Today

 Well this morning I got up to wake John for work, and I couldn’t find him upstairs. I came downstairs to find him on the floor in the living room. I said, “Babe, it’s time to get up.” And he said, “I’ve been up all night.” At around 1 a.m. the kidney stone pain returned with a vengeance. Even after working a 16 hour day, he was unable to sleep through this pain. He got up off the ground and went to the bathroom. When he returned to the living room, he said, “I think I need to go to the emergency room again.” Within about 10 minutes, he was peeing blood and vomiting. I got a hold of his mother and she agreed to come watch the children (who were all miraculously still sleeping). We headed off to St. Luke’s.

Along the way we passed the Clinic of Urology and stopped in there to see if we could just be seen by a urologist. No deal…they said his pain needed to be under control first and foremost. We got to St. Luke’s and I dropped him at the emergency room doors and went to park the minivan. They quickly registered him and whisked him back to a room. I was still helping with his insurance information and by the time I got back to his room, they had an IV in his arm. Since they could tell what bad of shape he was in, they were not wasting any time. They quickly fed demoral (sp?) and morphine through his IV for the pain and then another medication to help with the nausea he was having. Very, very, very quickly his pain started to subside. They drew blood, made him pee in a cup, and then the waiting began, but it was actually fine because at least his pain was under control. He even dozed off until the nurse came to get him for his CT scan.

I took advantage of his snooze by getting logged onto my work’s remote access via the hospital’s wifi….I was actually able to get a ton done while we were there. Well eventually the doctor came back in to tell him that the scan showed he did still have a kidney stone and that it also showed “multiple stones” still in his kidneys (both kidneys). I asked him to define multiple and he said, “More than two.” He said he was going to contact the urologist on call and he left the room. When he returned he informed him that after his consultation by phone with the urologist, they believe that this is a second kidney stone. It is higher up in his urethra (stones DON’T travel backwards), and it is bigger than the first. It is believed that he either passed the first one without realizing it or that it is still floating around in his bladder not causing much trouble. This second one is still of a size that they believe it will pass on its own. They gave him a prescription for pain meds (the good stuff!) and for a medicine to help with passing the stone, and sent us home.

Burger King = Rocket Science

(should have been posted 8/4/08...but didn't have time to blog)

Ugh! I did NOT have a fun day today. I ran errands in the heat of the day in a minivan with four children and no air conditioning. This should have been bad enough, but then I had to go and stop at Burger King for lunch.

“Welcome to Burger King. May I take your order?”
“I would like 2 cheeseburger kids’ meals with sprite, 2 number 7s with coke, and 1 number 5 with a diet coke.”
“Okay so that’s 2 cheeseburger kids meals with sprite, 2 number 8s with coke, and a number 6 with a diet coke?”
“Ummmm no. (at this point I switch to using the meal names instead of the numbers in a failed attempt to reduce confusion) 2 cheeseburger kids meals with sprite, 2 chicken finger meals with coke and a steakhouse burger meal with a coke.”

“Okay so that’s 2 double cheeseburger kids meals with sprite, 2 chicken finger meals with coke and a double stacker with diet coke?”
“No….2 cheeseburger kids’ meals with sprite, 2 chicken finger meals with coke and a steakhouse burger meal with a coke.” (At this point, my head is in my hands. I have sprained my eyeballs rolling my eyes to hard, and I am struggling to maintain my Christian testimony.)
She replies, “That’s what I said.” I wanted to scream! No that is NOT what you said! In fact none of the 3 times you repeated it back to me did you say that! But instead I just pulled around.
For obvious reasons, I was VIGILANT in checking through the food they were giving me. If they couldn’t even SAY it back to me correctly what were the chances that they would actually get the order right? She says to me, “Are you the person with the HUGE order?” I’m thinking doesn’t your DUMB computer tell you which customer you should be on??? Whatev…she takes my money and hands me the bags. I say, “I’m missing a chicken finger meal.” She calls to her cohorts, “She says she only has one chicken finger meal.” Okay like the more likely scenario here is that I am lying…not that you are an IDIOT! (Yes Sarah Gorski I KNOW! I owe you 10 more pushups!)
They give me my chicken finger meal and say Have a good day!
“You didn’t give me my drinks.” They give me my drinks. I drive away….only to notice…they did not give me straws *#%($% (YES Sarah! We are all keeping track that 20 pushups now!)
Now I have 4 dehydrated children driving around in the back of a minivan with no air conditioning holding cold refreshing soft drinks in their hands WHICH THEY CANNOT DRINK! For those of you who know my children at all, I don’t need to even type this next sentence but for the rest of you, I will….having my children take the lids off of said sodas and drink straight from the cups is simply NOT an option.

It was then that I realized that working at Burger King must be SO difficult that only a rocket scientist can actually do it correctly. 

God is good!

 I feel the strongest urge to blog about this, but I'm a bit at a loss for words to describe what I'm feeling. For the past 3 years, we have teetered on the brink of financial destruction. Our faith has been stretched and tested beyond what we ever thought we could endure. We suffered several LARGE financial blows which should have been the end of it for the kind of couple who lived paycheck to paycheck with NOTHING for a rainy day. Instead by the grace of God and generous people, we have survived through this season.

I can hardly even begin to list the things that have been birthed in us...increased faith in God, stronger committment to each other...coming face to face with many of our deepest darkest fears has brought much pain but many good things into our lives.

We have been praying and praying for God to save us from this situation. We were not sure what to do about it. We had already cut out every single non-essential thing from our lives. I was working as many hours as I could (this summer topping out at 40 nearly every week because overtime has not been authorized at all this summer). John grubbing for side jobs and working himself into the ground, but still we are in DEEP doodoo.

Over the weekend we were in another VERY deep valley. SEVERAL bills are so past due that we're being threatened with disconnection of our Time Warner services (which are necessary for me to work from home), cell phones, etc... We are behind on every single thing and our refrigerator has been bare most of the summer. I started blogging again last week, and I really truly determined in my heart this time I was going to do this trial right. I was not going to lose my hope that God would get us through. I was going to hang on through it all and KEEP ON TRUSTING.

On Sunday I tithed. I was terrified to do it....it wasn't much, but still I have NO idea how I'm going to pay Time Warner on Monday so putting even a little in the offering was very scary.

I think it was on Friday that it occurred to me...maybe John should look for a second job. Not a part-time job...not a side job...but a REAL full-time second job. I mentioned it to John and all of a sudden he was like a man on a mission. He spent much of the weekend on the internet looking for a second shift position. On Monday he called about 4 temp services and one company that had a posting for a 2nd shift grinder. We were VERY excited about the grinding position. It was at a company in Franklin...barely 3 miles from our house. By the end of work day on Monday, he had scheduled an interview for Tuesday. He went to his interview on Tuesday and HE GOT THE JOB!!!! He starts 7/30; will be working from 3:30 p.m. to midnight M-F!!!

While this will bring many hardships our way: we won't see John during the week, he won't get much sleep, he will be working 77.5 hours every week. Those things are barely registering as a blip on the screen...we are ECSTATIC that we will finally have enough income to pay our bills. It will take a few months to get caught up, but then we should actually be able to make some progress towards climbing out of some of the debt we are drowing in. I guess we are just FULLY aware of the difficulty level of what we are embarking on, but we just really can't imagine that it will be any more difficult than it has been to continually fear we won't be able to pay the energy bill in time to avoid having the power cut off or constantly deal with collection agencies or having to tell our children over and over again, "We just don't have the money for ______"

I was a little nervous to blog about this. It's so raw and honest and revealing. However, SO many of you have read my blog over the past years and have been faithfully praying for us...I could not keep from you this news: Your prayers have been answered! We are being delivered!

This entire situation seems so saturated with God....the idea popping into my head, John being SO driven to find something, it all coming together so quickly, the position being just 3 miles from our house....

On Monday I asked a dear friend if I could just vent to her my deepest most honest feelings about this situation to her...after I spewed it all out one of the things she said was,

Your desperation for provision is warranted- time to rally the troops! You need a breakthrough!!!! You have every right to petition for one, too!
God sees you. I don't understand what He's up to, but He sees you! GOD- PLEASE MOVE! I'm asking for Your Fatherly rescue of your child! Please God!

I feel so strongly and amazingly that He has finally rescued us, and while I truly and honestly told Him I didn't care how He rescued us as long as He did rescue us, I for one am just TICKLED that He is going to rescue us through our own hard work and not through a handout. When John walked in that front door after getting this job, his whole countenance, the way he was holding his shoulders, everything about him was just strong again...not defeated...not worried... for so long he has tried to stand up under the emasculation of not being able to provide for his family and now I can already see how good he feels about the fact that God is going to use HIM to get us out of this mess. So while I would have never told God how to fix this, I am SO eternally gratefully that He chose to use John to rescue us.

I guess the way I started this blog (I'm a bit at a loss for words) is kinda funny now that it's turned into a novel. I wasn't at a loss for words to tell you what happened just at a loss to describe what I'm feeling: I am grateful, nervous, excited, relieved, peaceful, victorious...idk I just can't get the perfect word...

I am so glad I am God's and I am so glad He is mine. He truly has lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand (Psalm 40:2)

Don't forget to cry...

I was just sitting here watching In Plain Sight....the ending brought tears to my eyes (not a surprise...I'm a big fat bawl bag)...so I stood up to get started cleaning the kitchen and all of a sudden I felt sobs welling up inside me. As I let myself cry, I realized how good it felt to let out some of the pent up emotion I'd been keeping inside of me. As tears coursed down my face and sobs rose from deep inside me, I realized: trusting in God does not mean stuffing your feelings. God doesn't want us to deny, hide or bury what we're feeling. He desires honesty in our inmost being. Trusting in God is being afraid and lying it in his lap. Trusting in God is being worried about the Goliath in front of you but slinging that stone anyways. Trusting in God is being real and scared and defeated but GOING ON ANYWAYS!

I feel a little better now. The real truth is I am scared of our current financial situation, and on top of it all, I've been suffering from some pretty miserable sinus pain for the past 3 days, and I just needed to let a little of the fear and pain and misery out of me. That didn't make me a weaker person...that didn't mean I don't believe that God is sovereign...that didn't mean that I'm not "doing it right this time." It just meant I was being real.

Here's to keeping it real!

A Word from God

 This morning I asked God for a Word. I just sat silently for a little bit wanting to hear from Him. My battered soul, my worried heart just needed to hear from my Lord.

As I sat quietly, I got a picture in my head of an ostrich with its head buried in the sand. That's odd I thought. But I again cleared my head so I could hear from God and like a gentle wind he ministered to me, I want you to be just like this ostrich. I am the sand. Bury your head in Me. Don't worry about the world crashing and exploding about you...keep your head buried in Me. I will worry about the rest.

Maybe that ministers to you...maybe you just think I'm the crazy ostrich lady now...regardless...I shared. God will do the rest.