A Sick Baby

Welp, when I told you that God was going to work on me about taking things in stride, I wasn't kidding. Last week, with Micah at my parents' house, I managed to complete two major writing assignments, fill a slew of etsy orders, straighten up the house, tackle a pile of laundry and, wait for it, sweep and mop the kitchen floor. Exciting, I know.

Life around here had been restored to order.

And then we picked Micah up, and she had a nasty little cough that has only gotten worse since then. Dennis took her to the doctor Sunday morning (yes, our pediatrician is open), and although he didn't say the word out loud to Dennis, on our copy of her chart, he checked the box next to bronchitis. My poor baby sounds like she's going to puke up her guts every time she coughs. It's awful.

Apparently, as the medicine does its work and loosens up all the gunk in her chest, it will get worse, which is no fun. I'm actually hoping that she throws up soon just to get some of it out of her system.

All of that to say, when God wants to work on something with you, he doesn't play around. If it's not one thing, it's another.

Micah's handling it better than I am, I think. I feel so badly for her when the coughs rack her body hard enough to throw her down. But it hasn't really slowed her down. She coughs and gags a few times, then she goes back to playing. She's a livewire, I tell you.

Anyway, if you're the praying type, we would greatly appreciate your prayers for our little girl.

Until next time, grace and peace.

Taking Things in Stride

Last night I had a moment, well, several moments, really, in which I thought I had lost everything on the blog. Well, not everything. I do have all of the posts and comments and pictures saved in a backup file. I'm talking about the site structure itself. Major panic ensued.

Obviously, you're reading this, so I got everything sorted out, but for about four hours last night, I was at my wit's end. Which is silly, really, because it's just a website. But it's a website that I built and customized for myself, and it took me a long time to get it exactly the way I wanted. I was seeing hours and hours of getting it just right again in my future, and the prospect made me shudder.

This is just the most recent of events that has set me back lately, and the more these little things pop up, the more I've noticed something about myself.

When things don't go the way I have planned, I get bent out of shape. And when I say bent out of shape, I mean that I get twisted up into an unrecognizable form of myself. I obsess over "fixing" things when it's obvious to everyone else that they can't be fixed.

I don't want to be that way.

I want to be the kind of woman who takes things in stride. Who never gets her feathers ruffled or works herself into a tizzy. I want to calmly step both feet into my big girl panties, pull them up, and just deal with it.

This, I know, is going to be a slow and painful process, and given some of my recent circumstances, I'm afraid that it's an area that God really wants to work on right now.

He always does that, you know. Gets me in the gut.

I've been feeling overwhelmed lately with everything I've loaded on my plate. It's piled higher than a styrofoam tray at Thanksgiving dinner, and when I dive in to tackle the butterbeans, I send my cornbread tumbling off the plate. It's not pretty.

I called my mom Monday and asked her to come get Micah, who has refused to nap consistently for the past month, and when Micah refuses to nap, I can't write, which is a problem since I have two major deadlines at the beginning of next week. I have to work this week. Thank goodness for grandparents, right?

I'm hoping that I'll be able to get back on track while Micah's at my parent's house. That maybe these few days will be like pushing the reset button, and when I retrieve her, all will be calm, and my plate will have a few empty sections.

One can hope, right?

Until next time, grace and peace.

The Lord Gives, and the Lord Takes Away: Remembering Uncle Red

Tomorrow, I will sit in a pew next to my family and remember a man who first introduced me to another way of doing church. You see, the pew I will sit in is in an Episcopalian church, a church much different from the churches I grew up in and attend now, and although I'm not looking forward to the funeral, I am deeply longing for the richness of the liturgy and the beauty of the service. Something about the liturgy reaches down and touches a place deep inside me. I need to hear the poignant words from the Book of Common Prayer, words that remind me both of Who Jesus is and what that means for me.

"I am the resurrection and the life," saith the Lord: "he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die."

I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.

We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Beautiful words from the mouth of Job, a man who had lost everything and yet continued to praise God.

One of my earliest memories of Uncle Red involved a hospital waiting room and open-heart surgery. Another memory involves the church I'll sit in tomorrow - and the shock of tasting real wine instead of grape juice at communion. When I was younger, Uncle Red taught me how to properly hold and fire a gun, even if it was just a BB gun aimed for a makeshift target. And after Mamaw died, Uncle Red and Aunt Pat's house became the going place during holidays. We shared dry butterbeans and potato soup, turkey, ham, rolls, cornbread, and all the trimmings before he put on his "Naughty" Santa cap and distributed the gifts. I will always be thankful for the warmth and the love shared in his home.

A couple of months ago, I took Micah to Uncle Red's house so he could meet her. I didn't know then that it would be the last time I saw my uncle, nor did I know that when I hugged him good-bye, I would never do so again. But I'm glad that my last memory of my uncle, a man who at times was more like a grandfather to me than anyone else, was of him stealing a kiss from my little girl. It's a moment I'll remember fondly.

My uncle was not a perfect man. To be sure, he had his faults, but then again, don't we all?

Tomorrow, we will celebrate his life and remember the words of the gospel. Then we will look forward to the time when death and tears will be no more. Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Until next time, grace and peace.