Happy 3rd Birthday, Little Man!

Whatta weekend!

Could NOT have packed anything else into this weekend, I tell ya. It started off Thursday night with a fun evening with the Chapmans, our friends who are now missionaries in Canada. We loved being with them and catching up.


(Zoey, Gracey, Anders, Kyndal, Allison, Sydney)
Pictures for the church directory turned out AWFUL Saturday. That's the reason I yelled at my children from 8:45 until 11:30 and the stinkin' pictures turned out like this family. Anders birthday party was great! He was so excited and I'm so glad so many of his friends were able to come.

But the highlight was most definitely seeing Zoey get baptized tonight. Praise the Lord!

I'm bad

I wasn't ready though to handle such a calling. I spent several weeks in shock. I was scared out of my mind that I was going to die and leave my family and 3 wonderful children. I doubted that I could handle it. Some days I was stronger than others. So many times I'd cry, "I can't handle this. I can't handle this."As I was preparing for surgery I hit my lowest point and it was then that I had to say "Lord, you are going to have to carry me. I can't walk this road alone. I can't fight this battle without you at the forefront." Man, I had so many doubts, I was so very afraid. My friends and family comforted me and supported me, but there was nothing they could do for me. God knew me. He didn't give that cancer to me, but He filtered it through his loving hands. I was a long way from what He wanted me to be, but He knew I had a desire to get there. I made it through the surgery and started to heal on the outside and then a blow much worse than a cancer diagnosis rocked my world. The loss of my dad was much, much harder than my physical ailments. My heart was broken.

Driving down Mile Creek Road that day I just thought I was close to God. I just thought I loved Him. I just thought I could trust him. We have come a long way these last six months. I am different. The 3 verses that I claimed have been proven by Him over and over again.
Joshua 1:9- Have not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee withersoever thou goest. He gave me strength. I had no courage of my own, but that which He provided me. The Lord my God was with me in the bone scan, and the liver scan, and the colonoscopy, and the hysterectomy, and the mastectomy and when I saw dad is the casket, during his funeral and when they lowered his body into the ground. And withsoever I went-HE WAS THERE!
Romans 8:28-And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God and to them who are the called according to his purpose. So many great things HAVE been worked for good. I have had many opportunities to witness to God's goodness. He took some really rotten stuff and made it good. Through the pain of losing dad, my mom and I can see that many good things have happened as a result.
Proverbs 3:5,6-Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him and he shall direct thy paths. I never would have been able to do anything without believing that He would direct my path. I had to ask him time and time again to show me. I needed His wisdom and his guidance in countless decisions. Most recently, I did not lean on myself to make the decision to have reconstruction. I trusted in him to let me know what He wanted. Very shortly after I gave it all to him and told Him that I was going to wait on him to show me what to do, He gave me peace. (And He did it in a way that blew me away.)

I'm just an average person trying to be a girl God can use. I have so many shortcomings. I'm sure you know I'm a bad mom and an awful housekeeper. I don't pray or read my Bible like I should. I'm not a very good friend. I nag the Knight. I don't like to cook or eat healthy. I have no patience. The kids drink tea for breakfast because I haven't had any milk in the house for two days. I think bad thoughts about people and last week I didn't speak up when the cashier rang up my purchase incorrectly. I only iron if it's an emergency situation. Sometimes I practice what I'd say if I could tell people off. I won't let the girls get their ears pierced. I won't let Alex get the Little Man a turtle. I don't return phone calls. Today I screamed at my children from 8:45am until 11:30am. Seriously. And I didn't call Marty on her 40th birthday or even wish my in-laws a happy anniversary. And I don't like to share! This, my dear friends, is only a tiny slice of my badness.
My point is I am so weak, but He is strong. I'm nobody, but He is Everything. THIS is not really what I had in mind that day. Maybe I'm scarred and maybe my heart is broken, but God has never been more real to me. I have never been so in love with Him. I have never trusted Him more. And I've never been so happy in all my life.

I asked for this

One Sunday after church last year we were driving down Mile Creek Road (where you go around that curve and the cows are on the right), I prayed for God to use me for something special. I don't remember what the sermon was about or why I prayed that particular prayer that day, but I have a very vivid memory of it. I was asking Him to let me serve Him. I wasn't asking to be special in a lime-light, center- of -attention kind of way. I was asking Him to let me have a testimony I could use for His glory. I was hoping He might have a special mission project for me and my family. I was thinking it might involve our middle school class. Maybe I secretly thought He might give me an awesome singing voice or some really cool talent. I guess I was just feeling so close to Him and so in love with Him that I really wanted to let Him know that my life was His. The Knight's job was sort of shaky and we had prayed for 5 years that God would open the door for a new job, and I was so tired of waiting. We often talked about whether or not we would move away if he got a job somewhere else. I would always tell him that I would go wherever we needed to go for him to have a good job. I guess I was sort of restless at that point. His term of being a deacon was now over and we would have fewer responsibilities in the church. After 7 years, that was going to take some getting used to. I had an emptiness or you could call it a longing. I knew I had been blessed all through my life and I knew God was good, and I knew He wanted what was best for me. I knew I could trust Him and that He loved me. So riding down the road that day, sun shining, stomach growling, kids yelling- I just asked Him in a conversation inside my head. He heard me. My life will never be the same.

Genetically speaking

So if you could find out if you had the breast cancer gene, would you want to know? How would you feel if you found out that you had the gene, but your sister didn't? If you found out you had the gene would you elect to have a bilateral mastectomy as a prevention? If you were 71 and your daughter found out she had the gene, would YOU want to be tested? If your sister had the gene, and you were her brother, would you want to be tested or would you want your daughter to be tested. If you have the gene and you can narrow down which side of the family it comes from, how do you bear the bad news? How does God feel about all this genentic testing?

Yesterday's appoinment took an hour and a half. I had so many questions about being tested for the BRCA1 gene and the BRCA 2 gene. Reality is that if it turns out I have the gene, nothing new would be done for me medically. I would be at a higher risk for pancreatic cancer(there is no screening test for pancreatic cancer) and melanoma(I already go for a yearly exam with my dermatologist). So for me, it really doesn't matter all that much. But for my children and my extended family, I am going to have it done. Because my first breast cancer diagnosis was at such a young age (25), it is likely that I have it. My children would have a 50% chance of having the BRCA gene and if they have it, it doesn't necessarily mean they will develop breast cancer.

I wonder how other people feel about this. I can't help but think of the girls having the testing done one day when they are adults and one of them having it and the other not. UGH! That just sounds terrible and they call it "survivor's guilt". I can imagine them already "Thanks, mom!"

It's all so much to think about, but I have decided that I will do it. I feel like I owe it all the females in my family. But genetically linked or not, we are all at-risk. One in eight women will be diagnosed. Over 200,000 women will develop breast cancer just this year.

You know I am not a scientific person so this is the best way I know how to explain the testing. To me it's all about the emotional aspect of it all that plagues me. This is what I've been thinking about lately. What would YOU do?

Time flies

Time is flying by and the Little Man is now dating. Just kidding, but I LOVE this picture from Dollywood with him driving Joanna. The kids loved this park and watching them drive around that track made me smile.

I would love to report to you that things have settled down, but that is not the case. We have a busy week this week and then next weekend we are going to Arkansas for Labor Day weekend. I am looking forward to seeing my family over there and getting to visit with my mom who has been there for a few weeks already. I was telling the Little Man that we were going to be riding on a plane and I felt a pain in my heart. I thought about our last time on a plane was flying to Jacksonville in hopes of being with my dad before he died. That day just doesn't even seem real now. It's like it happened to someone else. I so hoped I would make it in time, but that was not God's plan. I was standing in line in the check-out and looking down and I noticed the man in front of me had legs and ankles that looked just like my dad. I tried to imagine that I was standing behind Dad and that I could just tap him on the shoulder and he would turn around and hug me. That is crazy, I know. I think of him so many times a day and I miss him terribly. I miss the times when he would call me during the day. I knew he was thinking about me and just picked up the phone at work and called to check on us. I missed going to Fripp Island with him and mom this summer. I know the Knight missed their time together on the golf course. Man, Dad loved him so much and it made me so happy that they got along as well as they did. Oh, it's late and I have to stop or I will get myself too upset to sleep.

I am really learning to trust God more and to realize that He really does have my best interest in mind. I feel closer to Him now than I've ever been. I want to serve Him more than I ever have. My dad would be so happy about that.

It's true

Remember Wednesday's verse?
Psalm 55:22-Cast thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
Good news friends! It's true! It's true!
I looked up the word sustain in the dictionary.
Sustain-v. 1: to provide with nourishment.
2: to keep going: prolong.
3: to hold up, prop.
I whined to you, my friends, and I hope that's okay. That is what friends do, right? Please don't hold that against me. You couldn't do anything for me except pray for me and many of you did I am sure of it. But I cried out to the Lord and He COULD do something about my troubles and He did! I have felt so much better the last few days. He supplied nourishment for me by allowing me to sleep wonderfully for the last 3 nights. I was at my wit's end. I was so tired this week and He kept me going. I just wanted to quit and He held me up.

As I have been thinking about this verse in my mind lately I thought it said "he shall NOT suffer the righteous to be moved." Just as I was typing it here I realized to my delight that it says "NEVER". Isn't that great? It is to me.

Lord, thank you for nourishing me with sleep, for keeping me going, for holding me up. Thank you for good friends who pray for me when times are tough. AMEN