Women Professing Godliness

Friday, January 23, 2009

Grace for every trial , Grace for every mile....

In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and soberiety, not with broided hair , or gold , or pearls, or costly array;But (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.I Timothy 2:9-10

As I walked arround Walmart this afternoon....That is right I said walked, for the first time in 7 weeks I walked arround the store to get what I needed. It was slow going but I did it !!!
God is good and His Grace is indeed a marvelous thing to exsperience in life...

I was thinking of all my Sisters out there who are striving to live a godly life and walk holy before the Lord. I was thinking that life could indeed be much harder then it is , as I know several sisters who are suffering things far worse then I have lately. After all, I had my leg damaged and I lost a baby.... But there are sisters out there who suffer with worse diseases, greater losses then my own. So, I prayed as I was thinking for each one that came to my mind. I was sorta going slow as Mark led the cart arround the store and the girls rode on the back for two to sit on. We went today to get a DVD/CD burner/player as my CD player died in my computer...PTL we found one for 50.00 that does it all...smile   So I prayed and thought that God's Grace to me is sufficient, he extends it by the minute to me and I need not fear what tomorrow holds for me or my family. I know that he loves and cares for me and will see me through whatever is my way to walk in.
I have this Tape here by Mrs. Harold Leek with a song called " New Grace " I think it is called, it is just lovely. But the song speaks of " Grace for every hour, Grace to love and pray for sinners and there'll be New Grace when its my turn ...... well you get the idea. "

Every day is new, each morning is new and There is not anything that the Lord cannot do.
Alot of today I was praying for My Sisters Cindy, Lynne, Angie, all of whom are having trying times with health in their lives or trying times in marriage that I can relate to all too well. My heart cries for their pain.... (Ya today was your day girls) I want to tell you that back in 2001 I was in a car accident and it broke my left leg in three places and shattered my ankle. I was a single mom then, a SAHSM. I had met Mark but we weren't married yet. I spent 9 days in the hospital and then my Mom and Sister brought me home to my trailer.   I couldnt walk, I couldnt bake , cook, I was stuck in bed for quite sometime. And after this I was stuck in a wheelchair for 10 months till I worked at getting well and regained strength in my leg ( my calf muscle had atrophed and I needed to heal and regain that muscle.) Well that was in July of 2001. In Sept 2001 Mark and I married and moved at the end of that month to his Moms and we were there for a week or so as we waited for the closing on our farm to happen.
Mark was such a sweetheart, pushing me arround everywhere we went and working a full-time job.   Well I thought life couldnt get worse then it was for me... boy was I wrong.
I had gotten pregnant and didnt know it and about the time I learned I was, well The Lord called that first baby of ours home to be with him. I miscarried Oct 9th , 2001. This was the second time I had miscarried in my lifetime. The first time was in 1991 when I was in NH.
So my heart was hurting but my life was busy and my leg was not feeling to good. Have you ever tried to be a keeper at home from a wheelchair, be on Hydrocodone and Homeschool 3 children and a month later I found out I was pregnant with Faith... So here I am pregnant again in a wheelchair... We were newlyweds ya know!!! I wanted to be the perfect wife, the godly helpmeet , the wonderful mamma and homeschool teacher... All the while trying to live out my countrygirl dream on a farm in Central NY... Perhaps it was more like I was the bride who complained , got irritated with my children and they rebeled and I was a hormonal wreck and on prescription drugs, got off those fast, you know that stuff messes with your mind !!!!

OK life couldnt get worse.... LOL (Ya I can laugh about all of it now...) WE went on a honeymoon to Lancaster PA to Amish Country...Mark pushed me arround to see everything.
Then a week later...guess what ?   I found out my DH was suffering from Mental Illness !!!!
not only that....He had what I call massive Debt in Credit Cards...

Do you ever get the hint that God is trying to teach you something, when all this stuff hits you with in a few months time ?    I was pleading with the Lord to give me HELP!!!! I was Scared, I was hurt, I was homeschooling my kids and I was PREGNANT !!!! again, how could this be, I just lost a baby and hadnt had a monthly and well my mind couldnt take it all in... But you know what...God gave me Grace to deal with all of it, every single issue in my life, that doesn't mean I become the perfect wife or mother, but it means that I prayed a whole lot and I tried to make a go of it all.

After all I love the Lord, He surely loves me and I loved and still love Mark with all my heart... Life is so funny even when it is scarey....when we can look back and see that the Lord was right there the whole time, the whole way... we have to laugh at ourselves for being all to human and in the long haul we come out of it polished more holy, godly and better for what we suffered through...

So, did you ever get the feeling that is why the bible says " We suffer that we might know the sufferings of Christ"   Is that why it says " Let Patience have its perfect work in you "....

So lets see... I had Faith Aug 2002, I had learned to walk again and drive, I was driving way before I was out of the wheelchair, I use to take my children to Walmart and even after I learned to walk they would say " Mom, could you go a bit faster ?" Why ? Mom there is an 80 year old man behind us who can walk faster then you !!!!"     LOL,   I didn't care, I was walking.... God had given me a wonderful Midwife and I had Faith and came home and what a JOY it was to have a baby after 9 years from having Michael and ending up divorced and thinking I would never have another baby again....But God had blessed me and I was on cloud nine.... OK so there were times I wish I was on cloud nine.... Mark had worked fulltime for a year and he burned out, wasn't working and we were living on SSD and my settlement from the accident....
Do you know God knows your needs and he will meet them in some way shape or form...you might not know from where, but he does.
Faith is 5 months old and I start to feel sick and So I go to the Dr and what do you know....
I was pregnant for Hope. Hey Did I tell you that I get massive Acid Reflux when pregnant !!!
I have to live on Zantac AM/PM doses... That was what tipped me off to being pregnant , mind ya I only have had this with mine and mark's children... couldnt eat, felt lousy, couldnt sleep and Mark was trying to work, but he wasnt feeling well... So Oct 2003 I have Hope and we are having marriage troubles and He is self medicating... some of you know what I am talking about. Now how can this be....after all i married a christian man, who is the most godly man I know, next to a few older men I know who are pastors... Lord how can this be ?

Hey, Life goes on.... You pick up yourself by your petticoats and you shake off the dust and you go on... You milk the goats, you teach the kids and you read good books and you seclude yourself from the outside world.... Well except for a few lists your on.... You meet a Sister who tries to encourage you, but she cannot understand what your going through...
You try and try harder to be the godly wife and mother...

So, Hope is 11 months old and I am feeling sick again...Guess what ???? Ya you got it... I am pregnant again... ( Now understand this...to a quiverful minded couple this is great) I was , Mark wasnt really then.... but this would only be our 4th baby...remember we lost one had two and this is #4.... Well my older teens are being rebellous, the two oldest move out to their Dads in NH and you know that all the blame for past is given to me as the horrible mother who cannot deal with the acholic/abusive spouse... So ya it is my fault after 14 years of marraige for doing what was best for Myself and my Children....   Trust me folks, I am over it...God has given me Grace and I strive very hard to extend that Grace even to my Ex. doesnt always work but I try...   OK so I am pregnant , Wes is 15 and Mike is 11, Faith is 2 Hope is 1 almost.... and The Lord calls this child home to be with Him...
The boys were at my parents for a visit two hours away, Brittany is in Auburn and my oldest lives in Auburn at the time too. I hemorraged and I go to the hospital and Mark spazzed, He stays home to care for the girls with his mom and never comes to the hospital like he said he would till I am out of surgery and alone... wondering where he is....

So who do you call on.... I called out to the Lord...Save me, my little ones need me and I am
along Lord with no family or friends to be with me. My BP is 66/44 and I am not feeling to well at all, but surgery went well. So Mark shows up with his Mom and the girls and I
am so tired , happy to see my girls and want to go home... so we went as soon as my BP went up to 100/60.   We get home and my MIL goes home and I have to exsplain to Faith that the baby is in heaven now....She had asked me of the baby was ok.....

Grace....to fogive, to speak the truth in love and to go on....
Two months later my boys come back home and we begin again to try to live our lives and go on...

Summer 2005
Mark's SSD is taken away due to overworking... someone needs to tell the government that Mental Illness doesnt just go away and that going 80 cents over the limit is no reason to cut your check totally... Mark is still sick and cannot work fulltime... nor is he allowed to on SSD. We have to put the farm up for sale or face loosing it... My heart dies inside as this is HOME, this is where my children are to grow up and were to do the country thing!!!!!
My goats, Lord not my goats, please say we don't have to sell my goats....
I sold the goats and all my goat stuff and we sold the farm and moved to my trailer Fall of 2005, actually closer to winter as we moved in October. We and all our stuff is packed into my 16x80 1997 Titan 3 bedroom/2 bath Home... 1200sq ft....after living in a double wide on our farm that was 1580 sq ft... no privacy, no place for kids to play and no animals allowed.
Nov 1st we put an offer on a house in Canastota NY, I bought that house for us to be closer to Mark's mom and family and so he would find work....
My heart was dying inside. Mark was getting sicker and he went into the hospital and he stayed at his moms for a time.... I found out I was pregnant November 7th and told Mark and he was still quite sick and on drugs that made him not well. So I try to relax, go shopping with my parents at SAMs and came home went in the bathroom and I was bleeding... I told Mom, she told Dad and I called Mark.   Mom and Dad stayed till Mark got there and They took all 4 of my kids home with them. Mark stayed with me and I stayed home that night. Next day we went down to my Dr/Midwifes office and they want us to do hormone level tests... ok... we do them, we come back in couple days and we do them again...went up, but I was bleeding and sonogram shows no baby only a sack...so I misscarried but my hormone levels were going up.....Lord how can this be...?   So I get scheduled for a DnC and they want to do a Laporoskpy to make sure I am not having a tubal pregnancy... surgery again...

Have you ever had to sit in the Dr office and write out your own words for what is to be done if they find a tubal pregnancy ... " I am giving my permission that if I am having a tubal pregnancy, this pregnancy is to be aborted"   There is that horrible word.... and it had to be written by me to give my Dr permission to end my pregnancy, not the one I had already lost, but another one if it was in my tubes....   My heart is dying Lord, I need you to give me some peace here.... All I could do was cry....for the loss I already experienced and a possible second pregnancy loss , if there was one...
Grace.... to accept things I cannot change, to release alot of anger and to go on...
PTL , there wasnt one, but surgery wasnt fun and I got really sick and got a subderal hematoma in my left wrist and arm...Nurse pulled my IV too fast and made a mess.
So for weeks I was in pain and suffering after all that. We left, went home to the trailer and
That was Nov 9th 2005... week later Mark goes back to stay with his mom and look for work... I stay at my trailer with the kids... Closing on the house never happened till January 14th, 2006 and we all moved in on Jan 18th. Mark too, but he is still not feeling well.
Once again they try to take away his SSD and the girls SS benefits... So he gets a PT job at Walmart in Feb 2006 and we live on Route 31, louder then we thought it would be. Our yard is on a hill and though it is not in the city...it sure wasnt exactly country....but it was home for a time and we made due...
Grace to live in a place that isnt the most ideal home, but you do what you need to , to try to keep your family and DH going....
I spent alot of time praying...for some support, for a home in the country, for goats, for my children , for Mark's health and we had more hard times, but we finally got to the point that we knew we had to get the kids to the country and get to someplace with a church they could attend and my mothers church was where they wanted to be... Mind you it is not my church home, but my boys do go there quite a bit... IBYF for the kids and Youth Group.

Well I waited on the Lord my boys again take it upon themselves to rush the Lord, they wanted to leave and go to my Sisters in GA to live... so what do you do ? If you don't let them they rebell ...If you let them maybe they will learn to see that , the grass is not greener on the other side of the septic tank...... So they went... they complained and spent 3 months there...
The whole time I knew that the Lord wanted them home and learning to obey me... I was there God given mother and he said they were to obey their parents.... But I waited until the Lord said it was the right time...
Oct 2006 they came home to live with us...We had moved to RC, closer to my parents and I finally had the support i needed of family arround. We were blessed with goats when the Lord said to our friends " The Weeks Family" that they were to give me the three goats i liked.
One was born on our farm...I was so happy, so pleased to finally be in the country and near where I grew up... it wasnt manditory to move near my family, but it is nice to have someone to watch your children now and then that you trust. So , is life better....In alot of ways Yes.

Is it perfect...NO
Nov 4th 2006 to current...Mark has not found work here.
Jan 7th Mark is not feeling well and I end up taking him to his mothers.
Jan 14th I fall on icy steps and my right leg is damaged....
Jan 16th I have my neice take me to go pick Mark up so he can come home and help me.
Jan 29th I go to Dr and learn I am for sure pregnant.
Feb 12th I go to OB-GYN and get checked for normal bloodwork but I am spotting a little.
Feb 18th I miscarry again... for the 4th time in our marriage, my 11th pregnancy...
Feb 26th tomorrow, I go for sonogram and Lordwilling I have passed everything on my own...

GRACE....learning and growing in Grace....God's Grace

Today, I am walking, my DH is home and trying to get well ... tomorrow who knows what that brings...Its snowing here and I am going to head to bed....Praying that tomorrow God's Grace will be shed again in my life... Praying that my Sisters can know and exsperience that same Grace and know that There is new Grace for every trial, there is Grace for every mile and there'll be new Grace...for them in the morning....

If your reading this and you do not know of God's Grace and His Mercy... and you don't know how to go on in Him, Just ask me how to get there.... I can only tell you that if it wasnt for the Lord, I couldnt go on through all this and whatever else is to come in my life...
God is the answer to all your trials and issues in life... no matter what they are...

And if you are saved and you need someone to be friends with , to share with, to pray for you, to encourage you in your walk with the Lord... well you are more then welcome to join me and other ladies who will be there to pray for you at my group on yahoo.
The Country Homemakers Journal
Link on the right side of this blog to join...
We'd just love to have you come and share with us.
Blessings
Linda
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Friday, January 23, 2009

Grace for every trial , Grace for every mile....

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