A Summer to Remember, Part II

Carolyn

After my husband and I traveled through Switzerland and France in June, we returned home to Chicagoland, and I flew to Memphis the following day to pick up my children. I was so anxious to see them after a 9-day separation!

Once in Memphis, I had a virus, I’m sure from international travel, and was too sick to drive the children the 9 hours home. My children and I ended up staying in Memphis with my mom and step-dad for another week.

During the week in Memphis, God was so near. Every night when I would wake up sick, I would go out and sit on the sofa and read from my Bible study. It would be on exactly what I needed, like God being Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals thee. Verses that I would be pondering during the day would show up in the study.

I enjoyed spending time with my mom and step-dad, sitting together at dinner time, watching the news together, listening to a sermon together. My step-dad, who had been diagnosed with congestive heart failure in early June, was so peaceful. Though he was older, he had always been in wonderful health, always doing projects, strong in body and mind, driving, and so there was rarely a thought about him not being with us, even though we knew he couldn’t live forever. I specifically noticed this trip, though, my step-father was so full of peace and contentment. I had the thought, “He is ready to die.”

When I had 1st taken the kids to Memphis two weeks’ prior, I had the thought that this might be the last time we would see Poppy. I had never really felt it or thought it like this. I went to a Bible study with my mom one night (yes, sick, but able to get out), and we were broken into groups. When her group had to share, they designated her to talk, and I sat there looking at my mom, thinking how nice it was to do things together and how so many moms and daughters have that opportunity. I thought about how nice it would be to live in the same city and enjoy that kind of blessing. In all my years living in different cities, I’d never given consideration to that, but suddenly, it didn’t seem like a strange idea, but was rather a new and welcome one.

While I was there, my mom had recently finished cleaning her attic (with my sister and me over Spring Break), and she was shipping a lot of her furniture out to Montana to my sister. The movers came, and after they left, I sat in her now spacious den, empty of so much furniture, and I wondered if there was a reason her home was now so clean.

All these things, all these thoughts, so small individually, but collectively, such preparation. It was such a sweet time with them both.

By the time I was able to drive, my husband was traveling to St. Louis for a book convention. He recently authored a fiction book, and he was taking part in some events there. He suggested I drive to St. Louis, spend the night there, and we’d all drive home to Chicago the next day.

We ended up having a wonderful time in St. Louis. Here my children are re-united with their dad after a full month of separation:


We then went to the arch:


From there we went to dinner, then my husband and son went to a Cardinals’ game:

The following morning, we took the children to the City Museum, a unique museum with all kinds of tunnels and places to explore:


Those are my children above, crawling through the outdoor tunnels at the museum.

We drove home that afternoon, only to have to turn around the following day and drive to Wisconsin to the lake to meet my in-laws. They were retiring and had 4 days left at a cabin, after which we could no longer use it. So now having traveled to Europe, Memphis, St. Louis, and finally home, we spent the night and drove to Wisconsin.

A picnic with smores:

Canoeing:

Tubing:

Boating:

We had a wonderful trip to Honey Rock, where I was able to rest and get through most of the rest of my strange virus. From there, we finally headed home, so thankful to be home for the rest of the summer, so thankful to get back to routine, so excited to unpack!

3 days later, after unpacking and getting organized, having re-entered normal life, I received a call from my mom. She said, “Tom is dead.” She told me the paramedics were there, she had just come home and found my step-dad on the floor by the bed. I tried to grasp what she was saying; it all seemed such a blur! No matter what you might expect, you are never ready for this.

I began packing and making my plans and flew back out that night, down to Memphis, to spend the night with my mom, her first night alone. It was so surreal. My husband, kids, and his mom drove down 2 days later, and my husband delivered the message at the funeral. Life can change in an instant, but somehow in the midst of it, we all saw God’s hand, felt His presence, sensed His goodness and timing and ways. It’s not that it wasn’t or isn’t painful, but there is such a difference when you are confident with hope that you will see the one you love again and that he is in the presence of his Savior. Thank you, Lord!

I remember saying, after hearing the news, “Lord, we give thanks, we rejoice, and we praise You.” And I remember a few moments later thinking it all through and saying, “Praise You, Lord, for that virus!” Had I not gotten sick, I would not have spent a week with my step-father just a week before he died. My kids spent two weeks with him. We enjoyed those moments, those conversations, like watching a little bird (who had made her nest in their front door wreath) and her babies.

Yes, thank you, Lord, for the virus. Thank you for your good and perfect ways. It was a small glimspe of how something that seems bad was so full of reason and purpose. If I could only always trust God in moments like that and remember His promise that all things do, in fact, work together for good to those who love Him.

I have one more post about the summer I’ll save for tomorrow, but I wanted to collect these memories in one place to remember what great things God has done. To God be the glory!

Special Day

Carolyn

10 years ago at this time, I was blessed with a miracle.


I had entered the operating room with a team of doctors who were prepared for the worst, and I left having had the best surgery imaginable given the circumstances. The chaplain who had come to visit me almost daily since my entry into the hospital 23 days earlier stood in that operating room and prayed. She came out and delivered the word to my extended family that everything had gone well. This is the girl for whom we prayed, so many prayed. In the days before blogs, twitter, Facebook, and Caring Bridge, somehow word spread and we had cards from all over the country and so many people praying. What a blessing for which we are forever grateful!


I think again today of those miracles we saw along the way. It is a reminder how times of suffering can draw you into greater knowledge of and intimacy with Almighty God. Without those experiences, we would not know Him as we do or believe He is the miracle working God that we know Him to be. I praise Him again today as I remember Him and how He revealed His power to us over and over again.

Psalm 145:6 “Men shall speak of the power of Thine awesome acts, and I will tell of Thy greatness.”

This particular birthday holds sadness for us, too. Poppy, my step-father — and may I just stop and say I’ve never liked the word “step.” It always connotes to me an image of some lack of closeness or lack of love for someone because they aren’t the original one, they aren’t the real one. That part is true, he wasn’t my real dad. But my real dad, through no choice of his own, died in a car wreck when he was 27 years old. I was 2 months old. I never knew him. This is the only earthly father I have known, and he has been in my life all along. I don’t think of him as “step” even though I know he was not my biological father and he had children and grandchildren of his own whom he dearly adored. He is known as “Poppy” to my children, one of their 4 grandparents.


Each year, Poppy and my daughter celebrate their birthdays a day apart, always with great joy. I remember when she was born and he first saw her in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, he told my mom he didn’t know whether to pray that she would live or die. He didn’t know if it would be better for her to go straight to Jesus than suffer what the days ahead would hold. As a mother, of course, I knew what I wanted everyone to pray — that she would live — but I understood that his thoughts were out of love for this little one. They formed a special bond as he had the chance to watch yet another “grandchild” grow up. And they loved this time of year, 2 birthdays in a row to celebrate.

So today we carry some sadness because Poppy went to be with his Savior and Lord 3 weeks ago. We grieve, but with hope because we know that we will be with him again. We know the certain facts of our salvation and the hope that the gospel of Jesus Christ gives us. II Corinthians 5:21 says that “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” Jesus took our sins and gave us His righteousness, and it is available to all who believe. Poppy believed. We praise the Lord for this.

So today we celebrate, we remember, and we grieve, all with joy, thankfulness, praise, and hope. Thank you, Jesus.

A Summer to Remember

Carolyn

My daughter keeps reminding me that I haven’t posted for a while on here. The problem isn’t that I’ve had nothing to say; it’s that I’ve had too much. The summer has perhaps been the strangest of my life. I’ll just use this post to share the first part of our summer, and save more details for later posts.

My husband and I began the summer with a trip to Europe. He led a student group through Italy and Switzerland, and I met him in Geneva at the end. We spent a week traveling through Switzerland and France, seeing some beautiful places, like this below (the view from our hotel pool overlooking the Mediterranean in Cassis, the South of France):


But let me back up… my first stop in Europe, after two flights and arriving finally all by myself to our hotel in Geneva, was here:


Yes, that’s the Emergency Room where we went for this:


You can’t really tell here, but he had fallen the previous day at St. Bernard’s pass while hiking in the Swiss Alps with students. Because he was the leader, he felt compelled to lead on, ignoring an inch long slice in his knee that left him unable to walk and in need of stitches.

By the following day, he was still unable to bend the knee, which was by now infected and swollen and would look much worse than this before it looked better!

He came away with 4 different medications for pain, swelling, and infection, and because he could not bend his knee, I became the designated driver for the trip!


I found it somewhat nerve-wracking to drive, in my jetlagged state, through all the “round-abouts,” travel the interstates (especially when there was fog and rain), drive on so many narrow, winding roads in Southern France and in the Alps. I was never so thankful to pull back into the Geneva airport and park that car at the end of our trip!

We enjoyed the trip a great deal, despite my husband’s injury. Cassis was a beautiful port on the French Riviera. We took a boat trip on the Mediterranean which was beautiful:


Here is my hubby getting chocolate crepes before our boat trip:


We went back later to the same place for gelato, which was delicious. Here is a picture taken after our dinner down by the water. Our hotel (the white building with lights) is in the background:


The hotel pool dropped off right into the Mediterranean and was a beautiful place to relax and read:


I show this last picture of France to give a feel for the kinds of roads I had to drive on. This one in the background was an easy one, but many were very steep and crowded with cars and people, and we were never sure where we were going!


These truly were some beautiful places that we visited in the South of France.

We left Cassis and headed back to Switzerland, hoping to take in the full grandeur of the Alps. This was perhaps what I most looked forward to — seeing the setting of the books that my husband is writing and hearing him tell me about what places we were seeing were places in the book.

Unfortunately, this is what the Alps mostly looked like through the rain and mist we had the entire time we were there!


My husband kept telling me that there were really huge mountains behind what we were seeing, but I think my best view was actually from above during my flight into Geneva days before.

Here is a cute look at the little town we were in (Lauterbrunnen) and the windy roads of the Alps:


There were so many cute villages in the Alps.


When we actually drove into the area and passed the Thunersee, it was just breathtaking with the water and the mountains in the background! We had dinner overlooking the water one night, but my pictures did not capture the beauty of it.

For me, vacationing is often about the food! We ate in some amazing restaurants in each place, but one of my favorite parts of the trip were the “patisseries” in France, the bakeries in Switzerland:



I looked forward to breakfast each day!

We finished our time in Europe by returning to Geneva and touring a few places, like John Calvin’s church:


It was spectacular indoors, and it’s amazing to think how long it’s been standing. The architecture was so beautiful. There was a concert taking place while we were there, so we didn’t tour it as thoroughly as I would have liked, but we did enjoy sitting and listening to the music for a bit:


I liked Geneva and seeing a big European city. This was down by the waterfront where we had dinner. It had to have been one of the windiest days on record! The people selling souvenirs said it was not typical at all… they were worried their things were going to be blown away!


Here are some snapshots of the hustle bustle of Geneva:




This has become a long post with all the pictures, so I’ll pick up in the next post on more of our summer travels, but let me end with this.

God is absolutely faithful! I’ll share the reasons why in another post, but I was so nervous to travel so far from home, cross the ocean, go to other countries. Despite my fears, which I had to confess to the Lord again and again, He faithfully met me every step of the way, and I learned so much. I will share some of those things later, but I can’t end the post without blessing His Name and praising Him for His faithfulness and protection and peace. He is an awesome God, and I stand in awe of Him!

Thankful

Carolyn

There are some things in life that always stay with you. They leave you so changed, and even when you’re not consciously thinking about it, it’s almost an ever present awareness. Then there are times that it all floods back.

I’ve been remembering a lot lately about my daughter’s birth. If you are squeamish, you might not want to look at the pictures. She was born at 27 weeks and spent her first 3 months of life in the hospital. Because I was under general anesthesia for the delivery, the first time I saw her was about 3:00 a.m. (after an afternoon delivery) when I was enough awake again and able to see clearly. She was in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit; I was in my own hospital room. I woke up excited to see the picture and asked my husband to turn on the lights and bring it over: “I can see now! Let me see her!” This is what I saw the first time I saw my daughter.


She was just over 2 pounds, and though this picture makes her look big, she was so small. She looked so much like my son did at birth, only obviously sick. They try to prepare you for a premature birth, and in some ways, I was, but not for that moment. I immediately cried and told my husband, “We have to pray right now.” We finished praying, and in walked the neonatologist. He had seen our light on and wanted to talk to us. He told us, “She’s touch and go.” She had had a reaction to the surfactant that they use to help the baby’s lungs, and they had sucked it back out, but she was extremely sick. He just wanted us to know.

Thus began the roller coaster ride that is the NICU, up and down moments for the next few months, life or death moments. When we saw her the following day, she was still lying on the little flat bed with what looked like saran wrap over it. That’s where they keep the preemies until they are stable enough for the incubator seen below. (By the way, I took pictures of pictures for this, so the flash makes some bright lights on these pictures.)


It’s so amazing to think a baby can be born this early and live! When she got home from the hospital, she looked more like this below — you can see her head had been often shaved for IVs and her muscles were very tight (the clinched fists). She was on an apnea monitor for a while, so you see the cord. And she was still pretty tiny, maybe 5 pounds here.


By Christmas time, she was 5 months old and about 7 1/2 pounds, and starting to look more like a normal baby. (That’s a flash glare on her head!)

It was a long couple of years. Here she is today, many miracles later, still small, but healthy.

There are times when it comes flooding back, and these last couple of weeks have been those times. I took her to her well check at the doctor’s last week. We talked about how well she has been these last 2 winters despite early asthma problems, and I realized how many health issues she has overcome. Though she never made her catch up growth, she is on the growth charts, even if just barely! These things make me very thankful to the Lord.

When I see that she has a mind that can think and she is doing well in school; when I see her heart for the Lord and love for Him; when I read the things she writes; when I see her work hard to run and keep up in P.E. (even if she comes in closer to the end), I am thankful. Thankful that this baby was healed to see and think and grow and live. Thankful to the Lord.

We had Fine Arts Day at school yesterday where the children could share their poetry and Scripture memory and hymns. In my daughter’s class, they recited Psalm 103 together, blessing the Lord that He forgives sin, heals diseases, redeems our lives from the pit, crowns us with lovingkindness and tender mercies, and satisfies us. Then each student recited one of the verses. The verses my daughter said (Psalm 103:17-18) were ones that were key verses for me in 2009 as I studied the fear of the Lord in depth that year.

She said, “But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children, to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.”

These were just promises I had reflected on and verses I had even shared in a video that I did for our school. Then to hear them coming out of her mouth — that those were the verses she was given to say alone — it was just a sweet blessing.

My heart is so full of the things He has done, the miracles He has worked, the things He has shown me. Great and marvelous are His works, mighty and powerful is He, and I praise Him and thank Him!

Psalm 145:6 “Men shall speak of the power of Thine awesome acts, and I will tell of Your greatness.”

Nature Study

Carolyn

These are the things we’ve seen in our yard this morning.



We saw this butterfly walking back from the library the other day.


As part of the kids’ curriculum at school, they regularly have “nature study,” where they study the trees or birds or some part of God’s creation. I think this has increased in them an enjoyment of observing things like this in detail!

We did not get a picture of the coyote that was in our driveway the other morning though! I called the city about another coyote we saw up on Main Street, but they told me they were finished trapping and they were hard to catch, but they knew about that one. He must hang out in that area of town. I guess it’s good no one’s worried!

Here are the kids picking out some new books for their reading and a few videos. We love the library.



Enjoy your weekend!