The diagnosis ~ testimony part 2

This overwhelming fear that I mentioned in the last post was due to an undiagnosed seizure disorder. When most hear seizures or epilepsy their mind pictures someone shaking and convulsing on the ground. If this was the kind of seizures I displayed back then, I suppose a diagnosis would have come years earlier. My best description of the phenominon I experienced at least several times a day, was a silent paralyzing panic attack enveloped in a night terror. If you can imagine being trapped in a re-occuring nightmare that you can't wake yourself out of and can not control anything happening around you. The seizure had permission to come upon me at a moments notice and I could not reach out for help because my new bad dream/reality took me away from the safety of where I had been and trapped me into the recesses of my mind. It is a place you can not leave until your brain stops the electrical storm and releases you from the nightmare. That is my best description of what each seizure was like. Before meds I could have quite few a day and night time was the most actively anxious time. The darkness of the bedroom alone would produce enough fear to trigger the nightmare.

I suppose this may be why I am so passionate about finding competant physicians for children who have seizures.  I could never watch horror movies as a child or even to this day.  Tried to read Piercing the Darkness by Frank Peretti and it was another reminder of the battle that I fought daily.  Quite honestly, I did not need to fill my head with more ammunition for the already present battle of my mind.

As a child, you are oblivious to the fact that NO ONE ELSE experiences this kind of fear. Nor could I attempt to explain how my mind would take me from reality in school or at home at one moment, and in a totally different/dangerous 'world' the next. I can imagine if I did try to explain these occurences as a small child, I may have been the first child to be diagnosed paranoid pschystophrenia? With limited understanding of what was happening to me, I made everyone who loved me, pay for these unexplained happenings through rage atypical of a small child. The nature verse nurture arguement was null and void. I was a child that came from a stable, middle class, Christian, loving, 2 parent home. No one could figure out why I was, the way that I was.

 My brother & I attended a very small Lutheran private school where I made very few friends a larger amount of enemies.  After school we would walk to my my Dad's mom & dad's house until my parents were off work.  They became our main caregivers growing up.  My grandma did not like me too much, but she LOVED my brother.  She only had sons and was really good at hovering and spoiling them over.  My grandpa, on the other hand, was harder on boys but was so tender with me.  He was the only person in the world that loved me in spite of myself. Although I am not sure if he knew the Lord, he was certainly the finest example of what unconditional love, in action, looked like. While I was not his first grand daughter, I was the one who lived closest and he made up for not having a girl of his own as he doted on me. He worked in his shop and let me hammer nails in 2X4's while he tinkered around fixing this or that. He even made me my own toolbox so that whatever he was doing I could do with him on my own scrap of wood. My dad tells me he was never very personable with his boys as much as he was taken with me.  At the age of 6 years old I was at their house to spend the night.  He fell asleep in his reclining chair much like most every evening.  My grandma was in the kitchen finishing up dishes.  When our show was over and it was time to get up and get to bed, I sat on his lap to wake him up but he would not wake up.  He passed right there in front of me and I did not even know it.  As I watched all the EMS try to help revive him, I began to realize that the only person that I experienced unconditional love from was slipping away.... To be continued.

Testimony time part 1

Ya know those people who don't have much of a testimony because they were raised in church? I used to think that was me. Most people assume that is who I am. Despite the fact that I was raised in the church and taught about the Lord from a very early age, I did not really 'get it' till much later into my teens.

To say the least, I was a no where near a 'good' Christian kid. Back then, the Christian community was lacking in any tools available for Christian parents who were newbies to the faith. Since my parent's friends were also newly saved among the people in the Jesus movement, there were not many established Christian folk willing to put up with that crowd. The ones who had not been given a legacy of knowing the Lord through their parents, seemed to stay put in thier own religious communities fearing the change to the body of Christ with all these odd new comers. Although my parents were never hippies, once they got saved they would provide transportation to the hippies that wanted to attend church.
 My parents longed to raise both my brother and I to have an intimate relationship with the Lord, however, in the abscence of Godly mentors to model or share Godly parenting principles, it was not easy. There were NO Godly parenting books at this time either. It is true that the Bible is the original instruction manual regarding parenting, yet when you are at the end of your rope in battling defiant behaviors, sometimes discernment goes out the window. When everything you are trying is not bearing fruit and most of the time you are at the end of your sanity, it is SO beneficial to have Godly mentors to come alongside. If mentors are unavailable, some sort of parenting manual with Godly wisdom/perspective to renew your focus is a lifeline of hope. While their desires were pure and determined to do right by my brother and I, there was an unknown and explainable turmoil in our household. I was the cause of said discord. When James Dosbson wrote The Strong Willed Child, it was the only clarity offered amongst the rebellion taking place in their home.

My mom had one prayer for me as I was growing up. (Besides the prayer of "Lord please help me NOT kill this child of mine") "I pray you never have a child like you," were words that I thought were so odd. Many moms, when they have are blessed with a child that tests the limits of their sanity, in turn, tells said child "I hope you have a child just like YOU so you know how it feels!" Well, my mom said the exact opposite (Possibly thinking I may kill a child that dared to be more strong willed than I was). I suppose either thought passes on the idea that your child is pretty much the devil incarnate, but even so I am alive to tell about it. You see, many kids are fairly well behaved throughout their elementary years, yet it is at the teens that they may possibly rebel. Since I am not anywhere near normal, most of my rebellion occured in my formative years from 2-10. There was no reasoning with me when I became angry. Walls became punching bags and doors were barriers to be broken down. My father became an expert at repairing holes in walls.

At a very early age I came to the knowledge of what the words 'spiritual battle' meant. It often played out in my awake hours before bedtime. Praying was the only weapon I had against the things that tormented me at night and fear became a constant barrier to a healthy amount of sleep.
If I were a child in this day and age, I MAY be labeled with the following diagnosises: Oppositional Defiant Disorder, ADHD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, possibly Bi-Polar and definately in need of Anger management. Being very angry, stubborn and self reliant, was an effort to grasp at control when so much of my life that was filled with what I could not possibly control.
I was not being abused nor was I in any imminent REAL danger.  Yet I had constant re-occurring day dreams that plagued me with a very real, yet intangible episodes of paralyzing fear.   To be continued.....

HERE IN YOUR PRESENCE

If you are reading this through your e-mail inbox you will have to click onto the blog site to see the above video (I think)?

I am working on a couple posts about my testimony but in the mean time I have some very cool news! We were finally licensed for foster parenting last Wednesday. We were warned that we may just get a call the same day but instead we got a call the next day.

It was just for respite care. The definition of respite care is basically extended babysitting. Something a foster parent can ask for this in order to go out of town or if they just need a breather, yet have their foster child still maintain visits with biological relatives and continue school attendance. Our first visitors that came into our home was a 4 year old boy who shared Ben's birthday and a 12 month old little girl. Your heart would melt if I could show you a picture of how precious they are. They visited with us for 4 days. Ben and the boy celebrated their birthdays together on October 30th which was very sweet. The boy was quite well adjusted but the little girl was very clingy to me. Praise God she would also be fine if one of the girls kept her company as well.

When we arrived at church on Sunday this was one of the worship songs that was sung. Knowing how much this little girls had clung to me over the days that we had her, I couldn't help but realize she had a fear of people leaving her. She shead a lot of tears when that fear would come to surface. I couldn't help but tear up when the lyrics of this song were brought to a fresh perspective.

"Found in your hands fullness of joy every tear suddenly wiped away, here in your presence"

We are entering a world where there is a lot of fear, tears and pain. We are taking on this pain in no other way but because Jesus calls us to enter in to suffering of the weak.... to carry their burden with a self-less love. (Rom 15:1-6)

It is interesting the responses I get from people who see our extra brood. Many of whom tell me "I don't know how you do it. I could never do that!" Although we are still in the honeymoon stage of this, it is easy to respond...... Our faith in Christ calls us to die so that we might have an abundant life. We simply can not expect to live an exponential life of faith when we decide to keep fear in our back pocket. Fear of heart-break, fear of failure, fear of loss, fear of the unknown, fear of the loss of control. Fear keeps us from making too big a risk, relinquishes life abundant in trade for the shackles of complacency. It is when we yield unto death to self and possibly enter into pain, that the boldness of Christ diminishes fear that once held us captive.

The most awesome thing the Lord reminded me of lately was from the OT when the leader of the Isrealites would loose the ability to carry the burden alone, God told them to gather up support for themselves, to encourage them to keep going. In Numbers 11:16-18 and Deuteronomy 1:11-13 he tells us that there is wisdom and great strength in numbers. Surrounding ourselves with people who will share our burden for these kids is exactly where we have been blessed in our church family! No shortage of showering these kids with the love of Christ and offering to help us if we say the word! We also look forward to Grandma & Grandpa moving in down the street from us come January as well.

Our first visitors went back to their foster parent today but now there is another little one visiting with us for about a week. A precious little girl who is a tad bit medically fragile but thriving in spite of her humble beginnings. The kids all seem to be enjoying someone to dote on. We continue to covet your prayers as we continue this process. Babysitting (respite) is the easy part. It is when there becomes a permanent placement that we will need to cling to Jesus's promises rather than let the fear of "what if" haunt us.

PS. For those of you who are interested in the adoption process through foster care I may need to move this to a blog that will be marked private. I do this so I have the ability to share things that normally may not be able to be as public. This blog can be viewed by anyone where as the foster care blog would only be open to invited readers. I will keep you up to date on that when I have the time to invest in another pondering place!

Trust and Obey......

Isaiah 55:6 Seek the LORD while He may be found, Call upon Him while He is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way, And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the LORD, And He will have mercy on him; And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.
8 “ For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD. 9 “ For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

Just wanted to share a weee bit about our hunt for a new car. We had to return the rental car today that was paid for by the other drivers insurance so this means it is getting down to crunch time. Craigslist has been our best resource so far since the dealers always seemed to mark up their prices beyond our cash only buying choice. We saw 2 vans today that were nice and would serve the purpose. I am not sure about you, but for me, when buying used there is always that NEED to know if this is the one that God has for us. Circumstances and prices may indicate a good thing but this does not always equate to God's provision. As John and I were talking about each vehicle I asked him if we could take the most likely candidate to our mechanic to make sure there were no hidden repairs that will arise later on. Basically I was afraid (in spite of the fact that God would confirm which one we should buy) that we would waste all of our money on a lemon and then not have a dime left to fix it. So we continued to pray about it and ask for the Lord to speak clearly. We are still eagerly awaiting this BTW. ;o)
The Lord reminded me of what a friend recently blogged about in her life regarding obeying the Lord in all things. While I recently wrote about the blessings that come from obedience, she spoke about the times when obedience is nothing more than just plain obedience. There is no blessing, no spiritual fruit to point to, no tangible results...... There is simply the peace that comes from being obedient to God's direction. My fleshly nature protests "THATS IT, THATS what I get for obeying GOD? NOTHING?" She went on to explain that many times we obey because of the blessing, revealing our 'give to get' mentality. If God gives us a reason that seems good right or just, it may be easy to do what He says, yet it is not so easy to obey even the tiniest of things when God does not give an immediate reason or proof of WHY he wants us to do something. Our prideful heart decieves us into thinking we know better than God. Today I got another reminder that our concept of what is 'good' usually never accounts for the eternal perspective........
SO, as we were contemplating, praying and talking about the vehicle that God might have for us I assume in my rational way that if we hear from Him which vehicle to chose, execute and purchase said vehicle, He will bless our obedience with a reliable van, no severe mechanical problems, ect. RIGHT? In my happily ever after meets fleshly, selfish optimist kind of way, this is how things should be. UGH! Then I heard the Lord speak to my heart.......... "What if I tell you to buy a van that needs a lot of repairs? Your mechanic isn't saved yet, is he? It is MY money that I will provided for the repairs! Eternity is priceless." Jeremiah 17:9 “ The heart is deceitful above all things,And desperately wicked; Who can know it?
So thankful that when we lose the eternal perspective it is never far from God's heart. We are shortsighted seeing only the temporal. His heart for the lost is always seeking, ever present.
Matthew 18:11 For the Son of Man has come to save that which was lost. 12 “What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? 13 And if he should find it, assuredly, I say to you, he rejoices more over that sheep than over the ninety-nine that did not go astray. 14 Even so it is not the will of your Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish.
Here is yet another one of those lessons that God makes certain in my heart that my life is NOT about my plans, my agenda, my convenience or my happily ever after. So, no matter what God tells us to buy, I can now purchase without the fear of the 'what if'. I am sure God gets bored of reminding me He is still God, He does not need my help being God and His plans are better than my BEST happily ever after.

Grateful beyong measure

Psalm 33:8 Let all the earth fear the LORD; Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him. 9 For He spoke, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast.
10 The LORD brings the counsel of the nations to nothing; He makes the plans of the peoples of no effect. 11 The counsel of the LORD stands forever, The plans of His heart to all generations. 12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD, The people He has chosen as His own inheritance.

As if just waking up with another breath was not enough to be thankful for, God has once again moved mountains to show Himself faithful in a most recent occurrence....... Long story short, John has yet to outlive his usefulness here on earth.

Now for the details. Last Friday John was in an accident. While I HATE accidents, it seems like the only ones John has been in are too close for comfort. While I have been the one to get in ALL the accidents here in FL so far (none of which were my fault, thank God) so I suppose it was John's turn to meet a few crazy Florida drivers. His car is a total loss, but these are replaceable. Here is the skinny on what happened.

He was coming home at around 4:45 in rush hour traffic. The road he was traveling on was I-82, which is a 2 lane road that is a main artery between our home and civilization. The speed limit is 60 MPH and while many other left hand turns on this road have a turn lane, where we turn there is NO turn lane.

John was at a complete stop waiting for oncoming traffic to clear so he could make a left hand turn. There was no one behind him at first when all of a sudden a white truck & trailer made a daring move. Not sure if he just wasn't paying attention of just did not want to stop. Instead of rear-ending John he just kept on going driving to the right on the shoulder of the highway which is a grassy area. He did not hit John but it was very startling. About 8 months ago, DOT put some nice barricades in that grassy area to discourage people from doing this. Due to the size of the truck and the rate of speed he was driving, he didn't mind taking out 5 of these barricades. He never did stop.

Since the truck did not slow down, the person behind him did not see John until it was too late. He did not have much time to react to the trucks maneuver, so rather than rear ending John, his 4 door compact car swerved to nick John's left bumper and went into ONCOMING TRAFFIC. Poor John was at a dead stop in between these 2 crazy drivers. Once the guy in the compact car realized that was a VERY POOR DECISION, he immediately turned back into John's car pushing them both off the road. Although the damage on both vehicles was extensive it appears that everyone walked away without extreme injury. The man who hit John had his wife and 2 kids in the car so this could have been a very traumatic event if there had been injuries.

Here is the cool God-stuff behind HIS total protection:

• Praise God he was not rear ended by that huge truck and trailer. That could have been a big blow. Could have possibly forced his car into on-coming traffic!



• John does not have AC in his little car so he drives with the windows down. Most days home from work he hangs his arm out the window to catch the breeze. If he had been doing this on that day he would have lost his arm.



• If John had not been at a complete stop during the accident, waiting for oncoming traffic to pass...... if instead he had begun his left hand turn, when the man behind him decided to turn into on-coming traffic he would have been T-boned by the compact car and possible another moving in the opposite direction. Most certainly a fatality or other life altering injuries could have changed his life in drastic ways.



• Although John has some whiplash and muscle soreness, it appears that his injuries may not be all that bad!



• This just so happened during the time my parents were here for a visit so while we went to the ER to get John checked out the kids were safe and sound with grandma & grandpa!



• John and I both got to witness to the other driver and plant some seeds.

So, while this means we are inconvenienced to purchase another car, God has a plan in everything. We are just grateful that his timing is perfect and his provision is unsurpassed so that we have the ability to continue doing what He has called us to out here!

This is a scripture that pretty much sums up our thankfulness!

Philipians 1:3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 4 always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, 5 for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, 6 being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; 7 just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace. 8 For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ. 9 And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, 10 that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, 11 being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

It is amazing to see the Lord's hand in a circumstance that could have been so tragic but yet due to his plans, we get to hang out here a while longer. He is so good to us!

Menu planning

Just thought I would share a little gem I found on the internet the other day. When I used to teach small groups of women about how our family saves money, one of the most valuable tools I shared was making a monthly dinner menu. When you have a goal to your grocery shopping and a purpose for everything that you buy, you save money simply because you have a plan. Doesn't this look yummy?

When my oldest 2 were in diapers, hubby and I needed to shave our budget a bit. I needed to save my sanity by creating a diner routine, so I made a resolution to begin planning. I asked John to give me a couple hours at the end of each month to let me alone with the computer to plan a monthly menu/grocery list. We did our grocery shopping once a month with the exception of produce and dairy. This prevented impulse buys during multiple shopping trips while also helping me to know when to start dinner so that my family didn't have to turn to this for lack of poor planning.

That year was hard to begin something new, HOWEVER, dinner times were prepared, money was saved and and the following years made all that work pay off! I loved the next year because I would use the exact same menus as the previous year. Fortunately I had a (now obsolete) program that let me plug in the following year in the same month and voila last years menu would be current with the click of the mouse! I could 'recycle' my effort year after year and not have to plan all over again! This was done on a very OLD computer with an obsolete program for current operating systems so transferring all that work has not been possible. While I have kept this very old computer just for these menus, I have not had it plugged in for years. For a long while, I hoped I could find a current software with the same capabilities, but after coming up empty after some time, I kind of gave up on the effort to be organized again. Due to this lack of UMPH, meal planning has not been what it could be, ergo saving money hasn't been as efficient!
In an effort to become a better steward and to not live according to chaos, I finally set out on the pursuit to find a template that I could download much like the previous one I described. I was SO HAPPY when I found this little gem that is going to make my life a tad more efficient! While searching through the world wide web I finally found what I was looking for so I thought I would share. This is an EXCEL worksheet so it will only work for people with this software.
http://download.cnet.com/Excel-Calendar-Template/3000-2077_4-10346449.html
The download is absolutely free. Once I downloaded the program file, I had to save a copy to my documents folder (It automatically saves it to your temporary file folder otherwise). Then I used the 'save as' feature to save a copy for each month of the year and labeled accordingly (January menu, February menu, ect). For those of you detail folks........ with the year change, dates and days change with the changing of the year. So there is just a tad bit of cutting and pasting when you change the year to make the meals fall on the actual calendar days, but to me this is minimal planning rather than redoing the whole thing or winging it! ENJOY planning!

For those of you curious about meal planning I do have some documents that I can send out through e-mail of what I used to make it easier on us. Just let me know if you would like a copy by sending me an e-mail to jtmabpark@msn.com with the subject MENU PLANNING.

Reach out

Now for the application to the last couple posts about obedience..... Recently we made a move of sorts in order to come back into obedience. When we had purchased our home here to Lehigh Acres, we did so in the hopes of being a light to the community out here. We thought God might have some plans for a church plant in Lehigh, but while we were waiting on further direction from the Lord we had to continue in fellowship. The choice for where seemed obvious that we would attend the same kind of church we planned on affiliating with. However, in order to stay in fellowship, we were traveling about an hour south for church (Estero). As to why we were going so far away........ When you have been with one kind of church for the whole time you have been saved, it is very difficult to break away, even though it is just a 'name'. Sometimes there is a false sense of security in the name, rather than the God we serve.
Yet each time we were asked where we went to church, we would invite folks to church in Estero, but there was no interest in going so far away. Due to the fact we were only hosting a home fellowship in Lehig once a week, this was just not enough to get plugged into for many folks. During the time we were attending the church in Estero, we were encouraged to get plugged in somewhere. It was a dilemma of sorts due to the fact that we knew our involvement there was just temporary. When our purpose and vision was unclear for Lehigh, we decided to listen to the folks telling us to get plugged in. We continued praying but due to circumstances beyond our control we began to doubt God's ministry in Lehigh....... Our doubt lead us to believe we should just get plugged into something that is established (Estero). We did just that the next time someone asked for our help, yet all the while we were doing this, there was no peace. The more time and energy we placed into getting plugged into our current fellowship was taking away from the ministry God had already placed on our hearts for Lehigh.
After a couple months of clarity, we began to feel the Lord calling us back to Lehigh. We shared our excitement and hearts with the folks in our current fellowship. Some were very encouraging and excited with us at what the Lord was doing!
After a lot of prayer, we have come to be apart of a church here in Lehigh that shares our passion to reach the lost. It is an intimate fellowship where everybody knows your name. They strive, through much prayer, to reach out and getting to know the people in this town. There are so many reasons why people will not step foot inside the doors of a church, so this is the reason why they chose to go to them. Sometimes this means going door to door and other times it means hosting events at local parks. The idea is to be available to the people we meet and to let them know how much Jesus loves and cares for them. We have been apart of 2 of their community outreaches. In each one, God clearly made appointments with some people who did not know Him. Others that did know Him embraced what we were doing and were very encouraging to chat with. Something we heard over and over again was the fact that people really are looking for a church but are at a loss when it comes to finding the right fit. It was such a blessing to have the opportunity to meet people where they are at, pray with them or just love on them.
The most awesome part was the fact that I am not the only one thrilled to get to do this. Our kids were richly blessed while getting the privilege to bless others. One thing I saw in them was that you can not raise children with evangelistic or servants hearts unless they are given the role models to see faith in action. No scripts, no do overs, but priceless opportunities to be the hands and feet of Jesus. To leave God's fingerprints in the places unseen. We are all just so privileged to become apart of something bigger than ourselves that God is doing to lead people to Himself. Fruit born due to a labor of love is one that lasts for eternity.
Being a child, my eldest saw a need that us adults didn't see at the last outreach. She asked, "What about the kids? Can we give them something tangible to show them Jesus?" Our pastor was very supportive and told her to think about how we could meet that need. At first, she just wanted to give the kids some candy, but after we talked about it she saw a more eternal need. Giving candy is sweet but eternity with Christ is even sweeter. We looked up how to make salvation bracelets. Her enthusiasm lead to ask if she could do this with her own money. In support of her ideas a few of the ladies at church helped pitch in with supplies as well. Both the girls ended up handing them out and diligently sowing seeds alongside the adults.
Afterward, all the folks without heat exhaustion came on over to the house for some pool time and fellowship! There is nothing better than spending some quality time with our church family!