Open your Bible

      I ordered the new she reads truth study from Lifeway. Not really even knowing anything about it, just wanting to have something, that would hopefully help me sit down and read the bible. I have struggled so much with this over the years.
    Im sitting here reading the Introduction in tears, I realize out of fear or pain that seemed to much to bear, business, I always have some excuse. But this statement.... When we don't open our Bibles, It does not change who God is, is resonating with my soul.
    I feel like so much has happened in the last 6 years. There is always something keeping me from desperately seeking God the way my heart desires. Loneliness, Deep Heartache, Anger, Happiness, Business, Hurt, and Fear. Each feeling had an excuse. Although there are things that you are told if you are in church long enough, sometimes you don't really understand it. I know that God love for me does not change no matter what. How many times have I heard that said? Yet here I am almost 30 and I just finally got it. I just realized that not reading my bible doesn't change who God is. He doesn't love me less because I didn't read the Bible this week, or only read 3 scriptures today. His character is unchanging regardless of what I do or don't do.
     Here's to reading His word out of desire to know Him, and not obligation, guilt or fear. To not avoiding reading His word because we are fearful of His judgement, or conviction.

For my love.

This man, he found me, he pursued me, he loved me, he has fought for me, and lived for me. He is my husband, my best friend, the father to our beautiful son. He inspires me, helps me have confidence. I think that because of his disease I have thoughts that other wives probably don't. However, since this is the cards that we have I don't know what any other ones might say.

The last few months have been trying, Matt has had some bowel issues, and its been a rather trying time. A mist these issues he also has had some severe leg pain. It had me thinking a lot about the future. I know that its in God's hands, and there is no way of knowing how long any of us has. However, when you have a disease like Matt's even with a good heart, and the right respiratory equipment there is still no guarantee. That's scary... Even though some days it feels so hard, to think of this life without him, is heart wrenching.

There are not really any records to know the oldest age someone has lived to with his disease. His pulmonologist told us he has a patient who is 52 with duchenne. Please don't  read this and think I sit awake at night worrying Matt's going to die. It has been on my mind more as of late, but it doesn't keep me from sleeping. I see post pretty frequently about boys dying from Matt's disease (duchenne muscular dystrophy) It always makes me sad, especially because some of them are so young. Recently a dear friend of ours lost her son, he was only 24 years old, as far as I understand he simply fell asleep here on earth and woke up in heaven. Although I only knew his mother, it still has hit home very hard. I think sometimes I take for granted how well Matt is doing, or how well he is in comparison to others with his disease.

I have been thinking about how I want Matt to have a full life, to not have any regrets or wish that he would have done something, that we just never made the time for. I want him to know that he is greatly loved, more then I could ever say with words. I want his life to be full of love and laughter, true joy. Who knows what the future holds, I know its possible for us to have 30 more years together, and I hope for those years, to drive across the country together, to explore and experience new things. To not be bound my statistics, but just enjoy every day.

my take on becoming a mother.

Where to start....

Becoming a mother was more then I ever dreamed. It was such a beautiful moment, when they placed that perfect purple little boy on my tummy. It was a long time coming to that moment, although I know many who are still waiting, or waited much longer then I had to. I will give you some background without to many details, as I have other blogs about those. I found out when I was about 19 that I have polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) I read all the info I could at that time on it. So I knew it would make it difficult to have kids, but I don't think that what that meant ever really registered with me until I wanted to have kids. After Matt and I got married, I suppose it was a mixture of me already being 25 and his disease, we decided not to wait to try to have a baby. Little did I know the long hard road before us. I tried everything, natural supplements, diets, exercise, all natural everything! None of it worked. I had told Matt I wanted to try on my own for a year, before asking the doctor for help. Well that year came and went, and nothing happened. So off we went, they started medicines and treatments, and tests....blah blah blah. And we did all that stuff for two years. I had two miscarriages and way to many blood draws. But finally at the end of it all we got pregnant with Jasper! The cycle that we got pregnant on, was going to be our last. It didn't start off well, my eggs whee just not growing to the size they needed to be. I remember walking out of the doctors office crying, I told Matt "Obviously God doesn't want me to be a mother." That weekend we went to an introduction class on adoption, at the Buckner children's house. We decided that if this cycle didn't work that we were going to go forth with adoption. Then on Monday  I had to go back to the doctor and all the sudden I had three eggs that were mature. THREE, I had never in all the cycles we had done had more then one that matured enough to be fertilized. So I know God was trying to tell me I was wrong. 

Let me say that I don't believe that whole pun of if you decided to adopt, or adopt that you will get pregnant. I know that it was just God's timing. I had finally relinquished my dream, of how I wanted to become a mother, and allowed God to come in and do things the way that he wanted to. So I  had spent all this energy trying and wanting to have a baby. That I didn't realiaze there were a lot of things I didn't think about. Haha, I know that seems silly since I had about 9 months to "prepare," but I spend a lot of my pregnancy worrying about if he was okay. If I would get to hold him or not, I believe I worried more about him actually making it into the world then if something might be wrong with him. Not that anything is wrong with him. So to his birth, I had been walking a lot because I wanted Jasper to come on his own. I was wanting to have a natural birth, with no medications. I did, however, decide to have him in the hospital because I had some cyst on my ovaries early on,but they went away on there own by my 20th week. I had gone in for my 39 week appointment on a Monday, and nothing had really changed. My doctor told me to keep walking, and the nurse said "maybe we will see you next week?" After that since it was a nice day, Matt and I went walking at the park I think I ended up walking over 4 miles that day, later I got a pedicure, and then we went to Razoo's for dinner (spicy cajun food)! We went to bed late, around midnight. I had only been asleep about an hour, and I felt this gush of fluid leave my body. I jumped up ran to the bathroom, and yelled "Matt my water broke!" He was half asleep and I don't think he really realized what was happening. Your water breaking is rather interesting. Your body keeps producing water for the baby, so once it breaks it keeps leaking. I am really glad I got those depends like our birthing class teacher said we should. Anywho, I got Matt up, called my mom, and we got to the hospital about 3am. That's when my contractions started. I went 12 hours without pain meds, I was so determined. Then my contractions stopped easing up. They were back to back, and all in my lower back. I was having my mother and mil take turns rubbing my lower back, as that was all that helped ease the pain. Jasper was turned the wrong way, and that was causing me to not progress at all. I stayed dilated the same for over 12 hours. We decided to get an epidural, in hopes that it would help. I was able to relax, even get some rest, and Jasper was able to turn into the right position. At one point we were preparing for a c-section because I had still not progressed, and we were reaching the brink of 18 hours since my water had broken, I had tested positive for strep b, and they thought Jasper's head might be to big and me to small. Any who less then an hour after we were told that I was most likely going to be having a c-section they told me to get ready to push!!! Twenty minutes later we had a baby.

Once he was there and we were holding him, I felt like I didn't have to worry anymore. We had gotten through the hard part, silly me. I know now that them being here is much more to worry about. Jasper is wonderful and I wouldn't take any of it back. Becoming a mother changes you, its not a bad thing, but a very different thing. You will cry over silly things. Cry just because of how much you love this tiny little being. You will cry because of how the simplest things will envelop them. You will cry because one day you know there beautiful simple minds, will be destroyed by this complex world. You will feel so many things that you have never felt before. You will delight in watching them learn, you will learn from them. You'll understand things, like the way God wants us to trust him, by the way your son just throws himself backwards and trust you to be there to catch him. You will see the world in a new light, by eyes that have not  yet been hurt. It truly is a beautiful things that you have to let yourself enjoy, and not worry about the dishes that are filling the sink, or the toys all over the living room. Those moments are fleeting, and you won't ever get them back. Even when you decide to write a blog and it takes you 3 hours instead of 30 minutes. Life is to beautiful to miss.