Category Archives: Family

In Everything Give Thanks

God created us to bring Him glory. When God miraculously heals someone, He gets glory. When He gives joy, even without healing, to a quadriplegic, He gets glory. When He blesses someone with great wealth – from Job and Abraham to J. C. Penny , He gets the glory. When He provides for each daily need, He gets the glory.

It’s easy to give glory to God in the good times – when the miracles are obvious.

The Bible is full of miracles – like the time when He kept the oil from running out in I Kings 17:8-16 and when God blessed Solomon in II Chronicles 1:11-12.

When I was in college, I got a last minute opportunity to be a summer missionary. I had never heard of such a thing, but I wanted to try it. The deadline had passed, but there were still unclaimed openings.

I signed up and was accepted. That left me very little time to raise money for the trip, but God knew what He was doing. He brought in every last dime that I needed in time for the trip. God’s timing is amazing!

When God told us to move to Rhode Island, we had very little notice, yet amazingly, our house sold & closed just 2 weeks after putting it on the market!! Then He helped us out of a sticky situation by helping us find a very well cared for van that we could easily afford with just a 24 hour notice! Yes, God’s timing is perfect. He wanted us to go and He provided the way.

God is not limited by time, resources, or circumstances. He has proved time and again that He can do much with a small window of time. And in all these things God receives the glory. That’s easy!

It is not so easy to give God the glory He deserves in the tough times – when the miracles are not so obvious.

Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity? ~Job 2:10b

Job certainly had a lot to be thankful for (1:2-3), at least for a while (1:13-19), but when the hard-times came, Job still trusted God and blessed his name (1:20-22).

How do you give thanks to God when He allows hard things to happen? Amazingly there always is a blessing hidden in there somewhere, and while seeking God for that blessing, you learn more about Him, and He uses you to bless others through your hard time.

Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”  ~I Thessalonians 5:16-18

Fortunately, He promises His presence and peace when we are going through those not so easy times.

Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.  ~John 14:27

In everything give thanks!

About a month ago on December 15, 2011, we found out that our youngest child, Thaddeus, has a terminal illness – Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy . In case you’ve never heard of it, DMD is a disease that affects the muscles. When a person has it, his muscles degenerate over time. Since the heart and diaphragm are muscles, the person with DMD usually dies from congestive heart failure or from not being able to breathe.

Thaddeus has no symptoms yet, but they usually start by the age of 5 when the muscles in his hips start showing their weakness. His future probably holds many falls, leg braces, muscle stretches, some minor surgeries, a wheelchair, and maybe even a ventilator.

This definitely is not an easy phase of our lives. While you never know how long any child will live, it is hard knowing ahead of time that your child most likely will not reach his 30th birthday.

But God’s timing and power are great in tough times too. Jesus accomplished more in three years than any of us will achieve in our 70. And God can do amazing things through Thaddeus in his short years.

My brother died of this same disease when he was just 15 years old. My mother was asked after he died, “Don’t you wish you’d never had him? Neither of you would have had to suffer.” Her answer was, “Absolutely not!!”

For You formed my inward parts;
You covered me in my mother’s womb.
I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
Marvelous are Your works,
And that my soul knows very well.
My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret,
And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed.
And in Your book they all were written,
The days fashioned for me,
When as yet there were none of them.  
How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!
How great is the sum of them!
If I should count them, they would be more in number than the sand;
When I awake, I am still with You.

~Psalm 139:13-18

God created children with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy. While life is more difficult for them, God is able to use their lives to reach others. They can touch the lives of so many people in just 15 or 20 years!

God was not taken off-guard. He knew before Thaddeus was ever born that he had DMD. He chose to make Him that way, and I do not have the authority to ask Him why. I may never know.

But I do know this. I love Thaddeus dearly! To wish I had not given birth to him would be missing out on an amazing amount of sweetness and joy! I plan to cherish every moment I have with all my children. I will train them all to be godly men and women, to go into this world, passing God’s blessings on to as many people as possible!

I am sure more posts will follow on this topic, but for now, I will end with Blessings by Laura Story.

Family Night

Tonight is family night! Since the whole family has been interested in Luke’s job, we decided to learn how to do some of it! Who knows! Maybe some day some of the kids will decide to join Luke in his work!

Some of the things we learned about in the CSS group are color theory, font size, and how to use firebug to edit. And a few things we learned in the HTML group were elements, tags, and something about slashing heads and opening bodies!

The only problem is that I have a sore arm because when Luke told us  to “hit tab,” everybody did!! 😉

Happy 90th, Grandma!

My grandma turned 90 years old today!! Can you imagine? I am curious, though. Do you expect to live to be 90 years old? If so, I wonder what life will be like then? For me, that will be 2067.

(Okay, now I have a confession to make. I just spent a full 2 or 3 minutes figuring out what year I will turn 90. Let me give a hint to those who happen to be as tired as I am. Take your birth year, add 100, and subtract 10.)

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Grandma! I love you!!

Caring for China

Now is my opportunity to share with you about one of my husband’s life projects. Please check out Caring for China and consider helping out the cause. First is a quote from the website and then Luke’s request.

China is quickly and peacefully becoming a modern, capitalist democracy. Well, quickly in comparison to its five thousand year history, and in comparison to other nations in the past. Few nations, have made this transition peacefully.

China might.

To make this huge transition, though, China is going to need a lot of support from the rest of the world. Even more importantly the people of China need our support in this difficult period of Chinese history.

The Caring for China Center was founded to help the people of China to survive in this restless time and to seize this moment of opportunity.

Caring for China (C4C) is a growing non-profit organization with a dream to change the world… or at least a piece of it. Like any other non-profit, they are dependent on donations from people like you, but…

Here is a chance to give to a great cause without it costing you a penny!

All they need you to do is donate a blog post. Here are the instructions from Zemanta, the sponsor of this project.

  1. Blog about your favorite non-profit (Caring for China, right?) and why their work makes a difference. (If you want to, you can just copy this post. It is free for the copying.)
  2. Paste this text and link to the end of your post. Without this text and link, we will be unable to track and credit your charitable cause as part of this campaign:
  3. Publish your post!!
  4. Then go tell your friends to do the same!

Will you help today?


This blog post is part of Zemanta’s “Blogging For a Cause” campaign to raise awareness and funds for worthy causes that bloggers care about.

Straight from the President

Want to know more about the amendment suggested by parental rights to protect America from the threat of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child? You have the opportunity to hear all about it straight from Michael Farris, president of parental rights and co-founder/chairman of HSLDA.

Michael Farris will be interviewed by Gov. Mike Huckabee on the Huckabee show on the FOX news channel tonight and will be on again Sunday at 2 am, 8 pm, and 11 pm. Please take the time to catch one of these shows. Parental Rights suggested that you record it to show to friends and loved ones who may not be aware of how the government is trying to take control of the upbringing of our children.

So put it on your calendar or your list of “must sees!” It is well worth it!

See these previous blog posts for more information about parental rights and its fight against the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Parent Versus Big Brother
How to Defend Parental Rights
Time to Move!
Will You Be a Rep?
Save Our Successors (SOS)

Hoping to Be Remembered

After being away from my family for over 2 years, I finally got to see at least some of them. My mom and sister couldn’t stand it anymore and came to see us! We got to visit with them for the whole month of March! We had a blast together!

My sister had her two daughters, ages 3 and 4 with her. I know this is probably wishful thinking, but I am hoping they are old enough to remember me next time I see them (in about 9 months). What do you think? Is it likely?

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