Friday, November 13, 2009 7:52 AM, CST
This picture was taken the day we got back. I posted one of all of us (plus Timmy) taken right before we left. There were tears after that was taken when we had to leave Jaycee. There were tears before this one was taken when we got to hold her in our arms again at the airport. Funny how tears go with happy and sad.
We're all doing well. We're delighting in the Lord and the pain-free, energy-recovering health that Jordan's experiencing! Thanks for all of your prayers during his followup. He is back to being hard at work for his girls during the busy harvest season. The girls and I are slowly adjusting to the pool-less weather. I'm also getting my toes wet with the new diet change and wading through recipes and a plethora of information. Jaycee and I have a new "carrot juice" routine- prepared daily for Jordan's (and our) consumption. We're enjoying it with only tiny little panic attacks at the grocery store when it seems like EVERYTHING has high fructose corn syrup.
I pray for a little boy named Stellan because I read his mom's blog. Stellan has a rare heart condition that makes his heart go into super fast rhythm. This past week he had a heart surgery that went far and beyond what all of his doctors and specialists hoped. Post surgery, they actually tried to make his heart go back into tachycardia by going through his esophagus and sending electrical pulses and guess what, after the doctor "tried very aggressively," Stellan's heart did NOT begin to beat fast. That means he's fixed. It means God heard all those people praying in faith and blew the doctors out of the water with how well their attempt to fix a 10-month-old's heart went. Praise God!!!
But, the day before Stellan's surgery, his heart relapsed into the dangerous rhythm and gave out. He flatlined, lost oxygen to his brain, and had to be electrocuted back to life. They thought he was dying right there on the ER table.
My thoughts while vacuuming yesterday: Why did God have to put his parents through that? Why did they have to go through all of the wrenching emotions of thinking they were going to lose their son? Why did they have to worry about brain damage and his ability to even get through a surgery? Why didn't God heal him right when the prayers started when they found out about his heart condition in the womb? God knew He was going to heal him- why did He have to put his family through that horrible day before they got to the wonderful outcome? It's like God was just flexing His muscles. Like he wanted to show off, to put on display His power by contrasting it against how bad it could be. Is God theatrical, have a flair for drama?
And then I remembered that verse in Isaiah: The LORD will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. Isaiah 52:10
Can't you just see it? That divine sleeve being rolled up revealing the huge, divine arm and the declaration of strength that doesn't even require speech- it's simply seen- by all nations. God does flex His muscles. He does show off. God is God. He gets all the glory and He knows it. He designed it that way.
He's also sovereign.
He's also the Master Teacher and I know that even though Stellan's folks are still reeling from the tidal wave of emotion and the speed with which they're going through it, they're learning things. God is teaching them and has taught them a lot through this trial. Stellan's parents still have questions and are confused, thankful, relieved, jittery, worn out, and are wondering what's next for their family.
It sounds so familiar. What an epiphany I'm having.
I got to be you- all of our amazing blog readers and prayer warriors. I got to sit on the sidelines, look at it objectively, sympathetically, pray for someone that I don't know but care for and with whom I only have a cyberspace relationship. Ok, some of you (a lot of you) have much more than a cyberspace relationship with us, but I enjoy the parallelism.
I am giving God the glory and magnifying His name because a little boy in Boston no longer has to have a permanent central line and receive medication 8 times a day. I am praising Him. I am in awe of Him. Is this how you all feel? I'm so happy for you!
I love this feeling. I love answered prayer. All I can say is "Hallelujah!" and "Praise Jesus!" and "Yay God!"
I don't have to deal with that reeling feeling, the disorienting vertigo, the "what just happened?" sensation. I'm not feeling my way through a labryinth of guilt and confusion for still questioning a Heavenly Father that just did what I was begging Him to do. I'm not shaking off lies from the enemy that God just went "Psych!" and then set us right back down where we were. I'm not being tempted to tiptoe around an omniscient Savior because I don't want Him to notice how little I've progressed and trigger another, more colossal test of faith. I'm not ashamed of my pleas for wanting to know the "why" and the "what now?" I'm not disappointed in myself for having gone through a transforming miracle and seeing the same old ugly inside.
Nope. I'm just praising God and relieved and excited for my brother and sister in Christ. I count it a priviledge to be a part of the prayer task force, the Body, and a wisp of sweet aroma in God's nostrils. I learned a lesson. And it was fairly pain free. Sure, I spent a little emotional energy on this family, but at the end of the teary blog posts, I shut the laptop and went to bed.
It was like I was in Calculus class and then went down the hall to Spanish. I love learning to speak Spanish. I could live in Spanish class. I'll take 20 credit hours of Spanish, please. Math, Science, Social Studies, History? No, thank you. I'm not good at those. Those do not come easily to me. I don't enjoy those subjects. But, at some point, God calls us to learn how to calculate equations and where to put punctuation marks. Before I get lost in an analogy with which I'm not even that familiar, (homeschools don't have halls or classrooms- my Mom learned me at the kitchen table- Thank you Mom, you're the best! please notice that I have not ended any of my sentences with a preposition as of yet), I will digress.
Something else I've been pondering lately; If I really believe God is who He says He is, will the striving to do things in my own strength cease? I believe it will. If I believe that God is Savior and He saved me, -not myself, or the Sunday School teachers, or even the godly parents that brought me up in the knowledge of the Word- not even a sliver of a portion of my salvation credits to anyone else, then the sanctification and the teaching, and the instructing is also all of God's doing. God saves. God sanctifies. Period. I have been trying to rest in the fact that God is Rabboni- Master- Teacher. If God's the Master Teacher and He's got me in Calculus class in the Fall of 2009 -as horrifying and terribly hard as derivatives and integrals are- then God knows thats what I'm supposed to be learning. I also have to believe, that if God is who He says He is- my Father- then He's not wasting breath. He's not getting up in front of the class for no reason. His lessons aren't poorly planned, or timed. They're exactly what His student needs, and if anybody can get His student to learn anything, it's the Master, the Designer, and the Father of that selfsame student. It's indisputable.
So, I am learning. I am sanctified. I am being made holy. I've got to be. If God is who He says He is- and I believe it- there's no way God's plan for me is not working. Even though it feels that way sometimes.
I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. -Me (2 Timothy 1:12)
I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. -God (Ps 32:8)
This picture was taken the day we got back. I posted one of all of us (plus Timmy) taken right before we left. There were tears after that was taken when we had to leave Jaycee. There were tears before this one was taken when we got to hold her in our arms again at the airport. Funny how tears go with happy and sad.
We're all doing well. We're delighting in the Lord and the pain-free, energy-recovering health that Jordan's experiencing! Thanks for all of your prayers during his followup. He is back to being hard at work for his girls during the busy harvest season. The girls and I are slowly adjusting to the pool-less weather. I'm also getting my toes wet with the new diet change and wading through recipes and a plethora of information. Jaycee and I have a new "carrot juice" routine- prepared daily for Jordan's (and our) consumption. We're enjoying it with only tiny little panic attacks at the grocery store when it seems like EVERYTHING has high fructose corn syrup.
I pray for a little boy named Stellan because I read his mom's blog. Stellan has a rare heart condition that makes his heart go into super fast rhythm. This past week he had a heart surgery that went far and beyond what all of his doctors and specialists hoped. Post surgery, they actually tried to make his heart go back into tachycardia by going through his esophagus and sending electrical pulses and guess what, after the doctor "tried very aggressively," Stellan's heart did NOT begin to beat fast. That means he's fixed. It means God heard all those people praying in faith and blew the doctors out of the water with how well their attempt to fix a 10-month-old's heart went. Praise God!!!
But, the day before Stellan's surgery, his heart relapsed into the dangerous rhythm and gave out. He flatlined, lost oxygen to his brain, and had to be electrocuted back to life. They thought he was dying right there on the ER table.
My thoughts while vacuuming yesterday: Why did God have to put his parents through that? Why did they have to go through all of the wrenching emotions of thinking they were going to lose their son? Why did they have to worry about brain damage and his ability to even get through a surgery? Why didn't God heal him right when the prayers started when they found out about his heart condition in the womb? God knew He was going to heal him- why did He have to put his family through that horrible day before they got to the wonderful outcome? It's like God was just flexing His muscles. Like he wanted to show off, to put on display His power by contrasting it against how bad it could be. Is God theatrical, have a flair for drama?
And then I remembered that verse in Isaiah: The LORD will lay bare his holy arm in the sight of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth will see the salvation of our God. Isaiah 52:10
Can't you just see it? That divine sleeve being rolled up revealing the huge, divine arm and the declaration of strength that doesn't even require speech- it's simply seen- by all nations. God does flex His muscles. He does show off. God is God. He gets all the glory and He knows it. He designed it that way.
He's also sovereign.
He's also the Master Teacher and I know that even though Stellan's folks are still reeling from the tidal wave of emotion and the speed with which they're going through it, they're learning things. God is teaching them and has taught them a lot through this trial. Stellan's parents still have questions and are confused, thankful, relieved, jittery, worn out, and are wondering what's next for their family.
It sounds so familiar. What an epiphany I'm having.
I got to be you- all of our amazing blog readers and prayer warriors. I got to sit on the sidelines, look at it objectively, sympathetically, pray for someone that I don't know but care for and with whom I only have a cyberspace relationship. Ok, some of you (a lot of you) have much more than a cyberspace relationship with us, but I enjoy the parallelism.
I am giving God the glory and magnifying His name because a little boy in Boston no longer has to have a permanent central line and receive medication 8 times a day. I am praising Him. I am in awe of Him. Is this how you all feel? I'm so happy for you!
I love this feeling. I love answered prayer. All I can say is "Hallelujah!" and "Praise Jesus!" and "Yay God!"
I don't have to deal with that reeling feeling, the disorienting vertigo, the "what just happened?" sensation. I'm not feeling my way through a labryinth of guilt and confusion for still questioning a Heavenly Father that just did what I was begging Him to do. I'm not shaking off lies from the enemy that God just went "Psych!" and then set us right back down where we were. I'm not being tempted to tiptoe around an omniscient Savior because I don't want Him to notice how little I've progressed and trigger another, more colossal test of faith. I'm not ashamed of my pleas for wanting to know the "why" and the "what now?" I'm not disappointed in myself for having gone through a transforming miracle and seeing the same old ugly inside.
Nope. I'm just praising God and relieved and excited for my brother and sister in Christ. I count it a priviledge to be a part of the prayer task force, the Body, and a wisp of sweet aroma in God's nostrils. I learned a lesson. And it was fairly pain free. Sure, I spent a little emotional energy on this family, but at the end of the teary blog posts, I shut the laptop and went to bed.
It was like I was in Calculus class and then went down the hall to Spanish. I love learning to speak Spanish. I could live in Spanish class. I'll take 20 credit hours of Spanish, please. Math, Science, Social Studies, History? No, thank you. I'm not good at those. Those do not come easily to me. I don't enjoy those subjects. But, at some point, God calls us to learn how to calculate equations and where to put punctuation marks. Before I get lost in an analogy with which I'm not even that familiar, (homeschools don't have halls or classrooms- my Mom learned me at the kitchen table- Thank you Mom, you're the best! please notice that I have not ended any of my sentences with a preposition as of yet), I will digress.
Something else I've been pondering lately; If I really believe God is who He says He is, will the striving to do things in my own strength cease? I believe it will. If I believe that God is Savior and He saved me, -not myself, or the Sunday School teachers, or even the godly parents that brought me up in the knowledge of the Word- not even a sliver of a portion of my salvation credits to anyone else, then the sanctification and the teaching, and the instructing is also all of God's doing. God saves. God sanctifies. Period. I have been trying to rest in the fact that God is Rabboni- Master- Teacher. If God's the Master Teacher and He's got me in Calculus class in the Fall of 2009 -as horrifying and terribly hard as derivatives and integrals are- then God knows thats what I'm supposed to be learning. I also have to believe, that if God is who He says He is- my Father- then He's not wasting breath. He's not getting up in front of the class for no reason. His lessons aren't poorly planned, or timed. They're exactly what His student needs, and if anybody can get His student to learn anything, it's the Master, the Designer, and the Father of that selfsame student. It's indisputable.
So, I am learning. I am sanctified. I am being made holy. I've got to be. If God is who He says He is- and I believe it- there's no way God's plan for me is not working. Even though it feels that way sometimes.
I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto Him against that day. -Me (2 Timothy 1:12)
I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye. -God (Ps 32:8)
