10 years ago this week...

It has been 10 years since my mom breathed her last.  I remember the day and the days leading up to it like it was yesterday.  I was in college at UWF, and I had a night class.  My mom had called me right before it started to tell me that she had called an ambulance and was heading over to the hospital.  She had so many health problems, and this was not super out of the ordinary.  I told her I would come right away, and she said not to, to just stay and she'd let me know later how she was doing.  Hours passed and I never heard anything.  That would be our last conversation.  

When I didn't hear from her, I called and called her cell phone.  I remember calling Mrs. Jean Lamberson and probably Ms. Kay Geoghagan and Ms. Vicki Morgan to find out if they knew how she was.  And I prayed.  Oh, how I prayed.  I begged God for some sort of information about her.  Sometime in the middle of the night, my phone rang.  What a dread it is to hear the phone ringing in the middle of the night.  It's almost never good news.  It was my mom's doctor letting me know that her heart had stopped several times and they had been able to revive her, but I should come right away.  

I ran into Hallie's room.  Our friend Valerie was spending the night, and I didn't know what to do, I just burst into tears and said, "My mom's dying!  I have to leave!"  They immediately got up and drove me the 2ish hours to Panama City.  Everything after that is truly a blur.  I remember the doctors telling me that I had to make the decision of whether or not they should resuscitate her if she needed it.  I remember lying outside on the back patio of my mom's house once I had made it home to St. Joe that night, looking up at the stars, begging God to do something, to help her, to heal her.  I remember sweet friends around me.  I even remember laughing to myself at one point:  at the time, there was a pastor from St. Joe who I literally saw absolutely everywhere we went (Chinese restaurant?  he's there.  Piggly Wiggly?  he's there.  Dollar store?  there.)  Guess who happened to be visiting someone at the hospital?  And guess who was in the room at the time of my mom's death?  Yep.  And it still makes me giggle at how absurd it was that he was there in that moment, but somehow it was fitting.  

When her final hour came, there was a handful of other people there as well.  Ms. Kay suggested singing hymns around her bed in the ICU.  We sang and cried.  She was unresponsive, and I don't exactly know how death works, but I believe she could hear us.  At the moment of her death we were singing "Jesus, Name Above All Names."  Only God could orchestrate a moment so sweet - my mom sang this to me every night before I went to bed.  I sing it to Luca sometimes, and I usually can't make it through without crying.

What a dark moment, yet so full of hope.  We are not meant to die!  Death is unnatural, and even though it happens to everyone sooner or later, it is not how it was originally supposed to be.  We were created for so much more than this world.  If this world was all there was, I would grieve with no hope.  But thanks be to God, I can grieve over my mom and miss her terribly with full assurance that she is with the Lord.  And definitely not based on her own merit.  My mom would have been the first to tell anyone what a sinner she was.  She had much guilt from her past choices in life, but that guilt was washed away by Jesus!  She completely trusted Him to save her.  She knew she could never save herself.  She did not look or act like a typical "church lady."  She offended people and got angry and had addictions, but I learned more from her about what it truly means to trust Jesus for my salvation than anyone else I've ever known.  With my mom, there was no doubt.  It was 100% Jesus 0% her.

"For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.

He only is my rock and my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken.  

For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him.  

He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress;  I shall not be shaken.  

On God rests my salvation and my glory; my might rock, my refuge is God."

from Psalm 62*

It has been 10 years.  But she's no less days to sing God's praise then when she had first begun.

I came across some pictures that I hadn't even realized 

look so similar of my mom and me and of Luca and me :)

*As I was typing this I was listening to Shane and Shane (still never gets old to me, probably because most of their lyrics are straight out of Scripture).  Right after I typed part of Psalm 62, their song "Psalm 62" came on :)  I love it when God reminds me of His presence and trustworthiness through something even as small as the timing of when a song plays.

Two Sides to Every Story

Perspective #1:  I have so much to be thankful for!

My baby slept until 7:30 this morning!  I got around 7 hours of sleep (which is so much better than the 2-3 hours at a time I got in the beginning!)  My husband's hardest days of the week are over, and we get to have dinner together tonight (white chicken chili in the crockpot - yummy).  I went to Target this morning to grab a few extra things I needed to make the chili (plus No More Tangles for Luca's hair, haha).  While we were in there, Luca only started to cry once!  Now we are home and I've just laid him down for his morning nap (a little late, but maybe we can salvage what's left before I feed him again).  We have been trying to wean him off of his swaddle since he's crazy strong and we are afraid he will roll over in the middle of the night.  He has been doing super well with just one arm out - his daytime naps aren't great, but he sleeps through the night without crying until sometime between 7-8 am.  There's a lot to be thankful for.  


Perspective #2:  There is so much going wrong!

Last week Luca was sleeping from 8-8, now suddenly he's been waking up earlier around 7, which messes up the daytime schedule I was hoping for him to have.  Alex has been gone so much the last few days (he works late several times a week and those days are SO HARD - he's gone about 15 hours).  I am so mad at myself for forgetting 2 items for tonight's dinner when I went to Kroger earlier this week.  Why do I always forget stuff??  It's hard to go to the store with a baby, I can't just run in and run out, and he usually cries.  I mean, today he only cried once, but it was SO LOUD and people were staring at me like, "Can you quiet your baby please?" Which of course I can't, because he doesn't take a pacifier, so when he cries there's not a whole lot I can do in the middle of a store.  This week is so hard because we have been weaning Luca from his swaddle and he just. won't. sleep (during the daytime naps).  It's just taking forever for him to get used to even one arm out, who knows how long it will take for him to learn to be unswaddled completely.  

There really are 2 sides to every story!  Writing out these two different perspectives of the exact same morning is an exercise that the author of Calm My Anxious Heart recommended.  After you write out the different perspectives (or you could also write out two lists of things in your life, one positive, one negative), really consider which one consumes your thoughts the most.  For me, it's the second one - but that can change.    

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.  
2 Corinthians 10:5

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.  1 Thessalonians 5:16

In order to grow and become more like Jesus, we have to take control of our thoughts.  When I was teaching it wasn't as difficult, because I barely had time to think about anything except lesson plans and reading groups, and how I have got to get around to teaching Science and Social Studies at some point (haha, I think my fellow teachers will understand that struggle).  Now that I am staying at home with Luca, there's way more time to let my thoughts get the best of me.  And they almost always go to the negative side of things.  Sometimes they're negative thoughts about others and sometimes they're about myself... either way, it's not good!

Somewhere along the way I have become very passive.  Passive might be too nice a word - I think lazy probably describes it more accurately.  I have just assumed lately that as a Christian, I would just become more like Christ without really really hard work.  My fear of legalism caused this.  I used to hang out on the legalism side of the street, and now I've headed over to the opposite side, which is encompassed by a bunch of laziness on my part and not wanting to "do too much," because I don't want to be entrapped by the snare of legalism again.  If only I could stay nicely in the balanced middle ground - understanding that I'm saved through faith and not works, but that coasting along is not going to do much if I am wanting to look more like Jesus and "grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."  

Now, I'm not talking about faking it - pretending everything's fine and just talking about "the good stuff" so people think I am a happy positive person.  I'm sure there's a lot of that going on in churches (which is a whole different issue).  I'm talking about taking an honest look at what we dwell on, and if it's mostly the negative, to realize what this is doing to our hearts and minds, and to the people who we are around the most (our roommates, our spouse, our parents, our children, our students).  

The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.  Luke 6:45

23 Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.  Proverbs 4:23

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  Romans 12:2

I hope this is an encouragement to some who, like me, may be struggling with having a genuinely thankful heart.  Just remember - these things don't happen overnight.  Here is a helpful quote from the book:

"My negative thoughts are like impatient toddlers, jumping up and down and screaming, 'Look at me, look at me.'  Jesus and I take the negative toddler thoughts and send them to time-out so we can focus on the good thoughts.  Sometimes they don't obey.  They get up out of the chair and once again scream for attention.  Then Jesus and I take those thoughts back to the time-out chair."  

I appreciated that analogy, because just as we train children (again and again and again.  and again.  and then 3 more times), we have to train our own minds the same way.  I like things to happen right away, but they won't.  This life of becoming more like Jesus is a marathon, not a sprint.  Be encouraged, repent if you aren't thankful, and ask God to help you.  He will, and He doesn't want you to live in the guilt.  

Cast your burden on the LORD,
and he will sustain you;
he will never permit
the righteous to be moved.Psalm 55:22

O Happy Day

Luca slept from 8 pm - 8 am with a "dream feed" around 10:30 pm.  I realize that something this short could have been a Facebook post, but something this monumental needs to be commemorated by something more substantial, you know, like a blog post.  Or a trophy.  Maybe I'll get him his first trophy with a sleeping baby on top.  I mean, we're not into giving kids trophies for doing nothing, but come on.  This is huge!*  :)

Here is a picture of Luca realizing he had slept all night and that
he didn't get to wake us up in the middle of the night like he likes to do :)

And another one, where he's at least
not making the angry face :)

*I realize I may have jinxed the whole thing by getting this excited.  We shall see what tomorrow brings!