Christian Momma

Tonight I had a first hand glance at how God is using technology to minister to people.

Let me start by saying, my dad is in need of prayers.  As you know he’s diabetic and is waiting for a kidney.  He recently has been dealing with circulation problems in his legs…the lack of circulation is starting to turn his leg/s black.  Please pray for him, he is scared that he my lose his legs.

I started with that prayer request because it’s part of my story here.  I sent out an email to our prayernet at our church along with close friends that I know will pray for my dad.  One of the people I sent that request to is a dear friend of my parents.  Pastor Steve Keller is a minister our whole family has sat under for about a year when the church we were attending was going through a transition from one pastor to another.  Steve, his wife Annette, and my parents became very close friends.  My parents even went with him to some of his revival services.

Distance now hinders them from seeing each other.  My parents living in Ohio and they live in Georgia.  I try keeping them connected through emails so that they know what’s going on with my dad’s health.

After sending out my prayer request last night, I woke up to an email from  Steve.  God had laid it upon his heart to contact a friend of his that he ministered with, who happened to be having revival meetings going on right now in Florida.  My parents also know Larry & Corrinne Silverman from those revival meetings that they went on with Steve and Annette.

Another email arrived from Steve shortly after that with a link to the online podcast that would be happening LIVE tonight.  I made it a point to log on when it started.  Once I got it all up and running, I made sure to introduce myself and let them know who I was and where I was from.  Shortly there after, Steve signed on for the same meeting.  I sat and watched as they started their worship time.  Larry chatted with me for a little while to let me know that they would be praying for my dad as soon as the worship time was over.  I immediately called my mom and dad to let them know what was going on (my parents have been having issues getting online, so they were unable to connect to the internet today).

After the worship was over, I was sure to turn up the speakers on my computer, put my mom and dad (who both happen to be on the line) on speaker phone so that my computer speakers would pick up fully.  And through all this technology, my dad was prayed for and felt God touch him…from Florida all the way to Ohio!

God doesn’t allow something like distance to hinder His ministry.  Nothing is too big or too complicated for Him!

How awesome that God used technology to reach my dad!

Anyway, my dad goes in tomorrow morning to see his doctor about the circulation in his legs.  Please pray for healing for my dad.

Thank you!  And Praise God for all that He is doing in the lives of those in FL and in my dad!

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!!

Please keep him in  your prayers…we are looking at Open Heart Surgery…in doing so, his Kidney function will be lost and he will be on dialysis.

Also, because of his heart condition, he will not be considered a good candidate for a kidney transplant for at least a year.

Thanks

I am using my blog to ask my readers for prayer.  My dad’s kidneys are getting worse.  The doctor called him today and told him they were moving forward with the Dialysis/Kidney Transplant route.

I have mentioned before how we are going to get a house so that if they have to move in during this process, we would have the room.  We did find a house, and are working on the contract part right now.

Please pray for the following…

1. Dad to have strength through this process (I’ve been told that dialysis is very draining on a person, they are tired and sick a lot).
2. Mom to be able to support my dad and get the information she needs.  She still works, so we are going to pray for her work situation during this too.
3. That there will be a match for my dad in the family or a kidney to become available quickly so that my dad can get a transplant.
4. God’s peace throughout this whole process.
5. Kevin and I’s house situation to be completed if/when my parents move in with us.

Thank you all for your prayers…they mean a lot to us!

I cannot believe that I’ve struggled so much with coming up with something to post.  This never used to be so hard for me.  I would come and post something about my day and that would be it, but now I feel like that’s not what I want to post…I want each post to have meaning.  But, in doing that, I haven’t had posts.  So I guess, they will have to both happen to get me to post more often!

My dad is now home from the hospital, the blood clot is gone…Praise the Lord!!  He is still having issues with his Kidneys.  They are functioning at 22%…which I think is Stage 3 Kidney Failure (Stage 4 is dialysis/transplant level).  That worries me.  My mom and dad have been going through the counseling for this already.  Getting the information they need to know before he gets to that point.  I talked to my neighbor, she’s a Dialysis Nurse at the VA hospital down here.  She is going to get me some information for me.  She used to work at UC Hospital (which is one of the hospitals that the doctor said they would do the transplant at).  She only had good things to say about the transplant wing (is that what they call that?).

So, Kevin and I are looking for a house!  I’m so excited!  We are being a tad picky at what we choose.  We want a 4+ bedroom house, 3 car garage, and a full basement.  We want to have the extra room so that if my dad were to need a transplant down here, they could come and live with us for a time (hence the full basement and the extra garage space).  It’s exciting to see so many houses in our price range!  We originally said we didn’t want to have a pool, however, we have found a few places that offer a pool in our price range…and even lower than our price range…causing us to take a double look at it.  I know foreclosure is bad, and I would never want anyone to go through that, however, us being in the position we are in, we are finding that the foreclosures to be to our benefit!  We don’t own a house right now, we rent, so we are in the best position to get a house right now!

Our church has been going through a lot of changes (or hints of change) here lately.  Sometimes change hurts…some of these changed directly affected me.  God has called us to this church, and I know great things will happen in this church.  Satan has been attacking this church left and right, I can see it.  I have always said that if Satan is trying so hard to take down a church, that something good will come from it.  He wouldn’t attack if we were “luke warm” or “stagnant”.  He attacks when the Kingdom of God is going to advance. We are fighting Satan, not people.  It’s a Spiritual war going on right now.

Our church is doing a church-wide study on Ephesians.  I have learned so much already.  About my prayers and about Church Unity.  It’s awesome that this study comes at a time like this!!

VBS is starting up.  I have neglected it since all the “shake-up” at the church.  Why you ask?  Well, the lady I was working closely with to run VBS is no longer in our church.  That hit me hard, I went through my “I can’t do this” stage and have since came out on the other end with a clearer head.  I have been on my knees speaking with God about direction, I think it’s becoming clearer and clearer as to what I am to do.  I’ve had more offers of help from people that I know would be wonderful helpers!  Thursday, I will be meeting with the Elder that is over VBS to get him caught up and show him what is needed, where we are going and what we are doing, so he can help and get plugged into the position that he should be in.

I can say this post has been a bit of a random “dump”, but I had to get it all out.

God is changing me, molding me into the person He has called me to be.  I’m learning…and one day I’ll get there, with God as my guide!

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!

He had surgery on his foot.  He has gout bad and when he walked, the bones in his foot were rubbing against each other.  He was apparently missing the cartridge between the bones.

Since his Surgery (Nov. 13, 2008), he has been in excruciating pain.  I went to visit him on Saturday (15th) and he was moaning and really out of it still.  The doctor had put hi on percicuit.  Which was apparently causing him to hullicinate.  So when my mom called and talked to the doctor on Monday (17th), they changed his medication to Vicidin instead.  That seemed to be a bit better and my mom started going back to work last week.

On Saturday (22nd), my mom went to my niece’s birthday party (with all of us as well) and my dad fell at home.  He was alone and couldn’t get up.

He has began to hullicinate again on his medications.  Please pray for him.  Pray for healing of his foot, (apparently, his other foot has been bothering him as well) and for clarity of mind.

Thank you!

So tonight I was enjoying listening to my MP3 player while Kevin played video games on his Xbox 360.  I had my MP3 player randomly choose my album to play today.  Today’s album was Superchic[k]’s Beauty From Pain.  I enjoyed listening to the songs today, but there were a couple that spoke to me…

Suddenly

So did this group sneak up and shine a light into my life and write a song about it?  I’ve been feeling like I’ve been slipping and then realized that I was right where I was supposed to be all along.  How neat that this song was one that was able to bring words to what I’ve been trying to say all along.

Then there’s this song…Beauty From Pain

When I heard this, I couldn’t help thinking about a friend from our church who has been going through the grief of losing her child in a terrible accident.  My heart went out to them…and still does.  It also made me think of Attack of the Redneck mommy and what she’s been going through lately.  I sat here and said a few prayers for both of them.

Have you ever had this dream…you know it’s there, but the picture isn’t quite clear?  You know there’s something special there, but you just can’t quite remember all the details?  You can still feel those “feelings” you had when you first had the dream, but now you can’t quite remember how that dream went?

How do you get that dream back?  Do you try and recreate the same atmosphere you had when you first had the dream?  Do you try and think on something little that you remember in hopes that it will trigger the whole dream again?

What if you can’t get that dream back?  Then what?  Do you just move on and forget about it?  Or do you try and figure it out?

Here I sit, with those thoughts.  I can’t quite figure out what exactly it was about anymore, but the feelings are still there.

What am I talking about?  What God has called me to do.  I know he told me once…I know the general idea of what it is, but here I am waiting on those details.  Did he tell me those and I forgot?  Or has He not yet revealed them to me?

My vision is clouded with all the “stuff” that is around me on a daily basis.  My quiet time hasn’t been what is should be.  I know that to grow in faith, I need to dive into the word and spend time with Him…so why is it that my quiet time has been the hardest time to come by?  I feel as though I rush through just so I can mark that off he “to do” list.  I know it’s not right, but that’s what is happening.  And now, I have more questions about what I’m supposed to be doing instead of answers.

I need someone to cheer me on…someone to hold me accountable…someone I’m comfortable enough to share everything with…a mentor!  Someone besides my husband (although, he would probably work, I think I need a “girlfriend”).

Where does one begin to find a mentor, or an accountability partner?

I’m of the timid type and have never really had a friend (besides my husband) that I’ve shared EVERYTHING with…this is difficult for me, and I’m not sure why that is.  It’s not like I don’t like talking…quite the contrary!  But to be so open to someone, what if I get hurt?  Please pray for me!

Do you have an accountibility partner?  What about a Mentor?  Both?  How did you come to have your accountability partner/mentor?

Ok, I need to appologize, I started this post out in one direction and it ended up in a total different one…sorry about that.  I don’t want to edit it because 1…it’s too late for me to do that, and 2…this is something I needed to get out…all of it!

Could I please ask you to pray for him?  He’s in the hospital.  He went in on Wednesday for a MRI on his feet since they have been swollen and so sore he couldn’t walk on them.  After they did the MRI, they admitted him into the hospital.

Diagnosis:  He has arthritic feet and the gout is attacking the arthritis causing extreme pain.  I should also mention here that Dad is diabetic and the medication that they usually give gout patients effects kidneys, so they had to watch what to give him.

After talking to my mom today, they will be transporting my dad to another hospital due to his kidneys not working the way they should (getting worse).  They also have to stop the gout medication as well because they contribute that to the Kidneys gettin worse.

My dad is in a lot of pain and has been having all those wonderful side effects of the medication (flu-like symptoms).  Please pray that the doctors can find the proper medication to use that will clear up the gout and not mess with his Kidneys so they can treat his feet (they can’t treat his feet until the gout is gone).  I pray that God will HEAL him!

Thank you!