The Hurt and the Healer

So, I used to think it was so weird, when I would follow a blog, and the blogger would hardly ever update it.  I mean, what was the point?  Seriously.

*ahem*

I am hoping that I will find myself back here again to update on all that's going on (even though I feel like I can't even remember what happened earlier today).  However, it's just too much to have two "Catch Up" posts back to back.  Right?

Instead, I am going to share a newer song that has totally touched my heart in a way I can't quite describe.  Mostly, I cry when I hear it.  Not just sad tears (although, that has happened too), but also tears of joy and hope.  I wanted to share it because it is so "us" right now.  It's all I've wanted to say, but couldn't find the right words.  In fact, I've prayed through some of the lyrics, as well as used the lyrics as a springboard for my own prayers.

It's call The Hurt and the Healer and it's by Mercy Me.  Here are the lyrics: (Italicized words are my own)

Why?
The question that is never far away
The healing doesn't come from the explained
Jesus please don't let this go in vain (Lord, use this to bring glory to your name.)
You're all I have
All that remains (You are my sustenance.)

So here I am
What's left of me
Where glory meets my suffering

I'm alive
Even though a part of me has died
You take my heart and breathe it back to life
I've fallen into Your arms open wide
When the hurt and the healer collide

Breathe
Sometimes I feel it's all that I can do
Pain so deep that I can hardly move
Just keep my eyes completely fixed on You (Keep me from looking elsewhere for relief.)
Lord take hold and pull me through

So here I am
What's left of me
Where glory meets my suffering

I'm alive
Even though a part of me has died
You take my heart and breathe it back to life
I've fallen into your arms open wide
When the hurt and the healer collide

It's the moment when humanity
Is overcome by majesty
When grace is ushered in for good
And all the scars are understood
When mercy takes its rightful place
And all these questions fade away
When out of the weakness we must bow
And hear You say "It's over now" (Come, Lord Jesus, come.) (Do I even need to tell you that this is the part that brings me to tears almost every time?)

I'm alive
Even though a part of me has died
You take my heart and breathe it back to life
I've fallen into your arms open wide
When The hurt and the healer collide

Jesus come and break my fear
Awake my heart and take my tears
Find Your glory even here
When the hurt and the healer collide

Jesus come and break my fear
Awake my heart and take my tears
Find Your glory even here (Even in the ugliest of circumstances you can bring beauty.  You are worthy of all praise and glory.)

  Here's a video from YouTube (gotta love it!)

While we continue to walk through this trial, God has been so faithful to us. He has never left our sides, not for a split second.  While it's difficult to not have answers or complete healing, I know God is using this time in our lives for some pretty radical transformation and growth.  I feel like the old "me" and "us" has died, but God is breathing to life a new creation.  There is still more work to be done, and frankly, we may never get out of this "trial" on this side of Heaven.  But this I am sure of: Heaven awaits.  This place we are in, this life here, is a mere breath.   Then, oh THEN!

"It's the moment when humanity
Is overcome by majesty
When grace is ushered in for good
And all the scars are understood
When mercy takes its rightful place
And all these questions fade away
When out of the weakness we must bow
And hear You say 'It's over now'"

This is where my hope comes from.

Come, Lord Jesus, come.

Thankflully, It's Not the Same Thing

The Girl had been wanting a mood ring for quite some time.  However, she had used all her hard earned cash (read: one third of the cash earned by doing chores and two thirds earned through birthday and Christmas gifts) to buy herself a DSi (I seriously thought I would never see the day).  Finally, she scrounged up enough to pick herself up a cheap mood necklace instead. 

Both kids sat fascinated for a few hours.  They tried to get the necklace to change colors by acting like they were in  a certain mood.   When the necklace would finally change colors in their sweaty little hands, they would run and get the decoding card that told them they were either happy, frustrated, scared, sad, or flirty.  Here's one conversation I got to listen in on:

d: Oh!  Look!  Quick!  I got it to change colors!  Now it's like blue-ish green. 
p: What does that mean?
d: Get the card so we can figure it out.
p: OH!  It means your farty.
d: What?
p: It says you're farty.
d: Dude!  That's not an option.
p: Yup, right here is says, "Blue-green equals farty."
d: Dude!  That's FLIRTY.  Not farty.  A mood ring can't tell you if you have gas.

Laughter ensued.

Now You're All Caught Up!

It's like I fell off the face of the planet in blog world!  What actually happened is I was feeling kind of proud of myself for getting back into the blogging routine.  That's what happens when you puff yourself up.  You deflate.

Here's where our family has been, and what we've been up to:

1. The Little Man was Student of the Week.  He had to fill out a poster about himself and take care of Freddy the Frog for the week.  Freddy got hung up in his backpack and slept all week.  Ooops.  We did get him out and take him to basketball practice.  After all that sleeping, he was ready to get his game on.

The night before it was due, The Little Man hammered out his poster.  For not getting any help, I thought he did a great job:

We did eventually get a pic on the poster. 

Basically, I won a mom award for teaching my child the importance of taking school work seriously, and not procrastinating. 

2.  The Girl saved up enough money to buy her own DSi.  She hasn't been the same since.  Her favorite game is Nintendogs.   Apparently, her caring and nurturing spirit knows no bounds, and can extend even into the video game world.  In this game she cares for, nurtures, and trains dogs.  As she continues to do a good job she can earn money to buy supplies, food, and even more dogs.  If the house is all quiet, and all of a sudden there is a shrill, some giggles, and then a squeal, it's possible she has just won a dog show, and now has enough money to buy a new dog.  Either that or dog food has just gone on sale and she has bought in bulk.  At least she now knows how I feel when I get a good coupon or find a great deal at Costco.

3.  I was reminded of our somewhat plain, simple, and somewhat boring life when, on a recent Friday night,  The Little Man broke the silence of the evening by letting us know that he had just farted for 30 straight seconds.  The Hubs didn't even crack a smile.  He just asked, "Well, do you think you need to check your shorts now?"  I laughed about this for days. 

Seriously, that's all it takes, folks.

4.  The Little Man has been hooping it up at basketball for the last month and a half.  Saturdays, are spent watching him play in games, trying not to keep score (since at this age they don't keep score, officially), and trying to keep myself from "coaching" him.  It. Is. Hard.  I am very pleased with the amount of improvement in him and the team's understanding of the game since last year.  His desire to practice and learn more and more has also increased.  It's amazing what a year will do! 

5.  The kids both had their last Parent/Teacher conferences of the year.  For the first time ever, I was nervous about these.  The Girl has been struggling with school since November.  The struggle isn't academic, per say, but it has effected her academically for sure.  I was happy that I came away from the conference with a better understanding of what is going on at school as well as the fact that I shed not one tear. 

Because I'm a big time crier.  A bawl baby, really.

6.  The kids and I got a chance to see my sister who lives about an hour away.  It was a fun little get away, and really, it had been too long.  The kids played together wonderfully, and I was able to catch up with my sister face to face.  On the way there, the kids got to use the DVD player that is built into the SUV I got in November.  It's only been used one other time.  We let them turn it on on the way home from where we bought it.  Since then, it's been a rule that there will be no DVD player unless we are on a car trip of an hour or more.  I don't know what the kids where more excited for: to see their cousins, or to watch a movie in the car. 

On the way there, I was getting all these texts, and I was feeling proud and like I was such a good fellow driver and example for the kids because I was ignoring them while driving.  I was all, "See this kids!  These texts can wait until we get where we are going.  Texting and driving don't go together."  They were like, "Mom!  Are you talking to us?  Because we are watching a movie here." 

That's when I noticed that God had placed in front of me the most gorgeous view of Pikes Peak that I have seen in a while.  Well, I can't let that kind of beauty go undocumented.  So I whipped out my camera phone and attempted to drive and take a picture at the same time.  Technically, I wasn't breaking the law.  The law says nothing about using your camera phone and driving at the same time. 

I did come to my senses, though, when I realized that if I really wanted to get the mountain in all her glory, then I would need to get a little zoom out of the lens.  That's where I draw the line.  You shouldn't try to figure out how to zoom in on something, take it's picture, and drive at the same time.  Like I said, I was trying to be a good example for the kids in the back seat.

See what I mean?  I totally needed a zoom.  In real life, that mountain was so much closer and way more impressive.

7.  I've been substitute teaching here and there.  It's been nice.  I like the freedom I have in it.  I get to teach when I want to, I don't have to take on the responsibility of report cards or parent teacher conferences, and if they are a naughty group, I don't have to face them again the next day.   Thankfully, I haven't had any super nasty classes. 

This week, my mom watched The Little Man while I did a full day of teaching.  Since The Little Man has just 1/2 day kindergarten in the afternoon, she came over in the morning, and took him into school after lunch.  When I left, I told The Little Man to make sure he helped his grandma with the schedule, getting himself dressed, getting his snack packed, and getting to school on time.  Well, my boy took what I said, and decided to take charge.  When my mom got there, this is what he gave her:

I'm not sure what he had to remind her of at 10:00, but according to the check, he got it done.  Also, my mom did tell me that he kept a tight grip on the schedule.  There was no wiggle room on the times.  He made sure he did each thing at the right time. 

I love that kid.

8.  Lastly, we have been anxiously awaiting the birth of my newest niece or nephew.  I think not knowing the sex has made the wait just that much more intense.  One thing is for certain, girl or boy, the kids and I Can. Not. Wait. to get our hands on this newest family member.  I am loving that both of my kids love babies, and want to care for and love on them.  While this has always been true of The Girl, The Little Man is a whole different story.  For a long time babies were not his thing.  To some extent I think they still may not be, but he admires his sister so much, he always wants to love the things she loves.  The Girl? She LOVES babies.  I have no doubt she'll have a bunch of her own, one day.  I love what The Little Man said about his newest cousin coming:

p: Mom, I can hardly wait for Aunt Lala to have her baby.  I hope it's a girl.
me: Oh, me too, buddy! 
p: Yea, Sister really wants a girl cousin, and since I already have boy cousins, I want her to have a girl cousin.
me: Me too.
p: Plus, if it's a girl cousin, then she can have the baby all to herself, and I can play with B!

Yup, he might be unsure about babies still.

Now you're all caught up!

Snow Days

 

RIP Midnight

If you ever had a goldfish for a pet as a child, you know first hand how long they live. 

It's a short life.

When The Girl first asked for a goldfish almost two years ago, the first scenario that came to my mind was that we would buy all this stuff for a fish, it would only live for a few weeks, and then I would have a devastated child who mourned the life of said fish for longer than the fish actually lived.  Scenario two was we would have this fish, she would keep it in her room, and each month I would come in and clean out the nasty aquarium cursing the day I agreed to the whole idea.

Scenario two was the path we took.  Except, I only cursed once in a while. 

And it was all inside my head. 

Unless, The Hubs was around, and then I let him know how I felt.

I was SHOCKED that our fish made it as long as it did.  Who knew goldfish could live for almost two years?  The Girl was a fantastic goldfish momma.  She always remembered to feed it, she decorated the aquarium, and paid close enough attention to the fish to know when he/she was not doing well, or needed the water refreshed (AKA needed her mom to clean the tank).

Unfortunately, Midnight got a bad case of swim bladder disease, and never recovered.  Interestingly enough, or not, this is the same way Calico died just a few months earlier.  I guess it's a common thing, and after reading that article, it is treatable and preventable.  Ooops.  I guess we are a day late and a dollar short.

I was very proud of The Girl.  She handled everything very maturely.  When it became clear that Midnight was not going to make it, she told me that she would much rather Midnight be in fish heaven where she would not be suffering any longer than to keep her here.  We all said our good-byes,  took some last minute pictures, and cried a bit.  The Little Man was very tender towards his sister saying, "I know just what it feels like to lose your favorite fish."  He's sweeter than sugar.

Rest in peace, Midnight.  Thanks for hanging out as long as you did.

In Our Home it Looks Like This...

Have you seen the pictures where there is a dog sitting, waiting patiently, on the side of the road waiting for his boy to get home?  Maybe there is a school bus driving off in the distance or a car with the boy looking out of the back window.   I am pretty sure I've seen that image before somewhere, and even have seen a couple of different interpretations of it.  The idea behind the image is that the dog can hardly wait for his boy to get home.  Maybe the dog sat and waited in the same spot for his master to return so he could resume having fun with his person again.

In my failure to find said image, I found these instead:

So cute, huh?

In our home, it looks like this:

That's The Little Man waiting for his sister to finish up homework.  He stands and waits patiently everyday (well almost everyday he's patient) for her to finish up so they can hang out together. 

He may not be a soft, sad faced, sweet puppy, but I happen to think this is much more precious.

Reason 438 For Loving My Girl

She can turn a laundry room into anything but...

We can't be the only ones out there who are using our laundry room to hatch and grow Brine Shrimp. 

Right?

Oh, and don't kid yourself.  Since I am not one of the authorized personnel allowed into my own laundry room, you know what that means. 

I just got out of cleaning towels and sheets.