Turning the Other Cheek...

   So today I was commenting on a friends Facebook post. I was told to F-off & get a life for respectfully defending a friend. As a country girl, it's very hard not to go off completely. But as a Christian who is a new creature, I took a second and asked God to bless them, soften their hearts and put someone in their lives to be a good witness. 
   You see, i used to be like that. I'd tell ya where to go in a heartbeat. But Jesus changed me & taught me how to love people even when they spit in your face. It's not always easy, but the minute I get worked up, I feel the Holy Spirit calming me and the word i hear is GRACE! "Give them the same grace I gave you." I was so lost in my sin. I did some terrible things. But God's grace covered me and changed me. 
   That person that "blessed" me out, may have thought I was being condescending when I said I would pray for God's blessings on their life, but that's because they don't understand how after being cussed out, I could say that. And that's because they don't know God. 
They don't know the overwhelming love of Jesus. I pray one day they will though. I'm not perfect and I never will be. But in my weakness, that's when God shows up. 
    So to those people who said those things to me, I say, I love you, I'd take a bullet for you, because God loves you. And because God's love is in me, I don't see you for what you DO, I see you for who you ARE. A lost child of God, carrying hurts from religious people, lugging the past around. It breaks my heart. And all I can do is keep praying for them. I never thought turning the other cheek would hurt. Not my pride, but my heart....

This is the sah-weet bedroom set I made for my little rocker! What's cuter than "sheet music" sheets!? Found the sheet material at JoAnns and the guitar material at Walmart of all places!! It was my first experience making a fitted sheet. What I thought was going to be a difficult project, turned out to one of the easiest things I've ever sewn! Who knew :) Really pleased with how it can out! What do ya think?

What do you DO all day???

   I am writing this because of the response I get when someone asks, "What do you do?". As soon as I reply, "I'm a Stay-At-Home-Mom.", I get this look from the other person. (We all know the look!) Or I get one of these, "Ohhhhh Ok!" What is THAT supposed to mean!? I'll tell you! It's the undeniable look & sound of judgement. The, "so you don't do anything" response. So I thought  I'd run down the schedule of my typical day.

   I normally wake up around 8-9am. I walk into the bathroom, contacts blurry because i was too lazy to take them out before I feel asleep the night before. I search like a blind bat for the saline solution. Use the bathroom. Stubble to the kitchen tripping over toys & a clothes basket someone has placed in front of the laundry room door. (obviously a sign from one of my teenagers that their clothes need to be washed.) I start a pot of coffee & start laundry. I pick up all the toys my 2-yr-old left out the night before. By then the coffee is done, so I make myself a cup. AHHHH! 

  I sit down to give myself a few minutes to catch up on stuff for the ministry & business. (band facebook, band emails) I check my personal facebook & emails. Then I check the sewing business emails, Etsy, & facebook.  

   By now the baby has awoke. "Millllllkkkkk", he whines. He's still not awake either! I get him a cup of milk. He nestles in on the couch to watch Disney Channel & have his milk. (This is his own waking up ritual.)

   Soon, my 20 minutes of quiet is over as he realizes it's time to play. Breakfast time. We spend a good 10 minutes staring into the pantry & the refrigerator as he decides if he wants yogurt, cereal, or fruit! 

He decides on tomatoes & cheese! Whatever!

   He eats & I try to finish up work on the computer. 

I decide to start work on a project. So i begin measuring & cutting out a pattern. Before I get the chance to make one cut, I hear an "uh-oh". He has dumped out his milk on the coffee table & the dog is running off with his cheese! I clean up the mess & chase down the dog only to find the baby has recovered the cheese that the dog had in it's mouth. The baby is eating it...Whatever! (He's got a good immune system right?!) I pull out some toys hoping to keep him occupied for a bit. 

   Back to the sewing. I manage to get the pattern halfway cut out before I see the 2-yr-old has erected a make-shift staircase of various items & is jumping off the top of it onto ALL the couch cushions he has pulled onto the floor. (Mind you he did all this in a matter of 5 minutes.) Ok, I see I'm going to get NOTHING accomplished. SO I decide to clean. He runs off to his room to play drums. I manage to get the living room clean. And the baby sits quietly on the couch while I vacuum. (the couch is a place of safety where the vacuum won't eat him!) As I'm vacuuming he disappears & I realize as I'm wrapping up, that he is sitting on the kitchen floor surrounded by every single condiment in the refrigerator. He has removed them! SO I take him into the living room for a time-out. I put everything BACK into the refrigerator. By now it is time for lunch!

   "Mam-ich!" he says. Sandwich it is! I make his sammy, and some fruit and place it on coffee table, as he refuses to sit in his high chair anymore. I manage to get a pattern completely cut out & he's being very quiet. I thought he was watching Yo Gabba. I was wrong. He found one of his sister's bottles of nail polish & is beautifying my CARPET & WALLS with it! Time-out again! I grab the Bissell, various cleaning products, & paper towels. I try to get the nail polish up. (It's BLACK by the way!) 

after 30 minutes, I'm ready to scream. 

   Time to go outside. We walk down the mountain to Nana & Papa's house where I spend that hour chasing him up & down the stairs or trying to keep him from pulling everything out of THEIR refrigerator. Ok time to go back home. I go home & while I'm deciding what I'm going to make for dinner, I see that the kitchen needs to be cleaned. So I take something out of the freezer for dinner & start cleaning the kitchen. Elijah is playing quietly in the living room. I think he's finally getting tired, thank God! (Mind you the living room & kitchen are only separated by an entertainment center, I can see him.) But I get so involved in cleaning the kitchen that by the time I'm done, I see he has pulled every book off the bookshelf & got into my yarn basket & tangled about $100 worth of yarn! I realize the living room is a mess again & It's only 4 o'clock. I'm gonna cry.

    Still left to do in the day... Clean AGAIN!, finish sewing project, make dinner, do a power point presentation for church, change the bed sheets (because Elijah's diaper leaked), pick up teen daughter from work, water plants, eat dinner, bathe the baby, (clean up THAT mess), unload dishwasher, and the list goes on. And all this must be done while making sure the 2 yr old doesn't kill himself in some household accident! I normally crawl into bed somewhere around 2am. 

   See, when you are a SAHM, the work never ends. There are no vacation or sick days. I am exhausted at all times. (On top of everything, I have fibromyalgia which just amplifies stress, aches, & pains.) But when I collapse into a heap, Elijah senses (even at 2) that mom has had enough. He crawls into my lap, wraps his little arms around me & says "Nuggle mama". (translation, Snuggle mama.) It makes EVERYTHING worth it. That's why we do what we do. We sacrifice having a job & the money that comes along with it, because those little angels are worth it. The stress of trying to work from home is worth it. God gave me this precious gift & I only have a few short years him. I don't want to miss a THING! 

   So to those who give the look, or the condesending awnswer when we tell you we are SAHM's, just remember. Our hair may not look the best, we may wear yoga pants 6 out of 7 days a week, and we may smell like a mix of markers, play dough, & sweat! But that's because what we do hard & messy! and it IS work!...(but we love it!)

 

My Testimony...

The night before I went to the ER, February 13th, Necessary Truth had just played at the Amped Youth Service @ Biltmore COG. We worshiped & sang & had a wonderful service not knowing how sick I was! We had been seeking the Lord & working on growing our ministry. We had a full schedule through April. Everyone has told me the devil comes at us strongest the more we seek Jesus. I don’t know if this was the devil or not, (I know it wasn’t God & I’ll get to that later) but I DO know 1 Peter says the devil is like a lion seeking who he can destroy & I believe he saw this opportunity to destroy not only our ministry but me as well.

So the next morning I was home alone with Elijah, I started passing out. So I called Carl & he rushed home, When he came in I was passed out on the couch, the dogs were barking, Elijah had destroyed the living room & was screaming. I believe that was miracle number one! That he kept Elijah safe.

Carl got us in the van, we went to Swain County ER. When I got there my blood pressure dropped to 69/31 & my o2 was only 81%. When they x-rayed me it showed my right lung almost completely full & my lower left lobe full of pnuemonia. They told me I needed to be in Intensive Care & they weren’t equipped, so I was transported to Harris Regional in sylva by ambulance. The last thing I remember was the ambulance ride & them taking me out of the ambulance & up to ICU.  I remember talking to Dr. O'Neil, then a breathing treatment but after that, it’s foggy.

All the rest of what my body went through, is what I’ve been told. I was given breathing treatments & put on antibiotics for 2 days. Unfortunately they never swabbed me or tested me to find out what KIND of infection it was, so on the 3rd day I took a turn for the worse. Then at around 5am. I soon stopped breathing. They weren’t really prepared for that, and they stated that I was a “difficult intubation”,  so I was without oxygen for several minutes. (As a side note, The U of Mich says that “under normal circumstances within 3 minutes of the brain being deprived of oxygen, serious brain damage is likely. Within 10 minutes, the patient is unlikely to recover.”)
Carl was told I was being airlifted  because I wouldn’t survive an ambulance ride. 10 minutes later the helicopter arrived & I was transported to Mission Memorial Hospital in Asheville. The next day the Dr. told Carl I was in severe acute respiratory failure. I spent 10 days in the Neuro Trauma ICU on a ventilator in a drug induced coma. With a breathing tube, feeding tube, & suction inserted, there was a very high likely hood, I wouldn’t be able to sing again. But at this point I don’t think that was main thing on anyone’s mind.

After several days of trying to wean me off the vent, On the 11th day, I was finally able to breathe on my own again & taken out of the coma.

That was my body‘s battle, but I don’t remember most of that. My spiritual battle is what I remember. The next thing I remember was being surrounded by this, just radiant white light. As I’m standing there I saw people coming & going, some of them I knew, and I don’t know how to explain it, but even my loved ones who had passed away, even though I didn’t see them, I felt them, I KNEW they were there! And the feeling is something I can’t really convey. It was PURE love, complete familiarity, & total peace.
I had no knowledge of my body or my life here on earth. I was completely consumed by the feeling of total bliss & love.
I can only assume this was the time period when they were trying to intubate me & get me breathing again.
Then slowly I felt like I was being pulled away. I can’t remember being so angry, I didn’t want to leave! Even though I had so much to come back too,

Again, I assume this was when I was resussatated & put on life support & put in the coma. This is when my struggle began & the devil began his work.

The first thing he did was show me hell. There was no light, and the only way I was able to see was the glow of red from fire & coals. He began to show me every sin I had ever commited. He asked me over & over, “look what you’ve done! Who do you think you are trying to work for God? THIS is where you belong”. I felt like he was behind me at all times. Taunting me, lying to me. He told me I had been in a car accident & that my child was dead, I was paralyzed, & my husband had left me. He would say, “look at you, you’re pathetic, why would you’re husband want you now? You are useless!” “Just give up!”
But that still small voice was there too saying “I am here”
The devil still refused to give up.
After what seemed like forever, I was starting to get SO weary from the constant fear & taunting. I was so afraid. I finally just started crying the name of Jesus.

In my spirit I felt comfort, and I felt him with me. He showed me our ministry as it was and said “you can have this” but then he showed me what our ministry WILL BE, and he said or you can have this! He said “I did not bring this upon you, but I will bring you through it, for your testimony, & for my glory! Right before I got sick I was starting to write a song based on Isaiah 41:10 and it was brought to mind as I was writing this.

“Fear not for I am with you, Be not dismayed for I am your God! I will strengthen you, yes I will help you! I will uphold you with my righteous hand.”

Ya’ll, GOD IS FAITHFUL TO HIS WORD!!!

But the battle wasn’t over just yet.

On the 12th day I was moved to the step-down unit. I was still unable to eat on my own so the feeding tube stayed in. Soon it was obvious I was suffering from ICU Psychosis. I was extremely confused & was having trouble with hallucinations, My speech was also extremely slurred & I was having trouble swallowing. I was having a lot of trouble walking & had weakness on my left side. They suspected neurological damage. I had to be restrained in a vest that held me down to the bed because I was trying to get out of the bed even though I couldn't walk & I was trying to pull out the feeding tubes.
They did a swallow test which I failed the first time. So I had an MRI which praise the Lord was clear & they chalked it up to being on the vent so long. They then did another swallow study & I passed that one & the feeding tube was FINALLY removed. The doctors & nurses told my family to expect months of rehab & speech therapy.
But still I wasn’t myself. I was talking all kind of nonsense & had trouble remembering things. Carl would ask me what year it was, how old Elijah was, Why I was in the hospital, all of which I couldn’t answer. Or I had some crazy answer.  

Then one evening, he asked me “why are you here in the hospital?” I answered, “because I had pneumonia”. It was like a light switch in my head was turned on & my mind was clear.
At that very moment, at the Whittier Church of God, Sonya was standing in for me as you all prayed over her in my name! Something we found out a couple hrs later, when Carl got a phone call from Anthony & a text message from Couney that she had stood in for me. That is when my mind was healed.
Let me tell you what God has done!
I was told there was a good chance I wouldn’t sing again, I can still praise him & my vocal cords are completely healed! There was a significant chance of brain damage, I’m no crazier than I was before!  The doctors said It would a very slow recovery, & that I would need months of rehab.- I was released from the hospital 4 days after being taken off life support. And although I had to spend another week in the hospital for more antibiotics, I was back to my old self :)

Rev. 1:18 says the Lord holds the keys to Hades and of death! The devil was never going to win. I am here today because of my faith in Jesus, my family’s faith in Jesus, your prayers, & the belief that your prayers would be answered!!

I wanna thank my church, for all your help, financially & spiritually. To Charles & Sharon for taking care of my baby boy. For everyone who visited & supported the family. For the food. Thank you thank you!! I want to thank my amazing parents for praying without ceasing & being there!

To my husband who stayed by side even though he knew the future was grim, even though he knew there was a chance that he had lost the woman he married. He took care of me in a way most people never imagine they are going to have to take care of their spouse. Looks fade, and our body fail, but unconditional love is something that is rare. He showed me that love is not just a word to him. Love is a promise.

But most of all I just thank the Lord for carrying me & allowing me to get through this with a renewed faith & boldness. I’m so excited to continue in our ministry & I’m standing firm on his promises,

I am posting these pictures not for shock value but to show awesome healing power of the Lord!

Psalm 30:2,3
O LORD my God, I called to you for help and you healed me. O LORD, you brought me up from the grave; you spared me from going down into the pit!

 February 17th, 2011
On life-support






















March 17th, 2011
1 month later at home with Elijah!

A baby & 2 teenagers!

   I never thought I'd have a child going into college & one going into pre-school, but that will be a reality for me in 2 short years.
   When I got pregnant with my Alyxzandrya, I was 17 years old & a senior in High School. I gave birth to her 4 weeks before I graduated. I thought I'd just be a young mom, then when I was 36, I'd get to relive the youth I spent as a mom. I have no regrets & no, I don't feel as though I missed out on anything. I always wanted to be a mom, it just happened a little earlier that I would've planned. Now with a 9 month old, I find myself starting over.

   Though I thought some tiny part of me would feel a little discouraged, I have found the opposite. It's so funny how priorities change & I realized something as I was playing with Elijah this morning... I love this! I could do this until I'm 60!  These are the moments that really mean something. THIS is what life is about, for ME. I love to create things & I guess that includes life. My children are my heart, my joy. I used to question the timing of things & how things turn out, but God knows what he's doing. And I can't imagine my life any other way! Who knows, since I'm starting over...maybe #4???

Adventures in Diaper Changing Pads

Well it took me a couple prototypes but I finally finished a Diaper changing pad. It's just a rectangle so you would think it would be easy...yeah not so much. It was my first time working with Heat-Bonded Vinyl too. Which I am now in love with & I am searching for more uses for that stuff. SO here is what I ended up with & I'm pretty proud of how it turned out :)

Welcome to my blog!

I've actually never done a blog before, so I'm a real newbie. Feel free to leave any feedback or comments.