Catching My Breath

Well, what a few days this has been! I certainly did not expect that coming home with a newborn would be easy, as a matter of fact, I knew that it would NOT be easy, but I wasn't quite expecting what has actually been occurring.

We came home on, gosh, was it Sunday? Yes, Sunday afternoon. By Sunday evening it was apparent that I had caught the same flu bug that Jack and my mother (and my mother-in-law as well) had been stricken with. As most moms know, no matter how clean you leave your house when he door closes behind you, when you come home, it's always a wreck, so on Monday the first order of the day was...order. Jeff mobilized the troops and spent the day organizing and pitching all kinds of stuff. You never know how much you can accumulate....the packaging for baby monitors, pacifiers, wrapping paper, hospital papers that you don't need, plus just unpacking all the stuff you brought home from the hospital! I tried to rest and recover as much as possible, but I was still needed to direct traffic and take care of Grace.

Tuesday was a little better flu-wise, although I was feeling pretty sore and "train-wrecked". Grace has her days and nights mixed up, so she sleeps great during the day and is awake and fussy mostly between the hours of 11p.m. - 4 a.m. Not much sleeping happens during that time frame.

While all of this normal "adjusting" was going on, we were having some discipline issues with Anne. This has been something we've been dealing with for some time now, and were very hopeful that her presence here, along with exposing her to godly friends and the youth group at church would be the catalyst that was needed for her to make some necessary changes to her life. Sadly, things culminated with her on Tuesday evening to such a point that an emergency "counseling" call to Mark and Laurie became necessary. Mark spoke very plainly and lovingly to her about the choices, and the consequences to the choices that she was making, but Anne has chosen at this point to harden her heart to God's truth. Because of the circumstances it became apparent that we would need to send her back home to GA to her mother. Tuesday night (actually by then it was Wednesday morning) we booked her a flight home, and after about 2 hours of sleep, Jeff got up and took her to Indy where she got on a plane home to GA without even saying a goodbye. We are heartbroken. We love her so much, and our hearts are literally raw with grief over her rejection of truth. I do not share this with you to shame her, but to ask you to pray for her and for us. If you know Anne and want to encourage her, please feel free to email me, and I will let you know how you can get in touch with her. She still claims to be a Christian, which means that her choices will only lead one way......the hard way. Pray for Bryan. He is quiet and hasn't expressed much, but we know that although he was prepared to eventually say "goodbye for now" to Anne at the end of the summer, this unexpected turn of events has shaken him. He has responded very well, and has encouraged her to "make better choices".

We have kept Jack busy, and so far I think that with all the commotion of the "new arrangement" of having a baby sister, he hasn't really processed yet that Anne is gone. I'm sure that as the days pass, he will start to realize that she is not just spending the night at a friends, and his questions will come. As for Grace, it is also sad for us that Anne is missing this precious new beginning, and that she has chosen willfully to miss it. Anne, if you are reading this, we LOVE you, we MISS you, and we wish you were here. Please make the choices that you know you need to make so that we can get past this time!

Well, as you can see, there is so much more happening in our lives than just the addition of little Gracie. She is absolutely beautiful, and we love her dearly. She is an encouragement to our hearts, and even her name is a reminder of what God has done for us in giving up His only Son to be the Redeemer of our hearts. Through these last few days I have been challenged over and over again by my own words to my hurting friends, words given to me by my friend, during time of past hurts of my own. Do I really believe that the truth of God's word trumps the pain of my experience? Do I really believe that God causes all things to work together for good, that I may be more like Christ? Do I really have this ambition...to be pleasing to Christ?

I do. I really do. So, I am going through my days with a renewed determination to look for Christ in every situation that presents itself, to hopefully be found faithful in the trials that He has given me, and to please Him in everything that I do. Please pray for us as we have this goal.

I will try to post some more pictures soon. I have a ton of them on my camera, but I have this unusual problem.....I have this gigantic new memory card for my camera, which is really cool, but it is so HUGE that I can't get my computer to recognize it, so the process to get the pictures off of it is more complicated than I would like, and requires me to log in to Jeff's computer and have his help getting the pictures off. So, as soon as we get a moment, we will try to upload the pictures to my facebook page.

Newsflash: Just spoke with Jeff and it would appear that the "BUG" has hit him at work. Poor daddy, he feels miserable. Aunt Gigi has come and whisked Jack away for the day, so I am now at home with Grace and Bryan. What shall I do first? Take a shower? Take a nap? Post on my blog? Well, I guess I will post this on my blog. :-)

Please pray for us!