Forget-Me-Nots Along The Way

Well, it sure has been an adventure this last month! The last week I have lived through seems like a month in itself! Have you ever had times like that? I am so thankful for God's love and providence in our lives. He has certainly taken care of us during this stressful time and we are so blessed by all the people in the family of God who have helped us out with physical needs, like childcare and a place for my husband to stay while he needed to be in isolation, and also with spiritual needs, like lifting us up in prayer. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Many people have written or left comments to encourage me and to say you are praying and my husband and I are both so thankful.

I can't even remember where I left off in blogging. Last Thursday I also had to go to the ER with bad asthma and PVCs (premature ventricular contractions), which can be normal, but these were coming on fast and strong so I had it checked out. No sign of heart attack but I have really been struggling with breathing. Of course it has been smoky here from forest fires in the foothills of the Sierras and the air quality is always bad when it is hot and we still hit 100* last week. Yuck!

Friday my hubby took his radioactive iodine and we have not been able to see him all weekend as he has to be in isolation. Tomorrow night we will be able to see him and oh what a joyous reunion that will be! We sure miss his presence in our life and in our home...he really makes it home for us. The radiation did make his thyroid kick in more hormone, however it has not affected his heart, just causing severe muscle pain and weakness. We will still have to monitor his heart for atrial fibrillation over the next 2-3 months. He will be on Coumadin during this time to prevent stroke or embolism. All pretty scary. Everybody has different reactions to the hyperthyroidism but this is not uncommon. Hubby's is apparently really high though because he had it awhile before we realized it. I am continuing to pray that God will protect his heart and for wisdom in his going back to school (he is a teacher) because he is not supposed to do anything that gets him stressed or raises his heart rate! This can cause the atrial fibrillation to kick in.

It seems like the kids brought out every nasty trick in the book, just being kids and it has been a difficult weekend, not getting any breaks or help without hubby here. But I am making it through. In the midst of it all, God has given me some special moments...forget-me-nots along the way. I have had some special times reading His word, preparing for my Precept Bible study classes which are starting up again for the fall. We are continuing in Romans, this is our third class in it, each class being 13 weeks. Today's church service was wonderful, about worship and how God created us so that our greatest joy would be in worshipping Him. So, we sang more songs and some really powerful hymns and worship choruses. The pastor sought me out after service and held hands with me and my new friend Sarah and prayed for Tim and our family. I found out we are going to have a ladies craft circle every other Monday night at church for knitters, crocheters, sewers and other types of hand crafts that can be done together while sitting and talking. And we have been having family time with Daddy via the speaker phone at night saying prayers. And the most special forget-me-nots were the times spent with my son...little openings God made for me to share about Him. I wrote about it here:

So, last night, God gave me a moment. Usually Tim puts the kids to bed and that is their Daddy time. So I went in with them and read. I wanted to read something they don't normally read and distract them from their missing Daddy. It was dark, I put my hand in the middle of a row of books and pulled out one called, "The Best Story About Jesus". I fought back some tears as I knew it was going to be about Jesus dying and thought, "Oh Lord, do we really need to do this now?" It was about an old man telling the story to a little boy about Jesus dying and his resurrection, then going up to Heaven. Well, you can imagine that the wheels started turning for my son, who still has not grasped completely what has happened to Laura. When we got to Jesus dying he said, "No! I don't want him to die!" Then as we read the story he wanted to know what dying meant and we talked about how sometimes peoples' bodies got too sick or broken. We talked about how sin is "being naughty" but if we asked Jesus into our hearts and loved him, we could live in Heaven with Jesus forever. He said, "Mom, when I die, I'm going to love Jesus." Then I explained how we need to love him here while we are alive. He was sad about Laura, but I put on my best happy face and smiled and said, "Oh honey, Laura loved Jesus soooooooo much, she is so happy to be in Heaven with Jesus!" He seemed to like that, but wanted to know more about dying. I told him that our bodies got sick or broken and they stayed here, but that God took our spirit, the part that makes us us up to Heaven with Him. Then as only children can do, he turned to me and said, "So Mom, is Laura's body at her house?" Honestly I was not sure if I was going to laugh or cry!

This conversation has seemed to open his mind to wondering more about heaven and he said again tonight while we were reading another story, "Laura went to live with God forever, huh?" Then he wanted to know if Mom and Dad were going to go with him too. I explained to him that Mom and Dad were going to be in Heaven because we believe in Jesus and that if he believes he will too. Each time we talk, he seems to grasp a little bit more.

Tonight he wanted to come see pictures of Laura, so I showed him the pictures of them on my knitting blog (see links at right, it's the first one!). I was also singing the chorus to the Thank You song last night and he wanted to know what the "pretty song" was and I told him that we had that song at Laura's memorial service. He said, "I didn't know Laura had a song!" So when we were looking at the pictures on my knitting blog I sang the song to him as the words are also there, but I couldn't sing without crying, so I told him that Mommy really misses Laura too.

Forget-Me-Nots Along The Way

Untitled Comment

About Me

Links

Categories

Recent Entries

Friends