Praise and a Lesson learned...

No deep spiritual insight today folks, just thanksgiving from one of God's children (albeit a crazy one)!

Mom got news today that her final pathology reports from both left and right side lymph nodes are clear and cancer free. Thank you, thank you, Jesus. She has an appointment Friday with the cancer center for the "what's the next step" part. Please continue in prayer for us all and praise the Lord with us for this good news. Keep praying over her health and the nodule in her right lung, for grace and patience as everything has a "wait" involved...pray that the next step will allow her some "normal" life stuff...the tough part right now is keeping her healthy in case she needs chemo/rad -- the baby is due for "live" virus vaccines (which our pediatrician is so great to tell us to wait and helping us make good decisions for the whole family) but this would keep him away from Grandma Barbie anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months depending on certain scenarios!!! Pray for God to already have this worked out, I know He makes a way for us...above all for God's will in our lives and His glory to shine.

ON the lesson side...(and the funny for today, although, I am still not laughing)
The heating element in the toaster oven is not, in fact, toast. I learned this lesson pre-coffee this morning as I reached into the back of the blessed toaster oven for that last 5th piece of toast way in the back. Dear Lord in heaven...and the best part is that it still burns and Ollie keeps grabbing the band aid that I put on it...so that was today's public service announcement, lest any of you get confused!

This was just funny...

So, amid all the stormy days and stormy moments...I can always find humor or something will happen to me that really just makes me belly laugh because it could only happen to me.

So, here's the funny. We were unpacking a week's worth of suitcases (ugh - the laundry is still not all done) and birthday presents and Easter candy and toys and yadda, yadda, yadda...and the kids had exhibited some good behavior (though it was fleeting), so I decided it was time to reward them with some Easter chocolate after snack time. So, I let Emma Grace choose and she picked the Jameson's candy company (from the town of my birth, New Castle, Pa - I was also born at Jameson Hospital there) that my Aunt Kim and Uncle Bob had left for us on a previous trip through Rock Hill to see Momma (Aunt "Kimmy" as moms calls her is mom's only baby sister out of a family of 6 kids). So, we open it and these bunnies are SOLID milk chocolate - SOLID - did I say SOLID? I had to cut into this bad boy with a knife. So, we indulge and have chocolate everywhere - even Ollie is drooling into this rare indulgence...and Emma Grace pipes up while we are finishing our chocolate euphoria..."Mommy, you can tell Grandma Barb that Aunt Kim can come every Easter and bring us bunnies." And I had to smile and agree. ;) The Easter bunny has nothing on Aunt Kim~

Continue in prayer...

We have had no news since mom's surgery on Monday. Pray that maybe, just maybe we'll get the final pathology reports today before the weekend - this kind of stuff held over for these long waits just sucks out loud. Yeah, that's what I said...I will be honest in this. Pray for continued peace and calm from the Lord. Pray that God himself stands between us and Satan, so that the devil is not allowed a foothold in any part of this. Pray that God's glory be found to shine in us and though us. Pray for God's will. Pray for mom's continued healing; for the nodule in her right lung to be nothing or cease to be at all.

Psalm 3 - 3 But you, O Lord, are a shield around me;
you are my glory, the one who holds my head high.
4 I cried out to the Lord,
and he answered me from his holy mountain.

Mom is home...

She did come home Tuesday morning after lighting a fire under every nurse on her floor (probably). The docs said she did great. I was still in my PJs running around her house like a chicken with my head cut off trying to clean and put away and pack and answer phones...but I was so grateful! We all had some McD's for lunch and very soon after I was "ready" to go, momma sent us on down the highway. We made good time until we hit ATL at rush hour and someone missed the 285 perimeter exit and we got a grand tour of downtown - but EG loved the bridges and trains (MARTA) everywhere - and we watched Curious George for the third time - so it all worked out!

God has lavished his love on us all and I thank you all for your prayers. Keep praying - pray for mom's recovery (that she will behave - yeah, I said that!), for clear pathologies that don't require chemo, for the nodule in her right lung to be nothing and cease to be, for grace and strength that only God can provide, but as always...for His will to be done and His glory to rise above all earthly things.

Thank you, thank you, Jesus.

Mom is coming home today...

probably at this moment. The doctors are impressed with her healing so far --- and I am too --- but I know WHO did that! They should be home soon - I'm packing and planning and trying to clean and then we'll head back to Georgia today, probably. Keep praying and thank for your support and love so far. Pray for her recovery, for final pathology reports to be clear and chemo not be necessary, for the nodule in her right lung to be nothing - for above all else, God's Will be done and His glory proclaimed.

Thank you, thank you, Jesus.

God is so gracious...

yet today seemed to last forever...

We left the hospital at rush hour and came home to get our kiddos. But, the mastectomies went well and the preliminary reports are good for the lymph nodes and clear from cancer. We have official final pathology reports in 3-5 days. Momma and daddy will be at the hospital tonight and will see what the doctor says in the morning. Best case, she comes home tomorrow - worst case, she doesn't. It's one day, one mountain at a time. But, I could see the pain, yet relief and momma and daddy's eyes as they were back together tonight in the hospital room.

Keep us in your prayers - I felt them all day long and thank you so much. Pray God's will and comfort over us, for clear pathologies, for the nodule in her right lung to be nothing, for her recovery and pain.

Please pray for us today...

This morning at 10:55 am, my mom will be having two bilateral mastectomies. We have felt calm and peace from God already. But pray that the mastectomies will allow the two types of breast cancer to be eliminated from her body, that a nodule in her right lung would be nothing, and that her lymph nodes will be clear. Please pray for all the medical personnel involved...God is the Great Physician...He is Jehovah Rapha...our healer...He is Jehovah Jireh...our provider...we seek His will and hope to bring Him glory through all of this.

Romans 8: 31-39 (NLT) says,

Nothing Can Separate Us from God’s Love

31 What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? 32 Since he did not spare even his own Son but gave him up for us all, won’t he also give us everything else? 33 Who dares accuse us whom God has chosen for his own? No one—for God himself has given us right standing with himself. 34 Who then will condemn us? No one—for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honor at God’s right hand, pleading for us.

35 Can anything ever separate us from Christ’s love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted, or hungry, or destitute, or in danger, or threatened with death? 36 (As the Scriptures say, “For your sake we are killed every day; we are being slaughtered like sheep.”) 37 No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, who loved us.

38 And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love. 39 No power in the sky above or in the earth below—indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.