Daddy worked endlessly yesterday to finish putting up the pool- even to the point of near heat stroke! We are all so very appreciative...I am in Mommy heaven. Everyone but Jon swam all morning and then again in the afternoon and then again at night. It has been an unusually quiet evening!!! An answer to my prayers for sure...

Thank you to everyone who made this happen. I am so grateful.

A side note: You all are going to think I am crazy but... I applied for a PRN position at the hospital and had an interview today. It went really well. I am excited about the possibilty. Pray with me that it will be so totally obvious if this is what God wants. I have peace either way.

Today was a special day of blessing!!! This morning some new friends arrived with this back hoe to dig out part of the yard where we are going to put the new pool that Mamaw and Papa gave us. The kids, especially Joshua, loved being part of the action.

This is a huge blessing for me... my days have just gotten a litle easier as I can wear out the wild ones in the pool. Thank you God!!!!

Thank you Mr. Randy and Preacher for your hard work this morning. You were a blessing to us more than you will know. And your timing was just perfect. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

The waves are crashing upon my heart like a hurricane tonight. I can not think. I cannot feel anything but desperation. I just want to cry and beg for someone to rescue me, to rescue my children, to rescue my husband. I want to stop and start this whole life over.

I am so tired. The world won't stop spinning. My house is a mess. My kids are absolutely wild. My body can't keep up. The baby won't sleep and no one will be tired.

And the worse pain of it all is the regret, the inability to do all I want, all I know I am supposed to do. The pain of wanting to be loving and falling short. I want to have fun with my children. I want to teach them all the things of the Lord. I want to have a neat and orderly home full of peace and love. I want to reflect Christ... instead my heart crumbles, my mouth spews forth hurtful words, and I am quick to throw my hands up and succumb to all the emotions in my heart.

The words of Psalm 40:1-3 are my cry tonight. Lord, help me to wait patiently for you. I beg you to hear my cry tonight... rescue me and restore me. Take my mind from the slimy pit and help me to think on truth. Set me on the rock of truth so I can conquer these doubts and defeat in your strength. Jesus I beg you to rescue me... I am stuck. I am hurting. I need you.... I need you alone.

The last verse says God will put a new song in my mouth and a hymn of praise to my God. Then others will see and fear and they will trust God because of it. Oh, this is my prayer.

Friends, will you pray with me tonight... I need you all desperately. Please pray for God to rescue me... from these destructive depressing overwhelming thoughts. Pray for truth to reign in my heart. Pray for my mind to be refocused on Christ. Pray for God to grant rest and peace to my soul.

Please pray for my children to sleep tonight... this is the most spiritual prayer I can muster tonight. God I need sleep. Pray for this dizzyness and pressure in my head to stop... I can't function and it is so frustrating. Thank you for your prayers for me tonight.

Update on me...

The drs office called this morning ( an answer to our prayers for a fast appt.) and worked me in at 11am. The doctor I saw was incredible... she was gentle, soft spoken, incredibly patient minded. The kind of doctor that rarely exists anymore.

We looked at my scans together and she said I have a good looking brain... the spots are very small and are called "non specific" which means they are there and are from something but are not necessarily characteristic of any specific thing. She said they did not look like typical MS lesions. Thank you God for that one... more than likely it is migraines or could even be caused by the Celiac. At the end of my appt she reassured me that she was almost positive that I do not have MS. She is suspicious that I have some periphial ( Not sure of the spelling of that) nerve issues with my arms and hands. I am going to have nerve studies done in August.

So for now we know I am ok...I don't have an answer for why I feel so dizzy but at least the worst case scenarios have been ruled out. Maybe I just need a few more hours of sleep!!!
Thank you for your prayers!!!!

Watch Over Me by Aaron Shust

I was lonely
You came waltzing over to me
And Your eyes they saw right through me
And You heard each one of my cries for help
And You came to rescue me

I was broken
Every prayer that I had spoken
Reached Your ears and all my tears weren’t cried in vain
You carried all my pain
And put me back together again

You watch over me in the darkest valleys
You watch over me when the night seems long
You help me to see the way before me
You watch over me; You watch over me

Always faithful
To be leading, at this moment
Interceding for Your children
Though I’ve wandered astray from Your infinite ways
You’ve never left me alone -[to chorus]

Take my frozen heart; awaken me
Never once have You forsaken me

Even though I walk through this shadow of death
You will guide and defend me
You’ll guard and protect me
Even though I walk through this shadow of death
You will lead me home


As my new friend, Tina, reminded me we are never ALONE! What a good reminder today... when my heart is broken and aches over all the pain around me... not just mine or my family's but everywhere I look. If it wasn't for the knowledge that God truly was with us and is leading us home there would be no hope. Today my thankfulness is wrapped up in that single thought.

Today I got the results from my medical tests. They are not horrible and not great. My heart is in good shape... a slightly leaky valve but nothing to worry about. My neck shows some degeneration but nothing of great concern. My brain however is concerning. I have several lesions in my brain that are consistent with either vascular migraines or MS. Either one could cause many of my symptoms. The latter is most likely the cause... and explains so many of the symptoms I have had that I have not shared with anyone.

My doctor, who is also one of my good friends, has made me an appointment with a specialist who specializes in MS. She is one of the best in the country. My appt is not until Sept though. I am on the cancelization list though so please pray that an appointment opens up soon. I would like to figure out which one it is and get started on the right meds. I want to feel better.

Also, please pray for Jonathan and for wisdom. We are waiting for a spot to open up for an earlier MRI (his next scan is scheduled for July 16th). He is showing a lot of signs of tumor progression despite treatment. I have gone back and forth over whether we can wait until July to do the scan. I asked my doctor this morning her opinion and she agreed that there were a lot of changes for the worse...his head was tilted to the right the entire visit, he is so sleepy but doesn't know he is sleepy, and he keeps staring off. Yesterday he fell out of a chair at the dentist office because he was dozing off. I don't want to do the scan too early and not have an accurate result. I don't want to wait and lose any time that we need for treatment. Please pray. Thank you all for your love, prayers, and friendship.

A feeling has been nagging at my heart for a few days... there has been several symptoms that it would be easy to point at and say is the problem. But I know it is a surface issue... I know that deeper there is a heart issue that God wants to touch. This afternoon I visited a blog, http://especiallyheather.com, that seemed to bring the truth hiding inside to light. This blog is written by an incredibly commited and faithful follower of Christ who is battling a brain tumor. She is a mother and a wife and an incredible example. Reading her blog has blessed me in so many ways.. and kind of reminds me of me five years ago when the greatest storm in my life blew in. If you can, go read and be blessed!

Anyway, Heather posted about aloneness. As I read, I could hear God speak... he could not have been louder if he had audibly yelled. Heather's words gave life to my feelings... I feel alone. There are people all around me and I feel alone. Heather shared this quote,“As Christians, we are called to convert our loneliness into solitude. We are called to experience our aloneness not as a wound but as a gift–as God’s gift–so that in our aloneness we might discover how deeply we are loved by God.” ~ Henri Nouwen ~

So there is the problem: an incredible aloneness has descended upon our lives. Silence surrounds. I have tried to figure out how to explain this feeling- we have had several friends and special people who have reached out and ministered to us. God has provided. So to say we are alone feels so much like I am complaining. Please know I am not. What it is is an aloneness that no one can take away... God has allowed this. I know he longs for us to be filled up with him. The aloneness I have stems from a desire for someone to walk alongside this road with us, to live it with us, to intimately experience it and carry us through it. Someone to help hold up the arms that are falling down and strengthen the weak legs. Today I realized that although I think I am hungering for people I am truly hungering for God. For the first time in a long time, my heart has realized this truth and is longing for my Jesus. My heart ached for the intimacy that I have not shared with my Lord in so long.

Jesus wants to be my friend. He wants me to see that he is holding me, walking through this, hearing and seeing every fear, every circumstance, every tear. He knows the longings. He wants to be everything... I need him to be... I want him to be.

This is so huge for me.... If I can grasp this and let God break through and love me with his love deeper than anything I can imagine- I will be free. I will be able to love each of you in return. I will be able to give to those around me. I will be able to be real and authentic. I will be able to stop seeking others for what they can do for me and instead will be able to seek them for what I can give. This could be huge. Pray for this to sink in.

My husband and I were discussing the future the other day. The discussion turned to the real possibility that in the near future we could lose our child. Jonathan may not survive this. We may send our little boy home to the arms of Jesus. Shawn shared that the scariest thing about this was that this time as we face this possibility we don't have a church family and friends surround us with their support like we did when we first got the diagnosis. We were carried through one of the most difficult times of our lives by this family of believers. Life has changed and we are not so connected as we were then. It is scary to not know if we will face this alone...as I thought about this and begged God not to let it be like that... I was reminded how even Jesus faced death alone... no one could die for him or with him. He may have been alone- but he will not leave us alone. We can make it no matter what the circumstances.

This comparison of now and then also brought a reminder to me of a short devotion I read in Amy Charmichael's book "His thoughts said...His Father Said..." The devotion ended and said" Now, said the Father tenderly, thou shalt learn the lessen set to the weaned child. Thou shalt learn to do without. " That was God's answer for this season... we have done with and now we do without... and as a result we are being given a fuller understanding of the depth of the Father's love for us.

Thank you for your prayers for this morning. They were answered... they did not use contrast for any of the tests so I am able to feed my little one!!!! Now I am waiting for the results. I will update later. Got to get back to unpacking!

I have to run out the door but wanted to ask for your prayers today. I have all of my medical tests done this morning. Please pray that they will go smoothly and fast... I am more a fan of performing procedures rather than having them performed on me!!! Pray that I can get in and out of there and back to my children as fast as possible.

Please pray especially for Mya. This will be the first time she has had to take a bottle and not be nursing. Pray for her to take the bottle and to not react to the solid foods I have for her in case of emergency. This is the part that bothers me the most...affecting her. She has an ear infection in both ears and a pretty nasty cold so that won't help matters.

Thank you all for your prayers and sweet encouraging comments.

We are home!!! We arrived in our driveway at 5 am this morning. Thankfully everyone slept until around 10 so we got some sleep. I should rephrase that... I got some sleep.. Shawn hasn't been able to sleep... he is now finally asleep.

Thank you all for your prayers for us while we were gone. Things went pretty well. There were no trips to the emergency room!!!! I think that may be a first! Our allergies went wacko though and everyone had a fit with the pollen... so we are home with green eyes, snotty noses, croupy coughs, and lots of fun memories.

The kids really enjoyed going camping at Lone Duck. Josh especially enjoyed having so much freedom. He could run and play the entire day with little direct supervision. Camping made the time go by fast and before we knew it was time to leave.

We spent our last night with Shawn's parents having ice cream and freezing at the park (this picture is from the park. Mya went down her first slide). It was sad to leave... Jason cried forever. He even said ,"Look mom, you can get a job here.... they are hiring bus drivers!" as we passed by a bus with a hiring sign on it. That is desperation!!!

Tomorrow we are back to the daily ins and outs. Jon has chemo in the morning. His doctor is out of town so we will wait until next week to discuss the possibility of needing to do the scan earlier than we have scheduled. Right now it is still a month away... but he is tilting his head, his pain is worse, his speech is slurring more, and he is becoming more manic. He had a pretty rough week while we were gone.. throwing up and headaches.

Please pray that God will intervene... I can handle all of the other things... I just am having a hard time handling the manic behavior. Please pray for patience and godly love on my part. Well I am going to try and sleep now before the baby wakes up again. Good night my friends!

I have been hesitating to write and ask for your prayers for myself. I just didn't want to stir up an panic or worry... But tonight I need your prayers. I am having some funky things going on physically that are really just getting on my nerves- quite literally. My head has been really dizzy- I guess that's the way to describe it. Actually, it feels a little like someone has taken off the top of my skull and stuck their hand inside and is wiggling their fingers around inside my brain. That sounds a lot like a Jonathan explanation... he always has very descriptive ways of stating things. Its not really painful just annoying.

The part that is frustrating me is that it is really making it hard for me to handle noise... I am trying so hard to be patient and loving with my children. I have prayed so hard that God will make me into a loving patient mother who reflects Christ. But their voices are echoing off the inside of my head. I don't really know how to explain what is going on but its a little freaky and very frustrating. It is affecting my ability to do everything I need to do.

I have been to the Dr. We did lots of blood tests. My blood sugar keeps dropping really low so that's one of the things we are checking into. When I get back from Colorado I am going to go in and have an MRI of my brain and neck, another test to look at the vessels around my brain (since there is some history of strokes etc in my family) and an echo of my heart. All this sounds quite extensive and probably makes it sound worse then it is. I am fine... I just need to make sure there isn't something more than sleep deprivation going on. I have too many little ones who need me!!!

Mainly I am praying not just for the tests to be all normal but for God to just remove whatever it is that is causing me to feel this way. Please pray for me to be able to glorify God in my actions and love towards my children despite feeling like my head is going to explode. Also, please pray for Jonathan as well... his headaches seem worse. I am holding my breath until the next MRI... pray that if there is something concerning going on that God will reveal it to us in an obvious way.

Thank you friends for your faithful prayers and love.