~God's Warrior~ Fighting Fibular Hemimelia

The Widow and the Oil: Empty Buckets are Most Fit for the Well of Grace

2017-01-11T04:57:00.000-08:00

“Empty buckets are most fit for the well of grace”~ Charles Spurgeon

“The Little Drummer Boy” has always been my favorite Christmas carol, and for Christmas, my mom gave me an original 1958 Harry Simeone Chorale album whose cover is complete with the boy and his red drum and white lambs. Holding it in my hands, I can still hear the scratchy sound of the needle circling the grooves of the record resounding with the Pa rum pum pum chorus. Something about this boy and his ineptitude spoke to me even as a child. He had nothing “fit” to give our King -and I’ve always known that my hands are empty before the Lord, too. Most of the time believing fully that I carry not even a drum beat worthy to be played for Him.

But knowing my hands are empty -and believing that empty handedness is the only true gift that I can give Him- has been a long journey toward faith.

I’ve always known that you can’t get cleaned up for church so to speak -that the cleansing comes AFTER redemption and not before, and I’ve always known that I could never bring something fit for my King. But I’ve always wanted to please, to bring a good gift. And I’ve brought many wrapped in good intentions, wanting to be loved, to be accepted -despite my feelings of inadequacy, despite the fact that I was trying to win something I had already been given.

I’ve always known that God promises to meet my every need according to His riches in glory, and I’ve always known that those riches are inexhaustible, but I’ve always been afraid to fully trust in those inexhaustible riches. I’ve brought my fleshly efforts to the table -despite the fact that I know they are worthless, know they are the equivalent of the mythological Daughters of Danaus whose eternal punishment was to carry leaking jugs of water to fill a basin without a bottom in order to cleanse themselves of their sins.

And the Lord, He keeps bringing me back to this story, this story of a widow woman whose husband was the son of a prophet, a widow woman who was in desperate need. A widow woman whose husband left her in debt, not procured by his idleness, but by his faith, because he would not comply with the king’s way of worship. A widow woman whose sons were about to be enslaved by a creditor - who was about to lose everything. A widow woman who was left with only a vessel of oil, and not the finest oil, such as would be used for cooking food, but the more common kind which she would make use of after a bath.

And I’m sure she stood there for agonizing moments, not knowing what to do, looking at those boys, her boys, and thinking that she’d already lost so much, wondering why the Lord didn’t do something, didn’t intervene, and somehow bring about deliverance.

And this widow woman, she cries out to Elisha the prophet, the voice of the Lord, for help - and when he sees her meager stock, he commands her to “borrow vessels of all her neighbours, even empty vessels; and to borrow not a few.” And when she returned with the vessels, she was to shut her door and pour out her oil into the vessels and set aside those that were full (2 Kings 4:3-4).

And she doesn’t even think; she doesn’t contemplate whether or not to obey. She doesn't consider the absurdity of the request. She’s desperate. So she just quickly sends her sons to go -to collect empty oil jugs from their friends and from their neighbors. And these friends and neighbors comply -and soon the room is filled, filled with empty earthen vessels.

And there she stands, this widow woman and her sons, surrounded by borrowed emptiness. And she begins to pour from her pot of oil -her small pot, and the vessels, all the empty vessels are filled, one by one filled with precious oil. And she goes running back to Elisha and he tells her to go and sell the oil, and pay her debt, and live with her children on the rest (2 Kings 4:7).

And I can’t stop wondering what she did at that moment, at that moment of the miraculous when her sons were saved and their future was secured. Did she weep? Did she dance before the Lord? Did she shout praises to His name? Or did she stand in that room with those vessels full of oil, speechless with worship.

And I think of Elisha’s command to set out empty vessels for the Lord to fill, and I stand here in my place of anxiousness contemplating the difficulties of this year that has just passed, and the possibilities of what may come in the new year -what joys and what tribulations.

And I begin to set them out, one by one, even empty vessels, not a few. Vessels for every need -needs many and needs varied. Spurgeon says we should “[h]ide none of them away, but put them down one after another, in a long row, all of them. There are needs for [our] body, needs for [our] soul, needs for [our]selves, needs for [our] families, needs for the present, needs for the future, needs for time, needs for eternity, needs for earth, needs for heaven.” Don’t limit the miracle, he warns, “Have you one forgotten need? Make haste with it! Still the oil is multiplying. Come one! Come all! Arrange your vessels and the Lord will fill up your needs by His grace, and fill your mouths with a song.’

And I think about what was required for the widow’s miracle, and what is required for mine -and I look at these empty hands, lifted up before Him, no good gift fit to bring. And I think of the widow and how she was pressed and scared and how the creditor was coming and those boys were looking at their momma with fear. And how in her desperation, she began to set out those pots in anticipation of the Lord’s filling.

And I set out another vessel and another -until there’s room for no more. For my needs are many and varied. And I shut the door and wait.

And I turn over my uplifted hands so that anything left of me can spill out on the floor. I empty myself before Him -empty myself of seeming control and earthly efforts -of doubt and unbelief -so that He can fill me with His grace, His miracle.

And Spurgeon reminds me that “that this is precisely all that Jesus Christ requires of us—that we be to Him and His divine fullness as empty vessels! The grace is with Him, not with us, just as the oil was in the woman’s one pot and not in the empty vessels. …O soul, if you believe in Jesus, you shall find in Him grace to pardon you, grace to change your nature, grace to keep that nature changed, grace to preserve you till you are perfect, grace to help you till you are brought home to glory! ”

And the sufficiency of His grace meets my needs and my anxious place becomes my place of faith, Holy ground.

And in the morning, I will set out the vessels again because His mercies are new each day and my needs are many. And some of those vessels, I’ll set out again tomorrow and again and again each morning until the Lord sees fit to answer. Until the Lord grows my faith and strengthens my resolve and becomes my strong tower.

And to you who are waiting, waiting with me, waiting for the miracle to come, I’ll set out a vessel for you tomorrow and you set out one for me, and together, tried believer, we will offer Him the only gift fit for such a King: emptiness.

Pa rum pum pum pum

Rum pum pum pum

Rum pum pum pum.

SUFFERING

2017-01-05T06:34:00.002-08:00

I write a lot about suffering.

Because I suffer.

We all do.

And I want to understand it.

I know, because He has taught me, that our suffering here on earth is working out a heavenly blessing that we will receive one day in eternity. In fact, 2 Corinthians promises: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” Our suffering, then, that often feels so heavy, is, on God’s grand scale, accurately weighed, accounted for, eternally weighted -- worth something.

Our suffering is never in vain.

And when I recount His promises, I remember Paul’s words -that “we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God” (Acts 14:22).

Much: a lot of, a great/good deal of, a great/large amount of, plenty of, ample, copious, abundant, plentiful, considerable.

Tribulation: suffering, distress, trouble, misery, wretchedness, unhappiness, sadness, heartache, woe, grief, sorrow, pain, anguish, agony; travail.

And I know these words are truth, yet how do I embrace them? How do I long for that which brings Him glory if the glory comes from suffering? How do I press on? How do I keep my eyes on things that are yet unseen and keep them off things that I can so clearly see? (2 Corinthians 4:18).

How do I realize the temporal nature of pain and the eternal nature of glory? How do I live for the sake of the gospel?

I have to be Still to know Him. Be Still Before Him. I have to pray that His Holy Spirit working within me changes my selfish desires, exchanges my selfishness for sacrifice. And I ask myself, “What I am willing to give up for Him? What am I willing to endure?”

And I read Paul’s words to the church of Colosse: “[I] rejoice in sufferings for you, and fill up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body's sake, which is the church” (Colossians 1:24).

Oh, how Paul suffered for Christ’s church. His tribulations “fill[ing] up that which was behind of the affliction of Christ” -how in the suffering of his flesh, he became Christ-like. How in the suffering of his flesh, he carried His cross, faithful to death, for the sake of the church, rejoicing in his pain. And I’m reminded that “a Christian may be said to fill up that which remains of the sufferings of Christ, when … he bears patiently the afflictions God allots to him.”

And I pray for patience (the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset) to bear (sustain, carry, support, shoulder, absorb, take on) the afflictions (suffering, distress, pain, trouble, misery, wretchedness, hardship, misfortune, adversity, sorrow, torment, tribulation, woe) God allots (allocate to, assign to, apportion to, distribute to, issue to, grant to; earmark for, designate for, set aside for;) to me.

Fibular Hemimelia -Boats part 2

2016-11-21T09:14:00.000-08:00

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the boats we’re in and how we’re just trying to get to the other side and how the waters are often stormy and how sometimes He waits to the last hour to come to us but HE always comes because He promised He’d never leave us.

And last night I was thinking about these contrary winds that have come to the ones I love and added more weight to the boat they’re already having a hard time navigating, and my first response is to start a brigade -to bail them out, to get a bucket, to do something besides watch from the shore as they desperately paddle. And I tell Freddie that I just can’t stand here and do nothing, just stand here helpless. And he tells me that all I can really do is pray. Just pray.

And that doesn’t seem enough for me. Surely, there’s something I can do, something I can fix. But I keep looking - and some of these boats, all of them really, are beyond my reach. And I go to sleep defeated and fearful, tears of desperation on my face.

But when I woke up this morning, I could hear water tapping our glass block window in the bathroom, the sound of the abundance of rain. I could make out raindrops amid the kaleidoscope of images filtering into the room -and I felt compelled to kneel. I pressed my face to the cold, gray tile and cried out to Him, wanting to be made low so that He could be made high. And I spread before Him all these burdens I couldn’t bear, stretching my fingers and opening my hands to let go of the things I could no longer carry. And He spoke to me as the rain pelted the glass and He reminded me gently that I’ve never really rescued anyone from a sinking boat, that He’s been in control all along. That I’ve never been at the helm, not really. That I’ve just held tightly to this facade of control, trying to empty buckets of water to save those I love.

And when I get up and open His Word, He comes to me. In 2 Kings, He brings me to the story of the widow, left with only a measure of oil, whose sons are about to be taken to pay her debt. And she turns to Elisha the prophet for help. And he simply tells her to find some empty vessels -and not just a few- to ask her neighbors even, and to set them out and to pour out her supply of oil. And she obeys, and God multiplies the oil and fills all the vessels -every one -and He miraculously supplies her need and secures the future for her and her sons.

And I read Charles Spurgeon, who says to keep this image before you - this image of the widow and her desperation. And to “bring forth your vessels, even empty vessels not a few. All your need … —needs many, and needs varied. And set them out. Hide none of them away, but put them down one after another, in a long row, all of them. There are needs for your body, needs for your soul, needs for yourselves, needs for your families, needs for the present, needs for the future, needs for time, needs for eternity, needs for earth, needs for heaven.” Set out empty vessels for every need that you have -and like the widow, borrow extra vessels -enough for the needs of those you love -those you so desperately want to save. And stand on the side, on the shore -and watch -watch as God miraculously fills those vessels until they’re overflowing. And Spurgeon compels me to “rest fully assured that the Lord that filled the borrowed pots in Elisha’s day will also supply [my] borrowed needs. Bring out your vessels and see if it is not true. Do not put your cares away in the back room and say, ‘I shall draw them out tomorrow and begin worrying over them.’ Instead of that, while the oil is flowing, bring them here before the Lord, that the oil may have free course, and find suitable storage. Would you limit the miracle? Have you one forgotten need? Make haste with it! Still the oil is multiplying. Come one! Come all! Arrange your vessels and the Lord will fill up your needs by His grace, and fill your mouths with a song. Fill them according to His riches in glory -through Christ Jesus.” And Spurgeon reminds me that “you and I are such leaky vessels that none but God can ever fill us. And when we are filled, none but God can keep us full.”

And He’s teaching me that when I think of those boats and those winds and how far it seems to the other side and how weighted down my loved ones seem - that instead of picking up my bucket to do something -to attempt a rescue -that I need to set it down instead -set down the empty bucket instead -and wait for the miracle supplied by the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus. And I am reminded that “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32). And I think of that cold tile and my face pressed against it and the burdens lifted from my hands and replaced with faith.

Fibular Hememila -When You Feel Like Your Boat is Sinking

2016-10-31T07:06:00.001-07:00

A message I heard from an evangelist has resonated with me -maybe changed my entire perspective on our purpose for being -and God keeps bringing me back to this scripture, this life changing truth because He wants to transform me, to mold me into the image of Himself.

In Matthew 14, Jesus performs a miracle, feeding the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes. Following this meal, the WORD tells us that “straightway Jesus constrained his disciples to get into a ship, and to go before him unto the other side, while he sent the multitudes away. 23 And when he had sent the multitudes away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone. 24 But the ship was now in the midst of the sea, tossed with waves: for the wind was contrary.”

The dictionary defines “constrained” as compelling or forcing (someone) toward a particular course of action. Jesus “compelled” the disciples to get into the ship and go to the other side -knowing what was to come -a storm of “contrary” winds that would toss the ship. The dictionary defines “contrary” as opposite, clashing, conflicting, irreconcilable, and incompatible.

So this begs the question: why? Why send, compel, force the disciples into a boat, headed toward a storm that would cause them great distress and fear? Why stay behind to pray and leave them alone to face the stormy sea? Why wait, as verse 25 discloses, until the fourth watch of the night, near morning, to come to their rescue?

The Christian life, we know, is a journey, not through a placid lake, but through a swift river. If we don’t paddle, we won’t just sit still, we’ll go backward, lose ground. But sometimes, when the winds are raging -clashing, seeming irreconcilable, it’s exhausting to keep lifting the oars. Press forward, that’s what Paul tells us to do, right? Press “toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:14). It’s the prize, then, that’s supposed to keep us rowing despite our fears and our exhaustion?

Yet, in the boat sometimes, especially at night, I lose sight of the prize. I just want stiller waters, not stronger arms. I want the life that the world promised instead: smooth sailing, health, vitality, prosperity, happiness. So much more appealing than picking up the oar and pressing on.

Ann VosKamp writes that this year one of her sons was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes, and she describes herself as having joined the club of those who watch their children inject themselves with insulin each day and count carbs and prick fingers. A club of the broken-hearted, worried parents who get up each day and press on, rowing to the other side with thoughts of the health of their babies.

And I think of the boat I’m in and the weighty things I’m hauling that make rowing especially hard. Standing in line at Wal-Mart yesterday, buying iron- on letters for Emily’s team day shirt, I begin to sweat. Even though it’s two hours until I have to be at MECC for the night class that I’m teaching, I’m worried I’ll be late. The cashier is taking way too much time -and when I get to the car, I realize I’ve forgotten something and have to go back in -and wait again. My stomach is literally sick and I’m fanning myself with my wallet. Although I know it takes maybe thirty-five minutes to get to the college, my adrenal glands must not have gotten the message. And someone’s thinking -really, that’s all you’ve got in that boat: anxiety? But if you don’t know, if you’ve never held what I’m carrying, then you can’t imagine what it weighs and how difficult it makes the rowing.

And I think of my family and my friends and these boats that He sent them out in, knowing the contrary winds that were to come. And I consider what they’re facing -these worst fears becoming truth. And in the recesses of my heart, I know. I know that there are PROMISES made that will come to pass and that my God, He’s faithful to His Word. And I know He’ll work all this out, but sometimes I forget. I’m prone to wander and He knows it. He knows I’ll sit in my boat sometimes and feel alone despite the truth of His Word that tells me I’m not Forsaken. I’ll wonder why my cousins are left to pick up the pieces after their grandfather’s death and their mother’s subsequent suicide. And I’ll wonder why my mom struggles for breath, to simply breathe in the air God’s provides. And why my friend and her husband are anticipating the birth of their first grandbaby while sorting through cancer treatment options. And why every 10 seconds a child in our world dies from hunger and 125,000 babies are aborted every day.

And I could sit here in this boat for hours, my eyes off the prize, and put down my oar and float backward -away from the shore.

BUT in the FOURTH HOUR something never fails to compel me - to rescue me from myself and the weightiness of despair. To remind me of the PRIZE -that has nothing to do with health and vitality and prosperity and happiness and has everything to do with JESUS.

In Philippians, Paul tells us that “he count[s] all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus [his]Lord.” This PRIZE, then, that we’re striving toward is a knowing -an intimate knowledge of our Savior. Paul wants to “be found in him,” to “know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”

To KNOW HIM, we have to be stripped of our religious pretense -to stand before HIM bare, vulnerable, in need. We have to experience a STORM in order to experience a rescuing, a knowing of who He is, and a transforming of who we are as a result of who He is. We cannot fellowship in the sufferings of Christ apart from suffering. We cannot be conformed without being refined. The dictionary defines “refined” as to bring to a fine or a pure state; free from impurities. The Prize, then, all along, is FREEDOM in CHRIST, a putting on of a righteousness that isn’t our own.

I can think about this water and this boat in two ways; I have a choice. I can choose to see a God who sent me ahead alone to navigate through fearful waves. Or I can choose to see a God whose greatest desire is for me to KNOW Him -to know the strength He provides when the oars are too heavy -to know His methods of rescue -the words and the people and the circumstances that He sends to spur me on. I can see this water and this boat as unfairness or I can see it as GRACE. I can choose to believe that “when God raises the winds and lifts the waves — you can always trust His hand to lift you higher — further up into Himself. And Sometimes when it feels like God’s breaking our anchor — He’s really breaking our idols —- what we were holding on to more than we were holding on to Him.”

This Grace, this AMAZING GRACE that saved us, this Grace of turbulent times and rough waters, it’s our passage to knowing Him. In Matthew, Jesus eventually comes to the disciples in the fourth hour, walking on the water. Excitedly, Peter attempts to join Him, but sinks because of doubt and fear. What does Peter do at this moment, this sinking, fearful moment. The WORD tells us he cried out and Jesus, our rescuer, “immediately stretched forth his hand, and caught him.” Aren’t we all in need of immediate rescue? Don’t we all just need to be caught -to be held by this ONE who came to save and not to condemn? And what’s the requirement? What can we do? Like Peter, we must cry for out HIM -and He will come.

Don’t we all need to cry in repentance -repenting of a life lived for the wrong prize -a life lived for the accumulation of meaningless things and selfish desires -for thinking that anything apart from HIM was of any worth -for wanting God to conform to our plans and not seeing the BEAUTY of HIS. I need to repent, don’t you, of wishing I had a different boat, a different weight to carry -an easier way to be transformed. I need to repent, don’t you, of holding on to things (health, vitality, prosperity, happiness, children, family, security, pride, self-sufficiency) more than HIM.

I need to come to HIM, don’t you -because He tells us that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. Remember He has carried our burden for us --already borne it to Calvary. I need to cry out - to grow in grace and KNOWLEDGE - because my burden of SIN has been lifted, freely lifted -and the rest is GRACE. And these fears, these heavy-hearted feelings can be REDEEMED, TRANSFORMED, stripped of their power - by the Holy One.

And I Press On.

24 hours with a Brain Tumor

2016-04-07T18:17:00.000-07:00

"My 24 hours with a Brain Tumor"

There are haunting moments in life, minutes of time that we cannot unsee or unfeel or simply store in some unretrievable bank of our minds.

The memory of calling my mother from the parking lot of Lonesome Pine Hospital, crying, no wailing, trying to form the words to say that Josh had a brain tumor will never leave me. I can hear her voice, a gasping confusion. I can feel the chill of November air - and the world seemingly stand still.
...

And then, a couple of weeks ago, I listened to my voicemail, a nurse calmly relaying my need to come into the office to discuss CT scan results. I can still see the doctor’s face, a resolute, unblinking stare, trying hard to form the words to say that I had a brain tumor.

For twenty-four hours, almost to the minute, I lived with what I believed to be a brain mass, a measurable, 8mm lesion near my pituitary gland.

Sometimes we hear things with an inability to grasp their significance, but I know brain tumors. I know blood vessels that can pool blood into raspberry-like masses. I know craniotomies and cavernous angiomas and the bitter taste of those words on my tongue and on my heart. I know waiting rooms and waiting for news and heads shaved and stitched. I know fear.

Driving home with swirling thoughts and remembrances, I was no longer the watcher and the waiter, but this time the owner of this thing -this 8mm matter that could challenge, could change, could claim, my life.

Inside the house my babies played piano and guitar, laughter floated down the long hall and into the car where I sat, quieted, so unlike me. After blog posts and updated statuses and questions and praises and verses written on notepads and sticky notes and index cards, my voice was silent.

Perhaps HE knew that I needed to listen before I could open the door and tell that man -the one who listened to my past and knew how painful things had been before, how miscarriages and divorce and loneliness and fear had left me raw and grasping. The one who slept alone his first few months of marriage so I could hold a little boy with a stitched up skull whose blond hair the doctor gave to me in a plastic bag just in case I would need something to smell and to touch. The one who counted his son’s nine toes and told me it would be okay and has driven too many eight hour trips to Baltimore to count. The one who stood outside an operating room when my uterus tore during the delivery of his only little girl --and held my hand when I understood that no more babies would be birthed. The one who didn’t leave when anxiety took me under and fear became my mantra.

In those moments- on the way to the office, driving home, in the driveway, if I know me, I was afraid, questioning, shouting unfairness, wondering how many more things needed to be added to my list -my long list of trials and storms.

BUT, I underestimated the JESUS in me.

I cried leaving the doctor’s office, lost my keys and found them in the men’s restroom where I had entered by mistake. I imagined my husband and children’s lives lived without me. I was shaken. But I was not undone.

Something different came to me, something that straightened my shoulders and strengthened my resolve. Something that I couldn’t quite name because I had never quite seen it before. In forty-one years, I’m not sure I’ve rested, settled, quieted as much as I did in those moments.

This thing that came to me was so different from the fear that came in that waiting room in Knoxville, watching for the doctor who said that if I saw him come through the operating room door, he would be bearing bad news -news his nurses couldn’t carry to a young mother. Or the thoughts that came, after only seven months married and eight weeks pregnant, waiting to hear that Freddie’s brain surgery had resulted in no residual damage. So different from the crying times when I let the little ones spend a night away from home, questioning yet another decision made. Or times wanting so badly to simply be accepted -to feel I was good enough. Good enough wife and mother and daughter and sister and friend and teacher and housekeeper and decorator and money saver.

Christ named this thing for me -called it HIS STRENGTH, whispered that I’m not who I was. HE showed me my list from HIS perspective-those powerful storms designed, dealt, given to me -and the name at the top of the page was my name: Highly Favored.

I could see HIS hand working through this stream of difficulties, turning my reliance from myself to HIM, turning my faith from myself to HIM, turning my life from myself to HIM. I could see the JOY shifting from my plan to HIS.

I could feel this letting go that felt like being held.

Mary, she was first proclaimed Highly Favored, dealt a list that included unwed, pregnant teen, worried mother, lonely widower, only family member at the cross. HE took her list and through it, blessed her life -and yours and mine.

On the pages of my list he crossed through each dark moment, each fear, each doubt and wrote above the words in an ink of blood: MY GRACE IS SUFFICIENT.
….

I sat in the car still settled, still silent and fully believing that HIS plan was greater-that whatever HE wrote next, whatever HE added to my story would be written for my good, my transformation and for HIS glorification.

I walked into the house to Freddie- and later that night drove to my Momma and Daddy’s house to them and my brother -and to Kelly’s house to her-each time through tears telling the news that I had been diagnosed with a brain tumor.

These five especially, they know me -my insecurities, my fears, my anxieties, but that night they heard the JESUS in me -as I allayed their fears and reminded them that HE was always good even when we could not understand.

And that I was NOT afraid.
…..

The next day, I had an MRI and prayed in that white tunnel until I eventually fell asleep. On the way home, the same nurse called again-this time to simply say that there was no tumor.

My mom is a firm believer that God removed those 8mm of tissue and others believe that the CT was simply misread. I believe that God, in HIS divine Sovereignty, revealed HIMSELF to me through the sufficiency of HIS STRENGTH.

Christ first revealed HIS resurrected body-the TRUTH of the gospel - to Mary Magdalene -and commissioned her to go and tell the brethren. When Christ transforms something within us, HE expects praise!

Glory with me in HIM tonight -and pray with me that HE would continue to perfect that which concerneth you and me -until we see HIM face to face!

And, if you belong to HIM, you are highly favored, too! HE is crafting your list to mold you into HIS likeness!

Fibular Hemimelia and GRACE

2016-02-06T06:19:00.003-08:00

After school yesterday, Emily talked of her friend who was so worried about her math test that she cried in class. “Mom,” she said, “The teachers always tell her that she overthinks things. Not me! I just go with the flow, whatever floats my boat.”

Sometimes I think that if I could trade places with anyone, it would be this fiery nine-year-old whose attitude, no, whose God given design brings me such JOY. If you know me, then you know that I’m one of those over-thinkers. Maybe it’s why I’m pretty good at teaching literature, but over analysis sometimes comes at a cost.

Yesterday, I was reading about the life of Martin Luther –if you know much history, you’ll remember that he started the Protestant Reformation. He nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to the door of All Saints' Church in Wittenbergh in protest of such practices as buying indulgences that guaranteed forgiveness of sins and ultimate salvation. He also authored hymns, among them “A Mighty Fortress is Our God.”

What you may not know is that Luther was an over-thinker, someone who agonized with fear and anxiety related to salvation and eternal life. He had obsessive thoughts of never being “good enough” for God and, as a result, going to Hell. These obsessions plagued Luther throughout his life –and he struggled with fear that is hard to be put into words. Today, he would have been diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder –not what many laugh off as a need to be overly organized, but as a disorder that plagues the mind with doubt. YET, Luther claimed that the only relief, the only remedy from his anxiousness, came from God whispering ONE WORD, ONE TRUTH: GRACE.

God brought this realization to me yesterday, whispered this truth, His spirit communed with mine: had Luther not suffered, had his life not been characterized by anxiety and struggle, had he not sought truth, not sought God for help, then the entire Protestant Reformation may never have happened. God, in His Infinite Wisdom, ordained his suffering to bring about a revival of TRUTH, the salvation of many souls.

Ethan has a “bucket” list on the cork board in his room –among the items on his list: ride a bull, read a chapter book in a day, win a car race. I noticed an added sheet to his list the other day –and one bulleted statement stopped me for a moment, brought tears to my eyes: no more surgeries.

Sometimes as parents, as friends, as sisters or aunts or cousins of those who struggle, we wonder why. We wonder what God is doing –why has my eleven- year- old had six surgeries with more to come? Why does my uncle have Alzheimer’s? Why is one of my former students facing cervical cancer? Why is my friend in a joyless marriage?

And there’s only one answer: GRACE.

God’s grace, if we remember, brought Christ to the cross where He suffered, the Bible says, as none as suffered before or since –and this suffering, this brutal seeming unfairness inflicted on one who had no sin, purchased our redemption.

2 Corinthians 4:17 states: “ For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”

Did you know that your suffering –your God ordained trials and troubles, will one day result in an eternal reward? That one day, you will lay your crown of suffering at the feet of Christ –at the feet of the one who knows suffering –who prayed for the “cup” of suffering He was about to endure to be passed from Him –yet accepted God’s will and took our place.

If I asked, you would say that you believe the Bible to be the inspired Word of God: TRUTH. Yet, HE plainly tells us that we will suffer. 1 Peter 5:10 states: “But the God of all grace, who hath called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after that ye have suffered a while, make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you.” He tells us, plainly, that our suffering will PERFECT, ESTABLISH, STRENGTHEN, and SETTLE us. I want to be perfected, established, strengthened, and settled –and it will happen through suffering. And, I want this for my son, my uncle, my former student, and my friend.

What if, through your suffering, like Luther’s, God will bring many souls to salvation? What if HIS plan really is BEST? What if HIS WORDS are TRUTH? What if we just TRUST HIM? What if we simply seek refuge In God, our MIGHTY FORTRESS and give HIM glory through our pain?

Fibular Hemimelia -Decisions

2015-10-03T16:32:00.000-07:00

In the next few months, Freddie, Ethan, and I will have to prayerfully make a decision regarding Ethan’s future surgeries. The weight of this decision feels physical, pressing on my heart and mind, bringing tears to my eyes even as I type. His left femur is projected to be 2 ¼ inches shorter than his right at the end of growth (it’s over an inch shorter now), and we have two options: 1) to lengthen the femur internally -which involves a major surgery, therapy, and about six months of his life, but is a much easier procedure and less risky than the external lengthening he has already endured - or 2) to slow the growth in the right leg -which involves a minor surgery on his otherwise healthy leg, resulting in the loss of a bit over two inches of height.

Such a strange decision to be placed in our hands: how tall will your son be.

God mercifully chooses our babies’ eye colors, the outline of their precious faces, the color and number of hairs on their heads. So I see this decision as a heavy one. Ethan’s wise, we know that, and practical, and his voice will be heard. But can you imagine even making this choice for yourself? Would you endure another surgery? Would you permanently alter your stature?

I’ve preached to young girls many times -and daily to myself -that God created your body, formed it perfectly. Whether it be full hips or boyish figures, we’re fearfully made. And Ethan is, too- masterfully knitted by the hands of God. And God has walked this before us, I know, and will answer our prayers for peace.

And when I think of all of the decisions we make each day -and their implications - I know that this one, though weighty, is not life. And simply pales in comparison to the decision we saw those young students make this week - the decision to stand in the face of fear and boldly choose Christ.

Each day, though, whether we acknowledge the fact or not, we make the same choice -we either choose Christ or we don’t. Second Peter tells us that the Christian walk should be a diligent one - a continual choosing of holiness over unrighteousness, a pressing on toward godliness, an adding of attributes: faith, virtue, knowledge of God. Be sure of your calling, he warns -because those who are assured look and live differently than those who are not -not because of our innate goodness, but because of the God who indwells us -who compels us -toward Himself -who promises to finish the work that He’s started -who promises to keep us from falling and to present us faultless before His glory!

He alone is WORTHY of our PRAISE!

And He Alone will help us decide what’s best, I know.

But He also calls us to pray together -to stand together -especially here in these last days (or so they seem to be) -to finish together. So, pray for us and our decision -as your examine your decisions each day. Let’s compel each other, each day, to choose Jesus -and to be so BOLD in our choosing that a lost and dying world might yearn for the Christ in us! Let us live each day radically choosing Jesus, so that if our death comes in martyrdom, it will be a fitting end to a life lived daily proclaiming His name, choosing Him over hatefulness, over worldliness, over selfishness, over bitterness - over all sin.

Fibular Hemimelia: a pictorial of Sixteen years

2015-09-06T13:39:00.003-07:00

I wanted to compile a chronicle of pictures of Ethan's journey thus far. Sometimes it's helpful when thinking of the future to realize how far we have come!

I wish I had taken many more baby pictures of his feet and legs! When Ethan was born, his nine toes surprised us, but doctors did not provide a diagnosis of fibular hemimelia until Ethan was 9 months old. This was after I noticed his leg length discrepancy when he was three or four months of age -obvious in the pictures below! (2004)

By five-years-old, his discrepancy was about 5-6 centimeters, and we had made our way to Baltimore and Dr. Standard. He experienced no problems or limitations -aside from an occasional knee pain or two (probably caused by his valgus (knock-knees).

Ethan's first surgery was performed four months before his 7th birthday; this involved the placement of an external fixator on the tibia/fibula and an 8-plate insertion. The first six weeks were rough -as he lost the ability to bend his knee without excruciating pain. After much therapy, however, he began to make great gains. His leg was quite cooperative, and aside from a few pin site infections, things progressed rather smoothly. We stayed in Baltimore for 10 weeks post-surgery in order to be near Dr. Standard and the physical therapy department. Ethan had land and pool therapy three times a week and x-rays every two weeks! We were able to watch his leg grow 6 centimeters as new bone developed (2011)

Six months later, Ethan had his second surgery - to remove the fixator and replace it with a thigh-high cast. (2011)

Though a bit cumbersome, wearing a cast for eight weeks was a sigh of relief in comparison to the ex-fix!

After a couple of months, the first cast was replaced with a removable one, and after almost 9 months, his leg was free! Ethan began therapy to strengthen his leg and to learn to walk with a normal gait. As the picture above shows, the valgus in his knee was still an issue after removal, and his scarring was quite prominent. (2012)

A year after fixator surgery, Ethan had his third surgery to move the 8-plate in his femur to his tibia -to continue working on the valgus in his knee -and ultimately straighten his leg. Dr. Standard also attempted to release his scars in order to correct the deeper scars that wanted to adhere to the bone (pins from the ex-fix had pushed the skin to the bone). Ultimately, some scars simply were corrected while others returned to the previous "sunken" state. Recovery was surprisingly quick with minimal pain. (2012)

The pictures above show the difference that 8-plates can make in the overall "straightness" of the legs! However, fibular hemimelia legs are apt to slide back into a valgus position -and that's what Ethan's legs did -requiring another 8-plate transfer -this time from the tibia back to the femur.

This is a pic of the 8-plate that has been so necessary, and yet so troublesome!

Ethan's second 8-plate surgery (fourth surgery in total) was successful, and Dr. Standard again performed a scar release, this time more extensively -so that the scars were reopened and stitched. This was a rough recovery -being in quite a bit of pain following the surgery. His pain subsided within a few hours, though, and he was excited to finally have crutches, having graduated from the walker! The recovery period involved soreness and about ten days of limited activity. (2014)

Less than a year later, Ethan's femur slipped back into a valgus position, so another 8-plate surgery (fifth surgery in total) was required. Dr. Standard also decided to address his ankle! As the pic below illustrates, his ankle turns in, as it is also in a valgus position. Therefore, an 8-plate of sorts was inserted in the ankle as well, projected to take a couple of years to correct.

This was the first surgery in which Ethan experienced any anxiety. He had to be given an IV prior to being moved to the O.R., and he had more questions than usual. Being ten-years-old, he had a greater understanding of what he faced. Despite his reservations, recovery was, again, rather quick -aided by the fact that we were snowed in for a few weeks during this one! (2015)

In October of 2015, Ethan had a sixth surgery to have both 8-plates removed -one from the femur and one from the tibia. Recovery was rather smooth -and he enjoyed spending his P.E. time talking to one of his favorite teachers, Mr. Trent! (2015)

By March of 2017, Ethan's leg had, yet again, slipped into a valgus position, and this time, he was experiencing a lot of ankle pain. Dr. Standard decided to perform an 8-plate insertion at both the femur and tibia, but to also address the ankle. He cut part of Ethan's tibia that was impinging on his ankle in order to improve his flexion and hopefully help with the pain. Because this procedure was more invasive, it required an overnight stay in the hospital. Following the procedure, Ethan's leg was wrapped tightly, almost cast-like, and we returned to Baltimore in April to have the wrappings removed and replaced with a boot. This seventh surgery proved to be quite painful for Ethan; the ankle procedure especially gave him a great deal of discomfort. (2017)

In April of 2018, both 8-plates were ready to be removed. This was a simple, eighth surgery and recovery, and Dr. Standard declared Ethan holds the record for 8-plates! (2018).

In November of 2019, Ethan had his 9th surgery! This was a very difficult one, as Dr. Standard inserted a Precise Nail in the femur in order to lengthen Ethan’s leg 6 centimeters. This process involved the use of a magnet that, when placed on the leg, turned the rod inside and lengthened the bone. We stayed in Baltimore for 3 weeks this time in order for Ethan to receive physical therapy and to go to clinic appointments every two weeks. Once we returned home, we had to make the trip to Baltimore every two weeks for 3 months! Ethan continued physical therapy until May.

Ethan’s 10th surgery was the result of an accident. Unfortunately in May of 2020, just a couple of weeks after finishing physical therapy, Ethan fell off a scooter and broke his hip! Because of the rod in his femur and the tightening/pressure on his hip from the lengthening procedure, the hip was more susceptible to breaking. Ethan describes this experience as his most painful to date. Dr. Standard inserted screws in Ethan’s hip, and he was in a hip brace for about 2 months. He returned to physical therapy once again to strengthen his hip and work on his gait. This all happened during a global pandemic! Only one parent was allowed in the hospital!

Ethan’s 11th surgery will be in June of 2021. This will be performed in order to remove the lengthening rod and the hip screws.

While you're here with me, can I just say that God has a plan for my son -that his diagnosis of fibular hemimelia -though labeled a "defect" by the world -is simply part of God's plan for his life. Psalm 84:11 reassures us that God will not withhold any good thing from those who walk uprightly. God has not chosen to withhold good things from Ethan; he promises, instead, to work all things -including this, to his good!

Grace Based Parenting because kids aren't standardized tests

2015-05-22T14:14:00.003-07:00

Somewhere, somehow, I bought into the lies the world tells us about our children, but God is slowly doing a work in my heart to teach me the right way to see my three blessings. What the world often uses as a measurement, God never uses. I can’t find any biblical evidence of tests scores being an indication of right standing or a marker of one’s character. Yet, I’ve found myself measuring my kids by their grades or, as sad as it sounds, their SOL scores–sometimes embarrassed when they haven’t measured up –and sometimes too overjoyed when they have.

Emily asked me once is if it was bad to have thin hair because they sell shampoo to make your hair thicker and should we get some for her? An obvious indicator of the amount of times she’s heard me say, “I can’t do anything with this thin hair of yours.” Kinda makes me a bit nauseous to think that by eight you’re already convinced that even your hair doesn’t pass the test.

Why is it that we allow the machine that is the media or the department of education or anyone to determine the value of our children –the worth of ourselves?

I remember a conversation in library school between mothers who were boasting about their children and the fact that their kindergartners had never “pulled a light,” and how they’d simply die if one came home with a disciplinary note –how parents today just needed to learn to parent their children. I sat out of this one, given the fact that one of my children, not to name names, pretty much pulled a light a day for at least two years. And I wondered if I should think less of my talkative one –who typically wasn’t disrespectful, just had a lot to say –and had God not intervened, I probably would have gone home and punished him for his preschool days just because I had lost out on bragging rights in the library. If you’ve been around me much, I’m sure you know I don’t let much air fill a conversation –and I can certainly see where my kids have learned the art of conversation. But isn’t that okay? Is being quiet the only thing worth celebrating in our children? Or if you have a quiet one, one someone is always trying to pull out of her “shell” –one you’ve been made to see as odd or antisocial or somehow misfitted with the rest of the world—don’t you think there’s a place for her –a God ordained place where her quiet, reflective nature can be used.

Somehow we’ve erected this childhood idol –this straight A, rule following, college-bound, polite sports star that sometimes, if we are honest, we really want our kid to be. We want the facebook picture of the most valuable player –but what is it that we are really being taught to value? Satan always lies, ALWAYS –and he always distorts truth, ALWAYS –and we have to be good discerners to catch this subtle lie that’s invading our ears.

The one who finishes her work on time, colors within the lines, says please and thank you –sure that girl has potential, but I was that girl –and I allowed perfectionism to almost claim me on many occasions because I internalized that A’s were good –therefore, the more A’s I produced, the better I was –and the more I was rewarded with praise (from well-intentioned people) and scholarships and awards which only fed my need to keep achieving to keep being “good.”

God doesn’t have an achievement system, though-- he has a grace based parenting approach –a “my grace is sufficient for your needs” approach –a “you don’t have to work to please me” approach –a “you’re created in my image” approach –that looks a lot different that the approach the world is embracing. And I don’t want to be a part of the world. I want to be SET APART instead.

Do you know what He’s teaching me to love most about Emily? How about the fact that whatever she eats inevitably finds its way all over her face –and usually in her hair –and on her clothes. She wears one of those KoolAid grins –the kind that brings a smile to anyone’s face who sees her. She’s the kid whose teacher says, “I bet there’s never a dull moment in your house.” –and I want to embrace this –to run with this –to enjoy this –this girl of mine who knows how to live in a way that I still haven’t figured out –who enjoys each second of each day to the fullest –who’s still talking when I’m walking out of her room at night –and wakes up with this hair that has never figured out how to be tamed. Can I just love this about her –and stop worrying about spelling words and lady-like speech and just relax a bit and see what God’s going to do with this one?

And this middle one, this entertainer, the talkative light pulling one –who has endured so much more than me so far. Can I just love the fact that he corrects everything I say because he knows every random fact in the universe including when all three of the three Stooges were born and when they died and how to make Origami versions of all the Star Wars characters. Instead of pushing him to “reach his full potential,” can’t I just let him read all the corny joke books he can digest and useless information about Elvis or his fascination of the week? Can’t I just like his quick wit --that I’m sure got him in trouble the day he asked how M&Ms and cheeseballs could really help him and his classmates on standardized testing—and see how God uses all this?

And this last one, this first one, who seems so old, and so young, too –can I just like him –in his boots and jeans and t-shirt –and his pickup truck. He was the one whose blonde hair I kept in a bowl cut –wasn’t that the sure fire method of creating a prepping boy –one who would like to read and like school –and be like me and fulfill all these meaningless arbitrary expectations that I created? I’m ready to watch him now, God’s helping me –to watch him be loyal to this group of friends that he loves and to work hard outside with his hands –doing a man’s job –and to see who He wants him to be –that will so exceed what I could have ever dreamed up in this head of mine.

Can I encourage you, as he’s encouraging me –to love your little one right where they are? Can I remind you, as He’s reminding me, that slow workers sometimes do the best work –and that dawdling and doodling isn’t sinful. That it takes all kinds –and that standardized isn’t a term that applies to relationships- to real love- to God’s design.

Stillness and Real Living

2014-12-19T09:10:00.002-08:00

I read her article this morning (click the link, you won't be disappointed), and I haven't stopped crying, but it's one of those good cries, the cleansing kind -the kind that washes away facade and leads to better living. I'm okay with that. In fact, I've been crying, too, because He loves me enough to bring me to repentance --to change me, to make me new.

It's funny how God works -though articles, people, circumstances, His Word. On Wednesday night, I had a "moment" -one of those, "What was I thinking kind" of moments after Emily, my seven-year-old won a "wacky-tacky Christmas" contest, and Ethan, my ten-year-old, huffed in the backseat because he had lost. What really occurred was that Emily let me create her "costume" -a Christmas window I crafted from a piece of foam board, some old paint, a gift bag, and a hot-glue gun. Don't let me downplay it too much --a friend told me it was "Pinterest" worthy! Anyway, Ethan wanted to create his own design, but had "crafters' block," and I strategically made him into a "Christmas bag" complete with tissue paper and bows -at the last minute (hang in there -the point will come, and it's a major one!). In the van listening to his disappointment and vow that "he never wins anything," I prayed, "Lord, help him learn to lose with grace." But what the Lord whispered back took me my surprise. He said, in the stillness of my thoughts, "They don't need grace to lose, but to live."

Grace. It's my life song -the lesson He keeps teaching me over and over, and I keep forgetting. It's the lesson that perfectionism keeps stealing from me -and today, He told me, "Pinterest worthy mom," the need to impress, to over-do, to out-do --took joy right from the fingertips of those babies. And He was so right.

I'm "that mom" -the one whose kids match on Christmas and Easter -who repainted a bit on childhood hand prints -to make the priceless pictures "just right." I'm the one who cleans for 8 hours before inviting anyone over and declares that the house is such a "mess." I'm the one who almost died, literally, when her daughter drank Kool-aid on the day of family pictures and developed an orange-ish mustache in the process. I dot concealer on scratches before school pictures and practice smiling with Ethan so that his eyes don't have too much squint. Yep, that's me -or it was.

The article I mentioned at the top -click here-was a confirmation of this lesson that He's so willing to teach me. It simply talks of family pictures -of little girls in stiff dresses and exasperated parents trying to coax little ones into sitting still in order to capture the quintessential family moment -and how such moments, such images, aren't real and fail to capture the beauty of family. The photographer, instead, prefers moments of living -moments of laughter and messes and Kool-Aid smiles and squinty grins. I looked up from the the article to see the row of picture collages on my hallway wall, and what struck me most was the stillness -the poses and the perfection of curls and matching sweaters and children lined up in a neat row. I kinda sank a little against the wall to take in the realization of what I had been missing. I thought I knew that life isn't about stillness --about getting my ducks all lined up in a row, but the pictures say that I have a lot to learn -a lot of grace bottled up that needs pouring out. I wanted to take them all down, almost ashamed of what they represent -of this part of me that needs something -even a picture - to turn out "just right."

I want to let my kids live --real lives, not scripted one. Lives where they make a bad grade on spelling every now and then because we were playing Monopoly and forgot about lists of words. Where Kool-Aid mouths are kissed and little boys make their own wacky-tacky costumes and order Elvis backpacks if that's what they want. Lives whose seeming perfectionism aren't stumbling blocks for others.

When did we fall, I fall, for such lies? --that what's best is what's still? I have read, many times, poems about holding our children's hands, of how time passes too quickly. And truthfully, I know this --I do take time to see my kids -to watch Emily's one thousandth hand stand onto the couch and to listen to Ethan's random facts about the Three Stooges and to sit next to Josh and gleam what I can from his day.

But somehow the truth -the beauty of these moments -seems drowned in a world pushing us to be something that we're not --to achieve things that we can't. Doesn't the unlined face and the unchanged body -doesn't it indicate a lack of life --and yet that's what the world demands, celebrates even. What is Satan doing here -telling us to hold to things that aren't true --to seek happiness in seeming perfection -- in a facade that doesn't really exist -when it's actually found in the mundane, the everyday, the stretch-marked bellies that held babies and sticky counters where memories were made? Why is knowing the truth so easy, yet putting it into practice so hard?

One of the redeeming photos on my wall is this black and white photograph of my dad and Josh -who was probably four at the time. They were dancing --smiling -not at the camera, but at life. That's my resolve this year -to smile at life -at the imperfection of it all -the changes that come -and to pour out this bottled up grace. Grace for mistakes and losses and wins and Kool-Aid mouths. Oh, how I need His grace today -so undeserved -but isn't that what makes it grace?

Let's help one another today -to "get it" this time -to err on the side of grace -and not let Satan take any more of our JOY!

Hebrews 3:13 -But exhort one another daily, while it is called To day!

Fibular Hemimelia -Scars and Grace

2014-02-28T17:45:00.001-08:00

This little left leg, in a few weeks, will boast a new scar, somewhere next to an old one, maybe even through the old one, breaking scar tissue. This little tibia, once a bit bowed and slanted too much toward the inside of the knee is now corrected, standing straight and tall, ready for a guiding 8-plate to be removed. This femur, still a bit sluggish to cooperate, is getting an 8-plate of its own.

This little one isn't worried, not anxious, not him. He's looking forward to a nice pair of crutches. When you're six or seven, you leave surgery with a walker, but when you're nine, it's crutches, baby, and you suddenly become the third grade star --at least for a day or two!

This blogger, she's written a lot about perspective because God's granted her a bit of wisdom; given all the scars, she had to ask --and He's a gracious giver. She often wonders why He keeps giving, freely, abundantly to her --who fails and complains and wanders (and wonders). And He reminds her, quietly, gently that the gift isn't about her, isn't tied to her worth, her work, but to His.

The way an 8-plate works is by turning the leg in the right direction as it grows. (This blogger, she's crying, because all she wants is a Word from Him, and when He gives one, a clear one, she's overwhelmed by Him ... she's simply undone). We who believe, not just sign a card or raise a hand or call ourselves by His name, but we who Confess and Repent and Believe and Live, we have this guiding force within. His guiding force. His Spirit. Him. Ethan's plate was implanted, surgically, and can only be removed by cutting through skin and through bone. Our Spirit within, past skin, past bone --even the surgeon can't touch. Nothing can remove this God from His Children, nothing can separate us from His love. Who can undo the Seal of the Sealer? Not death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature (Romans 8:38-39). Paul was convinced, and this blogger, she is too. For without this promise, this grace, this unmerited favor, this love, this Saviour, she's lost. Remember the failing and complaining and wandering and wondering. Without His Spirit, she'd never find her way back. But He promised, Paul gives us another Word, he was convinced and confident of ONE thing, and this blogger, she is too: Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (1:6). He is going to perform this work IN me because I can't perform it myself. He began it, He performs it. He comes back for me. It's all about Him. What does that look like, Him performing in me? Like a puppet pulling strings? Like me without a voice, without a choice? Maybe like a knee turning, straightening, a guide in the background. Sometimes it's a painful turning, but a purposeful one: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth (Hebrews 12:6). Paul was struck down in his sin by his God who started the work in him: ...[I]t pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, To reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen, This God who has set us apart tells us: Abide in me, and I in you (John 15:4).

Strong's defines abide:

to remain, abide

in reference to place
1. to sojourn, tarry
2. not to depart
  1. to continue to be present
  2. to be held, kept, continually

What's key to our abiding when we fail, complain, wonder, and wander? Simply tarry there where we are "held, kept CONTINUALLY." When we are a part of the vine, we don't have to worry about tarrying, even, for His Spirit draws us, comforts us, brings His Word to our remembrance. He won't let us leave Him. When we feel unworthy, when our hearts are weary, we are reminded: For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things (1 John 3:20).

We can REST in Him, work for Him because His very Spirit compels us to do so. For, in the end, we will not say that it was our working, our praying, our witnessing, our studying that kept up secure in Him. Instead, we'll cry, "Jesus, He held us."

He receives All Glory All Praise!

Until that day, His Spirit keeps molding, turning, straightening, conforming us into His Image! Oh Glorious Day!

Fibular Hemimelia -Celebrating Life Wonderfully Made

2013-10-27T19:06:00.000-07:00

Psalm 139:14

King James Version (KJV)

¹⁴I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.

It's interesting how we define perfection. What we tell ourselves we should be. What we try to impose on our children. Ten fingers and nine toes equals less than expected. Less than expected leads to doubts. "What did I do wrong?" quickly becomes "Why did He do wrong?"

Yet, the Truth of His Word declares that the Works of His Hands are "Wondrous" and "Worthy" of "Praise."

What happens when we stop Asking Why and start Embracing Why?

On the way to church Wednesday, he feel asleep in the car, tired out from a weekend of 104 fevers, his face still pale and drained. I stared at this little face, the perfection of smooth, eight-year-old skin, and wondered about the Why.

Today, on his ninth birthday, I still wonder. About the nine toes and the recurrent fevers, the surgery scarred leg with surgeries yet to come.

This morning, sitting on the back pew with his three best buddies fresh from a sleepover, he answered the alter call, walking up the aisle with a still less than expected gait. On his return, he whispered to the friend on his right, "Have you been saved?"

I smiled a bit. He answers even our wonders. He know that we are dust. He lavishes grace and fills a mother's heart, scarred from wondering and watching, with peace.

What will this nine-year-old become that this is necessary? Will he minister to those society rejects? Will his hand one day reach out to the fever stricken child or the amputee? Will he testify of God's Provision, of His Goodness, of His Mercy and Grace?

This afternoon, he visits his great aunt Lynn, pained with cancer, unable to eat or to speak. I watch her sleep and remember the letters and sweet cards, sent to Baltimore to him and to his sister, both eager to hear from home. She was faithful to write to them each week and they have been faithful to pray for her each night. Today her mother, his great-grandmother, sits at her bedside, grieved beyond words. And I wonder why. Why should a mother outlive her child? Why so many burdens, so many burdened?

I think of the little one from our little community waiting to be well enough for a new heart. And I think of his parents, waiting in a hospital room so far from their home, at times, I'm sure, wondering why. And the nine toes and shorter limb seem so pale in comparison.

And I recall the command:

Philippians 4:4

King James Version (KJV)

⁴Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice.

And I think it's too hard. This is too much to ask. To rejoice always and again rejoice. And I reread because I think it's too hard, and in the rereading, I see the Lord. He is in the middle of the Rejoicing. Do you see Him? Can you see Him in the middle of the verse, in the middle of the circumstance, in the midst of your life? Are you looking closely enough or are you stuck in the difficulty? He isn't asking you to rejoice in the difficulty, He is asking you to rejoice in Him.

We can find Him, He reassures, IF we seek for Him with all of our hearts (Jeremiah 29:13)? If He knows us, that we are prone to wandering, then the Why's may be the only way to bring us to the SEEKING, and the SEEKING is the only way to bring us to HIM.

He humbles me, then, giving me Why's, leading me to Himself, leading me to lead you to Himself.

Will you Praise Him with me today, for fearfully, wonderfully orchestrating ALL things to bring You to Him? Will you Praise Him today who has prepared places for us --here and for all eternity!

Purpose

2013-07-09T07:00:00.000-07:00

Isaiah 43:7-Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.

I know what it is --our purpose in being here -on Earth, in southwest Virginia, in Dot, on Fields Drive. It's to glorify Him. I get that. I cling to that truth, often losing it in the busyness of church and gymnastics and guitar lessons and baseball camp and spilled Cheerios. I fight my way back to that truth at night when I wonder what I look like to Him, here in Dot, when the gymnast and the baseball player and the guitarist -and their dad -are asleep and it's just me and Him and my works spread bare before Him. Glorifying --is that how I look --to Him?

Because it's not often how I feel. Selfish, maybe, or tired. I think that's how I must look. Anxious -even anxious to please -is the face that I wear most nights --at least if I'm the one who's looking and judging and measuring up. I do a lot of self measurement, and my ruler leaves little room for grace.

I think of her, eating ants caught by her bed. Ants caught by her bed. And I think of my sweet girl, in her pink room, baby dolls nestled by her side. And I wonder why --but mostly HOW or WHAT.

What does YOUR glory look like? and HOW can it be fulfilled in me? How can I reach her and teach her to think of more than herself?

We pray for the Lord to give us a great work to do --a real work --a work that wells up inside us and spills out into the world. And we wait, and I wonder, and I measure, and fall short.

And we give a ride to the woman at the grocery store who was on her way home with bags and no car. And we promise to return to mow the grass that reaches up to her window sills. And Emily asks if the woman is poor, and I say, "Not today." And the work wells up and spills over.

And we pray to be spilled for Him who spilled Himself freely for us, to set us free.

and the Lame shall walk

2013-04-18T18:53:00.003-07:00

My Sunday School ladies and I are making our way through Nehemiah, noting his faithfulness as he answered God’s call to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. God gave him a vision –compassion for His people who were hurting, living sinful lives behind unfortified walls. Nehemiah, if you recall, was the cupbearer to King Artaxerxes, living in Shushan the palace in Persia. In fact, he had lived his whole life in Persia, his family more than likely not returning to Jerusalem 70 years earlier when the Jews were granted freedom to return from exile. Yet, Nehemiah was a Jew and Jerusalem was the home of his people; in fact, when his brother brought him word of the great affliction of the people who were left in Jerusalem and their broken down wall and burned gates, he wept, fasted, and prayed. What he does next, however, is worth our attention. He gets up, God answering his prayers by telling him of the work he is to do, asks Artaxerxes for permission to work on the wall, and goes to work, enlisting the help of everyone –from carpenters to apothecaries to priests to the daughters of the sonless men. In 52 days, the wall is rebuilt, and Nehemiah begins his greater assignment –bringing the people back to the law which brings them to repentance.

In a world in which there is Steubenville and Gosnell , we question How and Why and seem to forget that it’s all Sin and broken walls and burned gates and afflicted people. And we wonder at the state of the world and gawk at headlines and make status updates of our “thoughts being with the hurting.” Maybe we utter prayers. Maybe we weep. Do we fast? Do we listen for His voice? Do we rise to the calling of the wounded, His People who are perishing who have forgotten Him. Do we take them back to the Word, to the Living Word, to the One WAY? Do we help them fortify walls and rebuild burned gates?

In Acts 3, we read of another gate, this time an entrance to the temple within the walls of Jerusalem.

“2And a certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple."

This story, of the lame man, grips me. Maybe I see my little boy, challenged from his mother’s womb, born 2000 years before external fixators and shoe lifts and 8-plates and the Sinai hospital, sitting at that gate, carried there on the arms of friends. Maybe I see him, limping and disgraced, cup lifted to those headed to the temple. Maybe I pray that someone looks at him, really looks at him, before entering that gate called Beautiful and leaving him hurting and alone. Maybe I pray that I wouldn’t have left him there lame and broken by sin. That I would have SEEN him, would have realized that he was one of HIS children. Maybe I pray for eyes to see ALL HIS CHILDREN to carry them to the gate, to the Christ, who alone can HEAL ALL WOUNDS. That when I read of Boston and Texas, I get off of facebook and put my face to THE BOOK, my HEART to the heavens, and MY HANDS to SERVICE -- to the carrying of the lame to the KING, maybe not in Boston, but here, next door, next pew, next classroom, next to me on the bleachers at the JV game.

Peter and John meet this lame man. Not only do they look at him, they tell him to look at them. And they perform a miracle in the Name of the MIRACLE MAKER: “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” They extend their hands before he can even answer and raise him on his feet –“immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.” Do you need strength to stand today? Are your feet and ankle bones taxed with anxiety, with fear, with guilt, with remorse, with doubt? There is ONE whose HAND extends to YOU. He will give you strength. Are you HIS EYES today? Are you carrying, extending? Or are you on your way to worship, yet never see?

One day this youngest boy of mine will stand in a kingdom with feet and ankle bones strengthened and whole, with a praise for HIS KING that I, with ten toes and aligned tibias and femurs, cannot fathom. His weakness here will make his walk through that gate called BEAUTIFUL there all the more sweet. While we are HERE, we must drag ourselves to Him, wall restorer, gate fortifier, and carry as many with us as outstretched arms can hold.

FIERY TRIALS

2013-02-16T14:41:00.001-08:00

REJOICE. PRAY. GIVE THANKS. HOLD FAST.

This little stash of make-up isn’t an ad for Estee Lauder or even a look at what it takes to make me presentable in the morning. Its significance goes beyond covering up imperfections, and instead points to the ending of a month of difficulty. As I put away the mascara and the blush this morning, I thanked God for His unending mercy and grace, for the fact that I was putting this away in my own bathroom this morning and not in the hospital room of a sick little boy. One day, a little over nine years ago, I took a little boy to the ER because of a severe headache, and I didn’t come back home that night. Instead, I frantically called my mom in the hospital parking lot and spoke words that haunt her to this day, “Josh has a brain mass.” That night long ago ended with an ambulance ride, an IV, and an MRI. A few days ago, I was afraid of reliving that nightmare again; I was packed and ready.
When the doctor tells you that your son’s blood tests are abnormal and that no conclusive reason can be found for his recurrent fever (19 days of fever in one month) and that the next logical step is a trip to St. Jude to rule out leukemia or lymphoma, you stop breathing, your chest seems too weighted down with fear to move in the up and down rhythm required in simply breathing. The colors of life seem to diminish.

Let me back up a bit.

Ethan has a rap sheet of illnesses, fibular hemimelia obviously being a major one, but he has also been diagnosed with PFAPA, recurrent fever. About every 4-5 weeks, starting around age five, he had a fever for about three days with no other symptoms. This fever proved frustrating and was accompanied by many doctors’ visits and negative strep, ear infection, flu, etc. tests. Finally, an infectious disease doctor gave us the PFAPA diagnosis along with a prescription for tagamet and prednisone, and we have seen the fevers diminish greatly. This month, however, his “normal” fever went beyond the typical PFAPA symptoms and seemed relentless in its attack of his body, escalating to 105, sometimes with a strange rash. Again, we were met with testing for the typical kids’ junk: flu, strep, mono, etc., and all proved negative. Then, when the fever keep returning, he was tested for the next stage of diseases: lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, Kawasaki syndrome, etc. –all of which came back negative. After infectious disease and autoimmune disorders, the next step was oncology.

Let me back up a bit.

In the ten years since Freddie and I have been married, we have endured Josh’s brain mass and subsequent surgery, Freddie’s own brain mass and surgery, Ethan’s birth, fibular hemimelia diagnosis and external fixator surgery, Emily’s birth that literally tore my uterus, resulting in blood transfusions and a near mental breakdown.

Let me pause for breath and be real honest.

Sometimes I get hung up on the list. Sometimes it makes me angry. Sometimes I look at others and wonder why their lists seem much shorter in comparison. Sometimes I wonder what HE is thinking.

Let me tell you what I’ve learned.

I’ve learned that we all have lists, and relatively speaking, they’re all difficult to bear.

I’ve learned not to bear mine alone.

I could write and write about the things God has taught me through my list, but I’ll stick to the latest lessons with this post. This time, He taught me about the Body, the Word, and Grace.

THE BODY

My dad danced when we found out that what doctors suspected was a malignant brain tumor turned out to be a malformed blood vessel in Josh’s brain. My mom cried when I called to say, “No leukemia, no cancer.” Today, a friend at little league sign- ups could not have smiled any brighter when I responded to his hesitant questions, “Ethan’s fine.” My church family and friends joined me last night (and nine years ago) in my praise of the God Who Heals. My children’s victories have been their victories, too. Through prayer, we unite and become instruments in God’s sovereign plan. God knows we need one another. In fact, Christ’s final prayer before the cross was that we be as One.

John 17: 9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. 10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. 11 And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee. Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are.

We are His hands, and this month, those hands enveloped me in prayer and encouragement.

THE WORD

A godly friend encouraged me to surround myself and Ethan with the Word of God. I knew that the Word was powerful, but during this trial, I learned to wield the sword. I printed verses of healing and put them in my pocket, in Ethan’s room, and even under our mattresses. I opened a Bible to these verses –and sat it opened beside his bed.

Mark 1: 29 And forthwith, when they were come out of the synagogue, they entered into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 But Simon's wife's mother lay sick of a fever, and anon they tell him of her. 31 And he came and took her by the hand, and lifted her up; and immediately the fever left her, and she ministered unto them.

I told Ethan with great confidence that satan could not cross over the Word to reach him in his bed, and I prayed, cried aloud to the Lord, to lift Ethan up and to heal him of his fever as He had healed Simon’s mother-in-law. And then I wondered, why I wasn’t crying for my other children, my marriage, my home with verses raised and repeated back to the God who spoke them.

GRACE

This past week, the week of Valentines, gave me a glimpse of the One who calls me His Beloved. On the day that the packet from St. Jude came in the mail, before I could open the envelope, I first had to plow through cards and letters sent from my church family and friends, full of verses of encouragement and promises of prayer and healing. The Lord sent a mailbox full of love notes, promises made and kept. He saw me in my pain and in my tears, and He made sure that I saw Him. On the way home from school a few days before the appointment, Josh and I saw a beautiful rainbow, shining through a few drops of rain. Oh, how I marveled at the beauty of that bow, its otherworldliness, almost unreal in its appearance. And how my heart recalled the promises of the Lord, promises to work things to my good, to never leave me nor forsake me, promises of the availing of my prayers despite the rain.

God is Real. He sent real cards. He put our family on the hearts of a group of students who gave a sweet card and 86 dollars, mainly in ones. He put our family on the hearts of another family with small children who sent drawings and 40 dollars for gas and food. He put our family on the heart of a sweet man in our church who folded a 100 dollar bill into my hand after the church gathered as one to pray for Ethan. Did I mention that Ethan’s ER trip and CT scan cost $200 dollars beyond what our insurance would pay and that when Ethan picked the Golden Corral for his celebration lunch –can’t resist the chocolate fountain-- it cost $27 dollars? He paid our bills, really.

Let me keep praising.

We left St. Jude with negative test results. We still aren’t sure what caused Ethan’s fevers or if his future holds other months of sickness and uncertainty; we have a few possible causes, such as Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, but no definitive answers. We hold to the real possibility as well that the Lord has seen fit to deliver him completely from this sickness.

What is True.

What we do know is that God sees us, He provides for us (to the penny of our every need), He loves us, and He intends our “lists” to prosperous us and not to harm us. Please re-read the verse that heads the blog. Praise be unto His name forever!

1 Thessalonians 5:
16 Rejoice evermore.
17 Pray without ceasing.
18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
19 Quench not the Spirit.
20 Despise not prophesyings.
21 Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
22 Abstain from all appearance of evil.
23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

shameless pictures of their cuteness

Little Drummer Boy

2012-11-19T06:44:00.000-08:00

Since I was a little girl, the "Little Drummer Boy" has always been my favorite Christmas carol. Maybe it was the sound of the drum or the picture on the album cover of this little face, intently keeping time on his drum. Maybe it was my own desire, or better yet His desire for me, to bring something of worth to this King of Kings.

My children have made their "Santa" lists at school; the coveted items include a gun (need I reference Ralphie and A Christmas Story?) and a baby doll. Yet, the irony that we make lists of gifts for ourselves in celebration of His birth seems to escape us. Why don't we list our gifts to bring as opposed to our gifts to receive? How have we shifted focus from Him to self? It's called worldliness, blindness to be exact. Paul writes of this to the Corinthian church: "But if our gospel be hid, it is hid to them that are lost. In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them" (2 Corinthians 4:3-4).

The god of this world, he seeks to blind us. He seeks to devour our faith, to keep us in darkness. He seeks to turn our attention, or to keep our attention, focused on self. A philosopher once wrote that atheism isn't the absence of belief in God, it is the making a god of self. Our culture encourages us to worship self, esteem self, pamper self, and justify self, and in doing so, elevates self to godhood and God to needlessness. How do you create a god of self unknowingly? Sit in the dark for a while, and your eyes will adjust to the lack of light; in fact, you might find the LIGHT to be obtrusive, a bit too harsh and penetrating. Even those who claim Jesus as Savior are not immune to usurping the role of creator. Those who claim allegiance to the God who died a cruel death on a cruel cross to crush sin and at the same time revel in the very sin that He died to conquer, have created their own Jesus. They readily claim the Jesus who heals and loves, but not the Jesus who says to Go and Sin NO More. What God are you worshiping today?

Maybe there are lessons to be learned from this drumming boy.

He has been told of a NEWBORN KING by WISE MEN who SEEK HIM (WISE men still do ... "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding" ~Proverbs 9:10). The KINGS bring their FINEST GIFTS for HIM, yet the drumming boy has no gift to bring, only the playing of a drum. Somehow he realizes that the only gift he can bring to the KING is the gift that the KING has already given him -his ability to play this drum (all of the gifts that we bring to HIM originate in HIM for only HE is GLORIFIED). This realization brings a willingness to give, to give ALL to the KING.

He PLAYS HIS BEST FOR HIM.

I look back to my little ones' lists and to my little ones' gifts. This middle one, with crooked limb, who this King has entrusted with so much so soon, has been gifted well. At six, he sat in line for hours in a wheel chair to get a glimpse of a document written on parchment by his hero, Lincoln. He blogs (yes, I'm proud), he tells corny jokes, and he can memorize virtually anythings. How will he give these gifts back? Will he write for Him? Will he teach or preach for HIM? This little one, with piercing blue eyes, who rocks baby dolls and dances and tumbles and makes us belly laugh. How He has gifted her with joy. How will she give these gifts back? Will she mother for Him? Will she encourage for Him? This older one, taller than me now, who is soon to find his way. Oh, how He rescued Him at five. How He gifted Him with life. Will this one offer back that gift? Will his life be an offering of love and patience and kindness to others? Will they PLAY THEIR BEST FOR HIM?

What is your gift for HIM? Will you pry yourself from yourself and give yourself back to the ONE who is KING of KINGS?

Drowning

2012-10-12T16:30:00.000-07:00

Some days, I feel like I'm drowning. Lungs squeezed, panic set in, can't see the shore, drowning. Some days, treading water is simply too hard. Too exhausting. Some days, I reject the Life Savior and want to sink, to feel the water slipping over my head. To flounder in distress. To slap the waves and feel the ocean spray and salty sea touch my tongue. Some days drowning seems easier than swimming. Giving up. Relaxing. It's tempting. Some days.

Some days I don't want to hear The Voice of Truth. Don't want to hear that I'm blessed beyond measure. To Count my Blessings and Name them One by One. Don't want to be the Sunday School Teacher. THE Example.

Instead, some days, I count unfairness. Name them One by One. Post-Postpartum Depression. Days of Darkness and Fear. DIVORCE. Brain TUMORS. FIBULAR HEMIMELIA. Financial Bondage. Essays to Grade, Essays to Grade, Essays to GRADE.

I swim in this sea instead and cling to floating debris. Pieces of arguments. Words of DISCOURAGEMENT. Surgery number 3. No more babies can be birthed. Type A personality. Fear, always fear.

And I wonder, did HE do this. Did He sit in this sea. And I remember that HIS tears were as drops of blood and HE knows this water. Knows the taste of this OCEAN of DESPAIR. Yet, HE broke the BREAD and gave THANKS and got UP from the GARDEN and OPENED the palm for the N A I L S.

So, I follow. RELUCTANTLY. But HE is so COMPELLING.

And I go to the GARDEN and fall on the KNEE and RISE to accept the PLAN. AND feel the pain of guilt, the failure to look, the failure to float, to TRUST, to GIVE THANKS in A L L T H I N G S. The failure to see me HIDDEN in Him. To ACKNOWLEDGE that all things come THROUGH HIM first before they REACH me. And in the THROUGH HIM--
a l l t h i n g s become BLESSED AND GOOD. And bring HIM GLORY.

And the SEA begins to form anew. And the ashes BECOME beauty.

Fibular Hemimelia: parenting, parenting, parenting

2012-06-29T16:45:00.002-07:00

Picture a van. Luggage carrier on top. One driver Dad, one passenger Mom, two teenage boys, one pre-K girl, one upcoming second grade boy, and one most welcome Granny. Picture disgruntled teenage boy one reluctantly handing over his IPOD to screaming pre-K girl while upcoming second grade boy cries that it's no wonder he can't sleep and driver Dad glares angrily from the rear view mirror while passenger Mom just doesn't understand why we can't drive ONE mile without someone crying. Picture most welcome Granny pacifying crying upcoming second grade boy and calming screaming pre-K girl as teenage boy one covers his face with a pillow and teenage boy two (nephew) bluntly exclaims to passenger Mom: "You're the reason I'll never have kids."

Ahh, family vacation. The time to relax.

Luckily for me, God had laid in on my heart, and mom had it on her Kindle, for me to reread One Thousand Gifts by Ann Voskcamp. Just as IPODS were flying and children were crying, I came upon a passage that at least gave me hope amid my feelings of frustration and failure. Now some moms can just get in among all those screaming kids and swat some behinds and make some "your daddy will pull this car over" (can you image the chaos on major highways if all the dads did just that?) warnings and go back to their book satisfied that all is well in the world of parenting.

I, however, am not that kinda mom.

Instead I cry (who would notice amid the three thousandth watching of Judy Moody and eating of gummy bears and slurping of bug juices), feeling that my lecturing, my praying, my tirelessly teaching has gone to naught. Has passed right over their heads like the Skittles flying between the rows.

satan. He knows my weaknesses. He knows my desire for perfection --in all things --even eleven hour, seven passenger, car rides. (Just check out the perfectly poised, white attired beach picture and you'll get a glimpse of my imperfections -and not my sun burned, slightly swollen nose either!) He knows that it hurts, all jokes aside, tears at my core, to see my children fighting, to hear myself yelling, to see my mom (most welcome Granny) look at me with that "bless your heart you have your hands full" look.

Failure leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It ushers in fear --what if they never truly listen to the lecturing, heed the Holy Spirit's conviction, yearn for tireless teachings? What if they don't invite each other to backyard cookouts and Christmas dinner? What if I'm never most welcome Granny in the back seat pacifying grandbaby one and consoling grandbaby two?

Oh, he's good. He knows my heart.

But he doesn't CONTROL it.

If you listen, if you truly want to hear, God can be heard over the noise of the DVD player, the disgruntled murmurings of teenage boys, and even your own angry, barking response. He reminds us in Psalm 46:10 that we have to be still (quiet) to hear Him and to remember Who He IS. Crying silently in the backseat, He saw me. He heard my cry. He knew that I needed refreshed. Didn't Hagar, alone in the desert, overwhelmed by her circumstances, call His name El Roi -the God who sees me. Wasn't she camped by a well, yet didn't see it?

I needed some reminding -of what I wasn't seeing that was right next to me.

At all times His words bring truth, perspective. That day, He whispered, "Did I fail you? Is that why you don't listen to my Word, yield to my spirit, desire my teaching? Is that why you cry to get your way? Is that why my gifts never seem enough to satisfy? Is that why you cannot travel ONE mile without forgetting my provision for every mile that you have traveled? Or is it your own flesh that rebels against goodness and fights my spirit for control? If I give you grace each day, mercies anew each morning, do you not suppose that driver Dad, two teenage boys, upcoming second grade boy, pre-K girl, and most welcome Granny deserve new mercies too? Have you forgotten to give thanks for a van full of blessings? A van full of love and possibilities?"

Ann Voskamp writes: "Thanking God for ALL -prepares the way for God to show us His fullest salvation from bitter, angry, resentful lives --and all sin that estranges us from Him. ... Take everything given, fall at His feet, and thank Him."

May my life song ever be one that never fails to see Him and to give thanks. To seek Him amid the noise. To be a giver of grace.

(Driver Dad and Passenger Mom)

(Most welcome Granny)

(Teenager 2 (nephew))

(Teenager 1)

(Upcoming second grader)

(Who could yell at this pre-K bright pink Barbie lipsticked mouth and sweet on backwards mismatched --I picked out my clothes all by myself -- girl?)

Fibular Hemimelia -A Year Later ... tiny toes, cute pictures!

2012-06-08T20:42:00.002-07:00

Because the "Tiny toes, cute pictures" blog title gets the most views, I thought I'd shamelessly use it again! On a different note, I did promise an "after" to the "Fibular Hemimelia Before" blog a while back and since June 7th marked one year "after" surgery, I feel that an update on Ethan's progress is certainly needed, especially given his new flat-top!

The pictures below are of Ethan's legs today. As you can see, the scars are healing. All scars heal ... some just take longer than others.

His legs are now pretty close to equal in length. Obviously, his left leg is made pretty differently. His knee lacks an ACL and PCL and his valgus (knocked knees) is still significant. He has another surgery on June 26 to move the 8 Plate from the femur to the tibia to correct the valgus. But I think his leg is just beautiful! His smiling little sister thinks so too!

Reflecting on a difficult year has its difficulties, too. I prayed specifically before writing this blog and simply asked Jesus, "What would you have me tell them?" What would you have me tell the ones who are facing a difficult year, the ones who feel beyond overwhelmed, the ones who cannot seem to make it past the "unfairness" of it all.

"Do you want me to recount your provision for us in Baltimore?" I smile in remembrance of the time we spent there --basement time. "Do you want me to tell them how we started nightly devotions in that basement --mini-revivals I'd go as far as to say. Do they need to hear that we are still revived?"

"Should I prepare them," I asked, "for the difficulty in watching someone you love hurt in a way that you can't take away. Or should I lead them to see the grace in ALL things?"

"Lord Jesus," I prayed, "Should I write about how I swore I'd never take walking for granted EVER again --that I promised to thank you EVERY day for the simplicity of bending a knee if he could just bend his again --and that I failed in that promise?"

My questions continued throughout the past week, and I heard a Christian radio guest make a remarkable comment just yesterday. She said that we teach others best when we are enduring difficulty --in our brokenness others can see Jesus in us. And I wonder, "Did God teach you through my difficulty? Was God able to use me, such a worthless jar of clay, to somehow showcase His Glory?"

"Of all the lessons, Lord, what do they need to hear?"

And then, He told me.

It really wasn't the answer I was looking for. I was kinda hoping for a long list ... kind of a year in review. Reminders of the little first grade girl and her prayer shawl, Emily's dinner prayers that have begun with "Lord, help my brother, Ethan" every day since last year (even today), the way in which I was able to share the blog, and therefore my faith, with my high school students and still meet a VA State SOL.

Instead, He simply said, "Tell them I love them."

And I can't type those words without crying so hard that I can't see the screen. "Tell them that I love them."

Did you need to hear that today --because I did. I need to know that even in my sinfulness, in my selfishness, He Loves Me.

He loves you in your difficulty. He loves you as you worry and you cry. He loves you as you question and rage against unfairness. He loves you as you yield to His will.

One of my favorite scriptures about our Savior is found in Luke 13:34 where He cries over Jerusalem: "-O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not!"

He wants to gather you to Him. He wants to heal your hurt. He weeps with you in your trial. He will bring purpose from your pain.

Fibular Hemimelia: "The Pain that you've been feeling-- is just the dawn before the morning."

2012-05-09T04:47:00.001-07:00

We. All. Need. Hope.

"Before the Morning"
Do you wonder why you have to
Feel the things that hurt you
If there’s a God who loves you where is He now

Maybe there are things you can’t see
And all those things are happening
To bring a better ending

Someday somehow you’ll see you’ll see

Would you dare would you dare to believe
That you still have a reason to sing
'Cuz the pain that you’ve been feeling
It can’t compare to the joy that’s coming

So hold on you gotta wait for the light
Press on and just fight the good fight
Cause the pain that you’ve been feeling
It’s just the dark before the morning

My friend you know how this all ends
You know where you’re going
You just don’t know how you’ll get there
So say a prayer

And hold on cause there’s good for those who love God
But life is not a snapshot
It might take a little time but you’ll see

the bigger picture

Once you feel the weight of glory
All your pain will fade to memory

It’s just the hurt before the healing
Oh the pain that you’ve been feeling
It’s just the dark before the morning

  ~Josh Wilson

Do you remember the dream I had of Ethan running,

the dream that left me in tears, the dream that I

thought would never come to fruition?  Why are we so easily

discouraged, so faithless?  God doesn't promise to answer our

 prayers in the way that we see fit, but he does promise to

answer.

John 14:13:  And whatsoever you ask in my name, that will

I do,that the Father may be glorified in

the Son.

Sometimes, however, our prayers are in accordance with

His will, and we get to witness the miraculous.

Psalm 107:28-30 -"Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble,

and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the

storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are

they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto

their desired haven."

 Watch with me.  Watch Him, in a matter of seconds, calm my

storm and still my waves.  Watch Him bring me to a desired

 haven,and then join me in my gladness.

(Click the link below -I can't figure out how to

 embed a video?!)

Baseball Player

Psalm 107:31 -Oh that [men] would Praise the Lord [for] his

 goodness, and [for] his wonderful works to the children of men!

Can I tell you that the pain I endured watching him struggle

can't compare to the joy that comes in watching him R.U.N.

Can I tell you that his struggle isn't over.  There's another

surgery coming in June --to move his 8-plate from the

femur to the tibia to correct his valgus (knocked knees!).

And can I tell you that I worry if he will have a natural gait

and if his foot and ankle will be functional

without another surgery someday.

Can I tell you, though, that beyond worry is H.O.P.E.  One

day we will see the bigger picture --our finite minds simply

cannot grasp the plans of the Infinite One.

Until then, we watch and pray, we wait and grow, and

we stay mindful of His promises:

 Psalm 138:8 -The LORD will perfect that which concerneth

me:  thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever:  forsake not

the works of thine own hands.

Fibular Hemimelia -Unfairness --and giving a Mouse a Cookie

2012-05-02T19:47:00.001-07:00

It's funny that after having a child with a brain mass and a child with fibular hemimelia and a birthing experience with a third child that left me in need of a blood transfusion, I struggle with unfairness in the everyday, the seemingly mundane aspects of life.

In fact, today I started an unfair list. At first it focused on my son's baseball experience, and then it soon escalated to everything from my varicose veins to my inability to resist a Little Debbie cake.

If you start an unfair list, and I don't recommend you do, make sure that you have a large piece of paper and plenty of lead. Also, if you plan to share your list with a friend, as I did -but do not recommend -make sure that you have another sheet of paper and more lead because apparently complaining about unfairness is quite contagious -and your friend will probably want to start a list, too.

Once you and your friend begin comparing your unfair lists, you will notice that her unfair list is bigger, and you'll want to add to your list to make it bigger, too. Before you know it, you will have discovered that most things in life are unfair. After this realization, you'll probably need some chocolate. So, you'll grab a Little Debbie cake --and some milk to go with it.

Reading over your list, you'll begin to feel sorry for yourself -- you might even cry. When you start to cry, you'll need a tissue, and when you reach for the tissue, you'll probably catch your reflection in the bathroom mirror. At first, you'll notice the wrinkles around your eyes and the roots showing through your hair --and you'll reach for your unfair list and the pencil. When you reach for your pencil, you'll brush past the light-up Star Wars toothbrush and flowered headband left on the sink by your kids. You'll look in the mirror again -- you might even cry.

You'll crumble up the unfair list and you'll start a new one like this:
unfair
1. loving husband

2. beautiful children
3. warm house
4. Little Debbie cakes

You'll need more paper and more lead. Once you start, you'll probably want to keep going. You'll have so much fun that you'll realize that everything is unfair. After this realization, you'll probably need some chocolate. So, you'll grab a Little Debbie cake --and some milk to go with it.

Reading over your list will remind you of a Savior --one who transferred His righteousness to you. You'll be reminded that He was bruised for your sinfulness and that by His stripes you are healed. You'll probably start to see unfairness differently --you might even cry.

You'll be reminded of these verses:

Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life; that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier. -2 Timothy 2:3-4

After reading these verses, you'll realize that you've been "entangled" and that your endurance can only be sustained in Him. You'll decide to be a better soldier. You might even get so carried away that you remind others to carry on, too. They'll be so encouraged that they'll join with you in battle. You'll be such a good lookin' group of soldiers that soon others will start to notice, too. They'll want to know who your leader is and you'll grin and pull out your unfair list and introduce them to the One whose endurance of the unfair secured your salvation.

Fibular Hemimeila - Children are an heritage of the Lord!

2012-04-23T10:15:00.003-07:00

God has been, as of late, sending me a lot of mothering messages. Isn't is good of Him to think of me?

Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. -Psalm 40:5

How much more my thoughts should be toward Him --and not toward meaninglessness.

When I graduated from college, I graduated with more than a bachelor's degree in English; I also obtained my degree in "Liberal Studies." My "Liberal Studies" degree was quite influential, as I had learned that many of my small town, "Sunday school" ideas were simply outdated and the result of ignorance and a secluded mountain life. My new degree had taught me to believe, among other things, that I was an independent woman who had the right to work outside the home and to not do so, especially after having obtained the "real" degree in English, would be quite absurd and certainly a waste of four long years of work. Though I still clung to the Bible, I learned to do so with a bit of animosity toward writers such as Paul who would, for example, suggest that I was to submit to my husband or be mindful of my place in the church.

Fast forward a mere two years, when this cotton haired little bundle was placed in my arms, and no degree could prepare me for the transformation that was to come to my life. All the worldly philosophy about career and ambition simply faded and was quickly replaced with an overpowering instinct to love and to nurture.

Are you teaching your girls to be wives and a mothers? Are you teaching them that there is no greater joy? Are you teaching them that they do not have to "do it all"? Are you teaching them that mothering is ALL, is enough, is stimulating, is challenging, is exhausting, is the greatest gift God will ever give them? Are you teaching them to pray, when it doesn't feel like "enough," for God to give them strength, resolution, perseverance?

No, I'm not idolizing motherhood to the point of making it worthy of worship, but it is worthy of RESPECT.

When Josh was born, all 4lbs and 15oz of him, I planned to return to work after 12 weeks, but my heart couldn't bear it. Eighteen month later, with depleted finances, my heart still couldn't bear it, and I trudged on to my first teaching position quite torn to say the least. What I hope to teach Emily is that if God grants her the privilege of motherhood, (and I do acknowledge that God's plan for every women doesn't include being a wife or mother) then prepare in advance by saving instead of spending, budgeting instead of living beyond her means. Give her children what they need most: their mother.

Now, before I get hate mail from all the working mothers out there, I speak quite hypocritically because I am one of those working mothers. I have often wondered why things have turned out as they have ---why our financial situation has not afforded me the ability to stay home. Questioning such things most often leaves me feeling as if I have somehow failed or missed a right path somewhere, yet God's plans prevail --and I have been so blessed to be a teacher. One hundred and eighty days at school equals one hundred and eighty-five days at home --and that gives me peace. Is it God's plan for all women to stay at home with their children? I don't know. I don't pretend to know God's plan for anyone's life. I do think that Chip Ingram said it best when he said that if a woman can keep God first, take care of her husband and her children and home, then she should work as little or as much as she wants. Of course there are always circumstances: single moms, husbands who either can't or won't work, financial burdens ... the list seems unending. Our culture, in fact, seems intent on keeping women from their children. Our culture entices us with the lie that we should give our children nicer things than we had growing up. I can't think of a nicer thing that I had than my mom waiting for me every day when I got off of the bus. In fact, it made her sad to recall that when she did go to work, when I was a teenager, I'd look for her car when the bus rounded the corner, hoping that she hadn't been called into the hospital (she was a nurse). Her presence meant so much to me that even at sixteen, I still wanted her home.

What happened to June Cleaver? What happened to moms cooking dinner and picking up toys? What happened to children hitting baseballs in the yard and playing tag until dark? As a society, we've decided that we want more --bigger, better --more education, more electronics, more activities. And what we've collectively settled for is less. Less time at home, less time with family, less time for God. It has satan written all over it. You've convinced us, as you so cleverly did Eve, that we can't be content with all of the "fruit" that we have --we need just one more "tree" to be happy. Those outdated notions of wife and mother --they don't bring happiness. You've convinced us, in fact, that such menial positions degrade us. And we've fallen for it --and our children --and our society --are falling because of it.

What's a woman to do, then? Remain ignorant and uneducated and hope for a godly husband to show up on a white horse? Nah, that's not the point. I will encourage Emily to learn --to work in her studies as unto the Lord. But, I pray each night, too, that God send her a man who loves Him and her (and hopefully her mom!) and that she be able to recognize him, not by the car that he drives, but by the God that he serves shining from the life song that he sings.

As a woman, I want to hear the voice of God, to yield to His instruction, to stop falling for lies and deception. I also want, as Jesus did, to enjoy the ones I love. I have spent too much time feeling guilty for situations that I cannot change and too little time looking for God's grace in all things. Today, my baby girl is with my momma --who means so much to me. She gets to enjoy morning kisses, library school, and McDonald's lunches, and I get to enjoy evening hugs, bath times, and bedtime stories. Some days I am jealous, but most days, I am grateful. Grateful that God saw fit for her to retire before Emily starts kindergarten next year and early enough in her diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension that she can still push her on backyard swings and curl her hair with pink sponge rollers. Oh, we don't know the plan like He does --we don't know what's best. We can only seek Him and trust Him --and Praise Him -- whether we are at home with newborn babies, making the most of school day afternoons with little ones growing too big too fast, or getting ready to watch little cotton haired bundles make their way to high school in only a few short months. We can only pray that He help us in our mothering, that He fill our children with His spirit, that He be glorified by their lives --and by ours!

Ephesians 5:15-17: See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.Wherefore be ye not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is.

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Funny things --uncanny thing --God things happen every day.
Today, after blogging, I read this on "My Utmost for His Highest":

We have no right to decide where we should be placed, or to have preconceived ideas as to what God is preparing us to do. God engineers everything; and wherever He places us, our one supreme goal should be to pour out our lives in wholehearted devotion to Him in that particular work. “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might . . .” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

Isn't it nice that He's still thinking of me? Oh, He makes me cry! and smile at the same time!

Spirit Walk

2012-04-16T19:42:00.000-07:00

If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.-Gal. 5:25

I've been asked to speak at a women's retreat at my church, and at first I sought God as to what He would have me teach. What He has pressed upon me, however, is not the what but the who --who I should be as a teacher, as His child, as His earthly example.

Sometimes, I get caught ... caught in the world's idea of "ideal." I'm striving hard to lose those last 10 pounds and striving hard to pay off debt so that I can go back into debt to renovate my house. Vanity. Isn't it? What is it that I hope to achieve with these goals? Who is it that I'll be when they're achieved? I'll be more accepted by a world that rejects my Savior ... and that really hurts to type.

A couple of weeks ago, during Spring Break at my school, I walked early in the morning at a local park (you know to achieve the 10 pound goal), and as I walked, I began to pray. With a husband, three kids, and a full time job teaching, plus the all time consuming, albeit entertaining, Little League, life is so busy. Not busy with sinful things, but busy with things that distract from the one GOOD thing (need I remind you of Mary and Martha?). Prayer sometimes ends up at the bottom of a pile of good intentions --first thing in the morning --or after the kids are in the bed --having fallen through the cracks of tiredness and selfishness. This morning, however, it was just me and my Savior --and the few men on the clean-up crew working on the debris from a day or two of heavy rain. As I walked, pouring out my brokenness and confusion, my failings and my fears, I began to cry, sob actually. Sobbing soon lead to praising, as the result of true repentance always does. I can only imagine the thoughts of the clean-up crew, probably thinking I was so out of shape that I was wiping sweat from my face and raising my arms to increase my oxygen level. Not the most flattering image I admit.

God is so good. As I continued to walk, I started laughing at the realization of something quite profound: this Spirit Walk --this broken, sobbing, hand lifted mess --was all that I had to be to meet His approval. At that moment I had achieved something: I was "ideal." Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't perfect, I was just YIELDED. And I want to be every day.

Why do we have yield signs? So that we don't plow into oncoming traffic, believing that we have the right of way. When we yield to the Holy Spirit, we avoid as much destruction in our lives as we do when we yield to the tractor trailer barreling down the interstate. I want to learn to give Him the right of way, to slow down to that still, soft voice --to really hear Him and to really obey.

I want my definition of ideal beauty to match His:
1. I want to put Him first. I want Him to have the first fruits of my time and my energy, my worship and my obedience.
2. I want to honor my husband. I want to honor him with my words and my actions, with the way that I dress and speak, with the way that I prioritize my time.
3. I want to efface myself --to get out of the way so that others see Jesus before they see me. This means that I cannot wear things that draw attention to myself, to my body in a way that isn't glorifying to my God. It doesn't mean that I can't be feminine or attractive, but it does mean that I have to be subtle and modest. I do not want to be a stumbling block to another woman's husband --and ladies please don't be a stumbling block to mine! I want my words to be glorying and not full or gossip or slander or anything that isn't for the edification of another (Eph 4:29).
4. I want to mother my children. I want to shower them with love and affection and REAL attention and TIME. I want to teach them every day, in every way, about their Heavenly Father, about unconditional love, and about respect and obedience, and laughter and beauty.
5. Oh the list could go on and on ... I want to please Him ... to hear Him say, "Well done." I want to be a useful vessel, a clay pot worthy of the sacrifice with which I have been bought. And when I fail, I want to HANG on to GRACE, to weep at the unjustness of the One who died for such a one as I.

Will you Spirit Walk with me?

Will you pray that each day, I fight sleepiness and selfishness and worldliness

and

simply

YIELD?

One Thousand Gifts -Fibular Hemimelia

2012-01-27T18:45:00.000-08:00

I've been awed and inspired by this woman's words and her book, One Thousand Gifts. I encourage you to read it and marvel at the ability God is giving her to see grace in ALL things. Godly disciplines are learned, not merely stumbled upon, and I am submitting myself as an eager, though struggling, student.

Grace is freely given, and we stand ready to be lavished when grace comes in the form of free flowing blood from a cross we could never bear, or a well spring of forgiveness to blot out our shame. Yet grace often remains an unwanted gift. Instead of opening our hands to receive God's graciousness, we stubbornly hide knotted fingers behind our backs, wanting grace in a different package than the one offered, arguing that the gift is, in fact, not grace at all.

What does grace look like exactly? Is it packaged neatly in brightly colored paper, trimmed with ribbon poised and curled? Sometimes. Often, though, its wrapped in sorrow, bound tightly with difficulty. Lonely in its appearance. Uninviting and Austere.

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him? -Matthew 7:11

Can you uncurl knotted fingers long enough to accept His gifts? Can you look past your circumstance and see your way through to Him? Ask Him to hold your hand?

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him? -Luke 11:11-13

Last night I dreamed of Ethan running, abandoned and free --the way children run when they forget parents are watching. His face upturned to the sky, his legs free of scars and pain. It was one of those dreams that you don't remember when you awaken. Instead, it washes over you unexpected, details falling into remembrance. It met me early this morning, harsh and unfair. Where's Grace to be found in crooked limb, in painful step, in watching sister dance and brother run? In dreams yet unrealized?

Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book? -Psalm 56:8

Tears have a way, a Grace-like way, of bringing me running to my Father. "Help him; heal him, " I managed to say. "Make your Grace sufficient for him --for me."

At school today, I recount the dream. "Ah, you dreamed of hope," Joy Mac says.

And there it was: GRACE.

Isn't it all Grace? The pain that sends us to our knees. The promises of healing. The slow fading of scars.

By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name. -Hebrews 13:15

(Titling the blog, I, at first, purposefully omitted the words "Fibular Hemimelia" that have donned every page. "That's not what this one's about," I thought. That still, small voice, however, told me instead: "That's exactly what this is about, Sindy." Grace.)

Fibular Hemimelia: Cast On/Cast Off

2012-01-27T16:23:00.000-08:00

For those of you following the leg lengthening journey take heart! Casting is quite easy --especially in comparison to the fixator! Ethan spent 27 weeks with the external fixator --13 of which were spent turning and 14 of which were spent allowing the bone to consolidate.

The morning of fixator removal, we saw Dr. Standard only briefly and Ethan was swept off to the OR I got to accompany him, once again, into the OR until he was under anesthesia. The procedure took less than 2 hours --and we were soon able to visit him in the recovery room. He was a bit groggy and complained that his leg "hurt," but the pain must have subsided quickly because after we left the hospital, he didn't need even a single dose of pain medication. He was released from the recovery room --with instructions to keep the cast dry and no physical therapy until after we returned in a month. By the time we made in over to the Hackerman Patz house, via his wheelchair, he was ready to attempt walking. In fact, with his walker, he was perfectly fine walking the evening of the surgery and had very little complaints. He was a bit shaky and unbalanced --and the walker became a necessity again for a couple of weeks.


Ethan kept grabbing the oxygen mask, acting like he was hyperventilating. They let him bring it home~

His first few steps were shaky, but exciting!

Ethan's cast came up to the top of his thigh --and was quite an orange looking monster. It make bathing hard --we opted mainly for sponge baths as opposed to trying garbage bags in the shower --and walking a bit cumbersome and awkward, but overall, he did great! I was most afraid of the pin sites underneath the cast causing some sort of nasty infection, but that did not happen. What did happen, though, was that the first night following surgery, he bled through the bottom of the cast --at his heel --just a few dark blotches showed on the cast and a few drops on the bedsheets. Dr. Standard assured us that this was normal, and this didn't happen at any other instance.

Everyone seemed excited to sign Ethan's cast --and among the signatures were a few Ravens' cheerleaders! Yep, that's right, cheerleaders. We met these "cheerful" purple and black clad gals on Saturday night following his surgery at a local eatery. Although we thought such signatures were at least pretty "cool," Ethan was none too impressed and opted not to have a picture taken with cheerleaders! He was quite happy, though, to oblige the Mascot! I was quite happy myself until the cheerleaders began handing out autographed bikini shots --which I soon confiscated much to the chagrin of my thirteen- year- old who thought they'd look awesome in his locker!

Our cast experience couldn't have been better timing --thank you Lord (even though I was sure anxious to get that fixator off when I thought was best)! Ethan had two weeks of Christmas vacation before he had to return to school and attempt the classroom and hallways. It took a week or so for him to learn to balance and ambulate without the walker. We were super happy that "real" clothes fit again --at least wind suits and carpenter jeans! And we were blessed with snow which cut out about 3 days of school. All in all, he was only in the cast for 6 school days before we made the trip back to Baltimore.

If you look closely at the cast removal shots, you can see pure terror in Ethan's eyes. You can't hold a miniature saw blade in hand and tell a seven- year- old, "It won't hurt a bit." Freddie and I were super anxious to see what that leg would look like --and it was actually much less gruesome than we expected. Now, it certainly looks war torn or at least battle scarred (much befitting a soldier of Christ), but much better than clad in a metal fixator or heavy cast! The nurse simply cut the cast down the front in two places, put in new lining, and attached velcro straps. Voila --removable cast!


First peek at what was underneath!

Dr. Standards's instructions were to resume therapy and continue 2-3 days a week for the next six weeks until we return yet again for another follow up. Ethan was more than happy to get into the shower that first night --free from fixators and casts --but I will admit that rubbing my hands over what is essentially small holes or divots in the skin turned my stomach a bit! The old pin sites have to be rubbed out --basically when the pins are inserted into the bones, they take skin with them, and this skin can permanently adhere to the bone. So, we're busy rubbing lotion --to help with the itching that came as soon as the cast was lifted off his leg --and to help break up the scar tissue. We've been home only six days and things are progressing. He is understandably reluctant to walk on his leg, but is being brave and taking steps throughout the house. He has restarted therapy at school and at home --most of which consists of exercises to regain range of motion in his leg and ankle and to simply build back lost muscle. His favorite thing so far ... a nice, hot tub bath ... with no parents lingering near to help wash! I didn't think we'd coax him out the first night (after all, it had been 7 months). The last procedure (we think) will happen this summer when the 8-plate is removed from the knee. Hopefully, it will do its job and straighten out his leg --as far as his knock kneed problem goes.

You can see that the left tibia is now straight, but the leg is veering in the wrong direction from the knee!

I'm sure there's lots more lessons to learn and trials to come, but we're enjoying what we hope is the last few weeks of this one. Ethan's perseverance and general attitude remains a blessing to me. I'm looking forward to the simple things now ... seeing him curl up on the couch, holding him tightly in my lap, watching him run...