God's faithfulness

Yesterday was an interesting day.  We got exciting news and then had a terrible scare.  I'll tell you about the scare we had first so I can end on a good note and elaborate more on it.

Yesterday Jabin had a doctor appointment in Grand Island with his neurologist. About halfway home, he started crying.  His crying got progressively worse and he kept saying "ow, ow" and pointing to a specific area of his body.  He was in so much pain he was writhing. He couldn't stay in one spot. He was totally inconsolable.  Anybody that knows Jabin knows that he is one terribly tough kid.  It takes a lot to make him cry.  Needless to say this had my mom and I both worried.  About 15 minutes down the road after he started crying, we decided to take him to an emergency room because something was obviously wrong.  He cried and cried and cried, and then all of a sudden he stopped, and he was fine.  This was after he had peed that he stopped crying.  I'm not sure what was wrong with him.  The nurses did a urine sample to see if he had a UTI, but that came back negative.  Everything in his urine seemed to be fine.  We were there for about two hours waiting on the tests and the results, and they couldn't find anything.  We were totally baffled.  SOMETHING had to have been going on to make him in so much pain.  Totally a mystery.  We kept my dad updated, and he was praying.  I text my dad to tell him to pray that Jabin pees so they could do the urine test.  Like five minutes later I checked his diaper, and sure enough, he'd peed. lol  God is awesome like that.  He cares about even the smallest of our problems.  Jabin is supposed to go back for a check up in like a week or two for a follow up.  It kinda scares me that this happened because I have no idea what was wrong.  I'm afraid it will happen again, and there is nothing I can do about it except trust God.  It is heart wrenching to see your child in so much pain.  I'm gonna guess God feels the same way about us when we are in so much pain.

Anyway, now on to the GREAT news.  As many of you know, Jabin was born with a myelin disorder.  This has caused some fairly severe developmental delays which is why Jabin goes to see a neurologist several times a year.  I am so thankful for this neurologist.  He is awesome with Jabin, and he listens to me.  He's a little.... um.... unconventional, but that makes me like him even more.  :-)  So anyway.... a little background:  I knew God was going to do great things with Jabin from the time he was born, but when I found out what was "wrong" with Jabin, I knew God was going to do amazing things with his life and his story.  That boy has overcome SO many obstacles, and I am so proud of him, and SO thankful to God for how He has been working in Jabin's life.  I knew that eventually Jabin would be "normal", but I wasn't sure how long it would take.  I have to tell you that it has been a real struggle sometimes seeing God work in the midst of this journey, but when I look back and see how far Jabin has come, it amazes me, and I thank God.
Jabin's neurologist put him on a medicine in March of 2012 that was supposed to help with Jabin's speech.  It did. I started seeing improvements right away.  In May of 2012, he decided to put Jabin on a medicine to slow down his brain so he could focus better and therefore learn better.  The first one we tried was not covered by Jabin's insurance so we tried another one.  The second one made Jabin very whiney and irritable.  I quit him on that one as soon as I noticed the side effects.  So then we tried another one, and after MANY months of trying to figure out the right dosage, we finally figured it out.  Jabin has come SO far in the past year.  I am amazed at how well he is doing.  His speech has really taken off in the past few months too, and yesterday when we went to see the neurologist, well, we got some great news.  His doctor was very happy with Jabin's progress.  He was impressed at how well Jabin listened and obeyed easy commands, and he noticed how Jabin's speech had progressed.  I'll tell you that was SO exciting for me to hear.  This doctor is usually very serious and constantly trying to figure out what more we can do.  To hear that he was pleased with Jabin's progress was HUGE news to me.  He said (and this part makes me cry) that Jabin will be just fine in a year or two. He said by first or second grade Jabin will be fine.  At first it kinda took me back.  I kinda had to do a double take. To hear those words come out of his mouth is like a breath of fresh air for me. I have to tell you that I have felt so much like a failure with Jabin, not necessarily because of the way he is, but just because I feel so inadequate, especially raising him by myself these past two years.  I have always kinds wondered "when" in the back of my mind.  How much longer will it be till Jabin will really be able to do the things his peers are doing.  When will he be able to really communicate with other people?  When will he physically be able to do all the things his peers are doing?  When this?  When that?  It was such a relief to hear those words come out of his doctor's mouth.  IT makes me feel that maybe I AM doing something right.  I am SO thankful to God for what He is doing in Jabin's life, and I have very little to do with it.  God is healing my son like I knew He would, I just have to be patient and keep doing what I have to do.  I don't know if Jabin will have to be on medicine for the rest of his life, but I am so excited that he will get the chance to do the exact same things his peers will be doing.  THAT is so exciting to me.  God has given me such a wonderful little boy, and I couldn't have asked for anything better.  God knew exactly what he was doing when he gave me that little boy. :-)  <3 p="">

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly Truth

It feels like it has been forever since I wrote a blog, but it has been less than three weeks. These past three weeks have been pretty eventful.  First of all, my car completely died (as in it won't start). My dad finally figured out that it IS the fuel pump so he ordered a new one. Now, he just has to find the time to put it in. Then, hopefully I will have a car again. In the meantime I'm staying with mom and dad and borrowing their vehicles (that also seem to be falling apart lol  I'm beginning to feel like a curse to cars...;-))  I got a job working at Dollar General as a Sales Associate/Cashier. I started on Saturday. It's only like 20 hours a week, but something is better than nothing.  I have decided that I will not be going to school this fall because it didn't seem to work out. (Still haven't heard if I am accepted yet.)  I'm figuring next fall should be good. I'm going to plan on it.
I had a super exciting (?) thing happen a couple weeks ago.  I had been staying with mom and dad for a few days just to have some company. I went home really quickly to go get some clothes for a wedding that I was going to with mom and dad, and my house had been broken into. I went to go unlock the backdoor and noticed that the deadbolt had been locked and I NEVER lock it because sometimes it doesn't like to work right. I can always tell when somebody else has been in my house because of that. Anyway, as soon as I opened the door, I knew something wasn't right. There were lights on in the bathroom, kitchen and my bedroom. There was stuff in random places.  The guy that broke in stole a bunch of my food, and then we later found out that he stole a bunch of my grandma's stuff too. There was more, but it was just really creepy. He had come in through Jabin's bedroom window.  The window was still wide open and the front door was unlocked.  Needless to say this freaked me out, and it has been hard for me to go back to my house since. I think I learned a lesson from this though. The lesson is this:

If God wants me to be a missionary, I need to learn to depend entirely on Him.  Even if I'm not going to be a missionary, it's very important to trust Him.  Our security should not be in things or in people, but in Him.  When I go overseas to be a missionary, my security is not going to be "secured" or guaranteed.  God is my security.  I need to stop putting my security in people and things. I never thought somebody would break into my house, but they did.  I thank God we were not there. Security is never guaranteed no matter where you are.  Whether you have a fancy car alarm or the most state of the art security on your house. You hear about people getting shot all the time just walking down the street. Small towns are no different. We even have murders in our small area. It's scary if we don't have the right perspective and are not putting our trust in God.

 God has been showing me SO many things this summer. He has really been growing me and stretching me and humbling me. God has shown me how I have been so very prideful.  I look back at my attitude over the past year or so, and I disgust myself with how prideful I was.  I know it was at least partly due to trying to protect myself, but... ewww.  Makes me thing of the verse that says "all our righteous acts are like filthy rags".  We try to be righteous, but even if we try as hard as we can, our best will always be disgusting in God's sight.  When God revealed to me how prideful I was being, it really humbled me.  I cried because I felt so bad about how I was treating a certain person.  He may have deserved it, but I had no right to treat him and think about him the way I did.  I'm trying really hard to do what God wants me to do.  I have to keep reminding myself to forgive. In fact, I downloaded Matthew West's song "Forgiveness" just so I could have it as a ringtone for this person.  Anybody who knows me very well at all will know who I'm talking about, but I'm not going to mention names.
I cannot tell you how thankful I am that God is working so much in my life right now. It is pretty amazing.