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Another reason for the length between postings is some of the "life lessons" we have encountered this summer have been rather intense. Besides the lack of rain, the unreal heat and humidity, a plethora of financial setbacks, a less than ideal work situation that has gotten progressively worse since the beginning of the year, and a number of health and dental issues with Susie and myself, we recently dealt with a life threatening situation with our youngest granddaughter. On August 27th, we were here at the farm working on the gray sweater project (STILL!) when we got a call from our son asking for prayer for Liberty, our 10 month old granddaughter and his youngest child. Liberty had been fussy and this fussiness had been attributed to an ear infection and teething but when she had gotten sick that morning and became very lethargic, they took her to the pediatrician who in turn sent her to the local hospital. At the hospital, they noticed that she was having a difficult time breathing and even though x-rays didn't show any problems in her lungs, she continued to not respond. The decision was finally made to call in the Vanderbilt Life Flight helicopter to transport her to Nashville. Prior to transport, they decided to insert a breathing tube which we later found out probably saved her life. During the flight her breathing stopped and the EMT's had to manually give her air. Once in Nashville her blood sugar level was found to be at 440 so the initial diagnosis was infant diabetes. Liberty ended up staying at Vanderbilt Children's Hospital for 10 days and is now home and well on her way to a TOTAL and COMPLETE healing and we believe it will be a healing that eventually will mean one without the need of daily insulin shots!
Having said all this, the "perspective" lesson we learned was that even in the midst of all this stress and worry, the little 3 year old girl in the next room was dealing with cystic fibrosis.....ALONE! Her father, we learned, was a patient at the other Vanderbilt Hospital and her mother was hours away having to take care of other children. Even alone though, she had the sweetest spirit and stood in the doorway and waved at everyone going past her room. This little girl was really able to put "life" into a perspective that touched our hearts and we pray daily for her healing as well. What I've learned is the truth in the old saying that no matter what your dealing with, someone has it as bad or worse. We've had work issues....but I am at least working! We've had financial issues, but we still can pay our bills! It's been hot and dry here, but we have not dealt with what Texas and the East Coast has had to deal with! All in all, regardless of what it may look like, things are really not that bad!
Romans 5:3-6
More over (let us also be full of joy now!) let us exult in triumph in our troubles and rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that pressure and affliction and hardship produce patient and unswerving endurance. And endurance (fortitude) develops maturity of character (approved faith and tried integrity). And character (of this sort) produces (the habit of) joyful and confident hope of eternal salvation. Such hope never disappoints or deludes or shames us, for God's love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit Who has been given to us. While we were yet in weakness (powerless to help ourselves), at the fitting time Christ died for (in behalf of) the ungodly.
The Amplified Bible
2 comments:
I am so sorry to read about what your family has gone through. I mentioned to Claudia + Joyce that you had sent me an e-mail and they asked how you two were doing. We talk about you two often, so know that we are thinking about you + miss you very much.
And through all this you were about to take a moment to e-mail me about my recent situation. Talk about putting things in perspective. But I really cannot even begin to tell you how much your e-mail meant to me, thank you.
At work we were complaining about a the new operating system that really sucks, and through all the complaining I said to everyone "but we all have jobs and work with really great people," and the tone changed to a conversation about what we were grateful for in our jobs.
Congrats Shona!....You get the cigar since you are the FIRST person to EVER comment on our blog postings. I know of 3 other people that read it periodically but for the most part I feel like I'm writing notes to myself. We are still praying for you since we know how how painful your situation is.
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