Lessons Learned :: Providence

So I'm on a roll this week with all of my posts and am trying to crank out these Lessons one by one. Since our little 'ol blog has been picture heavy for a few days, we're gonna be more wordy this time. I've been thinking a lot lately about the will of God, sovereignty of God, providence of God...you get the picture. And while I touched on it here a while ago, I am still taking it in on pretty much a daily basis.

I shared here briefly that my brother, Kevin, was really sick recently. Really, really sick. He presented to the ER in the wee hours of the morning with abdominal pain. His blood tests and CT showed no real signs of appendicitis but since nothing else was blatantly obvious, the surgeon performed a lap appy. It was non-eventful so they tell us and Kev went home later that night.

But things turn bad the next afternoon and he was back in the ER very sick and in tremendous pain. The doctors at this hospital were very flippant with his care...no antibiotics and no real concern that anything could be wrong. He was admitted though with a 103 temperature that just wouldn't come down. Again, no antibiotics pre-op, during surgery, or post-op. And even now, none. They did a CT the next day, didn't see much but he was still in horrible pain and had a high fever and uncontrolled vomiting. Fast forward a few days, still in the hospital and feeling a tad better. So what do they do? Another CT? Nope. They send him home.

At home, things go from bad to worse again. So, new hospital. New doctor. New experience as they soon figure out that poor Kev has two large abscesses in his abdomen. Sweet man. IV antibiotics are given now, big ones. With the aid of x-ray, they are able to drain one and were fulling expecting it to be infection. But it was blood. Lots of it. So he had that drain for a couple days. Still high fever. White blood cell count through the roof and climbing. Still sick to his stomach and at this point, had not eaten in a week. Another CT. The other abscess that they weren't able to reach before has doubled in size in two days. So they have to go in through his backside, think below his hip through his glutes and put a drain in there that's the size of a crayola marker down through there to his abdomen. This one? Infection. Within 12 hours, his white cell count is half of what it was the day before. Fever diminishing. Just very, very weak and 20lbs lighter than he was a week ago. My very tall, broad shouldered little brother was so pale and weak and exhausted...but praise God, after nearly 2 weeks, he was on the mend.

We had many scary moments during this ordeal. We begged God for answers...wisdom for those caring for Kevin. For understanding and patience for his wife. For healing. And our God did what only He can do. We are so grateful and humbled. And yet, we wonder why this happened? Of course there was a reason. Other people go through much, much worse. Wives lose their husbands, mamas bury their babies, sisters die of cancer every single day. So I'm not trying to say that Kev's illness compares to these. I have perspective about this. It wasn't these things...but there were several times that we wondered if this was going to take him. It's a very eery thing to watch someone you love diminish before your eyes.

We may never know why. Maybe Kev's gentle spirit was a testimony of Christ in the hospital. His new surgeon just really took to him. They sat for long periods of time just talking life and baseball. The nurses all commented on how he was just the nicest man...such a good patient. Maybe it was so he and Deanna would trust Him more, so their faith would be strengthened.

Whatever the reason, we know that God intends good for His people. We know that He not only intends it, but he causes it in all things.

"For we know God causes all things to work together for good to those

who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."

Romans 8:28

We are the called out ones. Kev has been called by God unto salvation. So in his life, all things work together for his good. We are called to Him according to His purpose and so we can trust that His purposes for us are always good. They may hurt. But they are good. Only our God could do that. Only He could take something like Kevin went through and make it good. And not just good for Kevin...but good for others too. How great He is.

I'm still praying and pondering things in our life that I know God intends good for. Our choices about family and finances. Our decision to adopt again and when. How to best serve Him with the resources and time He has given us. And while I don't know the answers for so much of that yet, He has proven Himself faithful and trustworthy to bring good. That's something I could stand to repeat to myself over and over. For today though, lesson learned :: providence.

Lessons Learned :: Thanksgiving

So I'm learning a lot from both the Lord and my son this week. Especially during prayer time. I've mentioned here briefly that my littlest brother, Kevin, was seriously ill a few weeks back. I've got a whole Lessons Learned post that I need to do on that ordeal but haven't got it ready. It was rough for his wife, my parents and siblings to watch him suffer as he did. It also took a real toll on our kids, especially Joel.

To say that the Thai Tornado loves his uncles, is a major understatement. He absolutely adores them. He doesn't know Jason's brother, Brent, quite as well. Still, he does so great with him and is always excited to be with him. Keith and Kevin? My brothers? Forget about it. He's plumb dumb nuts over them. And he took it really hard when Kev was sick. He saw him at the hospital once and it really affected him. So he began to pray daily for Kevin to be better. At meal times, bedtime and anytime...he prayed for Kevin.

His prayers as of late have turned to thanksgiving. Kevin has been on the mend for a couple weeks and is doing sooo much better. Still not 100%, but more or less back to his old self again. So Joel's first line to every single prayer these days is, "Thank you for my K-bo be better." Here are a few recent ones ::

"Thank you for my K-bo be better. I 'wuv' K-bo. I be tall like my K-bo one day. Thank you for my Keith. Amen."

"Thank you for my K-bo be better. Thank you for my Keith and my Pops build our house. Thank you for my Honey who pops my toes. Amen."

"Thank you for my K-bo be better. Thank you for Riley Jack come to my house tomorrow. Thank you for my Nana and Dandaddy come to my house tomorrow. Little boy hit me Chick-fil-A. That no nice. Thank you hit no more. Amen."

So as you might have guessed, a little boy hit Joel at Chick-fil-A tonight. We were there with Veldon and Tara and our boys were playing on the indoor playground with Sydney and several kids we didn't know. Evidently, Joel got hit in the face. Who knows if he deserved it or if it was even an accident. But Syd corroborated the story that Joel hadn't done anything nor did he retaliate. Which is great news since sometimes he can have a quick temper. And while praying before bed. Joel prayed for the little boy who hit him tonight...or maybe he was complaining to God or even tattling on him! lol. Either way, he knew that he could use that time during prayer to bring it up. I'm sure there is a lesson in there somewhere.

We all have people who hurt us or are mean to us. We've all hurt others and been mean to others. It's who we are. People, plain and simple. But our God listens to our prayers when we come before Him and bear all. Whether we're the victim or the perpetrator of the hurt, He stands ready to answer and hear and love us. It's a joy to see Joel respond in this way. Even if his motives weren't clear. His English is still so broken, it's hard to tell what he really meant by his prayer. But I'm grateful that he knew that prayer was the right thing to do. And that his prayers are full of thanksgiving. Even for things that have passed. Kevin is well. Yet Joel still says thank you to God every single day. Sometimes I'm guilty of forgetting to continue to say thank you to God for the great things Has has done in our lives, especially things that are long passed. But Joel is doing his best to remind me. Thankfulness in prayer...lesson learned.

"The one who offers thanksgiving as his sacrifice glorifies me;

to one who orders his way rightly I will show the salvation of God!"

Psalm 50:23

Lessons Learned :: Humility

So I'm gonna piggy back on yesterday's post about Kennedy and Romans and how I am a crummy person who blows it often...even though going back to read through it again made it seem like I was tooting our horn about teaching our kids about Godly living. I wasn't. I promise. It's an expectation from God's Word. A holy mandate. Not something to do or not to do. I wonder if it came across that way to y'all. My whole point is that we have little to toot our horns or anything else about. I'm ugly. Ugly, ugly down deep. I'm just being honest. And it scares me to death to put it out there. To admit it. But really, you already knew, didn't you? I mean surely, at least sometimes, you're ugly too.

This ugliness, depravity, self promotion and self preservation surfaces at the most unexpected times. Take a few days ago as an example, I had gone to a consignment sale at our church {I found Joel the cutest pirate outfit! Adorable. And some stuff for the girls too!} with Tara and we are in line checking out. I realize that I have no cash. At all. But whew. They take a check. So I write the check and the nice lady looks at it and goes, "OMGosh. You're Kam *^*%&^*(." I'm kinda taken aback. This has never happened to me before where someone recognizes my name.

"Yep, that's me. Do I know you?"

"No, but I want you to take my kids pictures!"

Turns out, she's a good friend of a friend of mine. A fellow adoptive mama with a pretty incredible story of God's provision. She says she wants to have coffee and chat. Love it.

But can I be honest? For a split second, my head kinda grew a bit. And then about 2.7 seconds later, when she began to tell me why she knew of me and how the Lord had provided for their adoptions in a way that only He can do...I stood there so humbled. But worse than that, convicted. Really, really convicted. I had let my desire for glory overshadow and supersede my desire for Him to receive glory.

Yuck.

That is ugly. Just plumb dumb ugly.

It's not that this happens all the time. But even once is too much. Once breaks my heart. It's more than once...but this has only happened this time. And I know that we all do this in some way or another. We want our way above His or we want to take credit for something that He enabled or led or provided the means for us to accomplish. Something that in and of ourselves, we would have failed miserably doing. But we still take it. We take the accolades or glory for ourselves.

Again, to steal Joel's word, eeewww.

The thing is, I love photography. But I'm still so green at it. I have so far to go and so much to learn. And I truly believe, He gave me this love for it and any ability I have is meant only to honor Him and encourage others. So for me to have this moment of conceit is heartbreaking to me. I hope it never shows its ugly head again. Because I know me. I know how many bad pictures I take compared to how many good ones there may be. I know that arrogance is the opposite of humility and Jesus is the embodiment of humility. I have been teaching through Philippians this summer with our 7-8th grade girls in Sunday School. It's been so fun. Diving into that book is just such a joy. Last week, we dissected Philippians 2:3.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves.

We learned that the definition of conceit...is empty glory. Wow. Did you catch that? Man, they hit that on the head. Any glory, for anyone other than Jesus, is EMPTY. And y'all, this thing came out of nowhere. It's not like I walk around thinking that I'm a good photographer. I am cautious to use the term at all in conjunction with myself because there are real photographers out there. And I'm not kidding myself, I'm not one of them. It was just the moment of acceptance that I was attracted to and ultimately fell prey to. It's not that I think I'm good...it's that someone else did. Now how sad is that? In that moment, my self worth was wrapped up in a complete stranger wanting me to take pictures for her. How sad.

Like I said, it came out of nowhere...this realization that I was esteeming myself high because someone else validated me. I hadn't considered it before. I knew I had a need for acceptance...but not necessarily in this way. It was buried deep in that ugly, nasty part of me that I never want anyone to know about. So I repented and am asking the Lord to clean my heart up. Because if this was there and surfaced so unexpectedly and quickly, there's a bunch more yuck down in there to be dealt with.

He is beautiful and worthy, I am wretched and ugly in and of myself. But praise God! We don't stay that way. Oh, how sweet the Holy Spirit to convict us. Like Kennedy, I'm still in training and have a long way to go! To God be the glory, great things He has done.

Lessons Learned :: Romans

So I've been a bad blogger. Does it make up for things if I've, in turn, been a better mama? ha! I can't say that the absence of blogging has improved my parenting skills...but I do know that it's just had to take a back seat. Even though there are several posts I've been wanting to put down. Starting with this one. I was telling Tara the other day that I really feel like God has been re-teaching me some old truths as of late. Maybe re-teaching is the wrong word. Reminding might be a better choice. These aren't anything new to most of you. I'm sure we all deal with the same stuff, don't we? But like I was telling her, I want my kids to remember these things or at least read one day how the Lord brought them to light in my life.

So I hope to, over the next several days, share some of these things for my kids and whoever of you still reads my ramblings...welcome to Lessons Learned.

Over the last 3+ years of blogging, I've shared many of my own personal failures in parenting. I'm the first to admit, I blow it. Often. Jase and I don't always make the right decisions where our children are concerned and hopefully we don't come across like we've got it all figured out. We surely don't, y'all. But one thing we have committed to is teaching our children the Word of God ourselves as well as intentionally placing them in environments where they will be taught by others who follow Jesus. It's so important to us that our kids grow up to know the truth of who God is and have a high view of Him...all the while maintaining a low view of themselves.

I've blogged about something similar before here. But recently, Kennedy came into our bedroom to chat while Jase and I were just watching TV. I honestly can't remember how the conversation got around to Romans. But Kennedy was talking about her previous school {2nd and 3rd grade} and how each week in chapel for TWO YEARS they were taught from Romans 2 and 3. {Can you hear her saying TWO YEARS!?!} She still recounts how she thought they would never finish chapter 3! lol! But let me say, Kennedy learned more in those two years about herself and about God than ever before. While we were laying there on the bed, chatting with our oldest, she was actually complaining about how they shouldn't have been teaching young kids about the sinfulness of man. "We were just little kids! We hadn't even done anything really bad yet!" It was almost comical. But it turned into a beautiful time with her dad explaining to her how important it is for her to have a right view of herself and a high view of God. That she is sinful to her core. Depraved from birth. Inheriting a sin nature from Adam. Of course, we know that the Holy Spirit awakened her to the greatness of God and she repented of her sinfulness several years ago. But up till that point, she was dead in trespasses and sins. Unable to come to God. Unable to see herself as she really was. And more importantly, to see Him as he truly is.

It may seem strange to many of you. It may even sound like the wrong thing to do. Or seemingly be to the detriment of her self image. Again, as I've said before, none of that matters to us. What does matter is that our children will grow into adults who are more apt to see the beauty and glory of Christ, the savior of the world, if...and only if, they see the smallness of themselves.

We have a long way to go. Kennedy isn't ready to go out into this big world and stand on her own two feet in her faith. She's in training! We all are until He calls us home. And this conversation was a reminder to us that even as Christians, our natural inclination is to raise ourselves higher and not take sin so seriously. That will always be to our detriment. For today :: Lesson Learned.