Rejoicing in our sufferings!

Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, ²through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. ³Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; ⁴perseverance, character; and character, hope. ⁵And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.


A long blog ahead, but please read to the end!

If any of you know my family, you may know that we have been going through some difficult things throughout the last 3 years. Although these things have been hard on each and every one of us, we know that the Lord is on His throne, and He is in control of each situation we have gone through. I wanted to list out each thing I can think of, because I am still amazed we are all still standing and that we still trust the Lord with our entire hearts. Please don't read this and feel sorry for us, we are not asking for any sympathy. We are praising God for his promises and the hope that He gives. We are also rejoicing for the lessons we have learned after experiencing so much.

Ever since the night Wes and I got married, my family has been dealing with "things" non stop. To start off...my Grandma had a heart attack the night of our wedding, after our wedding reception. She is from California, but after barely surviving this heart attack, she has lived in Arizona ever since in an assisted living type home. A few months later, my sister was hospitalized for 17 days because of surgery after a gall bladder infection. Not long after, my dad was hospitalized also for a gall bladder infection and needed surgery. And surprisingly enough, my mom and my older sister had to have their gall bladders taken out as well all within a span of about 2 years. My grandparents (not the one with the heart attack) both have dementia and slowly were deteriorating so my mom had to make the tough decision to place them in an assisted living home. My dad's step father passed away after also having dementia. While all of this is going on, my dad's company was slowly going downhill due to the slowing economy. My parents built their "dream" home and as soon as it was time to close on the home, they became a little afraid because our company was continuing to loose money. My dad's company finally came to the point where we were facing bankruptcy...literally about 24 hours away from closing our doors, and we were saved by the bank in the final hours. After that, my parents finally had to make the tough decision to short sale their dream home back to their bank and move into my grandparents home (the ones who moved into assisted living.)

All of these things have been pretty hard for our family. I am sure there are much worse things that many of you may be going though or have gone through. I am hoping that in writing these things down, my family and I will be able to see the stuff we went through, and see the end result as such a blessing. Although things were not how we planned, we can now look back and see that the Lord's plan is so much greater than we could have imagined. For example...Having my grandma now living in Arizona has helped her to grow closer to her kids who already live here. My mom having to place her parents in assisted living came at the perfect time for my family, because they were able to move into their empty home and have a place to stay after short selling their own home. My parents moving out of their dream home meant that instead of being a half hour away from Wes and I, they are now 2 miles away...just in time for when I became pregnant! Now she can be at my door step in 4 minutes if we need her. My dad's company stayed afloat through the roughest 2 years my dad has ever gone through since being a business owner...we are now holding out at a steady rate and we are starting to increase in sales for the first time in 2 years.

Praise the Lord!

We are so thankful for our family and the support we have been given by our church family and our friends that we call our family. But it seems we are not out of the woods yet, and the Lord is still challenging us with our faith. On Friday evening my mom got a call from a bike store where my dad was picking up his bike that was being worked on. They said that he had been waiting for his bike, and when he went to stand up out of his chair he had a hard time getting up, and then when he did stand up he lost his balance and fell over. He had a hard time talking after that, and couldn't even give them the correct # to call my mom. When they did get a hold of her, my mom immediately rushed over, picked him up and rushed him to the hospital. (a similar event had happened a week ago.) Obviously our minds began to think the worse, did he have a stroke or seizure, could he have a brain tumor or cancer, is his heart ok?? We had so many questions and we were waiting for answers. When they arrived at the hospital, the staff went to work very quickly. They drew blood, ordered a CT scan, did an EKG, and starting looking for those answers. We all let out a sigh of relief when we heard his heart is great, blood work is perfect, and nothing showed up on the CT scan. The problem is that something was still wrong and we have to figure it out!

After many other tests, we have found out that he has low cerebral spinal fluid, which has caused his brain to sit about an inch and a half lower than it should, putting pressure on his brain stem against the base of his skull. This is why he has been dealing with many headaches, confusion, loss of balance, and difficulty explaining himself. It is messing with his nerves. As of right now he is still in the hospital on strict bed rest, flat on his back...with no answer as to why this has happened, or exactly how we can improve what is happening. He is seeing the best neurosurgeon in the state, so we are hopeful that we will get answers soon. We do know it is non life threatening, which was our greatest fear when we heard what happened.

So now we are putting our faith and trust in the same God who has brought us through so many other struggles, which gave us perseverence, so we know we can handle one more hurdle in this temporary home we have been given here on earth. It is hard, and we hate to see my dad, someone who we love so much, go through anything difficult, but we have learned that by going through hard times, it will only give us more hope and more trust in our Lord. And that is what we are doing now...we are praying and also rejoicing in the Lord and we know that He has a plan that is greater than our own.

We would appreciate your prayers but we also want you to rejoice with us in surviving 3 difficult years. We have so much to be thankful for, and so many blessings that we have also received...for example, our sweet Camden!

Thank you for reading my long blog, and please feel free to leave any comments, I would love to hear how you are rejoicing in your sufferings!