(This story actually began in 2008, and lasted well into this year. More challenges and difficulties that our family faced happened after this section of story was written,including the death of my sweet grandmother, our departure from Life Fellowship, our church home for six years, and our relocation to another city in Texas, so you will not see them listed here. Currently, and not surprisingly, the last challenges of this year are now coming to a close as my extreme all day pregnancy sickness is coming to an end, just in time for Christmas.) I came across this word document by "accident' this morning and thought how appropriate it would be to share with you this snippet of our journey from this past year. God bless our family. God bless those of you who have journeyed with us. I am thankful that this year is drawing to a close. In many many ways, it has been the worst year of my entire life. In other ways, iit is one of the most important. And I thank Him for loving me enough to teach me, to hold me and to shape me into His child.

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For many months, it seems it has been one scary thing after another. As most mothers will confess, the thought of losing one of my children is the most horrific thing I can think of. Not too long ago, I was listening to a program that was talking about how we often wonder why we go through the things we do and then later on in life, we often have those “oh, yeah….I see” type moments where it all makes sense and we understand the purpose. The illustration included David the shepherd boy and how he grew experienced in slaying wild animals with his bare hands and how this valuable survival skill was so significant later on when he freed a people from the tyranny of the evil giant Goliath by killing him with a single stone. While he certainly may not have enjoyed the practice of killing lions and bears to protect his sheep, I know that by exercising that “muscle”, he was better equipped when it came time to do what no one else dared to attempt – and save the people from the wicked tyrant. When I thought about this, it didn’t comfort me at all. I began to think about what kind of muscle I had been exercising for months with every instance of trauma that our family had experienced.

The season appears to have started just after the birth of our sixth son Levi. When he was just four days old, I began to really struggle with the fear of losing one of my children when we thought that Drew, just two years old, had swallowed a lethal amount of iron tablets. Our fears subsided when bloodwork at the ER was negative for any undesirable amounts. A couple of weeks later, our 5 year old developed a massive cyst in his groin and was almost unable to walk. It happened almost overnight and was unbearable for him. Waiting for the lab results from his surgery to tell us what the cause of the cyst were some of the longest days of my life. It was MRSA and now we had a whole new set of worries. He recovered from surgery quickly and we breathed a sigh of relief, but still uncertain as to whether or not he or any others were colonized with the staph. When our baby was three months old, he experienced what was diagnosed as an ALTE – an apparent life threatening episode, when I picked him up out of his crib blue and barely breathing. The reflux related incident prompted only natural instincts to keep constant vigil over this baby – round the clock – and I did very little sleeping for weeks afterward. Around the same time, we had worried about several lumps on another son’s neck, which turned out to be benign, swollen lymph nodes. Another son had to have an abdominal ultrasound due to unexplained horrible cramping that would show up intermittently - again, lab results negative for anything abnormal. One son was pulled out of the swimming pool, as we saw him just in time to save him from drowning. And finally, Drew’s seizure seemed to finish us off. Imagine the terror of seeing your toddler son seize on the floor while you watch helplessly and yell for everyone else to get into the car so you can go back to the ER for the fifth time in 8 months! All six of our sons had sounded alarms within weeks of each other, enough to send any mother into a state of exhaustion/panic/oblivion. It’s been enough to make us question and wonder. It’s been enough to take us down to raw. And we have had no choice but to grow closer to our Creator God.

One experience that truly gave perspective to enduring Drew’s seizure, was that just before that, I had had a near death experience myself. In a strange twist of events, I developed MRSA myself in my right breast while breastfeeding. The MRSA entered my bloodstream and I developed Toxic Shock Syndrome, which nearly ended my life. In the days that I lay in bed, unable to get up and care for my children, nurse my baby or be functional at all, I was forced to reckon with the thoughts of losing my own life, and more horrifying, the thought of leaving my children motherless. I began to toss around in my head just what my husband would do for a wife – who I knew in our circle of friends that would serve him and our six boys well….who could love them like I could???? And the answer would leave me in tears, and praying to God that He would spare me and allow me to continue to live so that I could serve them and be there to watch my kids grow up. The days were long and I will never forget the walk from the car into Texas Oncology office and how I had to hang onto my husband for physical strength to even make it into the building. I remember sitting in the chair and being harassed by the glaring sign on the receptionist’s glass – Texas Oncology – and wondering if the fate of my life would be like the other women in the waiting room, who sat with bandanas wrapped around their bald heads from chemo treatments. I remember thinking about my mother and her cancer diagnosis at the age of 39 and thinking how smug I had been to be so confident that I would escape the wrath of such a terrible disease just because I had nursed six boys for over 60 months total. And the tears of relief that flowed when the surgeon exclaimed boldly, “this is NOT cancer!” Having survived such an illness, I am changed forever. Knowing that God is good, even when I am near death, has been a more valuable commodity than one could ever know. Being able to trust Him – to truly trust that His will is perfect – has been more important than ever in my life. I had so many people say along this journey, “wow! The faith you are going to have is going to be enormous!” And while most days, I would shake my head yes in agreement to that statement, there would be other days when I would question and wonder why this faith was so important, why it was so valuable. And it was through the journey that I came to find out.

There were days when I would get angry. The anger wouldn’t so much be directed at God, but more often the situation that I was going through. Why the sick kids? Why the constant catastrophe? Why so near death? Why so many days and weeks of misery and pleading for healing and seeing no relief? I would get so mad that all I could do was cry. I was reminded of the words, “Do not fret “ Psalm 37: 8 says, “Refrain from anger and turn from wrath; Do not fret—it leads only to evil.” Reflecting on this passage, I came to know how true it was about fretting. To fret means to get upset, to start to lose control of your mind in worry, to become lost in fear. I came to realize that to allow my mind to fret meant to allow my mind to be tempted with evil thoughts – thoughts of distrust, thoughts of rebellion, thoughts of overwhelming fear.

As a follower of Christ, I have to say that I am at a major advantage when it comes to being in a crisis situation, because the times when I felt so isolated and hopeless were the times when I knew I had no choice but to call on Him for help. 1 Peter 5:7 says, “Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.” If you’ve ever watched someone “cast” their net or fishing reel while fishing, you know what the term means in the physical sense. There have been some days that I have had to “throw” it out there and wait. It’s come down to trust. I have had to learn that I have to wait on Him for His perfect timing, and while I may get tired of waiting, He is God and He is still good. I have had to learn to appreciate life when it’s good or when it’s bad, because He has shown me that it is more about the journey itself than our human perception of the quality of the journey.

Casting all my cares on Him has taught me what Proverbs 3:5 and 6 truly means. When you give it all to Him and truly trust Him with all your heart, you don’t have to worry any more. When you begin to reflect on Him and consider His ways in all you do, things take on a new perspective, a new purpose and you get a new understanding of God and how much He loves you. You begin to truly realize that even though He doesn’t always offer you the healing you desire, He still loves you more than you could ever possibly comprehend. You come to understand that even in your pain, and sometimes more than ever, you rest in the palm of His hand. So you trust Him, and your mind begins to know how to not worry, to not fear, to not fret.

There is an instance in the bible that talks about a time when Jesus was physically sick with worry. But it wasn’t a worry like any of our own. Jesus was sick with worry of a different kind, a love for God’s people. He didn’t worry for His own future. He didn’t worry about trying to add a single day to his own life, rather for the fate of unbelievers. He knew that life existed on a different level, that there was life eternal. He knew that though this world may never offer anything other than a life of ridicule and suffering, that there was eternal purpose in His own existence and that He had limited time to do the work He was put here to do. Jesus understood that this was the only thing in life worth worrying for. “Greater love has no man than this, that he lay his life down for his friends.”


In Matthew, Jesus taught, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. 20But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal.” Not that human life isn’t so precious and important, but as a mother, you’re forced to reconcile your mind with the fact that it is a fleeting thing and is nothing to be guaranteed. But there is one thing that is not fleeting, as Jesus taught in the above scripture, a treasure in heaven. That treasure is the hope of eternal life in Christ Jesus and is to be shared with everyone. There is no greater treasure, nothing more important than a relationship with your Creator God, and to know that is to know that your purpose here is to extend that invitation to everyone you know. To understand this is to understand that your life circumstances, the good and the bad, are meant to be an instrument to point others in the direction of your saviour, Jesus. With this new paradigm, or way of thinking, you now have a unique understanding of God – a new loyalty, in a sense, that you would never have had if you didn’t experience the “test of faith” as your friends have called it. You now know that the true treasure is faith your Lord and you see the value in it, the beauty of it and you know how important it is, more than ever before. It wasn’t that you didn’t have faith in your God before, and it isn’t that He is needing to make sure you have more so that you can get through another tragedy. Sure, maybe it will come in handy for a later use, but more importantly, your new level of faith in God will result in one immeasurably good thing and that is FREEDOM.


“Who of you by worrying can add a single day to your life?” Matthew 6 :27 Imagine if you were able to live your life without fear of death or someone in your life dying? Can you imagine for a moment the freedom, the lightness of heart you would feel, the enormous release of joyous energy that would emerge? Do you think that you could wake up every morning more equipped to face the day, not consumed or plagued by worry and concern over what could or might happen? Yes, it would be great if we could all get God to promise us a life without the possibility of death and dying, but that’s not how He planned it. Life includes death. Instead, He HAS promised a life more abundantly (John 10:10). He HAS taught us to trust Him, to cast all our cares on Him. There is nothing I can do, especially through worrying, to add a single hour to my life or the lives of those I love. So it is a waste of my time and God’s time for me to do so. That doesn’t mean I am not concerned and stop trying to be a good steward of all that He has entrusted me with. It just means that I don’t have to fear, that as long as I acknowledge Him in all my ways, He will direct my path.
Think on these things
Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. It’s one thing to say and another to do, but with the steady renewing of one’s mind, it is entirely possible to train oneself to “think on these things’ versus living a life of fear. Fear is the opposite of faith and the point of faith is to live a life of freedom in Christ. If you want to live a life of freedom from worry and fear, it is worth the effort to “think on these things”. Some days, all you will be able to think of that is praiseworthy will be Jesus and that will be enough!


So many days in my journey, I just couldn’t understand, and Proverbs 3: 5,6 came to have all new meaning. “If you can’t understand, then don’t try…..I have this all figured out for you. Trust me. I will take care of you. I’ve got you. Rest in me…..” – was more what it came to mean.

Jeremiah 29:11 –He knows the plans He has for me…..He’s God and I am not and He is good…..He is good and His mercy endures forever…..He never said He would not allow suffering for His children….even Jesus suffered the most tremendous pain…..Jesus prayed, “take this cup from me”…..this is how we must pray – “Father, if it pleases YOU, if it is YOUR will, then take this cup from me, and if it is not, then help me….reveal your glory through me….” The prerequisite course to this prayer was in Jesus’ lesson to his disciples on how to pray when He taught them: “when we pray, we pray Our Father who are in Heaven, Holy is your Name, Your Kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” And this is the very essence of living in His glory – praying His will and being submissive to it, accepting and abiding by His will and only His will, right here on earth as He intended for us in Heaven. There is so much peace in knowing that you’ve prayed that, surrendered to it and you’ve left it all up to your Creator God to handle. After all, He breathed the very universe into existence. Who better to know what is best for our (His) children than Him?