Update...

Well, I still don't know what is going to happen. I am trying to work up the courage to apply for a debt consolidation/reduction loan. Crunching the numbers. I don't see how they will give me one. But...

This has shaken my confidence. A lot of issues trying to fight for dominance....

For those of you that have sent me help, you know who you are... THANK YOU!!!

Kenya

Hey guys this is not a request for personal prayer but for an entire country. Alomost 6 years ago my hubby went to Kenya on a missions trip. Here he met a pastor called Aamos. Aamos lives in Nirobi slums with his family and does his best to in rich those around him whilst struggling to survive himself. He just popped up on my facebook chat thing and I did the socially acceptable thing and asked him how he was. He proceeded to tell me that Kenya is in the grip on a huge famon and 1000s die everyday and that he and his family are on the brink themselves. What do you say in response to that other than I ll pray. I feel usless and like a rich fat cat! Please can you pray for this country and this man

thx

songs you're still sick of

maybe you haven't heard it in 5, 10 or even 20 years, but after the first few notes you know without a doubt... it hasn't been long enough. i thought this would be fun, and after the past few months, i think we all could use a little fun. :-)

i'll get us started.

Help?

Hmm... this hard. The tape running in my head says, "You made this mess, you clean it up. And don't expect any help."

I'm not doing so well. A mistake from my past that wasn't handled well - financial - is biting me in the ass right now. And it seems to have pretty big teeth. If things go the way I was  told on the phone this morning, the government could be taking 30% of my income starting next month. Which would make it so that I couldn't pay my bills.... Could you all think of me when you're praying? Thanks.

My husband just got fired

I really didn't see this coming. But he got fired this afternoon. Please pray for us i don't know what we are going to do.

Update: Sunday morning

Okay so yesterday we get a phone call from somebody who works there. Mark's firing WAS THE BEST THING THAT COULD HAVE HAPPENED to that place. Finally, years of putting up with good people being terminated for no reason has gotten to be too much and people are angry and there are the beginnings of a riot going on. His boss had a meeting with the mechanics and their words were, "What did we do that was so awful that you fired our boss?" Well, I don't know about you, but there aren't many people I know who would say that. I haven't ever had a boss I was willing to say that about/ in defense of. The other supervisors now know that they aren't safe because they looked up to him in a big way for doing the right thing and never giving in to the bullying. The people on the floor are furious because Mark always supports them in their jobs (he even helps the linemen with placing product back on the lines as he is evaluating the lines).

On friday morning Abba said to me, "This is not over." He said it over and over again and I did not understand.

It doesn't mean Mark's boss gets fired and Mark gets rehired but Abba is right, this is NOT over. The person who called was devastated about it on thursday but now feels that it is the single best thing God could have allowed to happen.

Yesterday God reminded Mark that He always gets the bills paid and that things were going according to plan and suddenly I am super excited to see how this turns out.

Love to you all!

this is zaavan.

as promised, here is zaavan, my son. he's 6 years old and has severe CP and MR. in laymen's terms, that's Cerebral Palsy and Mental Retardation. his other diagnoses are quadraparesis and microcephaly.

effectively, he cannot eat, drink, change, move, toilet... anything on his own. he requires hours of care. but that's not any different from any other kid. the attention and cares needed are just different. but, as you can imagine, it is well worth it. he is one of the best people i've ever met. i am constantly amazed that a boy with so many challenges can be the most joyful person i've ever known. he is one blissed out kid. in fact several are the nights when he wakes up laughing. and laughing and laughing and laughing. at nothing. at least, nothing that we can tell. but i have often suspected that he is able to sense things we can't.

being his dad has been nothing short of life changing. i am no longer the person i was when he was born. i have learned so much about how to communicate with people through learning how to communicate with someone who is not able to communicate through conventional means. (i.e. words) i blogged about that once before already.

every parent is different, but i know that coming to terms with zaavan was actually a quick process for me. we first got the news hours after his birth in the middle of the night. a massive seizure sent him into respitory arrest and he had to be intebated and moved into the NICU. it was thus the roller coaster began and i knew that something had to die. and what had to die were my expectations that i had for zaavan and who i hoped and dreamed he might be. he was as he is and there was no going back. nothing could change it. so i could either continue to grieve for something that never existed or i could simply accept zaavan as he is, no strings attached. i chose the latter and am glad i did. i have, of course, been overwhelmed several times at the challenges he faces, and the times when i have had to prepare myself for the possibility of his death when it has gotten bad. each time, however, he has pulled through. over and over again, grace seems to be the theme in this kid's life and i am glad to be privy.

and i am especially grateful for the near-deafening roar that went up into the spiritual ether on his behalf when i shared our challenges on december 1st. it certainly is a neverending stream of challenges. but it is also a never ending stream of overcoming those challenges, or learning how to be grateful for what we have been given. which is pretty cool.

this is zaavan. he is my perfect son, and i love him.

What's Been Happening

Hello Everyone.

I know that my appearances lately have been sparse; not only here but on line and in my own blog as well. Most of you who follow my blog have seen a "turn" in the direction of my writing and me questioning pretty much everything that I have come to know as true in the past year or so. So now, I can come out and tell you what has been happening.

This past week has seen two very "huge" changes in my life. The first is that I started a new job with a new department this week. Big change for me but the timing is perfect when taken into consideration of where I want to go with my career. Secondly, on last Tuesday, I was divorced from my wife. This has been a decision that I have been agonizing for the better part of a year and I finally came to the conclusion that enough was enough. The hardest part, as you might imagine, was my beautiful son and the thought of not being around him all of the time but in the end, it just wasn't enough. Our split was amicable and so were the arrangements that we agreed on with respect to custody and visitation and I am so thankful for that.

You all have been a great source of support for me and I am thankful that I have this family to share with when things are good and to lean on when things are bad. There are a few loose ends yet to tie up so if you feel so led, ask a prayer that what I have to do next (regarding our home) goes smoothly.

My brain

Guys, I have been quiet lately because of health problems, I had a TIA yesterday morning and they have me on hormones that are literally driving me crazy :(

Update: Valorosa asked why I am on hormones so here goes --

I am estrogen dominant because my ovaries only make a few hours of progesterone a month, instead of weeks. This is why I miscarry, well, one of the reasons. Unopposed estrogen is very dangerous and is a chief cause of strokes in young women. When i was 27, in response to some other issues, I was placed on birth control pills and had a severe TIA within a few days -- one that left me greatly impaired for 6 months and which still has left me with some memory loss and well mucked up my handwriting. They took me off of the pills but because of a misdiagnosis the same thing happened two years later. Please think of what happened to me the next time someone tells you that prescribing BC pills to teens without prescreening or parental consent is a good thing -- it happens more than they admit.

Now, I am not on BC pills right now but I am in peri-menopause and i think I am getting estrogen bursts that might have caused this. So I am on a progesterone cream to oppose the estrogen.

Thanks for all the prayers. I love you guys. I am like the wicked witch of the west over here. My poor kids.

Sustaining Concern

Thanks to all of you who have dropped by my blog and left messages for me. I am sorry I have not written here, but I do read when I can to keep up with what's going on with you. Things have been difficult for me due to my son's drug addictions - two hospitalizations in the last three weeks, outpatient rehab, counseling, school expulsion and trying to keep up with my job.

Sometimes its the words of others that keep me going. I am a word person so every comment left feels like a warm hug, a shot in the arm of Vit B-12, an empathetic smile or a pep talk. Thank you.

Also, I don't know how to post here as "Prodigal Daughter" and am starting to freak out about my blogs being so interconnected and may have to do something "drastic" but am not sure what. I want my anonymity back!

Prayer Request

This sounds strange - even the title, since I have struggled so much with asking God for things and how that all works, but I'll just put it out there...

My sister's husband leaves for Iraq today. They just moved to Hawaii and they have 2 preschool aged boys. One is only 13 months old. It is a little harder for my sister this time since she's so far away from family and has not been there for very long. If you think of our military, or have time to pray for my sister and her husband, their names are Kim and John. John is a captain in the USMC/infantry something or other, so he's always right in the middle of the craziness, wherever it may be.

Thanks guys...
Kari

Hi Dwellers

I haven't posted anywhere in a while. I don't think I've left many comments around either. I'm still here - don't delete me! I've made some life decisions lately, all of which are focused primarily on myself and my kids being ok. What I mean by that is that I'm too damn tired and frustrated to bring my marriage into my decision making processes. If I'm married or single, none of my decisions are affected either way.

I'm talking with a contractor to get a floor plan finished up and have a house built on the front of this family owned property. Since October I've been trying to decide if I should add on to this existing house or build a new one. The costs are close in comparison. So - new house it will be. My oldest son will be 9 in a few months and he and his brother and sister are all still in the same bedroom. Enough's enough.

I never finished my college degree. I wanted to be a teacher but early on in my married I was convinced that wasn't the best option - that I should get a business degree. My job was in a loan department in banking at the time and I was good at my job so I changed my major. The problem is, I didn't WANT to do that. So I've never put much effort or desire into finishing the degree. If I turn up single, I don't want to have to work 12 hrs a day and miss being a mom just to pay bills. Without a degree, that's what will happen (at best). So I start back to college this morning. I changed my major back to education. It'll take me over two years to finish since I won't go full time. I can't. I'm still working and trying to be with the kids when they're home from school. Saturday night we had another major blow up and my husband left... again. Yesterday I had decided "screw it... I can't emotionally do all of this and balance college on top of it". But I've regrouped. I can't sit here in this house and be consumed by all of this junk anymore. Hopefully going regardless will get my mind onto other things that don't wind up with me going to bed for the day.

That's my update and I'm sorry I've been so sparse. I think I've just run out of meaningful things to say for a while.

Covering and Authority

Just letting you know about a fairly new website I found called Covering And Authority. It's by LT of The Heresy. It's extremely informative for anybody who has or knows somebody who has suffered from spiritual abuse. It also gives some extremely biblical reasons why the "covering" doctrine is false.

I'm glad to see important websites like this one springing up.

Northwest Folk

Are you guys ok? Just saw all of the flooding out there...looks pretty bad. Avalanches? Just wanted to see how you all were. Please update us! I'm worrying...

Prayer for Matt

HI all
Firstly let me wish you all a great 2009!
I was wondering if you could pray for my Hubby his name is Matt. For about 5 years he has been running his own web development business. He was not encouraged at all by our former pastor (the opposite infact) and suffers from a lack of self worth becasue of it. But he is brilliant at what he does. Any way he has decided to give his business one last chance to be able to support him full time and make money so until June 2009 he will be basically working 2 full time jobs. His business and the his salaried job, Means very long hours and lots of stress. We also want to plant a house church this year sometime. I am worried firstly about Matt overloading himself and secondly if it fails to meet its goal by June what are the consequences? I couldnt sleep last night for worrying about it.
I guess I need peace that it will be ok no matter what the outcome but I cant bare to see him hurting and am petrofied that he will crumble if it doesnt work.
Thx guys

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