ITS BEEN TOO LONG!!!

Okay....it has been a VERY VERY VERY long time since I have updated this thing and MANY changes have happened in my life since then! SO here we go!

Well, okay it all started at Red Rock Camp this summer. God began to speak to me about some changes he wanted to make in my life. To be honest, it happened back last October. I had sensed God leading me to move to a job I had been offered in Sumner Iowa to be a full time church secretary and youth pastor. This was AFTER my mother had been suffering from some very difficult health problems and I had been caring for her and my father. I felt selfish for leaving, but my brother, his wife, and I got things in order for mom and dad and I made the 3 hour move to Northeast Iowa. I learned alot about myself in the year I was there. First of all, I lived in an apartment BY MYSELF for the first time in my life!! I learned that while I HATED IT! I could do it and make it on my own, which was something I was always scared of and not sure I could do. I began to make some friends in Sumner and grew close to the youth.

In the beginning of the winter season in Sumner, shortly after Christmas, I was getting ready to take my kids on a ski trip when I recieved the call that my father had recieved the news that my mother had cancer. At this point in time, they thought it was spinal cancer in very advanced stages and did not give us a lot of hope on her prognosis. I somehow gained my composure and took my youth group on their trip after that point, and then made arangements to travel home to see my mother, meet with doctors, etc. NOT AN EASY thing to go through and let me just tell you CANCER SUCKS!!!!! ALOT!!!! However, we were lucky, we found out that moms cancer was not the spinal cancer they thought it was. We found out that it was Lymphoma and that it was not only treatable, but the one kind of cancer that many doctors will use the word curable when describing it.

It is now October and while my mother is still trying to regain the use of her legs, and is still going through some other health issues, HER CANCER IS IN COMPLETE REMISSION AND SHE HAS HOPE OF REGAINING SOME USE OF HER LEGS!!!! God is good and even in a tough situation, he drew us closer to him! I went back to Sumner after she began chemotherapy and it was SO DIFFICULT! My father was completely alone back in Oskaloosa. He was travelling with her to her appointments and bearing much of the weight of this on his own. It was while I was at Red Rock that God began to speak to me about having something different he wanted me to do.

To be honest, at first I thought he was calling me to move further away from my family. Maybe he wanted me to move to the cities where I had alot of friends and there were more opportunities for work and ministry. I continued to pray and I knew he wasnt calling me to the cities, but I knew he was calling me out of Sumner. Then my dad began to share with me how lonely he really was, how tough it really was for him to be alone with no family close by. I went back home for a few days after directing a camp at the end of the summer. It was then, as I was visiting my father, that God made it clear to me. What he was asking me to do, what he was calling me to do, was to move back home to Oskaloosa. He would provide a job for me, not one that would pay much, but I would get by until he was ready to provide more. He would provide a home for me, not in ways I would understand, but he would and I had to just trust him.

The part that was hard was understanding why he had called me to Sumner in the first place, just to call me back home a year later. I wasnt sure I was ready to listen, until my health began to decline. At this point, my doctors highly encouraged that I move back home while they got it back on track. My thyroid was severely out of whack, my blood sugars were too high, my blood presssure was too high, bottom line, I needed to get my medicines under control and I needed to be close to my doctors. I also needed to be closer to my family. I needed to help my father and I needed his help as I went through some of this medical stuff as well.

SO.....I put it in Gods hands, I made the choice, and I moved! It happened VERY FAST! I was offered a job, the DAY I applied! Not much pay,but enough to make ends meet for the first few months I was here until I got on my feet and could find something else. God then provided a place to live....well, let me back up. First, I tried to do it on my own. I got mixed up into A VERY BAD apartment situation, I lost money on the deal and was VERY UNSAFE, BUT God protected me through it all and then unfolded his plan.

You see, my dad, was ready to move to a house, he was getting tired of his apartment, and while we know that it is not hopeful that my mother will move back home, if we got her to a nursing home in Oskaloosa, she COULD come visit if we lived in the right place. Living in his apartment, he would not have the hope of her visiting him there. He also didnt have a yard or a place he could sit outside and enjoy the weather. He felt cooped up. My moving back, gave us both a chance to find a place together. So we found a perfect little house. and now we are there together. He has someone so he doesnt have to be alone and I can care for him the way he needs. And I have someone to talk to as well. My dad was beginning to have some of his own health issues as well. This was God ordained, even though it was difficult to see at the time.

My health, after 2 months of VERY CRAPPY STUFF, has finally started to show improvement! my blood pressure and blood sugars have evened out! I have lost about 40 pounds and am on my way to loosing alot more :) and my hormones are evening out as well! This part takes a little bit more time than the rest of the stuff unfortunetly :( But at least improvments are on their way!

I have been sitting here thinking for the past few months that I dont really understand God. I try so hard to understand, to "get it", to "wrap my brain around it", but I just plain cant do it. and then a comment that I said to my small group girls at camp comes to my mind, "I dont want to serve a God that I can wrap my head around, he just wouldnt be big enough then". Somehow I think saying that and believing and living it, are 2 VERY DIFFERENT THINGS :)

October is a month of reflection for me, my bestfriend Meggans sister and her boyfriend were killed in a car accident in October, they were so young and understanding it is just very difficult and I dont know that we are meant to. My bestfriend Shannon, who is more like a sister to me, would have 5 year old twins right now had she not lost them before they even had a chance to enter the world. Its in October that I moved to Sumner and left my family for the first time in my life, and went through some very difficult trials COMPLETELY ALONE. And just this week, my bestfriend Shannon had a friend who lost a baby boy that was just 4 months old. I didnt know her personally, but I still am speechless while trying to understand what she is going through.

I would be lying if I told you that I handle all of this with joy, strength, grace, and understanding toward God, because, I DONT! I look around and am jealous of my friends on facebook who are my age, they are married and have met the love of their life, and here I am 29 years old and still completely alone. They have children, and with all of my health problems, one very difficult statement the doctors have made is that I may never be able to have children of my own. I LOVE children and have dreamed of being a mom for YEARS of my life, and while I am SO HAPPY for my friends, I dont understand why God doesnt think Im worthy of these things and bless me with them as well. I question alot how God can allow people who have dedicated their lives to his service to suffer from cancer like my mother, who has been THE MOST AMAZING WOMAN I have EVER KNOWN in my life. Why does he allow children to suffer with illness and pain and die? Why does he allow parents to go through the pain of loosing a baby? Why do I have to have all these health problems in my life and feel like I cant be myself anymore?

I have had alot of these questions lately. I am such a bubbly and outgoing person, but October, it takes that away from me. I want to spend time with my friends, I want to live like a 2o something, instead of worrying about my health issues all the time. I want to have a job that pays me what I should be making after working my butt off to get a BA, instead of struggling to make ends meet every paycheck. I want to be happy. I want my friends not to feel the pain of the things that they have had to go through!

But you know what, my friend Shannon said some amazing things in her senior chapel after loosing her babies, she allowed God to use her pain to bring people closer to him. Her notes from that chapel are STILL BEING USED in sermons today because out of that pain, she allowed God to make her a stronger woman! Meggan and her family now host a walk every year in honor of her sister. Meggans mother has started an organization to bring the light of Christ to people through a tragic situation. A mother who lost her baby shared that even for only the 4 months, she would have still done it all again just for the joy of knowing him.

You see, its AMAZING, our God loves us so much that he takes the time and cares so much about our well being, that he literally puts trials in our lives sometimes, just so that we can be closer to him. HE LONGS for us to know him more, he desires our souls, our hearts, our lives! He WANTS US! He pursues us. As I reflect lately, I realize that all these trials, all this "stuff", has made me draw closer to God! The questions, they make me seek answers and as I seek those answers, I learn more about the God that loves me unconditionally.

I am THANKFUL this October. Thankful for my mom being in remission of cancer! Thankful that I have the ability and chance to spend these days with my father and that I am able to help him and care for him! Thankful for the friends that I have in my life. Thankful that I know that if we can make it through the pain of the valley, the beauty of the mountain is a gift that we can not even begin to imagine!!! God has a plan and I get to take it step by step as he leads me. Right now those steps were, move back home, work at a daycare, move in with your father, take care of your father, cherish the moments you have with your family, cherish your friendships, QUIT SELLING YOURSELF SHORT and see HOW AMAZING YOU ARE, because youre a creation of Christ!!!

I am going to allow myself to be a new creation in Christ and be used of him daily. Through the good and the bad, HE IS THE SAME GOD, yesterday, today, and FOREVER! And he is the God I am committed to serving, and knowing more and more each day.