Hello...

It has been a long, long week. I've missed a couple nights of sleep again but that is a mother's job; to be concerned about her kids. Isaac was passing a parasite in the last week and it was tough. We went to the doctor today and changed some of what he is taking. He is now on some nutritional support. The one is a powder the doctor said you could live on, it is that nutritious, contains everything your body needs. It is like Ensure but doesn't have the sugar and milk that Isaac seems to have a hard time digesting. It is a powder and we make it in a fruit smoothie. Isaac of course hates it!! So, I am going to pay him a dollar for everyday he will drink the three glasses of it. I would love to pay him a dollar a glass but he is satisfied with the dollar a day. He did drink the first glass down after that without lots of trouble. Please pray for him to get this down without upset because whenever he gets upset it makes his digestive system not work right. He is also taking some electrolyte solution (like pedialyte) but tastier. He likes this very much. He is also on something to bulk up the diarrhea.



Specific prayer requests: Pray for Isaac to drink down the stuff each day.

Pray for these new things to nourish his body.

Pray for healing in his intestines.

Pray for him to pass all the parasites (They keep laying eggs so

you have to keep working on them until they are all gone.)

I am so proud of Isaac and his strength during this time. He has shown incredible endurance. Thank you again for praying for him. We know the Lord is with us and guiding us and loving us. Thank you for loving us too.

Dedication...

Yesterday we dedicated Lena to the Lord at church. It was meaningful in many ways. It is always a time to reflect on what direction our parenting of this child will go, time to share with our church family in the raising of this child, and time to spend with our Pastor and his wife as they make plans to leave our church at the end of this month. They are retiring so we were blessed that they could perform this dedication for us. We are going to miss them so much. We've been going there almost 16 years with them as our leaders.

Lena was an absolute doll. She wore my baptismal gown and all the girls have worn it. She was dedicated with Samuel who was born a few weeks after her.

The day was nice for Lena but bittersweet for Isaac. He was not feeling well for the morning. He has not felt good lately. We believe it is part of his healing crisis (can google that and it gives a lot of info on what that includes). We have seen some very good things happen and even though it is hard to see him ill God's peace is upon us right now and we will keep trusting that God will never leave us and that He is in control. We are doing everything we can possibly do to nourish his body and help him heal. We must be patient and wait. I read recently about this kind of illness and the book said that it takes a long time to get to this point and it can take a long time to heal. Please continue praying for God to renew Isaac's body and for us to clearly see healing. We are praying for a parasite of some sort to pass from his body. This may be the reason he is feeling poorly as the parasite fights to keep its spot in his body. Pray also for a source of goat's milk yogurt. The goats dried up from the place we were receiving it and it would be nice to be able to feed this to Isaac right now. He is not able to tolerate cow's milk right now. Pray also for the foods he does eat to nourish him and for him not to react badly to any of it. Thank you for those who are praying. These are the things going on right now that we see as a need.

He remembered...

Ok, so I asked him when he got home if he knew what day it was and right away he smiled and said it's an anniversary of our engagement. It had just hit him too as I asked him.

20 years...

Lena Mae just rolled over from tummy to back and Jordan commented we needed to write that in her baby book. I said February 4th out loud. It hit me right then. 20 years ago today Kevin asked me to marry him! Praise the Lord for that. It was at a Chinese restaurant that is now closed. Kevin had originally planned to ask me the week before but getting out of the car to go into the restaurant he broke the fortune cookie he planned to use to ask me. I didn't know this of course but he says, "Will you want to eat Chinese next week?" I'm thinking, "Sure, why do you ask?" Plus going out to eat like that wasn't normal for us since we were both in college at the time. He asked me using a new fortune cookie. It was sweet and fun and I have it laminated somewhere along with our engagement picture. I need to find that and frame it. What good memories! He's working tonight so I haven't had the chance to ask him the question, "Do you know what day it is?" Should I act mad if he doesn't? I won't since I hardly remembered it myself besides he finally has my birthday down.

His mercies are new every day...

It's funny how the day can dawn bright with sunshine and everything seems so good and happy and like nothing could go awry. When night comes it can be full of anxiety and darkness and the unknown. This is how I have felt a lot lately. I have mentioned this to a couple of friends and they have known the same feelings. It is a lot like the Lord; bright, shining, hope, promise, goodness and just. The night is dark and fearful, hopeless, opposite of the light. God tells us in His Word in many places to be like the light in this world. I am praying for God to continue to show me how to do that and run from the darkness.

For our journey with a child's illness night brings bad bm's, blood, worry, weakness from the day's activities, upset at not eating more foods and more. Tonight I asked Isaac what he thought if God ordained this to happen to him. He replied he knows God did. I was surprised and asked what he meant. He said he can see God working already in our family. Wow! Wow! It was a challenging mealtime and he's upset because we ate some things he can't right now so I did not expect him to be OK with his illness. Of course he's not OK with it but he accepts it has brought about some good. Praise God for His work.

I have to say how humbled and blessed I have been today. I know that the person reads this blog who I am going to lift up but I just want to tell everyone what a burden was lifted by her incredible gift. I've tried to thank the Lord for this gift but I end up in tears. I didn't realize how much of a burden it lifted until I tried to thank the Lord for it. We had a girl come clean for a couple hours today as a gift from this friend. She plans to come a few times. She did a couple jobs for me today that I wanted to do before the baby was born and not getting to them was really weighing on me and I hated going in those rooms because of it. Thank you!!! Also to another friend for the many food items that helped lift the burden of mealtime. Also to the friend who keeps watching the kids while I take some of us to the chiropractor every week. Also to the person who left money on our counter the other night. God just keeps on saying; " I got it covered just take care of my son."

Where two or three are gathered...

Last night several people from church came to pray with us over everything that is going on. We were able to praise God for the work he has done in our family and pray for wisdom and healing for Isaac and the others in our family.

We started yesterday with Isaac and me crying most of the day. He had a bad night with a bad bm and it really set us all back. He was pretty sick. I was feeling quite overwhelmed by it. He was feeling quite heart sick that he'd have to back off on the "real" food he was eating. Unfortunately, the bm showed he wasn't digesting most of the foods we had been adding last week. Time to reflect on what is going on and why that would be happening. I really felt we needed some help and asked Kevin to invite people out to pray with us. It is hard to ask that of people because you feel you'll get through it just fine eventually and you'll tough it out but I tell you I was at the end of myself. I just couldn't go on another day without some major help. After we discussed what is going with Isaac and the rest of the family we were able to pray about some specific things going on and we were so blessed. It was what I needed. I would love to do that weekly! Isaac spent much of the day angry about his life and wishing he'd not been born so he wouldn't have to go through this. He spent the evening with me and some other kids around the baby laughing and taking pictures of her being so cute. He was a changed child after they all left and he woke up refreshed, sleeping 10 hours without getting up once!!! Praise the Lord for that! So much healing goes on when you are sleeping. He has had a very good day with only a couple of low spots around meal times but otherwise he's smiling and finished most of his school. He's eating mashed sweet potatoes and yogurt with smashed banana right now.

We are so blessed to have this family of believers come to the rescue in our time of need.

Matthew 18:20 For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I the midst of them.