My Thursday Thirteen is 13 blessings I have received...some come with a little story, so this may get a little long. Hope you don't mind.
1) My number one kid! Boy, now 12. We tried for FOUR YEARS to get pregnant. Each Mother's Day I would cry because I thought I would never get to have a baby. Testing and temperatures, timing and stress on our marriage were worth it all to have a chance at such a blessing. Then, I decided to do weight loss surgery. Back in 1993, it was a BIG ORDEAL...feeding yourself through a stomach tube for 6 weeks! Open incision. Lots of other nasty side effects. I bought six months worth of birth control pills so I wouldn't get pregnant close to the surgery. And waited...and waited...and waited...to discover after all that I was pregnant! Threatened miscarriage, low hormone levels, spotting everyday. He is a true blessing in every sense of the word!
2) Number 2 child. Girl, now 8. Was born with a heart defect that makes her heart beat almost triple-time. Heard this when I was 9cm dilated and felt her ten little toes coming first. Turns out the rapid heartbeat had caused her to gather fluid in her abdomen. My first glimpse of her, she looked a cantalope with a baby attached. God MADE her be breech so the doctors would do a C-section. If she had been presenting normally, they would have gone ahead and tried to deliver her and probably killed her. The blessings attached to this child would take an entire weeks worth of writing to relate!
3) Child number 3. Girl, now 7. So artistic and tender. Three hour labor...WHAMMO! When I heard I was pregnant with her, I had a critically ill three month old and was surviving recovery from complications related to the C-section. I cried. I said a naughty word. My Sunday School teaching MOTHER said a naughty word and cried right along with me. But I wouldn't have missed this blessing for the world!
4) Child number 4. Girl, now 4. Beautiful, intelligent. My Home Birth I always wanted. My last baby. Everything is more precious and more poignant when you know this will be the last time you do it...the last time I teach someone to walk. The last time I hear a "first word". The last time I bring a new life into the world.
5) My weight loss surgery. Finally in 2005. 185 lbs down! :D
6) My aunt who has provided me a car and insurance while I get on my feet.
7) My job. If I have to work, I've got a great job! It should be illegal to get paid for just sitting on my hiney and answering phones. I love it (I talk on the phone SO much, it's like second nature) and my coworkers are incredible.
8) After my husband left, I found out what BLESSINGS were all about. Everyone worked together to keep our family trauma out of the media. I will be forever grateful.
9) The donation of $1000 from an "anonymous" friend through our church. Paid the rent and bought me groceries for a month.
10) The incredible respected friend who came up to me at church, pressed $100 into my hand and started to tear up as he hugged me and walked away. He had no idea that I had no idea how I was going to have enough gas to get home, much less last the rest of the week.
11) The church secretary handed me a card with the spidery handwriting of an elderly woman and containing $40. I had to have my lawnmower fixed and guess what the total was...Yep, $39.95!
12) Coming home from my part-time job to find a couple hundered dollars worth of Costco supplies on my front porch...Laundry soap, paper towels, toilet paper. Things that food stamps don't pay for. I just sat on the top step and bawled like a baby.
13) Sitting on my front porch in the dark after the kids had gone to bed and talking to my best friends on the phone. Between T and MG, I made it through. They were there whenever I felt myself reaching the brink of sanity. They were with me through the courts, through the heartaches, through the fear. All I had to do what dial the phone...
How can I stop at 13? It is just incredible how God has provided for this woman cast adrift after 15 years of marriage with four little ones to care for and support. He has provided us a wonderful counselor, amazing family support, SO Many people offering to help us last Christmas that I had to turn people away (we had TWO trees!). Whenever I need something, all I have to do is ask. So many days I have driven down the road saying, "OK, Father, here I am today! I need $245 for the water bill and the babysitter by the end of the day or I am going to be in big trouble. I just have to lay this at your feet because I don't know what I'm going to do." I am His! What He has done for me is indiscribable. He gave His son Jesus so I can join Him in Eternity...and He has cared for me so preciously on this earth that I could never deny His influence in my life.
By the way...on that water bill? A friend and her husband stopped by my home that afternoon saying that God had laid me on their hearts. They had gotten some extra money from the sale of their home and wanted to share. Wrote me a check for $250! No, they didn't know about my prayer. I still get goose-bumps over that one. WOW!
Hope you have a good week, friends! Leave me a comment and I'll come visit your page. :D
“So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.” Matthew 6:31-33
2 comments:
Love you blessings..YOu have so much to be thankful for and you are incredible,
Mine is up! Please stop by www.thechristopherfamily.blogspot.com to vote for our daughters name!!!
One can never have too many blessings! God works in Mysterious Ways!
My list is here.
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