Author: joyfuldomesticity

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Prayers and Results

We got some blood test results earlier than we expected, and it looks like my various medical treatments are doing what they should in my body. The results are not overly astounding but they are adequate. So we are thankful for this confirmation from our wise Father in Heaven that we are doing the right things. He is kind! So onward and forward we go. I am praying continually for grace upon grace each day as I swallow all my pills, poke my belly with injections, schedule iv treatments, and even make plans for another plane trip for one more of those treatments down south next month. Praying that I would recognize these treatments as gifts from God, as privileges, as beautiful sacrifices that I am called to make for my family as well as my King & His kingdom.

Thanks for the prayers I know you offer on our behalf.
May the Lord encourage your spirits, even as you encourage mine.

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Our Liturgical Boy

Our Gabriel David loves liturgy. He is most definitely our boy!

Last evening he suddenly burst into song (as he is often wont to do), singing what sounded like, HO-ee HO-ee HO-ee oh ah ah oh
And then of course he concluded with his very predictable, Meh, which means Amen.

Steven and I looked at each other across the room, both thinking the same thing. “That just sounded like holy holy holy!”
I couldn’t imagine why he would know the song Holy, Holy, Holy since I don’t sing it to him that often.
But Steven said, “I think that was the Sanctus!”

So we asked Gabriel to sing it again. And he did the same exact thing again.

Then he pointed to Steven and said, “Daddy,” indicating that it was Daddy’s turn to sing it.
So Steven did.
He sang the Sanctus from the Dorian Service by Tallis.
And Gabriel was intensely delighted!
He couldn’t have been more thrilled that we knew what he was singing!

It was totally the Sanctus that Gabriel was singing.
Makes sense, really, considering we sing it after confession and absolution every week at worship, in addition to most nights throughout the week.

I think we ended up singing the Sanctus about a dozen times last evening (in family worship as well as just randomly) because we were all just so thrilled!
After we put Gabriel to bed, we could still hear him through the monitor singing HO-ee Ho-ee Ho-ee to his animals in his crib. It was so precious, I almost cried.
If I could figure out how to post videos, I would let you take a listen yourself. He only sings the first line recognizably (unless you’re his parent), but he conducts the entire thing while we sing it (have I mentioned his fanatic love of conducting?), breathes in all the right places, copies our mouth shape & vowel sounds, and tries his best to belt out the ending Hosannas.

We already knew he was a fantastic little boy, with his big faith in God and love of liturgy.
But last night just lit us up.
God is mighty at work.
God is, indeed, Gabriel’s strength.
And I am excited to see what God continues to do with this child of His: my son, my brother ~ Gabriel.

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Seeking my God today with trepidation. Asking Him to oversee every drop of blood that was pulled from our veins this morning and now wings its way to various labs across the country. Begging Him to show His mercy to us, for the sake of His children and because of His own steadfast love!

Psalm 44:17-26

All this has come upon us,
though we have not forgotten You,
and we have not been false to Your covenant.
Our heart has not turned back,
nor have our steps departed from Your way;
yet You have broken us in the place of jackals
and covered us with the shadow of death.

If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
would not God discover this?
For He knows the secrets of the heart.
Yet for Your sake we are killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

Awake! Why are You sleeping, O Lord?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!
Why do You hide your face?
Why do You forget our affliction and oppression?
For our soul is bowed down to the dust;
our belly clings to the ground.
Rise up; come to our help!
Redeem us for the sake of Your steadfast love!

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A Grander Heroism

Must life be a failure for one compelled to stand still in enforced inaction and see the great throbbing tides of life go by? No; victory is then to be gotten by standing still, by quiet waiting. It is a thousand times harder to do this than it was in the active days to rush on in the columns of stirring life. It requires a grander heroism to stand and wait and not lose heart and not lose hope, to submit to the will of God, to give up work and honors to others, to be quiet, confident and rejoicing, while the happy, busy multitude go on and away. It is the grandest life “having done all, to stand.”

~J.R. Miller~

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Inject

For the first time, today I gave myself a blood thinner injection. It took a bit more guts than I anticipated (I didn’t know I would be a weenie about it!), and I sat there staring at my skin and its proximity to the needle longer than I had expected — but I did it. 🙂 Thanks, sweet husby, for being with me and cheering me on while I stabbed myself in the stomach and winced and read the directions aloud meanwhile. lol.

Thankfully the bruise is much smaller than I anticipated, and as long as I plunged the injection slowly it hurt less than I expected. So those are nice things. That’s my way of looking on the bright side today. 😉

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I Love My Country Doctor

And this is what we call a genuine country i.v. pole:

And, lest I forget, that’s also what we call getting an i.v. in style: on a recliner with my husband, watching the Food Network, and sipping a fresh mojito. Let’s be honest: we’ve gotta make the best of all my medical treatments, so we’re trying hard. 🙂

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Missing Mercy

Mercy darling, how I wish you were here in my arms today. It was so much fun to anticipate a summer birthday for you, with picnics and swimming parties and sundresses with barefeet.

For myself, I am sorry that your birthday was January instead of August as we had hoped.

For you, I am thankful that you have already been dancing in Paradise for over six months and that you went from the warmness of my womb to the beauty of Heaven. You didn’t know anything but comfort and love.

For myself, I wish I could be laboring today in the hospital, groaning and screaming and pushing. I wish your Daddy could be catching you in his hands, severing the cord that once tied your little body to mine, and announcing your name to the world. I wish your Grandmama could be taking pictures and crying with me and helping me count your tiny fingers & toes. I wish your Grandpapa could give you a clean bill of health and an official stamp of redhead approval, pray a blessing over you, and wrap you up like a little burrito. I wish your big brother could be meeting you today, poking you all over, saying bebe repeatedly to you & about you, fighting jealousy, loving on you, protecting you, kissing you.

For you, I wish nothing. I would never wish you away from praising our Father. I would never wish you back into this world of pain, sorrow, sin, and death.

I miss you, sweetheart, my own little Mercy. Mommy’s heart lives in a dichotomy of sorrow & rejoicing. Some days the contrast is starker. Today is one of those days.

My womb has ached for you for almost seven months. Today it is my arms and breasts that ache.

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Some Days

There are some days when a girl really needs to buy herself flowers and give herself a pedicure.

Yeppers. Check, check.

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Victory’s Rose

This morning I went outside and noticed that Victory’s roses burst into bloom! Aren’t they beautiful?! (Thanks, Jaclynn & Samantha!) The white rose is the Victory Rose, and I am not actually sure what the pink ones are called. The white roses smell like sweet perfume, and are big full blossoms; there are three of them at different stages of blooming. The pink roses are really small, there are lots of them in little clusters, and have occasional little white stripes in their bright pink petals. I love these roses. I love that they are in pots so we can take them with us to our new house once we build it. I love that they are for my children (while the white one is for Victory, I call the other one simply “my babies’ roses”).

I love that when I went out there this morning, the beauty of the roses was not hidden beneath the remaining raindrops left by a storm overnight. In fact, the drops on the petals seemed to make their fragrance stronger and their freshness more profound. It’s almost like the rain beautified something that was already beautiful.

And I thought that was perfect.
Because I needed that reminder today.