What Stitches, Cancer, and Broken Fridges Teach You about Life

There are these young boys named Chase & Joshua that have had a grip on my heart for some time now. They are strong, brave, childhood cancer fighters.

Their parents and siblings are my heroes.

They've endured unfathomable pain, hardship, fatigue, and instability. They've had countless doctor and hospital visits. Joshua is now years past it and can hardly remember those days since he was 2. Chase is still fighting the battle of not knowing how long this remission will last or if the tumor that he still has will grow and he'll need more treatment.

Their little bodies have been through A.LOT.

This past week as we were already spiraling from some hard news the week before, and as everything seemed to fall apart left and right from our fridge breaking to Tim's car needing hundreds of dollars worth of work to Elijah twisting his ankle... we then had a bad accident on Monday with Elijah that sent us scrambling even worse.

There was a lot of blood. A lot of screaming. 1 ER visit. 4 stitches on his lower lip. 2 bumped back teeth. A pediatric dentist specialist. A chiropractor. Phone calls. Checking on insurance. Tears. Worries.

Hard news at work. Hard days in our marriage as we were both on the edge of exhaustion and stress. Financial concerns.

Thinking I was pregnant for a couple weeks only to find out we were wrong.

So then, the hormones. Oy. Right alongside Elijah's accident.

Let's just say, I'm really worn down. But in a different way than I have been before. Because God keeps showing me and reminding me of his truths, and I'm listening, feeling, and clinging to him.

Stitches.

4 of them. In his lip. And he still managed to give high fives and blow kisses to the nurses and doctors as we left the ER.

As we hovered over him in that ER, holding him down, trying to help keep him calm, reassuring him that he was going to be okay... I thought of all those parents. Parents like Chase and Joshua's. Parents who have to fight daily and pray constantly that their child will be okay today. That they won't have anything else happen to them. That the world would stop spinning long enough that they could just hold their child and know that it wouldn't be the last time.

I looked at the machines and prayed about the kids I know who are fighting some major illness or cancer and just wanting to have a normal life again.

As I've been thinking over this week and Elijah's two teeth that got knocked out of place, I have agonized and tortured myself about that moment he smacked into the corner of the coffee table and wondered what I could have done differently. How else I could have protected him from that hardship. How I'd give anything to go back in time and make it different for him.

Do the parents of kids fighting cancer deal with those questions every day? How do they face such horrific hardship? Especially those who do not have our hope in Christ?!

I cannot fathom it. And it's painful.

Our pastor and a team from our church have been on a tour (though they just got back) called Risen for the Nations (#risen4nations). They were going around to other church plants from our church around the world in Israel, Malyasia, Kenya, Nepal, and Haiti. They had just left Nepal within less than a week before the earthquake. In Haiti they still saw the devastation of the earthquake there years ago.

They were showing highlight videos. Slums. Poverty. Starving kids. Dark places.

And our fridge broke.

Frustrating days while trying to save money and having to eat out constantly because we can't have fresh food and I don't have the time or energy to figure out other ways around it. Eating anywhere that has kids meals with milk so that Elijah could at least get that into him.

Yet, we are full. We have all that we need and more.

I see these videos and I ache for the people who struggle to even have shelter and food for their families at all. I can't help but weep over the kids who fight cancer and wonder if they'll ever live normally.

I look at my child's busted lip and bumped teeth that make me sad and wish it had never happened to him because this could mess up his mouth for the rest of his life.

And then I remember I have NOTHING to really worry about. God is in control, he is sovereign, he cares for me and for Elijah. There are simply worse things in the world.

Way worse.

I felt so ridiculous complaining at all about our fridge... yet it was admittedly so hard and inconvenient for us, in part because the timing with everything else was just so terrible.

God wants our best. All he asks is that we obey and listen. I have to say I've been whining with him lately. And I know I can't stand it when my son is constantly whining.

Oh how God must view us. So thankless. So discontent. So whiney.

I'm learning a lot these days about life. About who my real friends are. About who I can trust. About God, kids, marriage, jobs, future dreams, life. About laughter and sunshine. About how our hard really isn't that hard when we get our perspective right.

I don't want stitches, cancer, or broken appliances to get in the way of who God wants me to be. So by God's grace, I'm learning and growing.

Tomorrow is a new day. Full of promise and hope.

Rough Weekends and Family Photos

It was a rough weekend and we barely survived it.

I struggled with severe anxiety on Friday. 

But we had a great date night.

Saturday I hit my head HARD on our table and I got dizzy. 

But I spoke with two doctors who are incredible

and it reminded me of our broken and sensitive our 

finite human bodies are, and just how much we all

need Jesus. Daily. 

I was required to rest and not drive for 24 hours just in case

concussion-like symptoms appeared. 

But gratefully they didn't. I was okay. 

And reminded how important life is

and how careful we must be with what God has given to us.

Hubby was gone much of Saturday, serving at church so willingly 

and picking up two items we'd purchased online super cheap from two

area suburbs. We missed him dearly especially with my head injury.

But we were reminded just how much we cherish him and his

helpfulness & sacrifices. And we are so grateful to be rid now of said-table

that I hit my head on, now that we have a new organization center for our kitchen, 

and we have an incredible new climbing/slide/play station in our family room 

for Elijah. Both items are fantastic additions to our home for only $30. 

So grateful and humbled by what we have.

My mom called a couple hours after lunch with the bad, distressing news

that my stepbrother had been found dead.

No reason. 45 years old. Tragic. 

But God has given comfort to so many in the midst of this tragedy.

Please pray for Jay's 3 kids, 3 sisters, my stepdad and mom, 

nieces & nephews, etc. Please pray for people to come to 

know and love Jesus from this. 

Late Sunday afternoon, we managed to squeeze in taking family photos with our tripod and remote. 

And if you get our Christmas cards, you'll get to see the rest of the good ones. ;) 

It was nice to be able to end the weekend on a high note!

Rough weekends happen. It makes for long weeks sometimes. 

But God is there in the midst of all of it. 

It could certainly be better. It can always be worse.

And we are so grateful and humbled by his love and goodness to us.

Death and Eternity

There's just nothing quite like death and grief.

You can't fully comprehend it. It tries to choke the life out of you.

You can't completely prepare for the waves of sorrow and grief that will overwhelm you. You can't prepare for the joy that will strike you when you picture your believing loved ones at the foot of Jesus.

After a loved one dies, sorrow hits you at the most random of moments. You grieve all over again. When it's not a sudden, tragic death - like my 94 year old Grandpa who passed away 2 weeks ago yesterday - it's easier to process, though still unbelievably sad. You wouldn't wish they were still here because they had a good, long, happy, healthy life. But the heartbreak of losing them is still awful and it gnaws at your insides for days, weeks, and sometimes years to come.

Tragedy is something else altogether. Tragic deaths - like my 2nd cousin who died suddenly in a tragic accident 1 week + 2 days ago - is impossible to really ever wrap your head around. It's shocking and hard to believe that you'll never see them again. In this case, I'd actually never met him, but I knew his dad and I adore him. It is an utter tragedy and he left two teenage girls and a wife behind... no more hugs, no more kisses on the cheek, no more cheering them on and weeping with them on their hard days. He's gone. And there's a really big, lonely, aching hole where he used to be. It will never fully make sense.

There's my friend whose precious 6-hour-old baby died 9 months ago in two days. It's incomprehensible to me why babies are allowed to die. I mean, I get that God is in control and it's part of the Fall of man and sin... but, why sweet innocent little babies? That's crazy hard. I cannot pretend to understand. But I know God is good, gracious, and kind, and he weeps with us in our sorrow.

For us personally, with Grandpa's death, this is the end of an era. We have no more living grandparents. We don't know when or if or how often now we might even see most of our cousins who live far away. The glue that tied us all together is now gone. I can hardly even begin to really imagine life without any grandparents. It seems so strange. Yet as we grow older, I fear the days of no more living parents. That knocks the breath out of me and makes me want to sob like a little girl.

So we think of all the days gone by and reflect on all those childhood memories. And we wish we could go back and tell our childhood selves that the days are fleeting, don't just toss them to the wayside for the next thing to come along.

THIS was the last time we saw him. It breaks my heart we didn't get to see him over the past year. We were planning to go this past weekend. It hurts me so much to realize this. But with his dementia, honestly he wouldn't have really understood. And Elijah never would have remembered. It was more about seeing him, touching him, having the picture together with him. One last time. One fond farewell.

Elijah will never know our grandparents. That's so very, very sad. And he will never know his paternal grandpa [Tim's dad].

What a reminder it is to savor the moments. We truly never know when it could be the last for us or someone we love. How easy it is to simply go through the motions of daily living, forgetting that the most important things in life should matter to us every single day. It could be our last. We aren't meant to live in dread of dying, but we should count the days and know that we are one day's march closer to eternity.

Where will you spend eternity?

Without knowing fully that you have an answer to that question, my friend, the answer isn't a good one. Get right with God today and make sure you know that you know that you know Jesus, accept his free gift of salvation for dying on the cross for you, and commit your life to serving him today. I'd love to see you in heaven someday!

The Preciousness of Life

I have a good friend that was in a bad car accident on Saturday, coming very close to losing her life, and yet God very much protected her & her unborn baby. They are both perfectly fine!!

I have another good friend struggling through the very difficult, very painful loss of her baby daughter who lived for just 6 hours in December. And the loss isn't even the worst of it, facing the reality of life beyond the loss is almost more painful than the loss itself.

I read a blog post tonight about a woman's husband's death at the end of December.

It all just really brings everything back into focus.

Life is so very precious. 

I snuggle my little one tight. Even in the midst of hard days, teething, being so tired he just whines and cries all day. Even in the midst of more poopy diapers than I care to count, food wasted because he suddenly decides he doesn't want it even though he was crying with starvation-like cries moments earlier. Even in the midst of the whining that doesn't seem to cease all of a sudden. I don't want any of that to suck the joy out of my heart - the true joy of being a mom to this sweet and precious boy.

I am reminded to be a kinder, gentler, more supportive wife in the midst of the hard days. And a better mother.

Because I truly have no idea what's coming around the bend. None of us do. We could be gone in the next minute. We really need to stop running about our crazy lives like everything will fall apart if we don't get this thing done perfectly or if we don't look just a certain way.

Stop right now. Breathe deep. Listen to what's happening around you. And smile.

Because no matter what's happening in this moment, it is a moment to treasure as it will never come again.

I'm reading a book right now called Grace for the Good Girl by Emily Freeman. And it's so amazing. Exhilarating. And not the kind of book I can just tear through in a week. It takes me a while to soak in what she's saying because it's just hitting me in all the right places.

Where I'm reading currently (chapter 4), she talks about a friend's mother whose funeral she'd just gone to and she talks about how people said the lady fought cancer but never complained and no one knew how much she really suffered.

I honestly have no idea how anyone would do that.

I don't want to be known to be a grumbler or complainer, yet it's a lot of what I do. Not because I want to or mean to, it's just so easy to do. To focus on the negatives or the hardships.

It's so easy to be discontent and get stuck in a rut, and then the hardship someone else goes through makes yours look like a cakewalk and makes you stop and think.

Or something happens in our own lives that jolts us back to reality. Like my friend who was in the car accident was telling me. You can go about life as usual and then, wham. 

The preciousness of life is brought back into view.

Wow, just wow.

I am so grateful for this life. This space to openly share my thoughts, whatever they may be. So grateful for God's grace and mercy, and the ways that he's shaping each of us every day.

Forgiveness and Healing

I'm watching as unforgiveness and bitterness tears apart a woman I dearly love.

She's working on it and growing toward where she wants to be with it. She has not given up hope that maybe one day she'll get there. I do think there's something to be said for giving yourself the grace and time to heal and learn to truly forgive, instead of just trying to sweep it under the rug or pretend that you've forgiven when you really haven't.

There's no shame in going to counseling to help sort it out. Talk with loved ones. Share the hurt. Sharing really does do something to our hearts to help mend as we break.

This doesn't mean you won't have days of gut-wrenching sobs and breakdowns because someone failed, disappointed, broke your heart, or abandoned you after you trusted them with your life.

I've spoken here before about having been sexually molested when I was 19 by a family member. And how it took me a long time to heal.

And how I really, fully didn't heal until he passed away.

But I wanted to take a moment today to just help remind you how very important forgiveness is. It's freeing, healing, and sanctifying. Without it, we'd just melt away, be crushed our entire lives, or grow old one day and look back with a life full of regret.

This post at (in)courage really resonated with me today and I just have to share it with you. Please take a minute to read it.

Find healing. Mend that broken heart. Take it to God and let it go.