On being still

Source: friendsoftype.com via Sam on Pinterest

I'm in bed today. I cannot sit in a chair or on the couch without horrible pain in my lower back. My right knee is screaming. My shoulders, elbows, wrists and fingers are throbbing. I could go on and on. Really, every part of my body is crying out. I could not sleep last night even though I swallowed my usual cocktail of meds to sledgehammer me into oblivion. I have already taken a narcotic this morning, something I usually reserve for much later in the day.

Wednesday, June 27th, I will be still.

My dear friend Bethany sent me this verse recently. I have been reciting it over and over in my head, and it has brought me much peace and comfort as I continually face deeper surrender to this life.

"The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still." Ex 14:14

The old Monica would be pushing through this pain to somehow be orchestrating an escape. I would be writing emails and making phone calls and combing craigslist for rentals, all of which are sketchy and none of which we can afford. I would be calling SummaCare about appeals. I would be calling creditors about the bills that came in over the past two weeks. All of them are money we owe AFTER insurance has paid their part. The numbers would be racing through my head. ( . . . $1,625.00 Southern Maryland Anesthesia. $1,159 Midatlantic Urology. $867.00 Diagnostic Imaging. $1,244.88 Diagnostic Imaging. $6,837.43 Doctors Community Hospital . . .) I would be looking at the calendar and struggling with four new appointments in July in Cincinnati for Danica and I, new hotel reservations, child care for Laney while we are gone and worrying about how Dan is out of days off, and still I cannot do this without him. I would definitely be praying to God but would never stop furiously rowing to shore (even though my shoulders and elbows and wrists and fingers would sublux on each and every pull.)

There has been a heart change. There has been a rearranging of my mind. It is not because I am more broken. It is because I am being healed. Because of God's grace, I am able to face a long day like today and not wish I was at the pool or the park or the zoo with my girls. I understand they are not forever scarred because most of the world moves around us doing and doing, and we are here being. Danica pretends in her room with her stuffed animals while listening to music. Delaney plays the piano on the ipad. It doesn't make me sad we don't have a real piano even though she truly has an ear for music. It doesn't make me feel guilty that I will most likely never be able to shuttle her to and from lessons that would nurture her talents. I believe this still life is a portal into God's plan for both my girls. There is sadness. There is loss. But we are finally seeing it with new eyes.

" . . . Such a man will not be overthrown by evil circumstances. God's constant care of him will make a deep impression on all who see it. He does not fear bad news, nor live in dread of what may happen. For he is settled in his mind that Jehovah will take care of him. That is why he is not afraid, but can calmly face his foes." Psalm 112:6-8

I had such an uplifting phone call with a friend yesterday. As I was sharing my honest heart I realized something huge. I do not need an ativan any longer to be calm. I am not afraid of the potential damage of staying here in this basement. I am not in dread of getting sicker because there will be no deliverance. I read back through the years of posts here, our story, and over and over Jehovah has taken care of us. I am settled in my mind He will do this now. In His time through His constant care He will bing Himself the most glory and make a deep impression on all those who are watching. Until then, I will be still. He is fighting for us. Behind the scenes He is moving and working to make the way. He is orchestrating. Today I can rest.

(Thanks cousin Amy for sharing this great link of 40 ways to entertain your kids while in bed.  I know lots of my zebra sisters and spoonie friends will appreciate this or maybe even healthy moms who just need to lie down!)

Sisters I never knew I had. Oh so kind and brave.

                                     
I'm sitting here in my special momma "NEST" chair finally having my first cup of coffee for the day. The sun is setting behind this idyllic neighborhood. It's the same chair I sat in hour after hour, day after day, month after month looking for answers for my Danica. How much time did I spend reading research, reaching out to Chiari moms, blogging, praying, weeping, wailing and pleading for God's direction in the heaviest of decisions we've ever had to make in our lives?  God brought my angel, Pam, through the internet into my heart at the perfect time, and she lifted me up and listened and shared what she knew. I looked back at our facebook history of private messages tonight. There are one hundred forty-seven. There are many emails too. There are long phone calls and laughing and crying. There are cards of encouragement and little gifts. She is the one who listened last weekend when I finally broke down about living here and how sick I really feel. She sends me messages to download and listen to. She send me songs to remind me to worship. She speaks Truth wrapped in the compassion and courage of our Savior. Yes, I am active in the body of Christ, and this is my sister.

Pam has a daughter with Chiari as well. She has been decompressed and had tethered cord surgery and will most likely eventually need to be fused because she too has EDS and suffers instability. Two years ago today Pam had her decompression and fusion with Dr. Henderson. This was followed by her own tethered cord surgery. Our bodies and our stories read like we are twins. It was dear Pam who gently encouraged me when reading on the blog about how much pain I was in to be brave enough to look deeper than a fibromyalgia diagnosis. It was Pam who took me straight to Dr. Henderson, my hero. It was Pam who encouraged me when I thought I could not do the second surgery to keep the faith.

Just like Pam has been a mentor, friend and sister to me, she has had one of these women in her life. When I posted for "Kind and Brave" nominations it was no surprise she would submit Kristin. This is not a journey we could take alone. It is not a walk many can stay the distance for along side us. We cling to one another as we crawl out of bed to make it through another day, fight for a better future for our children who have inherited our diseases, pray for one another in the specifics only we could know or understand about how hard and painful this path is. We also share the sharp beauty that is only appreciated when you have lost so much and still unexplainably know for sure you are richer, wiser, kinder and more sure than ever this is not in vain. I know I will run the streets of gold in perfect bodies with these two ladies. I wonder if Heaven will be just a little sweeter for those of us who are so broken here?

Thank you Pam and Kristin for blazing trails for me. I love you. Thank you Pam for this nomination.

Several people immediately came into mind, when given the opportunity to nominate a person who demonstrates kindness and/or bravery for the giveaway. To try and choose just one of them, became a very difficult task for me. I struggled for days, trying to narrow down my list. Many people have touched my life through random acts of kindness or by personifying bravery. It was so hard to choose just one person.

Today, I am nominating a friend, fellow patient, mother, advocate, and a person who always has a smile on her face, while she continues to lift up others, even when life knocks her down. Always staying positive, reaching out to those who need a pep talk or advice, raising awareness and educating about medical conditions, taking care of sick children day in and day out, while she herself is sick... are just a few of the qualities that I admire in Kristin Means. Kristin is clearly a person who has learned to "dance in the rain," through it all.

Sixteen surgeries later and Kristin is still cracking jokes and making people laugh through it all. She can put a smile on anyone's face. Kristin battles the devastating effects of Chiari Malformation and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome daily. There is no cure for either condition and both are progressive and degenerative. Her sweet boys have these conditions also. Many people are fighting illnesses themselves, or have children who are battling medical conditions...but to be both a patient and mother of two sick children, takes things to a whole different level. We all have our crosses to bear in life, but to do what Kristin does every day with such grace, patience and kindness, touches my heart and soul. To choose to wear a smile, when it would be so much easier to wear a frown, is not an easy thing to do.

Having Kristin in my life, makes me want to be a better mother, friend, wife and all around better person. She may not know this...but I look up to her (even though she is much younger than me). Kristin doesn't complain, when she has every reason to. She doesn't feel sorry for herself or ever ask "Why me?" She smiles through the pain and reaches out to others who are hurting. She is very thoughtful, caring and giving...and truly one of the bravest people that I know.

We have a choice every day when we wake up. It is often easy to give up and feel defeated before the day even begins. The choice to remain brave, when you know that something is lurking around every corner when it comes to your health and your children's is beyond admirable. Always showing kindness and truly caring about others, while facing your own trials, is just another reason why I would love for Kristin to be the recipient of the Kind and Brave Giveaway. Kristin is a huge blessing in my life!

PLEASE take the time to watch this video of Kristin sharing her journey and what life is like with EDS and accompanying conditions. I hope in my lifetime people will respond with more compassion and understanding to beautiful women like us who look "fine" and are truly so sick and struggling. Today I had the same anesthesiolgist for my colonoscopy as I did for my endoscopy. He said after our last meeting he went home and researched EDS and connective tissue disorders. These are small victories for us who seek to be heard and understood.

Telling the scary truth (finally) about why I can't get well

"Nothing heals us like letting people know our scariest parts: When people listen to you cry and lament, and look at you with love, it's like they are holding the baby of you." Anne Lamott

I've had two big medical trips since I've posted about anything health related. I know the details of these trips help you understand how challending our life is, and also the things I learn from the specialists prove helpful to those of you on a similar journey at different stages or without the access to the care I have received. It's difficult for me to explain, even after all these years of doing this, how much these trips and appointments take from me physically and emotionally and spiritually. They are just plain hard. Today I'm just going to write about what three specialists have not just recommended but prescribed for me or they believe I will continue to get sicker and sicker. (I will post about Danica's Cincinnati appointments in the next day or so with pictures, because I know you never tire of watching this amazing girl's brave journey.)

I've known for awhile now this basement where we live, in the lower level of my parent's home, is making me sick. I've really only been able to deal with one big health problem at a time and so I've pushed this to the back burner for two major surgeries and recoveries. Last summer when we moved in I was feeling okay. Yes, I had joint pain and fatigue and was completely worn out from nine months of full time care of Danica with her immobility and constant needs, but I rapidly went downhill over the first two months here. I was just finding out about EDS and Chiari and my instability. My symptoms snowballed to the point I could barely get out of bed. I associated these with my brain stem and spinal cord compression and connective tissue disorder. I did not consider that living here was adding layers of symptoms making it impossible for my body to heal.

I was diagnosed with a severe mold allergy in addition to other environmental allergies for the first time when Delaney was a baby. Dan and I lived in a new construction home in Rittman, Ohio. It was built on farm land and faced a gorgeous horse farm. I got sicker than I had ever been. One day I went out front to plant some bulbs. The wind was blowing the "right" way, and I was digging dirt and touching bulbs, and it became harder and harder to breathe. I fell down on the sidewalk just as I was slipping into blackness. This episode prompted the testing, allergy medication, an inhaler and realization that most likely it was not just the outdoor triggers but the new construction making me so ill. When we went to sell the house we also found very high radon levels there. (New construction homes are not required to have radon inspection paid for by the builder upon closing. If you ever buy one I highly suggest you ask for this in your contract or pay yourself to have it done, particularly if there is not a mitigation system in the basement or crawlspace.)

When you trace our history with homes you can see how I always felt better in the "older" houses we lived in and also those with hard wood floors. These were the periods when I was able to work, ramp back up my career and live the most pain free. These homes were also in established neighborhoods in more urban settings so my body was not dealing with the outdoor triggers of just developed farm land or the indoor triggers of new drywall, carpet, floor stain, etc. This is one of the things a good allergist will help you do. Before they get out a prescription pad they will ask the right questions and listen. I was lucky enough to see such a doctor in May. He confirmed what I knew in my heart to be true. Living in this beautiful lower level of a new construction home built on what was farm land could be perfectly healthy for some but for me it is a recipe for continuous sickness and decline. Add to this my other serious conditions, and it offers little hope for true healing.

When you say the word "mold" to people they think of Extreme Home Makeover kind of mold visibly growing on walls and ceilings. Truly, three quarters of this space we live in is like a cave. It is a recipe for mold spores to grow. I have such a severe sensitivity I can "smell" it all the time. Somedays it makes me feel bipolar. I smell it in ice cubes and water from my parent's fridge. I became so sick in the bathroom I reduced showering to once or twice a week. Dan keeps his clothes in an unfinished room in the house, and when he was near me I felt like he had mold on his clothes. Delaney's room has no window either and does not even have airconditioning or heating vents. It is so humid in there and always smells strange to me. Danica has the one bedroom with a half window. For some reason I felt the sickest in this room. Over the last weeks I have gotten so crazy about getting people to believe me I had Dan take the pipes in the bathroom and kitchen apart. They were caked with black mold. I also realized the downstairs plumbing is venting through a return air vent near the ceiling into Danica's room. Every night when I would go into her room and shut the doors to tuck her in my face would get burning hit and red and my POTS would flare. I had been telling Dan for months there was something in her room in particular making me sick. It doesn't matter that it's allowed by code or really only suppose to open and suck air in not leak stuff out. I know it's making me sick.

We have used an enzyme to try to get the black stuff in the pipes. My parents have offered their upstairs bedroom to Dan and I which would leave our girls and the dog down here with them. Quite frankly, Our family cannot be separated again. We just won't survive it. We have a routine. We have a joy that comes only when we are hiding away together. The stress of living with two other families here is already great anough without shuffling the cards. We've talked about getting a sleeper sofa and Dan and I sleeping out here in the room with two windows. We've talked about if we could somehow get rid of the carpet and put down hardwood. Every possible scenario seems to only be a stop gap that may not even work at all. Bottom line from all my doctors. YOU CANNOT LIVE IN A BASEMENT. If you remain there you WILL suffer permanent pulmonary and gastrointestinal damage. PERMANENT.

When we made the very painful decision to move here last June we had no idea about my Chiari, Ehlers Danlos, instability, etc. We thought this was a one year plan. I thought I would be working again, Danica would be in school, and we would be back in our own home. If you are a regular reader you know I have wrestled with God about living here more than even my own health issues. Dan and I feel completely defeated. Why would God put us in this impossible situation after providing for us and leading us like He has? We literally do not see a way to move out. Even if we found a one bedroom apartment we could eek to afford the environment would likely be as bad if not worse than here. I cannot live next to a smoker. I cannot have old carpet with mold and dust mites in it. We have to have Twixie. She is the only thing somedays that keeps Laney believing in life. She is like our child now. We could not suffer to lose her.

This is the truth about why I cannot get well. Friends, if you have ever prayed for us. If you have ever pleaded with God to show His faithfulness and mercy and undeserved merit to Dan and I and our sweet girls, would you please get on your knees and beg Him for a way of escape for us now?

I am broken. I am full of grief. I feel far from the God who I know without a doubt loves me and already has provided an answer. I should be praising Him today. Instead I am crying and praying and singing this . . . over and over and over.

RESTORE TO ME THE JOY OF YOUR SALVATION.

RESTORE TO ME THE WONDERS OF YOUR LOVE.

Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26

Remind me again what EDS is and why you call yourself a zebra?

Source: etsy.com via Monica on Pinterest

I worked on a post today trying to finally spit it out and just tell the truth about why I am getting sicker and how impossible our life seems right now. I can't say it.

I have been asked more and more recently about what my connective tissue disorder, Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, is and also, in some comical and sometimes insulting ways, why I don't look that sick at all but have a handicapped tag and can barely get out of bed somedays. I have read so much research on EDS. I have watched as many symposiums as I can. I have searched for a way to simply explain something so complicated to people who care.

Maxim magazine, a pretty filthy men's magazine, recently published a stupid article titled, "Four Diseases We wouldn't Mind Having." Can you imagine? I won't link to them in any way but trust me, it created rage among the EDS community to have our disease not only made fun of but so grossly misrepresented. The backlash of our "rare" zebra community was so strong they agreed to participate in Ehlers Danlos Awareness month and printed the following VERY informative follow up. So, if you have ever wondered what all the hub bub is and why I will forever be a zebra please read, and if you know someone with any of these symptoms, and particularly someone who has been suffering with fibromyalgia for years with no relief from treatment, please share. The statistics of fibro sufferers who are really zebras is fifty percent!

We quickly learned that Ehlers Danlos Syndrome isn’t fun, funny or desirable. But we still needed to find out what the condition actually is, and what makes it the invisible killer. Now we’re very scared...and informed.

Eugene Wilson of the Center For the Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Alliance was kind enough to walk us through the condition and help show us just what complete idiots we were. And sadly, we’re not the only ones in the dark about EDS.

What Is EDS?

EUGENE WILSON: It’s complicated. Put simply, EDS is a collagen deficiency, which is the glue of the body. An EDS patient has difficulty making the collagen. The loose-connective tissue is faulty.  But EDS is not just muscular and skeletal. It’s not just in the joints. It’s not just the muscles being hyper-elastic. You can have vision problems. It leads to heart problems. It leads to brain problems. You have some kids that can’t walk. They can’t even move.

How Bad Can it Get?

There are six main types, and people who suffer from the first three types may only have hyper-flexibility and loose skin. But type IV get worse. Type IV is Vascular EDS. People with Type IV know they’re walking a thin line each and every day. They never know if they’re going to wake up the next morning. Kids who are 13, 14, 15 years old are dying from this. Those with Type IV have a life expectancy of 48.

Why Isn’t This Well Known?

There’s a lot of bad information out there. Even some people in the medical field fail to recognize EDS. There’s misinformation and miscommunication. I can take a child with EDS to four different geneticists and all four of them will come up with different answers. Testing for EDS is currently only 30-40% accurate. The medical community needs to step up and realize what’s happening. Right now, it’s been reported that 1 in 1,500 people have EDS. I think that number is closer to 1 in 800. That’s why we need to raise awareness. People need to know.

What Are the Symptoms?

You could start with being double-jointed. If you look at someone and they have a crooked nose and they’ve never been in a fight, that’s a deviated septum, and that’s one sign of EDS. You see someone standing by a counter and their ankles are rolled onto the outside face? That’s another sign they have EDS. If you watch a person write, and their fingers bend backwards, not so much the thumb, but the fingers, that’s another sign. If you’re having unusual pains, but getting a lot of false-negative x-rays and MRIs, you could have EDS. There’s a lot of little clues, some of them almost invisible.

Maxim Is Better Than House (at least)

People heard the voicemail and asked how I kept my composure. But getting mad at you guys would have done more harm than good. At least you called back. There was an episode of House that focused on EDS. It was horrible. It was about a girl who had several miscarriages and some pain and then she became a hoarder. And then House walked in and diagnosed her as EDS. Hoarding doesn’t have anything to do with EDS.

Is This Piano Video Sending the Wrong Message? (A guy who plays the piano backwards because his arms are so hypermobile.)

For me? Any kind of awareness is great. I don’t want people to see that video and say, “Hey, if that person can do that, it’s perfectly fine for me to do the same thing.” If you do that, you’re tearing up your joints faster than you needed to.

There’s a lot of bad, bad information out there. Some don’t like what Stan Lee has done on his show Stan Lee’s Superhumans. There’s a man with EDS on the show who has elastic skin. What people don’t understand is that that man is fortunate enough to not be suffering in the severe pain that other EDS patients suffer.

EDS affects every person differently. I can show you 15 people in the same room, you look at every single one of them, and none of them look sick, but each one has a different severity of pain, and that pain has affected their life in a different way.

Any Hope for a Cure?

There’s a lot of research starting to come through. Most of it has been research in the Vascular EDS, and I can understand that. They’re trying to stop loss of life. You’re looking at nanomedicine. You basically take a pill and little micro-robotic things will fix your body. How does that work? I’m not sure. But there’s the hope. In Texas there’s a research project about new medication for Vascular EDS. Unfortunately our government takes their sweet ol’ time to get any medication on the market. In Europe there’s already some medication available. There is hope. Until we get there, it’ll take much more knowledge in the medical field, and we need to know how many people have EDS and get the right diagnosis on these people.

Why Are Doctors in the Dark?

A lot of it goes back to the med schools. I’ve spoken to doctors who said that in med school, they only had six days or a few weeks of studying all the connective tissue conditions...not just EDS. All of them. If the doctor never sees it again after they come out of school, and then a patient comes to the doctor 15 years later, the odds that the doctor will remember everything about that condition are slim to none.

My son’s doctor had him on the exam table bent up like a pretzel, but never diagnosed him. Finally it took a muscular neurologist to diagnose my son. We need more connective tissue labs and clinics all around the United States. We’d like magazines and media like Maxim to help promote awareness.

Why The Zebra Mascot?

“Zebra” is a medical term for rare or difficult to diagnose diseases. There’s the old saying, “When you hear hoofbeats behind you, you don’t expect to see a zebra.” But we’re flipping it. If you hear hoofbeats, think of Zebras.

For more information on the condition and to find out how you can help, check out The Center for Ehlers Danlos Syndrome Alliance. Be sure to check out the proposed legislation that would help make more people aware of the condition.

Small (and yet really not small) gifts

I'm almost ready to talk about some big things God is revealing to us about my health that quite honestly have sent me into an R.E.M. "Losing My Religion" kind of crisis of faith. Part of this new information has prompted me to run my own little experiments of sort with my energy and reactions to environment and other triggers. As silly as it sounds I need to convince myself one more time this is not psychological in any way. Also, selfishly, just once in awhile, I want to open the same gifts most of you get to every day no matter how much I will pay tomorrow. I want to remember the simple surprises God gives to us over and over again that I have not seen in so very long because I have been here in this room and in this bed for almost a year now.

Leigh McLeroy writes, "We prevent God from giving us the great spiritual gifts He has in store for us, because we do not give thanks for daily gifts. We think we dare not be satisfied with the small measure of spiritual knowledge, experience, and love that has been given to us, and that we must constantly be looking forward eagerly for the highest good. Then we deplore the fact that we lack the deep certainty, the strong faith, and the rich experience that God has given to others, and we consider this lament to be pious. We pray for the big things and forget to give thanks for the ordinary, small (and yet really not small) gifts."

Tonight I am getting on my knees (closer to walking on glass these days since my right one always subluxes) while my family sleeps and praying for really big impossible things. But first I'll be giving thanks for today's gifts and the eyes and heart to see them.

God is good. Life is good. Today I didn't have to fake it.

My empty pot finally has flowers thanks to my gardening momma. Things between us have been strained. This act of love reminded me of one of my cardinal relationship rules based on the Grace of God. MEET PEOPLE WHERE THEY ARE.

My mom has a rose bush for each of her children and grandchildren. Mine has always been a red rose. This year my bush is sick and needs moved. You can tell from the leaves, and we had to prune it way back to get rid of the ick. Still, a beautiful blossom that holds my truth.

My grandma Wishart is eighty-nine years old. My mom and I inherited the love for gardening and much of our knowledge about plants from her. I don't thank God enough for the blessing of knowing her in this season.

In my former life I always kept champagne in the fridge for celebrating every day kind of miracles. I read recently it is the number one anaphalaxis causing food or beverage. Top that with my favorite, a fresh strawberry, a new allergy of mine, and here comes trouble. Still, I enjoyed every drop even though I felt very sick afterward. This was definitely a test I failed.

My Dani J. . . Dreaming.

Our husband and father of the year . . . EVERY year. I caught him dreaming too.

My Laney Jayne and her sidekick, Twixie. LOVE.

This last picture is a little Disney sign with a quote from Cinderella,

"Even miracles take a little time."

The four painted rocks represent our family. If you read here regularly you know I have a thing with rocks, especially ones with words or symbols on them. Dan painted me the one with the orange cross just this week. It's a perfect prayer rock and reminds me of the greatest miracle of all, my Savior.

There are no small gifts and "even miracles take a little time."

Our hope remains.

Art as life. Life as art.

Source: tabletonic.blogspot.com via Monica on Pinterest

You know those signs "In this family we do . . ." that are all the rage? We need one custom made that says just one thing, "In this family we do ART." On good and bad days and all the ones in between there is always something being created here. It's important like air. Dan and Delaney are especially gifted. (I know everyone thinks their child is the next Picasso but when push comes to shove they usually counsel them to choose a "REAL" major in college.) Delaney is a self proclaimed "guerilla" artist. She has been since she was two years old. There is absolutely not one day she does not create something. She is blessed to have an amazing art teacher at her school and is taking lessons this summer. Today she was working on the watercolor techniques she learned last week. I love she is trying new mediums, but for as long as I can remember her particular talent has been color and pattern. These are the pieces I keep and frame and gift. I know they will someday be part of her "early work" collection. (I love this one just below!) On most days each of us choose our favorite form of expression, turn up a playlist and elbow for room around the table.

When we moved here from Maryland I sold almost everything I owned and loved including my Arhaus table that sat four beautifully in our little kitchen but could flip out for a party of ten. We inherited a little set from my parents when we moved here. It was brand new for all intents and purposes last June and is now "wasted" by art. It is "wasted" by life. I kept it perfect and fussed and fretted until I was gone recovering from my brain surgery and fusion. Someone watching the girls let them use nail polish remover at the table . . . and again at my little black coffee table. It took the top finish off both of them. There was also a super glue incident hidden for days by one of my quilted placemats by none other than Dan. Tonight as I tried to scrub acrylic paint off the finish I realized I wasn't even the least bit peeved. This table was everything I wanted that super expensive piece of ash table to be . . . LIVED on. Every time our family talks about our "dream home" there is a table where art never has to be put away, where paint dries and stays put layer after layer, and someone is always creating something.

We don't own any Chagall or Monet, but we have collected beautiful pieces that mean something to us and speak to our journey. We have shed our lives of almost everything except this art. If you visit our home, wherever we land, you will know who we are because of the story our walls tell. Art as life. Life as art. All of it.

More Kind and Brave. My Aunt Cara.

Source: demdaco.com via Classic on Pinterest

This nomination is near and dear to me because my cousin, Amy, wrote it about my Aunt Cara. The longer God gives me here on this earth the more I believe our bravery and our love are what remain when everything else falls away. My Aunt Cara leaves this kind of legacy in the hearts and lives of the literally hundreds of people she touches. One of the most courageous things a mom can do is get down on her knees and pray hard when your child has walked away. My cousin Amy has shared here what her mom has given her that resembles the heart of God for all of us. We can always go home. He is always waiting to run to us, forgive us and celebrate us. Amazing love.

I nominate my mother Cara. She has been through so much in her life and yet has remained so faithful to God. Everyday until I moved out we saw her on her knees talking to God but even then I could feel her prayers. She has been a nurse for almost 40 years, and many of those she spent as a hospice nurse. She used this opportunity to witness to many patients and their families. She went above and beyond her job duties to show compassion and Christ's love. She has families to this day who remember her and still thank her. She and my father kept foster children for 12 years. We still keep in touch with some of them. She sacrificed her time, money, privacy, and sanity to help children in need. She made sure we were fed, clothed, and raised in a Godly home. My mother has been through breast cancer, losing her father, rebellious children, taking care of her mother who has Alzheimer's, and a muscle disease. Through it all she still praises God and prays daily for us. She is planning yet another mission trip to a 3rdworld country to take medicine and the Gospel to those in need. The most amazing thing about my mother is that even after all the trouble I have been in, all the sleepless nights I caused her, all the tears, she STILL every day prays for me. She STILL loves me. She is ALWAYS my momma. She has taught me by her example to be brave and kind to my children and to others. I wish all kids could have a mom like mine.