How are You?

It is a strange question. Strange because it holds so many different meanings that cannot always be determined by tone or facial expression. The meaning is found in the soul of a person asking and may never be known by the person being asked.

There are those that ask "How are you?" and truly only want a one word response so they can continue on with their busy lives, without having to really interact with the people in the world they live in.

There are those that ask "How are you?" because they must. It is a cultural norm. They HAVE to ask, or they would be seen as rude, but they too only seek to have a quick encounter with the person they are asking. They don't want to be effected or changed by the response, but validated in seeing themselves as caring and polite.

There are those that ask "How are you?" and they truly would love to hear how you are, but not a lengthy explanation, just enough to feel they know a taste of who you are and what you are going through.

Finally there are the seemingly rare breed of person who ask "How are you?" fully prepared for the truth and for however long a conversation it may require to truly understand how the person REALLY is, deep down inside. They are willing to be late, to cancel plans, to put everything down, just to hear "how you are."

If you are like me you are a different person depending on the timing, person and situation. But should we vary?

As a Christian I am called to "love one another". How can I accomplish that fully, if I don't know others. If I don't take the time to hear all of what they are willing to share. Sometimes that will require me to share, but often times, it will require my silence. And through that silent listening voice, I might be able to better communicate Christ's love. SO many times I miss that piece. I want so desperately to fix the problems of those I have finally taken the time to hear, and I stop listening.

Dear LORD,
Help me to listen to those around me. Help me to love others through my ears, not just my words. My tongue is powerful even more when it is still. May I be still this week, in order to listen to those you loved first, so that I can love them better than I have been.



James 1:19 My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry...

Snow Dogs

We haven't been able to play in the snow much, but here are some shots from a few weeks ago when the snow was just too powdery for a snow man (hence the snow doggy :-)

Snow angels

Our little snow dog

It is so exhausting playing in the snow

Little Red Riding Hood

This is yet another outfit that my Grandmother made for me when I was little. It is a heavy dress coat with a bonnet.

The picture of Gracie looks so much like my sister! Too funny.

Build-A-Bear Without the Bear

For Christmas the girls were blessed to receive money from Auntie Neda and Papa for Build-A-Bear. Papa also gave Lizzie and Ellie some super cute outfits for the animals yet to be purchased.

Allen takes the girls on dates periodically, so this was the perfect opportunity for a fun date for each of the girls. One by one (over the course of a week) the girls each got to go with Daddy down to build-a-bear to pick their special animal to take home.

Here are the much loved choices:

Gracie sleeps with her puppy every night (and the lady at build-a-bear assured Allen that it is machine washable :-)

Ellie was adamant that she wanted a frog, hence Froggy

Lizzie picked out a moose, that she has named Holly

Thanks Papa and Neda!

All the Children of the World

Dan and Auntie Nono gave the girls a number of great gifts for Christmas. This was one of them. It is a puzzle of various kids from all over the world. I couldn't resist putting Gracie on it for a photo op.

Loss

It is difficult. Time has passed. Not much time, but enough. Enough time that others have moved on. Enough time that "normal" life has begun again for others. Enough that I feel as though I am floating through life in a different dimension than the previously mentioned others. My day looks very "normal" from the onlooking. However, my mental instability and inward emotional explosions have not ceased. I still get scattered brained and easily confused by things that would have previously been routine for me. I continue to have moments where my thought process stops cold and I find myself staring blankly at a wall or a screen or some other random object. I often come across things that trigger a lump in my throat that make me fill ill and unable to move.

On the up side, I am no longer paralyzed by the images that flash through my mind hourly. They still come, but I am no longer stuck replaying horrors again and again until something or someone snaps me out of it. I am coping. I am getting better. I am healing.

It isn't a quick process. As so many have said before me, "It take time."

When months had passed following my mom's diagnosis, I told people that I felt like David when he lost his son. He wept and wailed and grieved until God finally took his son, and then he stopped. He began life again, feeling that he had been given an answer and could no longer beg for anything, because what was done, was done. I was wrong.

Losing someone through cancer doesn't mean that you mourn before and then are recovered afterward. It just means you hurt before and after. It means that while that person is on this earth you pray for God to relieve their suffering. And He does, but once they stop suffering your own pain becomes more apparent. It was always there, but now, with no need to focus on your hurting loved one, you are left with your own pain staring you in the face. The reality begins to set in. The wounds begin to make themselves known, and they are gaping. And the closer you were to your lost loved one, the deeper and more gruesome the wound is, and the longer it will take to heal.

Someday I will be able to join you all in this dimension. I will never have the same "normal", but I will heal. Someday in place of this painful, oozing wound, will be a scar instead. No longer painful to the touch, but simply a reminder of my Mom, whom I love and miss so much. Until then, bare with me and others like me, who have wounds that are painful to the touch.

Christmas Pictures 2009

So it is almost February and although I have already done my taxes, I am only now getting to taking all the pictures off from my camera from the last few months. I hope to post many of them in the next week or two, but here are some from our two Christmases (the first was our little family and the second was with Auntie Nono!).

Gracie "Opening" her Stocking

The girls got some awesome art supplies from Uncle Nick
(Note the glazed over look as this was later in the gift opening
and after much sugar had been had)

Bubble Wrap...the gift that keeps on giving

Posing for a picture in New PJs from Great Grandma Sewell

In take "2" Ellie took "get closer" very literally

Middle Name

Lizzie is running around chasing her imaginary friend (because the friend is 'in trouble') and saying both the friend's first and middle name.

Lizzie: "When somebody's in trouble, you have to say their middle name too..."

Prayer is Powerful and so is a Lack of Prayer

Prayer is an amazing thing. To be able to approach the Father with our praises, confessions, concerns and just thoughts in general (through Christ), is an awesome privilege. Unfortunately, all to often, I forget to make my prayers complete. I pray in thought or through journal, but forget to bring things to my LORD consistently when I haven't been reminded of them by life's prompting.

Prayer is a powerful thing, because He whom we pray to, is a powerful and mighty God. I think that, though not nearly as powerful, our neglect of prayer can also be powerful. If I do not pray for something consistently as I ought to, or I "say" a prayer without considering what I am praying, and Whom I am praying to, then it is almost as if I never asked God. Therefore, I cannot be surprised or angered when something goes "wrong".

Please don't misunderstand. I am not implying that by my NOT praying for something, that I am the cause of a bad out come. I do not presume to hold that kind of power. What I am saying, is that if I want a chance at a good out come, I must be more diligent in truly and humbly bringing things before my Awesome and Praise worthy God. He is mighty and capable of much, but if I never bother to ask it of Him, I cannot be upset when He doesn't assume my request and answer in my perceived favor. He always answers our prayers, though that answer may sometimes be no, but we must first pray to be answered.

I was reminded of this yesterday, when we took Lizzie to her yearly cardiology appointment. I never bothered to pray before going, or even to ask my sisters in my Bible Studies to be praying. I thought to, but immediately thought, "no need, it is just a check-up." But nothing is ever "just a..." anything. And God reminded me of that when the cardiologist informed us that Lizzie now has two things that will need to be monitored. Our check-ups the past couple of years have been to be sure that the fake valve they put in is still functioning enough to leave it. It is slightly weaker, but still not weak enough to be worried now. That one we knew, but now there is a second, new, concern. She has developed a new heart defect, known as Atrial Septal Defect (ASD). This is a tiny hole in her heart between the two TOP chambers (you might remember that Lizzie had a hole repaired when she was just a week old, but that was between the BOTTOM chambers).

So what does that mean. Essentially nothing now. Just that she will need something in her early teens or sooner to repair the defect and/or the weak valve. They will continue to monitor her yearly until there is a significant enough change in numbers (lung function, etc.) that they have to do something.

Please, join me in praying for Lizzie in the coming years. Pray that she would be healed and not need surgery or even a procedure. Pray that if she does need medical intervention, that God would give the doctors, and us discernment as to what steps should be taken. Pray that Lizzie (and her sisters) would know God's love through all this and that she would become a light in a dark world.

Pray. Pray with your hearts cry and not a brief fleeting thought set off into the nothingness of space. Pray as we ought to, not as I so often find myself doing.

It's coming Fast

So the girls got this great counting system for Christmas from Auntie Nono. It is 100 bears in different sizes each with a different number on them. We decided that we would use them for the first time starting 100 days before Allen's graduation. Sort of a "count-up" to the big day. I just did the math and we will begin with number "1" bear on January 29th. That's right, this month! Stay tuned for more excited updates from me about how close graduation is (and perhaps a few anxious/panicked posts from Allen :-)

Oh, and I hope to get some good pictures of the girls soon (once the colds have left the house). Then I will post more.