livin' for your glory, Lord
Lost for words with all to say,
Lord you take my breath away!
Still my soul, my soul cries out
You are Holy!
As I look upon your name
Circumstances fade away
Now your glory steals my heart
You are Holy!
You are Holy
You are Holy, Lord!
Evermore my heart, my heart will say
Above all, I live for your glory
Even if my world falls, I will say
Above all, I live for your glory
Man, can those Australians write some worship, or what? Now, anyone who knows me knows that I definately fall into the Martha category. My heart longs to be a Mary, but my to-do list gets in my way. But I cannot wait for the day when I can worship God for eternity, with no laundry to be folded or meals to be cooked to distract me from my purpose.
I just want to take the time to echo the sentiment of this song-My God takes my breath away! See, I have this addiction. I am addicted to God's glory. In this life, we can only get a little taste of it at a time. Bottled up moments when the film between heaven and earth becomes a little thinner and we can just glimpse it, not quite taste it, think we smell it, almost see it. One day we will bathe in it, and like a junkie who can't get enough, I'm living for that day. Somedays I'm blessed enough to grab ahold of the hem of His garment, and squeeze a few drops of that glory onto my parched face.
A lot of people probably look at my life from the outside and think I'm religious because of tradition, or because it makes a living for my family. But I am utterly smitten with God. It's all about my relationship, and nothing to do with religion. We have this thing going, me and God. Even when I was His enemy, He called after me. He sought me out, and sacrificed His precious Son in my rotten, good-for-nothing place. This morning, I woke up to find out that He Hadn't Changed His Mind Yet!!! (That's what 'mercies new every morning' means to me!)
His glory has stolen my heart! That's why I do everything I do-from trying to craft a ministry that reaches out to every woman, to caring for my kids so that one day they will see God's care for them. He is my every breath, my every heartbeat. So, maybe, when I have moments like today, He's saying "Now, you've chosen well!"
When Will The Week End?
This has been just a yucky week! Nathan had surgery on Monday, which went well and he is recuperating quickly. That's the good news! I came down with a horrible head cold the day after his surgery. So I have been unable to go to the hospital any day this week to be with Nathan. I usually handle all of his acute medical care information, so poor Chris has had to call me a million times each day with another question from the medical team. It seems that the mindset of the team in a Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) is, "If it's working well, let's tinker with it and see if we can get it to work better. That made it worse? Oh, well!" Anyhoo-it is killing me to not see Nathan for three days or be there for him when he needs me! I feel like the worst parent in the world!
Meanwhile, two of our staff members had new babies last week, and as the Women's Ministries Coordinator it falls to me to arrange for some meals to be brought for the new moms. I made phone calls and put together a schedule of the women who agreed to prepare a meal and gave it out on Sunday, so that everything would be in place before heading into Nathan's surgery on Monday. Almost every single woman on that schedule had to move their night, or something came up and they couldn't do it. To quote Charlie Brown, "AAARRRGGGHH!"
On top of all of this, I completely forgot our weekly Women's prayer group this morning. I suspected a ball would get dropped soon, but I hate that this was it. I hope the women will be understanding.
Chris and I were talking on the way home from the hospital about how no one outside of the two of us really understands all that the last ten years has held for us. I am amazed that even after ten years of being in the hospital and numerous surgeries, it is the hardest thing in the world to leave your baby in the hands of others and wait for the outcome. It is not just hard; I find it to be agony. I don't think I've ever told anyone this besides Chris. Everyone else just takes it for granted that we handle all of this so well, and I am grateful for the testimony that brings to God, but it never gets easy or routine.
At the hospital we used to frequent they made you tell your child goodbye in the hallway and they wheeled him away from you while he was still awake. At least here they let one of us go into the operating room with him until he goes to sleep. But I still have to force my feet to walk out of that room. And then the waiting is excruciating to me, who is used to being at least well informed of his status every moment of the day, if not outright responsible for his status! It is definately one of those times when I literally leave him in the Lord's hands!
I don't know how I could parent if I didn't have faith in a God who is bigger than this life. There are so many uncertainties and things we cannot control, especially with a special-needs child. When I feel like I'm about to come unglued I have to remind myself that I am never in control anyway, that even when things seem well in control, the control lies in God's hands. And I can't think of a better place for it to be!
Meanwhile, two of our staff members had new babies last week, and as the Women's Ministries Coordinator it falls to me to arrange for some meals to be brought for the new moms. I made phone calls and put together a schedule of the women who agreed to prepare a meal and gave it out on Sunday, so that everything would be in place before heading into Nathan's surgery on Monday. Almost every single woman on that schedule had to move their night, or something came up and they couldn't do it. To quote Charlie Brown, "AAARRRGGGHH!"
On top of all of this, I completely forgot our weekly Women's prayer group this morning. I suspected a ball would get dropped soon, but I hate that this was it. I hope the women will be understanding.
Chris and I were talking on the way home from the hospital about how no one outside of the two of us really understands all that the last ten years has held for us. I am amazed that even after ten years of being in the hospital and numerous surgeries, it is the hardest thing in the world to leave your baby in the hands of others and wait for the outcome. It is not just hard; I find it to be agony. I don't think I've ever told anyone this besides Chris. Everyone else just takes it for granted that we handle all of this so well, and I am grateful for the testimony that brings to God, but it never gets easy or routine.
At the hospital we used to frequent they made you tell your child goodbye in the hallway and they wheeled him away from you while he was still awake. At least here they let one of us go into the operating room with him until he goes to sleep. But I still have to force my feet to walk out of that room. And then the waiting is excruciating to me, who is used to being at least well informed of his status every moment of the day, if not outright responsible for his status! It is definately one of those times when I literally leave him in the Lord's hands!
I don't know how I could parent if I didn't have faith in a God who is bigger than this life. There are so many uncertainties and things we cannot control, especially with a special-needs child. When I feel like I'm about to come unglued I have to remind myself that I am never in control anyway, that even when things seem well in control, the control lies in God's hands. And I can't think of a better place for it to be!
Stuck in CHOCOLATE!!!
Well, another dream bites the dust. All these years I thought being waist deep in a vat of chocolate sounded like heaven! Oh well!
Celebration Day
I just read an article by H.B. London in which he stated that the month of July is special to him because it is the month when he "celebrates his wife and their son." What an astounding concept! Instead of celebrating a 'day' when your loved one was born, what if we celebrated the person? For example, instead of celebrating my son's birthday in June, what if all day that day we celebrated everything we love about him and all of the wonderful things that makes him who he is? Instead of it being 'Nathan's birthday' it could be 'Nathan Day'! Wouldn't this do wonderful things for our children's self-esteem? What a great way to counteract the 'cookie-cutter' cultural influences our kids are innundated with every day, and reinforce that they are special to us because of who they are. Let's face it, most of our work as parents day in and day out is geared towards pointing our children to who we want them to become. We must purpose to remember to reinforce that we love who they are. This would be a banner day to drive this message home in a big way. I think I have just inaugurated 'Chris day', 'Nathan Day', and 'Carissa Day' (which happens to be the same day as what I hope would be 'Allison Day'!!) around here!
