You DAILY bear my burdens

Sunday night I visited a wonderful church. We had heard that the services there had been amazing and we weren't doing anything else, so my mom, my aunt, two of my kids and I loaded up and drove about 45 minutes away to worship with some fellow believers. When we got there, I was amazed at how friendly the people were with us. Not just your typical handshake to the visitor either. At the first beat of the music everyone was on their feet praising the Lord with all their hearts. It was beautiful. After a few songs, the pastor's wife announced that her husband would not be there because he was ill. Since he had planned on being there that night, he had not made arrangements otherwise so we were going to watch a video. She laughed as she told us how one member of the congregation had asked him if he would show the old Brownsville, live in Dallas DVD. Well, that's what we ended up watching. These people worshipped right along with the DVD as if they were right there in person. At the end of the video, the worship leader felt led to have an altar call in which many people came to the altar and had a wonderful time with the Lord. I was amazed. These people had come to worship and to meet with God, and that is exactly what they did. I wanted to share how the Lord used this old, some would say "outdated", DVD to speak to me. Lindell Cooley, from the Brownsville worship team, was singing "Blessed be the Name of the Lord" and the second verse hit me smack in the forehead. "FOR YOU DAILY BEAR MY BURDEN"...here is the whole song...

I am standing beneath Your wings
I am resting in Your shelter
Your great faithfulness has been my shield
It makes me want to sing

Blessed be the name of the Lord
Blessed be the name of the Lord
I will bless Your holy name
For all my days
Blessed be the name of the Lord

I sing praises to Your name oh Lord
For You daily bear my burden
Your great faithfulness is my reward
It makes me want to sing...

Jesus DAILY bears my burden, IF I let Him. So many days I carry my own burden. If I hold onto the burden, it will only get worse. I need to put it in His hands so that He can mold it into a beautiful testimony, so that I can sing praises to Him! His great faithfulness is my reward. He is so faithful to hold onto that burden as long as I will allow Him too. In exchange He gives me His burden (for My yoke is easy and My burden is light). Oh, how I love carrying His burden. It is not heavy like mine is. It does not weigh me down and threaten to destroy me. His burden makes me feel as light as air. When I feel like picking my burden up I will act like a crazy woman and start telling myself to put that thing back down...and I will sing praises to His name, for He DAILY bears my burden!!
Hallelujah!

Rough week...

I made it! I wasn't quite sure I would make it through this week. I am a bit exhausted, but we ALL survived. Praise God. Tuesday my oldest daughter (12 years old) started having neurological symptoms followed by a severe headache and vomiting. Her speech was impaired (using the wrong words and using nonsense words), and her right arm went numb all the way up to her tongue. She had been to the dentist the day before so my first instinct was to call the dentist and see if this was a delayed reaction to the novacaine/laughing gas. The dentist said it was not related, but that we needed to call her family doctor immediately. I called them right away, but had to wait for them to speak with the doctor and return my call, which took about 20 minutes. In the meantime, my daughter's headache was getting worse, while her arm and tongue returned to normal. Her speech was still affected. The doctor said to go to the ER if the initial symptoms returned. I gave her some ib profin, but the headache continued to get worse. I called my mom and my husband, and kept asking my daughter questions to evaluate her state of mind. I asked her why she was talking in such a way and she answered that she couldn't hear me. At this point I took her to the ER as fast as I could get there. On the way she started vomiting. We stayed for a couple of hours and the ER and then were sent to Riley Hospital for Children's ER. Several hours later she was admited to the heart center at Riley. She was given a CAT scan, a CAT scan with contrast, a chest xray, an MRI, an echocardiogram and blood tests for several different clotting disorders as well as a CBC. We were allowed to come home the next day as the tests that had come back were normal, but we are still waiting on results for the echocardiogram and the blood tests. At this point the neurologist is thinking it was a "complex" or "complicated" migraine. This is a type of migraine that has neurological symptoms and it is rare, especially in a 12 year old. If she were to be given Imitrex, or any drug in that family (which is the drug normally given for a migraine), it could cause a stroke. We have an appt. with the neuroglogist in 3 weeks. The night we came home from the hospital, exhausted and running on 1 hour of sleep, my other kids woke up vomiting. I think they caught a bug in the ER waiting room. Vomiting and fevers for 24 hours. Yuk! Finally, we are all recovering well and I am staying busy cleaning the house and getting rid of all the germs in the house. God was with us and supplied our every need. My mom was a tremendous help! Thank you Lord, for taking care of my babies!

Ready for Homeschooling

I have been working very hard for the past couple of weeks to get ready for the upcoming school year. I am very excited to be much more organized this time! I am so very close to being finished, and I will post pictures soon. The baby is sleeping through the night finally, and I have a feeling that this year is gonna be a good one!
God Bless

"What's SPD?"

A few days ago I was shopping with my mom and my 10 year old son, who has Sensory Processing Disorder. My mom showed me a shirt to see if I liked it, but I told her I didn't like to wear things that were tight on my arms, especially how it feels around my elbows. I also HATE fur, fake fur, fake hair...*gag*! I was telling her how I prefer short sleeved shirts that are very soft. It made me think of how my son must feel with his sensory issues effecting so many areas of his life and I said to my mom, sarcastically, "maybe I have SPD too!" My son then announces "what is SPD?" Are you kiddding me?? I just stood there for a second and then told him I was referring to Sensory Processing Disorder. "Oh," he says. LOL! It was so funny. He knows that SPD is short for Sensory Processing Disorder, but I guess he didn't understand why I would say I might have it, so maybe I meant something else. It was cute. He is so well behaved at stores now! Thank the Good Lord for Occupational Therapy and Wilbarger Brushing. He occasionally heads over to the area where the carts are and likes to sandwhich himself in between them (yes, I know, input!), but we are working on that. Really, his only behavior issue right now is his over-excited, in your face approach to his baby brother! Also, at times he gets insulted and angry over things that other kids might just laugh at. He takes things so personal. We are going to work "Social Skill Training" into our homeschool curriculum this year. I found a couple of workbooks for teaching social skills! He "bickers" with his 6 year old sister (also has milder SPD) constantly. If I could figure out how to fix that problem I would be on cloud 9! I do believe that I am going to try the old "I'm gonna make you hug each other" approach here soon! :)
God Bless!

Undiagnosed SPD?

I ran into a lady recently, and we got to talking...turns out she has a son on the autism spectrum and another child hanging in the balance between a diagnosis of ADHD or bipolar disorder. We talked for quite a while in the middle of the store. She didn't know that SPD could be a stand alone diagnosis. I told her to get the book "Out of Sync Child" (how I wish I carried several copies with me to give away when I meet people like this). I told her that undiagnosed and therefore untreated SPD could cause some major emotional issues in a child. These kids are frequently considered a behavior problem, especially those fortunate enough to be "sensory seekers". My heart goes out to all the families and kids that have yet to find the help they need, SPD or otherwise. I encourage anyone seeking an accurate diagnosis and treatment for their child to pray about it and let God lead them to the right place! It's scary what damage can be done with a wrong dianosis and treatment plan. God knows our kids and He knows exactly what needs to be fixed in their little bodies. While we pray for their healing, we can also pray for God to lead us to the knowledge of what is needed to help them. God bless!

Baby Sign Language

A few weeks ago I taught my baby (8 1/2 months old) how to say "eat" in sign language. We worked on this for a couple of months before he got it. Every time I gave him baby food I would do the sign for "eat" several times and say the word. I really didn't think it would work, but it did, and HOW EXCITING! I am so proud of my smart little guy! He does the sign a little different than he is supposed to, but hey, he is only a baby! :)

Big Changes!

This summer has been a summer of change for us. Mostly good changes, but still, it is a lot to process. I've been trying to get my little one, 9 months old now, to sleep somewhat at night and get into a routine in preparation for our upcoming school year. After a hectic summer, with no sleep I might add, I finally just gave up and took it to the Lord. Many give advice about letting them "cry it out" or other tips, but I have to say, I just felt like if he was crying, then he needed something, so I was up taking care of him. He would get up between 2 to 4 times a night for a nursing session and maybe a diaper change. He got 6 teeth this summer, so I am thinking this is why he was not learning to sleep at night. He was in pain. It took forever for his little teeth to break through. Now that teething is temporarily over, I decided to get back to work on a sleep schedule. This is what I did...I prayed! :) I asked a friend to pray as well. Within a couple of nights he was sleeping through the night! God is good! I know that there are times that we have to be tough on our little ones (and ourselves) and teach them to do things, but for this particular milestone, I felt it was best to go to God! My little guy deals with acid reflux and takes medicine for it, so I never quite know if his reflux is bothering him, or if he is just overly attached! :)
Another big event for our summer is that we have changed churches. I grew up in this church since I was in 3rd grade (I'm 34 now) and my whole family goes there as well. We left a couple of years ago for about 10 months, and then returned as things were looking better at the time. Sadly, we have left again, and this time I feel that it will be for good, unless the Lord directs otherwise. We have been attending a church that is a different denomination than we are used to, but similar. We love it! God is really working in me and I just love every little part of it! Amazingly, my parents also left our former church within a month of us. They are now looking for a new church as well. God is good, and He is leading!
We finished Vision Therapy this summer with DS2 and DD3. It was a lot of work, but I'm hoping to see some of it pay off this school year. We drove about 45 minutes to get to our therapists, but they were really great and it was worth the drive. We intend to go back to OT with our first therapist (that specialized in sensory therapy) eventually...gotta get the other therapy paid off first!
Well, I'm hoping that with the baby sleeping thru the night and therapy temporarily finished, that we will be able to really have a fun time with homeschooling. I will just have to pray about that too:)
Until next time...