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Showing posts from January, 2019

Do you have a young child in the "why" stage?

 A friend shared this this morning:  http://www.littleheartsbooks.com/2013/11/29/the-gift-of-a-strong-willed-child/  and this sentence reminded me of this post: " They often have an insatiable need to know 'why.'" I thought the article had excellent suggestions to use even with children who aren't strong willed too.  I keep forgetting to post those other 2 articles that were such helpful reminders to me when the "why" stage would frustrate me: Kindness vs Obedience Sermon:  http://aolff.org/sermons/kindness-vs-obedience/2 (the last quote of the second page really stuck with me) Obedience, or Idolatry:  http://aolff.org/?s=Idolatry+claim Powerful stuff!

Depends who you are traveling with...

I've driven through three snowstorms lately and have had two dramatically different experiences. The first was a white out only about two miles from my house. I was alone, in a zone where cell service cuts out, and very shaken up. I couldn't see the sides of the road or what was in front of me. I made it out safely, but it took a few weeks to recover from the overwhelm. The other two were less overwhelming - even though the traffic conditions were worse. One was a combination of blizzard and fog simultaneously. The other involved my car acting up in extremely cold, icy conditions. The difference? Who was with me for the ride. I did not feel overwhelmed when I had my friend my my side in the ice or my spouse by my side in the cold. I knew whatever happened, we would get through it together. Does life right now feel like a dangerous blizzard? Could it feel more like a beautiful sleigh ride if we saw God right there next to us, or asked him to drive? Instea

The Church that Loved Us Anyway

"I'm so embarrassed. I'm just so embarrassed."  My husband and I quickly talked through the different ways our embarrassment had triggered us that night at the Christmas Eve service. We both felt so defeated that we couldn't convince our five year old to sit still long enough to watch the Christmas program. We were visiting the church, and she had seemed excited about it, but she got locked in to the fact that she didn't have everything out for Santa back at the house, and the fixation on this caused her so much distress that she was willing to scream or even try to physically fight us to get out of there and get home. This was one of many manifestations we saw early of the PANDAS Syndrome which caused sudden onset OCD in her. The good news in our case was that as quickly as the OCD symptoms would come, they would leave when treated with antibiotics and cognitive behavioral therapy. Many families are not as lucky. We have learned so much in these moments about

How One Day Can Change Everything

I saw her number calling on my phone and felt it in my gut. Something was wrong. She never called, always updated me by text, so this must be urgent. I answered my phone and heard our babies' birth mom say, "I think I'm losing them. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry..." and then go on to describe what she thought was the start of a pretty abrupt miscarriage at the bus stop a few minutes ago. I asked if she was okay, and told her that was just as important to me as the babies. She said she was, that she had called her doctor and her husband had come home from work to be with her. I told her I appreciated her call so much and that I'd call back in a little bit to check on her. I hung up and was in action mode. I had to do something with our four year old so that I could process this and make the necessary phone calls without her overhearing. Oh, how could this be happening? Just yesterday she was having morning sickness, everything seemed so norm

Hard

I felt like such a failure. We were late to the doctor's office for my daughter's appointment, then our ride was late to pick us up (I can't drive right now because of my foot injury) and so we sat outside in the sun which added insult to injury because she was already feeling overheated. My daughter wasn't happy with how the appointment went, or with wanting to go in the first place, and thought the treatment didn't work because she felt worse afterwards. "But none of those things are your fault!" my friend said. "And what you did was extraordinary! You got her (with help) to an appointment 2.5 hours away, and got her in there and through her treatment even with a broken foot! That's like gold medal material! You took her to the best doctor, to give the treatment the very best shot at working! You listened compassionately to her as she complained even though you wanted to complain too. You held her even though you were weary.