A Mom's Prayer

I am very proud of my kids. I feel so grateful to get to be their mom. As rewarding as it is, it is equally daunting. I want to fulfill the role God has allowed me to play in their lives and raise them up to bring Him glory. It's a little overwhelming to think of all the mistakes I make each day. I am so thankful that the Lord has His hand on them and is not completely dependent on me. :)

As they are growing up (too quickly I might add), we are beginning to have some interesting conversations about their futures. As much as I can, I keep telling them..."Be still and listen to what God is saying to your heart. Look for what you enjoy and the gifts God has given you. Think of how you can use these things to serve God and others." That is this mom's prayer for her children.

• HALLIE asked me this week about where we wanted her to go to college. She is just in middle school! Hallie has a sweet spirit and wants to please. I am excited to see where God leads her. This week she made her middle school soccer team and played her trumpet in her first pep rally! She already says that she wants to spend a year in China or Japan teaching English and then come home to teach ESL in a middle school or high school. We'll see...
• EMMA is such a little mix of everything. She loves to play dress-up and is the one concerned about her clothes. However, she is my little athlete. She is running cross-country and is excited to try out for her school basketball team. Right now she is playing rec soccer and taking piano lessons. Emma is very tender right now and hears God speak to her heart...and she obeys. I pray this is always the case.
• NATHAN asked me this afternoon how he would choose who to marry. He has so many options right now. :) Deep thoughts for a little boy in Kindergarten. He also asked me if he could have 2 jobs when he turns 16. I said, "Of course." "Good," he said, "I want to work at Taco Bell and be a spy." Wow! I love this little boy. He has struggled with illness all of his life, but does not let it stop him. He loves popcorn, Scooby-Doo movies and his mommy! He is a very loving little boy and I pray He will be a strong, loving man of God.
• MICAH is our precious gift from India. Brought across the ocean to be a part of our family. He is so strong and smart and polite. Yes, I said polite. :) I know it sounds wierd, but he is the politest 2 year old I have every met. We have been changed so much since his arrival and I know God has a special plan for his life. I can't wait to see how God uses his little life.

So, I pray and plug away. Doing laundry, making lunches, driving carpool, going to games...doing the things a mother does...and praying that each day I have them with me, they will fulfill God's purpose for their lives!

5K Walk/Run

Breast cancer is not something I would have ever chosen to go through. It is an elite club of courageous women (and sometimes men) and not a club I ever aspired to join. I always had sympathy from afar, but it was never personal. Now it's different.

Today I participated in my first ever Susan G Komen Race for the Cure with my husband and my 2 daughters! We met up with my husband's brother and wife and their little girl so we could share this opportunity with them. While my husband and his brother ran the 5K, the girls and I walked the first mile and 1/2 and then jogged a mile and 1/2. It was so fun to be able to do this with my girls. My goal is to be able to run the 5K next year.

It was such a fun afternoon. Just being in that atmosphere with 10,000 other participants all supporting the same cause. As survivors, we wore the pink t-shirts and baseball caps. They put a ribbon on your cap for each year that you come back to the race. They also give you hot pink Mardi gras beads for each year that you are a survivor. I got "1!" It was cool passing other women in pink with tons of beads hanging around their necks!

The only sad part for me was seeing the teams who were walking in memory of loved ones. There was one team there walking for a friend of a friend who died last year. She was my age and had small children. Although it was sad, it was also such an awesome way to honor her memory and to see how much she was loved!

So, I have completed my first breast cancer walk and survived! I may not be able to walk tomorrow, but it was worth it! :) I can't wait for next year!

Doctor Update

Today was my 8 week visit with my doctor. I used to go every 3 weeks while on chemo, but after that was finished, I just go every now and then for a check-up. I continue to take my Herceptin every week with echocardiograms every 3 months. This will last until February. So far, all is going well. Aside from the aches and pains which can be handled somewhat with Aleve, and besides the numbness in my toes and stiffness in my fingers, I am good. :)

Today as the doctor listened to my heart, he asked if I worked out. Not sure why he was asking, I asked, "Why?" He said that my heart rate was good, but in the range that they usually saw in athletes or people who work out a lot. I had to laugh. Unless you count chasing around 4 kids, I have not exercised in over 10 years! :) The nurse just laughed and then the doctor left the room to go check my most recent echocardiogram. When he returned, he said all was well and it had even gone up a couple of points. I had to ask what that meant, and he just said that it meant my heart had improved from 3 months ago. Could it have been from my new found determination to use the treadmill? I did jog a mile every morning for 2 weeks straight and then caught a really bad cold and had to stop for the last 2 weeks since I could hardly breathe. I just started back up on Monday. My only explanation for the improved results was that my heart must have been in shock from the sudden exercise after all these years! :)

Needless to say, I am grateful for the good news and all the continued prayers. We will keep plugging away each week with my treatments until February, and then we will tackle the reconstructive surgery and all that goes along with that. Hopefully, I will be done with everything by next summer. It's something to look forward to.

Book Signing

This morning I went to my first ever book signing. Who do you think could make me get up early on a Saturday morning and miss my daughter's soccer game? Francine Rivers! I LOVE to read and she is one of my most favorite fiction writers.

The only decision I had to make was which of her books to take to the signing. :) I love that a lot of her fiction is taking stories of real people and events from scripture and making them come alive in a different time period. A lot of her books have made me fall in love with the Biblical stories all over again. Of course her book, Redeeming Love, is one of my favorites, so I took that one. While there, I also picked up her two latest books, Her Mother's Hope and Her Daughter's Dream for her to sign. Since I am very close to my mother and sisters, I can't wait to read them! If you have never read any of Francine's books I encourage you to buy one and get started! You will love them!

God's Children

I love how sometimes God speaks to others and then, through their re-telling, He speaks to me! That has happened to me twice this week!

I was at a birthday party and was talking with my friend, Chrystal. She and her husband have 1 little girl and have been talking about adopting a child through domestic adoption. As is almost always the case in families I talk to (my husband included) the husbands are not quite as ready to adopt. They are hesitant to make such a big step and have lots of questions. As they talked about adoption last week, the husband asked, "What if our child decides to look for their birth parent when they turn 18? Wouldn't that make you feel like it was all a loss?" I LOVE Chrystal's answer! She said, (in my paraphrase,) "You know, ALL our children are God's children. Whether they are adopted or biological, we have been given them to care for and train for a season!"

How awesome is that? I mean I've known that my whole life, but somehow the way she worded it just opened my eyes anew to the fact. It does not matter whether I birthed my child or adopted him/her. It does not matter if they are my race or another race. "My" child is not "mine." He/She is God's child and He has loaned them to me for a season. What a privilage to be able to kiss, hug, teach, and lead one of God's precious children!

Heaven

This month has been a very difficult one for me, emotionally and physically. For some reason I am aching from head to toe. It hurts to sleep if you can imagine that. Even my fingers hurt. They have told me that the Herceptin can make you ache and feel like your body is 90 years old, so maybe that's it.

Emotionally things have been difficult as well. My husband and I are trying to find some normalcy in our new life, and I'm very tired and cranky with the kids I think. In the last month my neighbor's husband across the street died from cancer, my neighbor up the street was just diagnosed with cancer and told he probably won't live till Christmas, my husband's uncle's wife is struggling with cancer and just got news that it has spread, a woman in our church just started her chemo for breast cancer, and a childhood friend was just diagnosed with inoperable cancer. I know it is everywhere, but the news can be overwhelming when you are in the middle of it still yourself. Needless to say, I am grateful for the hope of Heaven!

Don Piper's book, "90 Minutes in Heaven," gives one of the most beautiful descriptions of Heaven I have ever read. My family and I are music lovers, so his description of the music in Heaven just melts my heart. I can't type the whole chapter here, but here is a snipit!

"It was the most beautiful and pleasant sound I've ever heard, and it didn't stop. It was like a song that goes on forever. I didn't just hear music. It seemed as if I were part of the music--and it played in and through my body. I stood still, and yet I felt embraced by the sounds.

The praise was unending...hundreds of songs were being sung at the same time--all of them worshipping God. If we played 3 cd's of praise at the same time, we'd have a cacophony of noise that would drive us crazy. This was totally different. Every sound (voice, instrument, the swoosh of angel wings) blended, and enhanced the others.

I couldn't calculate the number of songs--perhaps thousands--offered up simultaneously, and yet there was no chaos, because I had the capacity to hear each one and discern the lyrics and melody. I marveled at the glorious music."

Then I looked again, and I heard the singing of thousands and millions of angels

around the throne and the living beings and the elders.

Revelation 5:11