I'm Backkkkk!!

All right, I guess I need to explain the esophagus reference. Last Monday(my day off of work)Rickydoodle, The Boys, and I went to town and roamed around a bit. After we drove all over the place and Rickydoodle looked at a few cars, while The Boys and I just looked at each other, we all decided we were hungry and since we had a gift card to one of our fave Big Chain Italian Restaurants we should go there for lunch. Sounded like a great plan so that's what we did. We were seated, ordered our food and got the Big Bowl of Salad to share. Everything is running smoothly, just like you would expect. Until I took a bite of salad, swallowed, and, "Uh OH!", something was not going so smoothly anymore. I don't know what I did but I just knew I had something stuck in my throat! I drank lots of water, nothing; I coughed and gagged, nothing; Rickydoodle tried hitting me on the back, nothing! So, we ended up in the ER and after being there for about FIVE hours the doctor finally came and told me he was pretty sure that I had scratched my esophagus and it would heal on its own after a couple weeks. He gave me a prescription for Magic Mouthwash and told me to eat only soft foods for a while then he sent me home. What a way to spend my day off! And the food we ordered we took in doggy bags, but after five hours in our car we were afraid to eat it. What a way to spend our gift card!

I look at that now and can see the humor in it. I am still trying to figure out how in the world you can scratch your esophagus on a bite of SALAD!? Really?! Plus, I am usually a pretty fun loving, easy going person and when I told my sister what happened to me, She laughed! :) Oh, and if you ever scratch your esophagus, EAT CHOCOLATE PUDDING! I don't know what it was about that pudding but after the first spoonful I no longer had the sensation of having something wedged in my throat. It was like a miracle to me. Plus it was chocolate and I had a great excuse to eat as much as I wanted! So there you go.

At the time it was scary and I just kept asking God what was going on. We were already stressed over our HS and dealing with a Social Worker who was MIA, Rick's truck just up and quit on us, and then I end up in the ER. I have to say now, that I can list some good that I saw after the fact. Sometimes I think that He just has to put us in a place when it seems so rough that we have no choice but to step back and reevaluate. That day I realized that my husband really does mean it when he says that he doesn't know what he would do without me. He was right there for me all day and held my hand when I was so scared I just cried. Church family came by the hospital to sit with us and pray with us. One of the pastors even sat out in the waiting room with our kids until my mom came to pick them up. Others called and prayed for me over the phone. I saw the Love of Jesus, through their love for me.

So, I guess, it wasn't such a bad way to spend a day off after all. In the grand scheme of the whole thing. Now, that's not saying I want to do it again anytime soon!

Orphans of God

I watched the video below and realized that, even though the world sees these children as orphans and they are essentially alone in the world, they are not left alone by the Father of us all. Unfortunately so many of them don't know this, they have no way of even knowing the name of Jesus or the concept of God as Father. My prayer today is that these children would find homes, that they would be granted the happiness of knowing a mom and dad or even just one or the other. But, even more than that I pray that they would be granted a chance to know God as Father, to know the love of Jesus, to see that even though in this world's eyes they are orphans, in God's eyes their are NO orphans.



Jesus, today, please hold each of these little ones in your arms. Let them know your love that will never leave nor forsake them. And, Lord, let us be Your arms to as many as we can reach, Father, drawing them in to our homes and into Your family. Thank you for Your Heart for the Orphans. Amen.

Show the Love

Yesterday I set up a table at a craft show to promote my Pampered Chef business, which I started to help pay for our adoption. Of course there were lots of other folks there, some shopping and some promoting their businesses just as I was. One of the vendors was a group from a local church in the area. They were selling all kinds of cute little country decorating items to benefit the youth and, I'm assuming, that the ladies who were there were the mothers and leaders of this youth group.

I was so disappointed, as a Christian woman, to witness the attitudes and behaviors of these ladies throughout the day. They were very catty, talked about what others were wearing and just were not friendly. My table just happened to be right beside theirs so I was able to hear some of their conversations, watch them look over at me and then turn their heads and whisper to each other and talk about the way another lady was dressed because they didn't approve. It really made me upset. Where was the love of Jesus? They had a sign that they displayed on their table that obviously stated they were there on behalf of their church. If I noticed I'm sure others did too and I just hate to think that others may have that as their only example of what Christianity is like. 1 John 4:20 says, "If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen." There's a song by Rhonda Vincent called "If you don't love your neighbor you don't love God" and the words to the Chorus are so true:

Oh, you don't love God, if you don't love your neighbor
If you gossip about him, if you never have mercy
If he gets into trouble, and you don't try to help him
Then you don't love your neighbor, and you don't love God.

I just didn't feel that there was any love being shown to their "neighbors".

Now, I want to say that I am not perfect in any way. I mess up every day and I'm sure there have been days that I have been unloving and unloveable. I just hope that is the case for those ladies and this is not an everyday thing. But, you know, I just don't think that's the case. This is sad for so many reasons, 1. They are the examples to the youth of that church, there were quite a few young girls with them. 2. We are charged as Christians to show the Love of God to the world around us. The saddest thing of all is the lady who they did not approve of her way of dressing, I found out today that she is a wonderful lady with a heart of gold who has experiened TREMENDOUS abuse in her life. I just hope that she was not aware of the things they said about her and I hope that anytime I'm tempted to be unkind in this way that God brings this experience back to my mind.