As many of my longtime friends and readers know, I have dealt with chronic vertigo for 8 1/2 years. It comes and goes, but the past 2 years it has gotten to be more persistent and lasting longer per “episode”. I really had learned to live with it, and have adjusted my life to incorporate it into my life. Well, through a series of events that actually began 3 1/2 years ago, one of my best friends from high school and I have gotten back in touch with one another and when our oldest daughter R hurt her back in May he took on a new role in the life of our family. He became our chiropractor. I have been taking R to Dr. M through the entire summer, and he has asked me at every appt how I’m feeling, etc. Well, about 3 weeks ago, he and I were chatting on facebook and I mentioned that my vertigo had been going on for about 3 weeks and that I was also having problems with my neck and that I felt like I was falling apart. I asked if he thought he could help me and he said he’d like to try, so I made an appt for the next week when R was going in again. He adjusted my upper back and neck and within 4 hours I was completely symptom free! I am praising God for the healing that has come through the hands of one of His people. I have been(mostly) symptom free for nearly 3 weeks now and am feeling great! I say mostly because this morning during the music portion of our worship service, the music was very loud, and I started feeling dizzy. I’m going to try to get an appointment with my family practitioner to have my ears checked and see if there might be a reason why when the loud music was going I was dizzy, but once the service was done, I was fine. But I am so excited to be feeling so great after so many years of dealing with this 
Archives for Family category
Well, so far this year, we’ve attended 1 college graduation party and had many of our young friends graduate from college this year, we’ve got a weekend filled with high school graduation festivities with many of our friends’ children (and some of our children’s friends) graduating from high school, and it goes all the way down to a precious friend who’s daughter just graduated from Kindergarten yesterday……. Many new stages of life for these young people, and many activities to attend…..busy busy busy! And it has me thinking about needing to do some brainstorming for the planning of R’s high school graduation in a couple of years. We aren’t part of a school group, so we will do our own graduation (hopefully with other independant homeschooling families). I am looking forward to the planning of this! :) I want it to be a very special day for our girl full of blessings and surprises 
This “graduation season” is the beginning of a very busy summer! We have a week off now before the kids are involved in our church’s music camp (it is a VBS that also involves learning and performing a musical at the end of the 2 weeks)….the two younger girls will be participating, and the two teenagers are leading small groups, and Momma gets 40 hours of quiet!!!! 10 days and 4 hours per day…..QUIET BLISS!!!! I do look forward to this two weeks each year :) The day that music camp ends (the last day of their performances) R & H leave to go to Awana Scholarship camp for a week, and then everyone is home for a week before M leaves for his Jr. High Houseboat Camp. Then the day after he gets home from Houseboat Camp R leaves for her 2+ week missions trip to Fiji. We have a week off when she returns and then we start school, and D and I go with our high school group to their annual beach retreat to cook for them ( we have another couple that cooks with us). VERY busy summer! Will FLY by! 
At least we will get a weekend at the beach in there….REALLY looking forward to that! And hoping to plan another beach weekend for just D and I at some point during the summer/fall. We could really use a retreat weekend!
Yesterday I came to the realization that a very negative attitude has festered in my heart. I came to this realization when I had to apologize to a friend for the 2nd time in the past week. What really stinks about this is that this friend is a Godly man that I have a lot of respect for, and I have just been really trampling all over him lately (no this isn’t my husband, but I’ve been doing the same thing to him ) and the whole reason is because I have allowed those old voices those old negative thoughts and attitudes about everything, EVERYTHING get rooted in my heart again! During the night I had a dream, I don’t remember exactly what it was, but I know that it had to do with those icky things being rooted in my heart…..I knew that it was a dream from my Father that loves me more than I will ever deserve and wants me to be my very best with Him reigning every area of my life!
This morning I woke up with a part of a verse running through my head and my heart so I went to my favorite online bible resource and found that they have a verse of the day……
“I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear … Read Morefrom their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”- Revelation 21: 2-4
My heart’s desire for my life and the lives of our family is that we would all be as a bride beautifully dressed for her bridegroom…..that we’d all be clothed with righteousness. And that the dwelling of God would be in my heart and radiated through my mouth, attitudes, thoughts, desires, goals and dreams. Thank you Lord for the healing that I know is ultimately coming!!! And for giving me this verse today!
So after I found that verse (and did a facebook status update thing on it, then went and spent some time in the kitchen), I did the search for the verse I was looking for…..the portion that I was meditating on was “take every thought captive” so I did a search on those words because I couldn’t remember the reference or the rest of the verse. Well, when the verse came up I did what I usually do and clicked on the “verse in context” link so that it will give me the verses around it to put it into context….. this is what I got!
1By the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I appeal to you—I, Paul, who am “timid” when face to face with you, but “bold” when away! 2I beg you that when I come I may not have to be as bold as I expect to be toward some people who think that we live by the standards of this world. 3For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. 6And we will be ready to punish every act of disobedience, once your obedience is complete. 2 Corinthians 10:1-6
It hit me right in the face that I’ve been waging war as the world does! By hurling my words (which haven’t been prayed over, they are just regurgitating from a heart that I have allowed the things of this world start to take root in again) and negative thoughts and attitudes, I have been justas the world is. So my prayer today, this week, and every day (I hope) from this day forward will be that I would wage war in the complete knowledge and guidance of God, and that I would be obedient to Christ and that I would take every thought (and attitude) captive! Lord begin anew this work in my heart!
Yesterday the love of my life and I celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary. I love my man! We were married at a relatively young age, and we have grown up together. We are TRULY happily married….we never fight (no that is NOT an exageration), I think that in our 19 years, I could count on one hand how many arguments we have had, and they’ve never been about anything that was truly important! We truly love spending time with one another. We are partners in every area of our lives….home, parenting, marriage, friendship, and ministry…..most often, if one of us is doing something to serve God or our church body, or the community, we both (or even our whole family) is doing it. I love my man!
Thought I’d share our wedding picture…..yes, it’s a polaroid, we eloped
Ok, I need some decorating help! Last year for Christmas my family bought a coffee house/bistro style print for me for our dining room. It was something that I REALLY wanted, and had been eyeing at Michaels for quite some time. So it was very exciting when I opened that gift on Christmas morning. I had some Christmas money and bought another similar print to be paired with it. Well, these two beautiful pieces of artwork just got hung over the weekend (yes, almost a year later!!!!). Well, now that they are hung, the wall looks a little off balance. I needs something else to be hung to the right of the whole arrangement…..this is where I need your help! What should I hang there?
These are the prints (sorry about the glare)…
And here are a couple of different views of that wall…..
Any ideas? Anyone? Anyone?
This afternoon after church my sister in love came to have lunch with us. She was here until about 2 pm. When she left, R went into M’s room to play video games with him, and the two “little girls” went into their room. We didn’t really know what they were doing until about 2 hours later when they both came out with an invitation to a concert. Here’s what the invitation said…. (I am leaving their whole names out and using the abbreviations that you all know …..and I’ll be typing it exactly as it was written ……guess we need to work on spelling more this year )
H and r’s consert!
When: tonight.
Time: after dinner.
Why: Just for fun!
What are we doing?: Are favorite things in the hole world sing and dance
So as soon as we were all done with dinner, they “set the stage” in the living room…..they set up folding chairs on one side of the living room, and their CD player and a “mic” (which was actually a flashlight rubberbanded to a music stand base) and put their costumes on. They came out and each sang a song by themselves, then H did a beautiful dance (she’s never taken any kind of dance lessons yet she showed us such grace and beautiful dance moves….may have to talk to Daddy about the possibility of ballet for this naturally talented 10 year old!), then r did a fun crazy little dance, then they sang 2 duets together. It was so sweet, so cute, and SO MUCH fun! They put so much hard work into all afternoon…..it was just precious! I’d love to see them do this again!
Do/did your kids do this too?
Last night D and I took our 3 girls (as well as 7 others….friends and family) to a Natalie Grant concert that was happening in our area. Well, the very cool thing about this concert is that the group that opened for them was a local group, and the promoter arranged for a community children’s choir to sing with this local band for a few songs. So, for the past 4 weeks, every Sunday evening, I have been taking H and r to the rehearsals, and they have learned the lyrics (well, they already knew the songs) and choreography to sing 3 songs to open for Natalie Grant at this concert. They have had so much fun, and they did such an awesome job! But they also got to attend their very first concert! AND it was with one of their favorite singers!!!!! These kids did such an amazing job, it was hard to believe that they have only rehearsed this for a total of 5 hours!!!! And I was so excited for such an amazing opportunity…..I only wish they had allowed older kids/teens to be involved so that R could have done it as well. BUT she got to go to the concert, and that was important to her.
If you have never seen Natalie Grant in person (in concert) I would HIGHLY recommend finding a way to make it to one of her concerts! She is not only an amazing artist (I love her CDs but I think she is SOOOOO much better in person!), but she has a heart for people…..last night, she followed the Spirit’s leading and asked for those people that were hurting and in a rough place in their lives to stand, and she prayed over them……it was such a neat thing, and she did say that she rarely does that (I have seen her live two previous times, and she didn’t do that either time before), but was following the Holy Spirit’s leading!
I wish the girls had been able to meet Natalie in person, but they weren’t able to arrange that. But they all had a great time at the concert. And r even went up front and stood /sat in front of the stage on the floor with some of the other kids from the kids’ choir…..she did it without her sister (H was sitting with R and some of R’s friends)….I was so proud of her
(If you are wondering about M, he didn’t want to go to a Natalie Grant concert, so he stayed at some of our friends’ house with their son (who also didn’t want to go to the concert) and played video games and watched a movie–I think )
Ok, tonight my beautiful and darling 15 year old daughter, R wanted to make dinner. As I mentioned in a previous post, she and D picked out the recipes that she wanted to use on Saturday, and I made sure I had all of the ingredients on hand (which I did, the only thing I was missing was eggs, which I got today in my basket), and tonight right around 5 pm she set to start cooking. She PERFECTLY cooked the pork chops, and perfectly cooked the veggies for the veggie salad, AND created a dessert all on her own! Here’s what she made……
and for dessert she carmelized fresh pineapple slices in brown sugar and butter….YUMMMMMMOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ok, I have to say, this is probably one of the best dinners I’ve had in a while! My daughter (who’s cooking experience is relatively limited, I must say) did an INCREDIBLE job with this meal! It was delicious, and ALL of us want to know when she will make it for us again! The only thing that I would say about this meal is that the pork was slightly salty, because of the amount of parmesan cheese. But other than that, it was WONDERFUL!!!!!!!!!! I would HIGHLY recommend this meal….oh! one more thing, she did cut back on the amount of oil that she used in both the salad and the pork, but I don’t know by how much. Anyhow, I would HIGHLY recommend this meal, and I would say that even a beginning cook could pull this one off and WOW his/her friends and family!
This morning I was logging my mileage from my pedometer from yesterday into my personal journal (I’m keeping track of my exercise, and my next step will be to track my food….just not quite “there” yet…..) anyhow, I totalled up my mileage from this week (of every step that I took, not just intentional exercise) and my total for the week was 26.42 miles. PLUS I had 2 hours and 40 minutes of swimming time!!!! I’m so excited, because I truly love exercise….WHEN I’m in a habit of doing it! It makes me feel so good, and my body responds better and quicker, and I tend to be less fatigued (although I still have fatigue issues….just less pronounced), and I have less headaches, neck aches, and knee issues. AND I tend to lose weight….which will help me to remain healthy for my God, my family, and my ministry. At the end of the summer (in September or October) I’m going to make an appointment for my yearly physical and to have my cholesterol checked again….I can’t wait to see how much it has gone down since last year!
One of the other exciting things about all of this is that I’ve got D walking with me on Saturday’s (with our close friends D & S) and this past Saturday their oldest daughter walked with us, and we are talking about getting all of the kids involved on Saturday’s. Wooohoooo–family fitness! I love it!
As any of my longtime readers may remember, and my real life friends and family know, our oldest daughter, R, has been on several local missions “trips”/service projects. But she has always stayed at the church and they have done service projects for the community for 3-4 days. This past year, our new High School pastor explored many different options for the students for a summer missions project …. what the Lord finally worked out all of the details for was a missions trip to work in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco, CA. (Yes, we live in Central California……it’s approx. 3 1/2 hour drive to San Francisco) There are approx. 50 people (30 students and 20 chaperones/family members) that left early this morning to make the trek to the San Francisco Bay Area (they will also be serving in Oakland for part of the time) to serve the poorest of the poor, the homeless, the ill/housebound and the community at large in those areas. R was SOOOOO excited! For the past week she’s been counting down the days until her first official missions TRIP…..yesterday we spent the day finishing up her laundry, packing her duffle bag, etc. and then this morning she got up early (she is NOT a morning person!) and had breakfast with her Daddy and I and her best friend/sister H, we prayed over her, and then off she and I went to the church. It is amazing how much God was able to pack into those 7 (I think?) vans! Food for 50 people for 3 days, luggage/sleeping bags/pillows for 50 people, and various other items that teens find to be valuable on a 3 1/2 hour car ride (iPods, personal gaming systems, cell phones, etc, etc, etc)…..I honestly didn’t think that they’d get it all in, but they did!
Please pray for these students and adults as they minister to the people in the Bay Area and serve the various ministries in the Tenderloin District and the city of Oakland. Please pray for their true hearts to be seen, for hearts to be transformed by Him, and for their safety and health. I will update more when she gets back late Saturday night.
Thanks!
