Fill Your Vessel Today!

It's 9:15 am and my children? They're enjoying recess so I can get a shower. We've been up since 7:00 am and already, I feel poured out. So poured out!

This mothering thing? I hear it doesn't get any easier. Teenagers still leave their things all over. They live dangerously by nature, like your toddler and preschooler. That's right...they've proven it. The teenage brain is wired for danger.

How will you get through those years, as well as these years of sweeping pony beads, Legos, Playdoh, and pegs off your floor, day after day? How will you tolerate the s l o w nature of child training, for years and years to come? Talking to other moms, praying for each other, and taking breaks? All that helps you cope on a daily basis. But what helps you mother well, not just get through?

It's the filling you receive while reading your Bible. 

I didn't understand this well for the first decade I was a Christian, but now I know. We were saved to pour ourselves out, like Jesus did. Pour everything. Give everything, without thought to what we might get in return. The word is sacrificially. We're to pour ourselves sacrificially.

You can't pour from an empty vessel! From an empty vessel comes only complaining, self-pity, and a longing for something else.

Open your Bible today, friend! Two days until Sunday, when your pastor will ask you to open it. That won't be the first time for you this week, will it? Say it ain't so!

Grace In The Mail

I'm a spread-too-thin mother caring for a 3-year-old arthritis patient who will not participate in her own wellness. If you know a 3-year-old, you're not surprised at that.

She is too thin, yet she won't eat enough.

I need to press her tear ducts closed after steroid-drop administration, to lessen the chance of absorption into her bloodstream. Yet she fights.

She needs to take liquid with her anti-inflammatory, yet she fights. "I'm too full" she says...something I hear so often now.

She doesn't sleep well; I sleep so erratically I'm functioning on God's strength alone. My husband passes me in the hall, commenting, "How much longer can we live like this?"

The days are hard. The nights are hard. Not compared to so many households around the world, I realize.... for blessings are brimming over in our house, too. But still, it feels hard.

And then a letter comes in the mail, as I pray for strength to get through my day:

I am very glad to write you this letter. I thank God for giving me to celebrate Christmas. All my family are well, my school is going well too. This year we are learning Bible verses and poems for Christmas. Please pray that I will be good at math. How will you spend Christmas? I love you. 


With Love, 
Raphael



Raphael is our twelve-year-old Compassion correspondent child from Burkina Faso, Africa. I've been writing him since September, expressing We love you in all but the first letter to him. And I mean it. I don't know about his personality, in particular, but I understand twelve year olds can be sassy and not-so-sweet anymore. I have wondered how my letters were landing with him. But we think of him every day, pray for him every meal. I've never met him, but the love is in our hearts so I express it to him, hoping God will help him understand how strangers can sincerely love him. Sincerely love him, with our whole hearts.

This is the first letter I've received with the words "I love you". It broke me. Straight from God, those words. I knew they were from God, read with anticipation by me, a mother needing divine love and strength at the very moment I opened the letter.

Raphael, I'm sure, sincerely means them. And it is all God, reaching out to both of us in our afflictions and hardships.

The rest of my day was still hard, but the words sunk into my soul. God cares. A twelve-year-old boy from a whole different world, cares.


Such a beautiful manifestation of grace. God doesn't often take away our afflictions. But when he said, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness", he meant it.

2 Corinthians 12:9
But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.

Happy Birthday Peter!

Happy Birthday Peter!

10 Years Old today

He put holes in his last good pair of jeans this week. I had to get a 12 slim, which nearly put me in tears. My little boy wearing a 12! Cruel how fast the years pass, isn't it? I still remember my little guy standing near the sink, pointing to the faucet and asking for "wa".

I bought him this bead set and he already told me how wonderful it is three times this morning! He is so sweet. It's just the right difficulty level and the boys are having so much fun together. Handicrafts are such a wonderful way to pass the time together, as siblings. By the same company, I bought a birdhouse wood project for him to complete with Daddy, including painting the finished project. He loves time with Daddy and my husband loves to do such things with the boys.

Aside: Charlotte Mason believes handicrafts should be a part of every child's education, and I wholeheartedly agree. The discipline, patience, and pride that must go into such projects teaches so much!

Update On Beth's Arthritis

Here is an update on Beth, which I sent out to her prayer partners:

Thank you for praying for Beth this month! We went to follow-up appointments with both her eye specialist and her rheumatologist.

Rheumatology news: No new joints are involved--still just the two knees! Both legs are still the same length. The doctor was happy with the effectiveness of the naproxen in controlling the joint swelling. Beth can walk right away when she gets out of bed about 75% of the time now, though stiffness is still there and some day and night pain. Between 3pm and 8pm are her best hours for comfort. She did lose 2 pounds in 6 weeks (she was already skinny!), so the doctor put her on a different anti-inflammatory, thinking that the naproxen is upsetting her stomach and making her too full too soon. Starting tonight she will get celebrex, which gets sprinkled on some applesauce. I've been giving her higher fat foods since learning of the extreme weight loss. I knew she was thinner, but didn't realize how extensive the loss was.

The weekly physical therapy is going well. She is walking on her toes to offset the knee joint pain. Over time that could lead to her calf and hamstring muscles becoming too tight. We are addressing that in therapy now (stretches).

Please pray that...she gains weight quickly and that no new joints become involved, and that her pain and night wake-ups subside. Taking steroids with anti-inflammatory meds increases the risk of bleeding or ulcer. Please pray for no side effects.

Eye news: The eye inflammation is completely gone! A huge answer to prayer! The eye specialist--who happens to be world-renowned for helping to develop a surgery for wandering eyes in children--seemed surprised that the inflammation was completely gone this soon. I think he was expecting a reduction only. (Prayer works!) In the next 25 days we slowly wean her off the steroid drops, seeing him again on the 25th day. If the inflammation is back when we return for follow-up, she will need a more aggressive therapy (possibly steroid eye injections, or methotrexate shots given at home weekly). Too much steroid-drop use puts her at risk for glaucoma and/or cataracts, so one of these other methods would be preferred this soon after steroid drop use. (Methotrexate is given for aggressive joint problems associated with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis, but it also works on the eye inflammation because it suppresses the auto-immune response).

Please pray that...no more steroid absorbs into her blood stream, and for no damage done from the absorption. Her moods, her sleep quality, and her dreams worsened since starting the steroid, so he suspects some was absorbed into her system. Also pray that the eye inflammation never returns.

In his opinion, the worse thing that might happen to her eyes if inflammation continues, is that she might get cataracts from steroid use (which would be treatable). The eye inflammation is caused by the arthritis, but it will take a completely different course now--either better or worse than the joint issues, and either longer or shorter in duration. Some children get eye inflammation and never get any joint problems. They have the worst prognosis because the inflammation tends to go on a long time without symptoms and the vision gets progressively worse before a diagnosis is given and treatment begins. He thinks it's highly unlikely that Beth would ever go blind from her eye involvement. It is likely, however, that at some point she will get more inflammation. It flares like the arthritis does, but not necessarily at the same time. 

The rheumatologist tells it like it is, while the eye doctor sugar coats it a bit. I don't know which is better, from a parent's perspective? The rheumatologist warns that because Beth's eye involvement started so early, it could follow an aggressive and/or long-term course. (1/5 of arthritis children get eye involvement, but usually not this soon)

Thank you again for your prayers!  They helped a great deal with her eyes, her joints, and with our family's ability to cope with the life changes.

Never hesitate to share your own prayer requests with us, please. Prayer works!

With Love,

Christine and Family

Note: You may have heard some bad press on Celebrex, but the reported heart problems happen with much higher doses, and when it is used long term. It doesn't work on the stomach lining, so it has been prescribed for Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis since 2006 for patients who experience gastrointestinal problems on other anti-inflammatory meds (like naproxen or ibuprofen).

Who Can I Bless Today?

When you wake up in the morning is your first thought: "Who can I bless today?"  If you're not a morning person and you get too little sleep, this might be akin to a joke. Ahem.

But wouldn't it be nice to hold that thought all day? It honors God. It seeks not its own. It's filled with the Spirit.


We cannot live out our faith without the Spirit. The beautiful thing is...He's always available! We don't wait for him to fill us...he already did that, the moment we believed. We must go to Him to renew the fire. The fire that causes us to say..."Who can I bless today?" "Who can I be the face of Jesus to?"

Church is like a date to us, the parents of four. At our church the children worship with their family, leaving for their lessons after the last song and before the sermon. Honey and I then sit side by side, my head on his shoulder, his arms enfolding me. It's bliss. One with arthritis and one with neurological issues means our days are taxing, to put it lightly. We perform very well as a team but rarely have moments fully together. Church is one of those moments and sometimes we wish we were never asked to stand.

Another memorable time in church is when the pastor says, "Open your Bibles to...." I love that statement when I've been in the Word faithfully since the previous Sunday. But when I haven't? When I let life consume me? The shame of knowing I didn't faithfully love my Lord, grieves me.

Friends, at church yesterday, I hope you had the satisfaction of knowing you'd been in the Word, since the previous time your pastor said, "Open your Bibles...".

Remember that opening your Bible is the hardest part. Don't necessarily wait for the sanest moment to do so. Maybe that doesn't come on some days at your house? Then pick any moment. We have a number of Bibles so I keep one in every living space. Sit on the floor with the Legos and games. Let them play while you read. Interruptions will happen, but God will reward your faithfulness. If you have time later to do more reading, great. But if not, you still did something to renew the Spirit of God within you. The Spirit that compels you to wonder..."Who can I bless today?" That feeling can only come from someone who has been ministered to. While you read, He ministers.


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