The Most Amazing Woman

The most amazing woman.
There is a patient where I work who was in a bad accident awhile ago. I can't remember how long ago, but it's been awhile. It affected her entire back, which affects her entire body. This woman, is so tough. She is doing all she can to get herself as better as she can get. She is a single mother with two children, both under the age of 10. She works, of course, cares for her children, and does everything through tremendous pain. She is on a lot of medication to keep the pain down as much as possible, and it still halts her every now and then. Two times a week I work with her on exercises in the gym, which are extremely painful for her to do, but they have been helping her to feel a little better. In her situation, our roles are kind of reversed. She pushes herself so hard, and I constantly ensure her that it's ok when she's feeling worse, to be careful, cut back even and not to push herself so far that her condition gets set back. She doesn't like it when she's in more pain and is afraid of getting setting back and hates taking at all easy on the exercises. But she knows it could be worse if she pushes too hard. But every now and then her condition still gets worse.

A couple days ago when she was in, she told me that the night before the pain had been so bad she could hardly brush her little daughter's short hair. Tears filled her eyes as she told me. She used to do everything for her children, and now, at times, the pain is so bad she has trouble doing a simple task such as that -- brushing her daughter's hair. She had tried so hard to fight the pain, and her daughter, who's back was to her, asked, "Mommy are you ok?" My heart broke just hearing about it. If anything in this life is unfair, it is that. But I know God can heal her, in fact a new co-worker of mine pointed out that nowhere in the Bible was healing refused to those who sought it and believed in the power of God to do it.

We believe that He is capable, but we find it hard to believe that He will. Why is it so hard to believe that He will? He says constantly that He will come to our rescue, why do we find it so hard to believe that He will? He says that no one who puts their trust in Him will ever be put to shame, why do we find it so hard to believe that if we take His words and stand by them against the ridicule of the crowds, that He won't show up? He'll abandon us. He won't come through for us. Because we compare Him to the people we know who have let us down. When we needed someone the most they were no where to be found. We were alone. Why would God be any different? But He says He is. So we tell Him to prove Himself but never give Him the chance by trusting in His words. Someone can say a chair is sturdy enough not to collapse under you, but until you actually sit on it and put your full weight on it you won't know it's true.

We believe that He is able. Now we need to believe that He will.

The Off Button

So, I'm sure every mother out there wishes their kid had an off button. My niece, Layla Grace, actually does have one. Lately she's been a fuss-budget. Nothing would make her stop crying. I mean, all-out screaming, and she wasn't hungry -- she had just eaten. So, after a while, I remembered how much she likes the water running and having her hair washed. So I decided to see if the sound is what she likes so much. So I turned on the faucet, and lo and behold! She stopped crying. Not only that, but she started drifting in and out of sleep. I tried turning the water down, so it wasn't on so high, and she started crying again. I turned it back up, and within a few seconds she was no longer crying.

So I was like, we need to figure out a way to get this sound to play, without running the water. Then I remembered that Rebekah's old alarm clock has different nature sounds on it, and it happens to have the sound of waves crashing against the shore. So I grabbed Rebekah's alarm clock from upstairs, set it up downstairs, and turned it up so it was as loud as the faucet, maybe louder. It took a bit longer than with the faucet, but still, less than, or maybe 30 seconds later, Layla was quiet again. In fact, her eyelids began to drift shut, and a couple minutes later she was out. Mom and Dad and I kept cracking up.

Rebekah should be mighty grateful her daughter has such a consistant off switch.

A Poem

Lord, You heal my heart
Every time I tear myself apart from You
You show me Your displeasure
Then, Your grace which has no measure
I cannot hide my deeds from You
Behold, oh people, my God will not be fooled!
He knows You lied
When you said that everything was fine
He knows where you were last night
And what you did was before His sight
Daddy, I'm so sorry, I apologize
I want to be found faithful in Your eyes!
I may be no sinner anymore
But righteous, but fallen seven times upon the floor
Raise me up, Lord, wash me clean
So in Your presence righteous I will be seen
For Your glory work a miracle
Hit that pinnacle!
Let us fall astounded at Your feet
When we see Your wonderous deeds!

Good Morning Beautiful

Good morning Beautiful,
How was Your night?
Mine was wonderful
With You by my side
And when I open my eyes
And see Your sweet face,
It's a, "Good morning Beautiful," day

I couldn't see the light
I didn't know day from night
I had no reason to care
But since You came along
I can face the dawn
'Cause I know You'll be there

Good morning Beautiful,
How was Your night?
Mine was wonderful
With You by my side
And when I open my eyes
And see Your sweet face
It's a, "Good morning Beautiful," day

I never worry, if it's raining outside
'Cause sitting here with You, God,
The sun always shines

Good morning Beautiful,
How was Your night?
Mine was wonderful
With You by my side
And when I open my eyes
And see Your sweet face
It's a, "Good morning Beautiful," day


"Vanity of vanities," says the Preacher; "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
Except seeking the LORD, who is worthy to be praised.

Yesterday is a promise that you've broken

Her eyes were troubled. With a small sigh he took her hand and leaned in close.
"Don't kiss me," she whispered hanging her head in shame, thinking of her weakness and failures.
"Why not?" he asked. She fought to control her voice.
"Because you deserve so much more; someone stronger," she answered.
"But you need to know that God wants so much more for you. You need to know that you are loved in spite of yourself and your efforts to prove you're a waste of time. I'm not going to let you believe that anymore. I'm going to love you. Look at me," he said. Speechless, she looked up, overwhelmed by his words. Softly he kissed her, once, twice, and three times.
She burst into tears. How could this be? He knew what she was tangled up in, he knew where she had stumbled! She had no idea anyone cared that much for her. She thought she could never have such love until she was fixed, and she had started to give up on the possibility that she had what it took to be fixed. She had started to believe that the only thing she could do was settle for the fake love that had been presented to her.
She burried her face in his shoulder and hugged him. With Him and His love with her, beside her, for her, she could change into that "someone stronger." She couldn't do it alone, no, but with Him -- she was not alone.

God, help me again to respect my parents. They may mess up, and they may not deserve it, but You do. Someone mentioned today that they weren't sure what parents were there for besides birth and caring for for 18 years. I don't know how serious of a statement that was, I hope he knows that they're supposed to be there for so much more, but I'm not sure -- there are very few good examples. But what I think of is Christina and her parents. She missed a trip to the beach with a group of people including her best friend to spend it with her parents because it was the last weekend before she returned to college. How many people want to do that? So many struggling families, so many broken, so many lost.

God, I get frustrated every now and then. I work so much and face so many demands -- more so since Preston's gone -- and then I come home and face even more demands to help around the house, and then face frustration or disappointment when I'm gone on weekends hanging out with friends who just want to be with me, because I can't seem to remember to call home (which I know does need to change) and because I'm "hardly ever home." And then whenever I'm home early from work my mom gets slightly worried about that meaning I'll struggle even more financially (which I'm really not struggling in so much as it seems sometimes) and she says I should think about getting a better paying job and...and I can't take it. I can for a while, but You know very well the times I break. I know her worry is because she cares, and I want to respect that. And I know that whenever I'm out with friends she wishes I were home "hanging out" with my family, but I have no desire to go home to a bunch of people watching T.V., or know that when I am home on weekends no one expresses any desire to spend quality time with me. Doesn't she understand that me being home isn't good enough? Doesn't she realize that it takes more than that? I know it's hard, and right now, yes, I'd rather be out, because there's so much lost to be regained and it won't be regained overnight or over a weekend. I guess she's where I get my, "I just want to get it done A.S.A.P. Get it, got it, good," kind of approach to life. But I'm trying to learn how to break things down into steps, as tedious as that is right now, because I realized that some things need to take time -- will take time. She expects us to be best friends just because we're mother and daughter, and because she wants that.

There's a lot in life to be learned, and not enough time to learn it all, because the more you learn the more you don't know, so we need to do the best with what time we've got. People will hurt us, have hurt us, and haven't asked for our forgiveness, but we begin to attempt to mend bridges that have been burned because God first mended the bridge we burned between He and ourselves before we ever asked Him to.