Mama's Journey

Today I went with Mama to her family doctor. She had been complaining of being sick at her stomach and feeling like she needed to vomit since Friday night. I saw her yesterday and she looked fine, ate lunch and was ok. Today she called his office and asked to be seen. Though she told him about the nausea that was not her main reason for being there. She wanted to know how far up in her lungs the scarring was.

He told her the truth. It is all through out her lungs not just the bottom. 

Her 02 sat was 90 when they checked it. I told him we had increased it to 3L a week ago cause the says stayed in the 80s. He said to increase as we needed to to keep it in the 90's. That made me feel better.

He basically told her the nausea is anxiety related. I knew she was anxious, but not because her levels were low.

No. Her anxiety is because she can't do what she thinks she needs to without giving completly out.

This is so hard. 

Having to watch her try to understand what is happening to her body is breaking my heart! She has always taken care of everybody. She has been taking care of Daddy (although her idea to care for him is to wait on him hand and foot). She does not want to be the one taken care of. 

So how do I help her?

I need wisdom, lots of wisdom. And patience. This is her journey. And I need to let her make the decisions as long as she can. My job is to make sure she understands all the information and is not overwhelmed with too many choices. What is best for her and Daddy may not be what I would choose for myself or Roger. I have to keep reminding my self of that.

It Takes My Breath Away

No, I am not going to discuss anything spectacular or wonderful that you might think from my title.

No. I am talking about PULMONARY FIBROSIS. This illness has come to my family. And it does take your breath away, literally.

Definition:

Pulmonary Fibrosis

Pulmonary fibrosis is a disease marked by scarring in the lungs. Tissue deep in the lungs becomes thick, stiff and scarred. The scarring is called fibrosis. As the lung tissue becomes scarred, it interferes with a person's ability to breathe.

Sounds like fun huh! NOT! 

My Mama was told sometime last year that she has this. Just a pesky irritating dry cough that would not go away was all she complained of. Now she has to have oxygen to help her breath and she can't walk far even with the oxygen without getting short of breath. And she is my Daddy's caregiver!

They don't know what caused it. She has never smoked. Never been around cigarette smoke much.

It is breaking my heart to watch! I am a nurse. I should be able to help and I am trying. But how? I will not be able to make her lungs better. Only God can do that and I pray He does.

So I pray for also for wisdom, sound judgement, and the ability to care for the parents who cared for me. And to be the wife Roger needs in the midst of this leg of the journey.

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength!

The Power of Choice

I am packing today for my trip back to Alabama. It is time to begin furlough. Roger is not coming with me. For at least another month, he will stay in Haiti.


So many thoughts are running through my mind today. I am especially remembering the years I prayed about coming to the mission field in general, not specifically about Haiti.


I prayed for God to change things that I thought should and would have to change in order for me to live in another country. Those things did not change. And now I have been out of the U.S. more than in it since 2011. And I don't expect those things to ever be different.


I daily deal with complete surrender to God and His will. I guess I always will  until He returns. My flesh screams to be let alone and to do what it wants. And I scream back, not my will but His be done


The enemies assaults have not only been through the people or the culture or the extreme heat,  though they have been used. No, the enemy just let me be myself. And my thoughts have run rampant. That appears to have been the most effective.


I don't know what I was or am supposed to do as a missionary. I am a nurse, but I have come to hate nursing. I used to love going to church, but although I go, I don't get the same comfort and satisfaction from it as before. I have pulled back as much as I can and let Roger be the missionary. I am just his wife.


 I see others here give so much of their time and resources to the Haitian people and I feel selfish and stingy because I don't do as they do. Nor do I want to.


I just reread the above. Not a pretty picture of myself.


But in my time here I learned a few very important things.


God is forgiving. I acknowledge my wrong attitudes and sin before Him and I know I am forgiven.


I am not the salvation of ANYONE! Only Jesus is the savior! God gave each of us free choice. He will not make anyone, including myself choose to do right.


God is in complete control! The church world has made the statement (I have made it myself)  that  God only gives us good things, bad things come from the enemy. Unfortunately scripture tells us something else.


Isaiah 45:6,7  (HCSB)

6) so that all may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is no one but Me. I am Yahweh, and there is no other. 7) I form light and create darkness, I make success and create disaster;

I, Yahweh, do all these things.

Deuteronomy 28 is a passage quoted regarding the blessings God promised His people for their obedience, yet that same chapter devotes more words to the curses God will bring for disobedience.


Jeremiah is the fulfillment of those curses of destruction that God brought on Israel through the Babylonians.


And Jeremiah 29:11 is a wonderful promise that any one who has been a Christian for long has learned to quote. It is a wonderful promise. But we forget that it is given to a people whom God had  taken into captivity by an idolatrous nation. And they were there 70 years.


I could go on and on with scripture after scripture, Old and New Testament alike. That would be an entire Bible Study in and of itself.


My point however is, God and God alone controls everything, good and bad. But  the choices are still ours to make as to what we will do in the good and bad situations we find in our lives.


Obedience does not save me. But it shows my love for Him.


I can chose to have a bad attitude or surrender my attitude to Him.


I choose to surrender my attitude to Him. And regardless of what I feel (Whew another topic of study!) I choose to be obedient to what He instructs me to do. Even if I have to make the choice again every minute of the day.


And Lord, I ask for the love of God that Romans 5:5 declares has been poured into my heart through the Holy Spirit, to flow out of me like a river whether I am in Haiti, the U.S. or wherever you place me.