Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Crafting again!!
While my step-son Greg, his wife Mel and their three adorable grandchildren were with us for Thanksgiving (providing me a much appreciated temporary distraction from my Momma's funeral up in Michigan the day before, I decided to make a wool felt Christmas tree using a kit that had arrived while I was up in Michigan. It is from www.joggles.com, a website I simply LOVE - it is full of wonderful ideas and products, and is run by a delightful woman named Barbara. Mel and I worked on our trees together, and after they left I finished mine. I am posting pictures here for you to see. I am going to make a few more for gifts because they go together really quickly. Check out the website for the tutorial that will show you exactly how to do it. Embellishment possibilities are endless!!!
Been a tough year
I decided to get back on here and talk about my parents. On December 1, 2010 my wonderful dad passed away at the age of 92 after a long battle with Parkinson's. He and my momma had just moved into a really nice assisted living facility just two weeks before he passed away. I believe he wasn't concerned about himself at that point (because he did NOT like it there!!), but was more concerned about my momma being in a place where she would be content and not alone. They had been married almost 67 years when he passed. Momma had a rough time initially but gradually got used to the place and actually started to enjoy herself a little. She made a few friends there, but really depended heavily on daily visits from my sister and frequent visits from my two brothers, and daily phone calls from me because I was the only one not living twenty minutes away. I spent time with her right after Daddy died, then came back at Easter this year when we committed Daddy's ashes to the memorial garden at the church we grew up in. Momma felt the other folks in the assisted living facility were jealous of her because of her daily visitors and very frequent lunch outings with my sister!! At the end of August this year, Momma suffered a heart attack, and though it was not severe (she did not realize she had one), it started a downhill trend for her - she was hospitalized four times in 6 weeks for various issues, and each hospitalization took its toll on her. After the fourth visit (at that point I had been up living with her in her apartment taking care of her), the family decided that Hospice would be a good alternative for Momma, to keep her out of the hospital and manage her various issues as they came up. It worked well, but she continued to decline. I spent six weeks with her, and finally went home just before Halloween to tend to some doctor appointments of my own. I had intended to ride back up to Michigan with my step-son and his family following their visit to us for Thanksgiving. On Friday morning, November 18, learning of a sudden and scary turn for the worse in Momma's condition, I threw clothes in the car and drove up as fast as I could go - about 80 mph the whole five hour trip. I arrived at 8 pm, to my momma's delight as she then knew all four of her children were surrounding her. We talked for a few minutes and I had a chance to tell her I loved her. About a half hour later, she fell asleep and for the next 30 hours remained that way. I sat up Friday night holding her hand and reading a book, then Saturday my sister and two brothers and I held vigil around her bedside, talking, laughing, sharing stories and playing some of my momma's favorite hymns. Saturday night I again camped out next to her, rubbing her foot, praying over her, and then I nodded off for just a short while. When I awakened, she had rejoined my daddy in heaven. She passed away just ten days short of the one year anniversary of my daddy's passing and twenty days before her 94th birthday. So in the course of a year, I suddenly find myself without my parents. They adopted me when I was three months old, and I have continually thanked the Lord for bringing them into my life fifty-six years ago, for giving me a loving home and three fabulous siblings who were born after I was adopted. (You see, my momma had three miscarriages and thought she would never have a baby, so they adopted me. Then, one year later and then five and six years later, my brothers and sister were born!) I miss them both so immensely - I rejoice in the knowledge that they are reunited in heaven, and that I will see them again one day. But for now, I deal with the pain and the loss - I keep thinking I need to call momma to check on her as I did daily and sometimes twice daily. My sister is going through the same thing because she was with her daily and in contact constantly. She was our momma's angel, though she would humbly deny that!!! My prayer would be that if your parents are still alive, embrace them and love them and enjoy them while they are here!!!!
Friday, July 23, 2010
www.postconsumers.com
Hey,just realized I posted under comments instead of a regular post. Be sure to read the comment under the information about www.postconsumers.com, an interesting new website I just found tonite.
Sunday, July 18, 2010
Steve's Honduras mission trip
This morning at church, Steve and the team he led to building a house in Honduras the week in July, spoke during the entire sermon time at both services, recounting their experiences. I cried during both services as I listened to the ways in which each person had been touched his or her time there. One of the young women, Katie Hands, put together an awesome video of pictures put to music. I will try to figure out a way to put it up so everyone can watch it. It was AMAZING! One of Steve's stories which he had forgotten to tell me, gave me goose bumps and made me cry as well. Back in 2005 when he was spending the entire year living in Honduras, he saw some really tough things. One was a horrific accident during a rainstorm, that he came upon immediately after it had happened. A semi and a pick up had collided head-on, and there were bodies in the roadway. At first he thought they were crash dummies, but as he drove past he could see that they were real people, people who had died in the wreck. I won't go into the gory details, but suffice to say, it was a scene that he has never been able to erase from his memory. While on this trip and building the house, he was working beside a young Honduran man who had a big scar on his arm. Scott, one of the missionaries who lives in Honduras and who, along with his wife, are good friends of ours, told Steve this guy had trouble with his arm due to a terrible accident he had in 2005. Steve knew this young man was a cousin of Caloi, the man for whom the house was being built, and that Caloi had some relatives who had died in 2005 in an accident. Long story short, the man named Will, turned out to be the only survivor of this accident. He had been driving the truck and had been thrown from the vehicle, and was very likely one of the people Steve saw in the road that day. Steve was dumbfounded by this connection, and then realized that God had a plan for him to be one of the first witnesses on the scene that day, because five years later, He would have him working side by side this man. Steve talked with him about that day, and the young man explained what had happened and that he was the only survivor of the accident, that he had lost control of the truck in the rain. He appreciated the compassion Steve showed him, and it seemed to do him some good to talk about it that day. God is an amazing God, and has the ability to make connections we have no idea are possible!!!! The team was so affected by their experiences in Honduras, that they are already planning to return next year, some of whom plan to have a vacation Bible school of sorts for the tons of kids that will be around. I hope to make that trip myself, as they are thinking of going in May. Today, I am grateful for my husband, who ten years ago, started praying the Prayer of Jabez, in which Jabez asks the Lord to widen his territory or give him more responsibility, and was promptly given an opportunity to do a short term mission trip in Honduras. That trip changed his life and he felt called to serve the people in Honduras, so much so that we will very likely retire there someday to be full time missionaries. I challenge everyone to listen for God's call in your life, because He surely has great things planned for each one of us if we will only stop planning our own lives, and listen for His plan for us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)