Christian Momma

Dear Blog,

Please know that I haven’t abandoned you.  I have many, many blog posts that are swirling around in my head, but I just haven’t been able to focus on any of those posts.

I will be back, someday…soon!

Until then…

After 16 years, I love him more now than I did the day I said “I DO”

Happy Anniversary Kevin!!  I love you!

You can read Part 1 Here

You can read Part 2 Here

I was only 16 when they told me I may never be able to have children.  How does a 16 year old comprehend that?  It was something that went in one ear and out the other…not to be thought about again until I met Kevin (a year later).

When Kevin and I started getting serious, I flat out told him that I may never be able to have any children.  His response “Then we’ll just adopt”…he didn’t even hesitate…it was an automatic response!

Fast forward a few years…Kevin and I had been married for 2 years and at Praise and Worship practice (yep, even back then I sang and Kevin ran sound).  There was a Hispanic minister that had preached at our church that morning with an interpreter.  However, he was at practice (which we did on Sunday nights) without the interpreter.  He spoke very little English…just enough that you could get the jest of what was being said.

He began praying over each member of the Worship team.  I had NEVER shared with anyone on the team (nor the pastor) about what the doctors had said to me in regards to having children.  He got to me and asked me if I wanted to have children (basically only said the word child…or was it baby…anyway, enough that I knew what he was talking about).  I shook my head.  He began praying for me.  During that prayer the only words I could understand was baby…not your fault…and boy.  He would pray, giggle a little and say boy…this happened a couple different times…if you know my family as it is now, you can probably imagine what he was seeing as he was praying.  At the time, I had no children, so I didn’t understand the whole prayer.

Within a few months (only a couple of actually trying), I became pregnant with my 1st child.  I believe with all my heart that God healed me that day.  I may have been 16 when they told me I may never have any children, but I was 22 when I went to my family and told them that I was going to have a baby!

You can read Part 1 Here

As the ENT assessed me, he asked me if I felt any pain.  My answer…Nope.  They had to pry the door open and climb into the back seat of my car to get me onto a stretcher.  That question about pain…my answer changed as soon as they started moving me!!  Oh yeah, I probably should mention that as they were getting me out of the car…this is when I realized that my leg was broken.  My right knee had hit the dashboard and the side of my leg had hit the gear shift, breaking my femur on my right leg. I also noticed that the steering wheel had been snapped in half too and my head had hit the windshield.

They loaded me onto the ambulance and they also loaded the guy that hit me onto the same ambulance…again…small town, only 1 ambulance.  Off we go to the hospital.  While in the ambulance, I started getting those cold chills…(shock) I was loaded up with blankets.  But the more I shivered, the more my leg hurt.

Once we got to the hospital, the drama started!  Most of which I found out AFTER the fact.  The man that hit me told the staff that I was his daughter and he wanted to know how I was.  What threw a wrench into that was my parents showed up asking about me.  As all that got figured out, the doctor started in with the x-rays and the nurses came in trying to keep me calm.

From my bed, I could see the light window thing that they show the x-ray films on (I have no clue what that’s called) and could see that my femur was broken.  My parents were told that I would have to have surgery first thing in the morning and their choice was to put a rod into my leg or to put me into a full body cast (which I would have to relearn how to walk).  They chose the rod.

The next thing I can remember is being upstairs in a room with many doctors and nurses standing around my bed and this traction machine over my head.  Yep…time to put me into traction.  I know I had mentioned earlier that my head hit the windshield…yep, that threw a kink into the traction…They started pumping the morphine into my IV as they started putting the traction in.  Do you know that pain medicine takes a little while to work?  Yep…I felt them put the traction in!  Apparently, my parents were on the 1st floor while they had me on the 3rd floor.  They didn’t want them up there until the traction was finished.

After all that, it was time for me to relax (as much as you can in traction)…surgery would be the next day!

Morning of surgery…I don’t remember much.  I can remember being in the operation room and counting, then waking up back in my room.  Not much excitement…except the traction was gone and now I had a long incision on my right hip where the rod went into my leg. They noticed that my hand was swelling, so they brought the x-ray machine up to see if there were any broken bones in my left hand.  Thankfully there weren’t, however they did fit me with a brace so I could use crutches.  There was also a lot of other trauma in other places…long story short on that, the doctors told me (and my parents) that I may never be able to have children.  As part of therapy, they put me in a machine that automatically bent my leg…I didn’t do anything!  A day after surgery, I was up on crutches…I had to be taught how to use them.  I didn’t get the whole stairs thing very easily.  I went home and was out of school for about a month.

To be continued…

I was only 16 when the doctors told me…

I guess I should go back and start from the beginning…

It was a Sunday, my nephew’s dedication.  I was asked to be his God Mother.  How neat for a 16 year old to have a God Son!  It started out as an awesome day!

That evening, after his dedication, I decided to hang out with a friend of mine.  I had my license, she had her permit…I was going to be her license driver…we were going cruising!  I drove my little red Chevette out to her house and we got into her car and headed out.  Since curfew was at 9 (school night and all…), we came home in plenty of time for me to drive home.

I climbed back into my car and started home.  As I came into town, I slowed down…didn’t want to get pulled over by a cop!  I noticed a car with it’s headlights coming my way…it looked like it was over the center line, so I slowed down even more and pulled closer to the parked cars.  Little did I realize that the next few moments would define the rest of my life!

Seconds after slowing way down and pulling closer to those parked cars, I realized that this car was coming fast and it was in my lane!  There was no place for me to go!  My adrenaline kicked in and I grabbed a hold of the steering wheel ready to brace myself against this car that was coming fast.

A split second later, my car was mangled, and facing the left side of the road.  As I looked around, I saw the other car stopped a few yards past me.  The next thing I can remember was me trying to open my door.  It was stuck!  A lady (who happened to be the Chief of Police’s daughter) approached my car and asked me if I was ok…still in a dazed, I said I thought so, she then asked if I would like her to call my parents (the benefits of growing up in a small town, everyone knows everyone and their parents).

I hear the sirens of the ambulance.  Then one of the ENT’s came over and started talking to me (he happened to be a Sunday School teacher at the church I went to).  He put the brace around my neck and did his assessment from the door.  Told me not to move.

My parents showed up and were a bit shocked.  They had told me at a later date that they figured that I had hit a parked car or something…the scene they came up on was not what they had expected.  Dad came over to the car and started talking to me.  I could tell he desperately wanted to help them get me out of the car…but the ENT insisted that my dad NOT touch me (we were told later why).

Things from that night are still a bit fuzzy…so some of the above information may be a bit off, but for the most part, it is as accurate as I can remember.

To be continued…

With all the thoughts running through my head right now, I know this post is going to be all over the place.  Consider yourself forewarned!!

I, along with many others I know, have bronchitis!  Not fun!!  Because of this, I missed church…again!  I didn’t want to, I was scheduled for singing…but I couldn’t hit any note, and my “sexy voice” just wasn’t going to cut it!  Not to mention I didn’t want to get everyone else sick.

So, today was another lazy Sunday for me.  I got to sleep in.  We did run out and get groceries this afternoon after Kevin got back from church.  I am so glad we didn’t send our boys to church…Daniel got sick on our way home from the grocery store.

I had to miss my niece/God Daughter’s 2nd birthday too.  That was hard for me…I hate having to back out of plans, but I didn’t want to get their family sick too.

Noah has surgery on Thursday.  He’s getting his adnoids taken out and tubes put into his ears.  I pray that this will help with his hearing and that he would stop getting ear infections.  He’s struggling with reading and we have been working alongside his teachers getting him the help he needs to catch up.  I can’t help but wonder if his ear infections and him not being able to hear properly doesn’t have something to do with his reading.  I guess time will tell.   I just got to keep him healthy between now and Thursday.  I don’t want to have to reschedule his surgery.

Prayers would be greatly appreciated!!

I was surprised this morning by a knock at the door… A package arrived for me at the door.  Want to know what was in the package??

Sweet!

I was surprised!!

15 years, 4 boys, 3 states and 8 moves later, I love this man more today than I did the day I married him!

And the card…yeah I had tears!!

Happy 15th Anniversary Kevin!!  I love you!!

Wow, I haven’t been updating like I said I would.  Sorry about that!

I have finally started going back to the gym, which I’m so glad…Kevin is too (he pays for it).

This past weekend I went and visited with my dad at the hospital.  He had a clot that ran from his groin to his ankle.  His leg was swollen up and he has been put on blood thinners.  He’s not allowed out of the hospital until he gets rid of this blood clot.  They have him on a heart monitor the whole time, so, even though I’m really worried about him, I’m glad he’s being taken care of at the hospital.  He is up there cracking jokes and talking about different memories.  I’m really glad I got to go see him, even if I did have to leave my husband with 4 sick boys at home.

I have so much things running through my head…the biggest one is VBS right now.  I have to figure out where I need help and schedule a meeting with the Elder who is going to be helping me and lay out a plan with him before scheduling a meeting with the board to discuss how things are going and any changes that have been made since the last meeting.

I have been working harder on getting into the word daily.  I’m not where I should be yet, but I am heading in the right direction.  I sometimes struggle with actually reading something…I have done little things to remind me… I use my outlook to remind me to read devotions daily, I have a “Verse of the Day” on my desk top (Window’s Gadgets), I have a Verse of the Day (2 of them actually) on my Facebook, I have a bible on my phone and a bible in various rooms of my house, I have an email sent to me via Proverbs 31 Ministries each day.  You would think with all those things I it would be easy, but for some reason there’s a sort of disconnect somewhere, but I am truely trying to reconnect.  I would appreciate any prayer covering, so if you feel led to pray for me, please do.

We are house searching right now, which is really exciting!  I haven’t been letting myself get too excited about that, I just don’t want to have my hopes up too high.  I have been praying for this for years though…could this really be an answer to prayers?  The timing…it has to be a God thing for us to move forward.

I hang out on Facebook with so many friends now, I decided to set up my blog on the blog networks on facebook.  We’ll see how that goes.  I know it doesn’t matter how you bring people to your blog, it’s going to take me actually updating to keep people coming.  I’m hoping that I can get into some sort of routine.

Anyway, if you stop by, thank you, I’d love to hear from you.  I do appreciate you reading and following!

2008 has come and gone already.  It sure seemed to go by quickly…sometimes a little too quickly!

January

The year started out with me beginning to work on Power Lab VBS (Ah Ha!).  I was also homeschooling Michael.  We were pretty on top of our schooling and things were going pretty smoothly at the time.  I was also beginning to work in the K-1 Sunday School class room at church.  That, wasn’t going as smoothly as I had wished.

February

VBS started to consume my thoughts.  I was having dreams about not being ready, and just an overwhelming sense that I’ve bitten off more than I could chew.  AKA…I wasn’t relying on God to help me, I was relying on my own strength to do it.

February also brought about Daniel & Andrew’s 3rd birthday as well as my 34th birthday.

Michael entered his first Science Fair and ended up with a Superior rating!  I was proud, but knew full well that if he had applied himself earlier in the month, but he decided to wait until the last minute to do it.  Then we hit a rough patch in our homeschooling…a bad one.  Causing me to question my ability to teach him not to mention my basic parenting skills.  But, through the Grace of God we got through it with help from some friends in our church.

March

March brought in a lot of saddness.  My grandmother’s health begain to fail drastically.  And a friend of mine lost her child in a horrible accident. My heart ached in ways I never knew it would.  Things in me shined trhough as well.  I didn’t realize how “in tune” I was to other’s saddness.  Michael had a meeting with the staff from his online school and things turned out so much better than I had originally anticipated.

April

In April, I took a blogging break…school slipped behind and I had to push Michael to get as much done as possible a day!  Spring seemed to bring out the worst in his schooling abilities and slowly we fell behind.

May

I won this Word Press blog…I’m ever so greatful to Lisa for hosting the giveaway that allowed me to win! The final push to get VBS was upon us.  VBS was scheduled for the 2nd week of June.  My grandmother passed away that month as well.

June

VBS week came and went without too much problems.  Yes, there were a few bumps in the road, but overall things turned out GREAT!  I was elated that things went as well as they did and relieved that it was all over with as well.

July

We celebrated Michael’s 11th birthday in July along with Kevin and I’s 14th wedding anniversary.  In between those 2 events, we threw my mom and dad a 60th Birthday/40th Wedding Anniversary party.  We were very impressed that we were able to pull it off!  Mom and dad had only suspected that we were planning on all going out to eat together, not that we would have all of their friends and family at a hall waiting for their arrival!  We even got one of their friends from High School to travel from Chicago to Ohio to celebrate with them as well!

We also got to see Extreme Makeover Home Edition in our town.  My mother drove down the night before to stay overnight and we headed out to the new house to watch the bus move.  That is a day that was HOT, but I wouldn’t have missed for the world.  To see something like that is a once in a lifetime thing.  Michael still claims to have High-Fived Ty!

August

We went for our 1 and only camping trip of the year.  We had so much fun, and would love to go back to the Michigan Dunes again.  Our church also had a Worship Night.  Something changed in me that night and I have been forever changed!

September

School started right after Labor Day!  We decided to send Michael back to public school since things weren’t working out the best for us at home.  We are happy to report that he is doing wonderful in the public school!

We celebrated Noah’s 8th birthday in September.  We also found out that an eight year old child, when given $20 in cash and not watched very closely at the grocery store (because mom and dad were busy ringing/bagging groceries), will spend the whole $20 on lottery tickets!  And before you ask…YES it’s illegal for him to purchase them, but when they have a “vending machine” of lottery tickets just sitting over by the bubble gum machines, it’s just calling for a child to play with it!  And he only wond $2!

October

In October, Kevin and I started going to a new Bible Study.  I was elated that Kevin wanted to go to one since he has never really showed any interest in going before.

We also walked, for the first time, in the JDRF Walk for a Cure for my Niece.  We were so proud of her, she ended up getting 2 awards…one for the amount of money raised and the other for the T-Shirt design!

November

We celebrated Kevin’s 38th birthday.  How?  Well, I went to a Arbone party and he watched football…now that’s love!

We had our traditional weekend after Thanksgiving shopping adventure.  My parents’ took Michael, Noah, Daniel, & Andrew for the weekend (it ended up my parents had Daniel & Andrew and my sister had Michael & Noah).  We always enjoy that weekend away from the boys.  It’s nice to pretend we are childless…even if it’s just for the weekend!  But we are always so excited when they return.

December

We spent most of the month either running from Christmas Program to Christmas Program or from Christmas to Christmas.  However this year it seemed to be a little less travel than usual.  We only spent 1 night up at my parent’s house and we actually had Christmas Eve and Christmas Day at home for the first time in a long time!

For 2009, I’m sure there will be new things that God shows us along the way, new challenges to overcome and new friends to meet, but I trust that God will be joining us along this journey and we will rest in the knowledge of Him.

I was reading my morning blog feeds, and came across one that made me pause…and seriously contimplate what I have been doing way too often in my life!

Peter from Without Wax had a post entitled:  I’m Tired of this Game.  In it, he talks about comparisons he makes about other people.  I sat there and realized, I too do this ALL the time!  I don’t like it, it doesn’t make me feel better about myself either.  Usually, I look at them and wish I were that way…I see something I am lacking in my own life.  If I’m not careful, it can lead to jealously…something that is ugly in and of itself!

I am who God intended me to be and I shouldn’t be comparing myself to anyone else!