Just being real....

(March 2017)
It seems as if lately our family is just going with the flow and taking things in stride.  Life overall going well, nothing major going on.  In these moments we find peace, or do we.  We all have our own definition of peace maybe, and for me calm and peace are two different things.  You can have a calm, and you have peace, and you can have both at the same time.  I also think you have have peace in the middle of the storm, you don't need calm to have peace.  It is crazy to think about all of the stuff our family has been through over the years, and it is at times like this that I am reminded of all of the stormy moments, but what sticks out most is the peace that we have.  I am reminded that the disciples where a bit freaking out in the boat and couldn't believe that Jesus was sleeping!!  This is the perfect example of what I am talking about here.  If the disciples really recognized who was among them, they too could have been sleeping, but Jesus took this as a time to share with them who was (and is) in control of the storm.  When we acknowledge that, we come into a peace that can calm our storm.  Now, the storms in life can all be calmed, and it doesn't mean that they are taken away, because the peace that He gives is a peace of the heart.  When going through stuff with Kasi I would sing a Rich Mullins song all of the time.  "Hold Me Jesus" was on of the best for me during that time.  There are so many lines in there that I could relate to.
....Sometimes my life just don't make sense at all, when the mountains look so big, and my faith just seems so small
....And I wake up in the night and feel the dark It's so hot inside my soul I swear there must be blisters on my heart
....You have been my King of Glory, won't you be my Prince of Peace.
....I've beat my head against so many walls, and now I am falling down, I'm falling on my knees
....Your Grace rings out so deep, it makes my resistance seem so thin
You see I am a person of music, of Truth shared in music and my soul sings and weeps and....finds peace.  I find that in moments of my greatest need, Jesus speaks directly into my guts of who I am through music and His Word.  I am not a person who hides my feelings or thoughts, I share them openly.   I am also not one to pretend to be okay, when inside I am wondering and questioning and wrestling.  And guess what?!?!?  I do this often.  I think on all sides of this life, of wow God you have blessed me, an undeserving me,  with so much goodness.  Of course I also ask questions, and seek out answers in the middle of the storms too.  I try and "wake Jesus up" from sleeping on the boat!!  I beg and plead for things I see as "the best" for us all.  I am glad to say I have been wrong on many occasions because seeing the other side has been joy.  There are things I am still waiting for answers in, but I know because of how He has taken care of us before that He will have the best answers for us in the future.  Are these answers always yes and Amen, no.  Sometimes they are hard and a road filled with a lot of pain.  I do find though that the pain comes from how hard it is to lay down myself, to surrender, to let go and let God.  In fact, for me, my biggest places of growth have been my biggest places of surrender.


What you just read was written and never posted.  I wrote it in March of 2017.  I do that sometimes, just getting stuff out and not ever posting.  I read this again, and now, almost a year later, God has stepped in and answered so many of my wonderings.  I am still, just being real....I do this now with more of a boldness, and a passion for others to know who He is in the middle of their storms of life. Whatever they may be.  It is also CHD awareness month, a time where I look back and see what God has done, how He has grown me and how he stepped in and gave me peace in the middle of the storm.  My only storm of life is not CHD, it is a storm in myself too.  It is not just a fight against this thing that stole what we would call "perfect" but a realization of the only perfection is in God's plan, according to His will.  My storm(s) come from my imperfections, my strong will, my history in growing up, and other things that I didn't want to surrender until I was made to.  This month is a reminder of that person who I was, how God stepped in, showed me the love of Himself through the giving of His son, so I can have peace in the storm. 

Sooooo.....when the diagnosis came for us, and when we heard about Kasi's narrowing in her aortic arch, the hole in her heart, and the enlarged heart, I did not have peace.  I was not in a place in my own heart to lay myself and Kasi down and say, not my will but your will be done.  I was in a place of why, this is not fair, and where are you??  And then I went to a place of this is my fault, I do deserve this, but she does not.  Not many people know about the inner struggle I had myself. I thought I was getting paid back for all of my "stuff".  The pain is so real, the verses to the song above, yea, "it's so hot inside my soul I swear there must be blisters on my heart", this is real.  The wrestle was real.  These are things I reflect on.  I look as see what amazing things God has done in my heart as well as Kasi's.  Both physically and in the most important way....spiritually.   The beginning of the healing journey in faith, this is when His lessons really began.  I was 23 years old, I knew all about God and I know He was there through all of my stuff of the past, but this moment, this time, He began to say, enough. 

Kasi at 6 weeks old went into her first heart surgery to repair the narrowing in her arch and then they were going to keep an eye on her hole hoping they could put off that repair until she was 1. She was so fragile because of her tummy surgery a week earlier in which she coded. So weak, but so sick they had to go in and fix her heart.  As we sat in the surgical waiting room we would get updates about her surgery.  Our nurse came out and let us know that they saw clearly the narrowing and the hole and they did all the measurements for the pressures to see exactly where they needed to do the repair and they were opening.  We were about to start our long wait for the next update because the work was beginning.  At this time there was a group of people, also in the waiting room, that walked over to us.  I remember where they were sitting clearly, although I do not remember faces or if they were men or women.  Just a group.  They came up to us and asked if they could pray for us because they could tell that we were upset and that there was something big going on.  Of course we were all for that!  They gathered around us, laid hands on us, and prayed.   My mind tries to remember what happened next with them.  I want to say they went and sat back down and we had conversations, but that did not happen.  I want to see their faces so bad, I want to know where they went, I want to know who there where!!  Why???  Well, this begins our story.  You see it wasn't much later after they prayed that our nurse came back out with tears flowing down her face.  She was a believer too, and she was sobbing.  Of course you probably know this was not professional, and the fact that she was not holding it together made me think that my nightmare was coming to fruition.  I immediately started to cry too.  At that point, she through her breaths was trying to wave my tears off.  We listened intently as she proceeded to tell us that when they opened Kasi up, they no longer could find the narrowing and her hole in her heart was gone.  All they did in her first surgery was to tie off her PDA (look it up) and they were closing!  The Dr.s were all baffled.  Stuck in their own thoughts about what did they miss and what just happened, while we were all celebrating an amazing miracle.  At first someone in our group said, they made a mistake??? Our pastor clearly stated, NO!!  We just witness a miracle......and so our story begins.  June 3, 1996.....