No Words

I honestly for maybe the first time in my life have no words for what we have been going through and experiencing.  And I can never begin to adequately explain to you either!  It has been the most intense stress that I have ever experienced.   There have been times when I would find myself not breathing and I would literally tell myself to breathe.   For most of the time, I feel like I have walked around in a daze this week!  I literally have been physically ill and didn't get out of bed for about two days.  I know why I was sick but it is still very much a rarity for me!  It has not been fun for any of us!  Our six year old is totally stressed out!  Suffering from crippling anxiety at times!  Our fifteen year old is anxious as well but has the blessing of a counselor that has prepared her well for the upcoming week!  Our seventeen year old, well, I know he is struggling but he is one tough cookie!  He holds his feelings close!  And he is a rock for our entire family.  He and I have shared several conversations about being a rock all the time isn't necessarily a good thing.  We all have to feel and vent emotion and receive care for them!  If we never receive care, then eventually our emotional cups will overflow!!  And I just simply don't want emotional cups to overflow here!  It's never pretty!!

Sometimes it takes a village to raise a family.  And we are living examples of that!  I have needed help with laundry, with picking up my house, with errands, with meals, and even packing our suitcase tonight!  So grateful that God places people in your life at just the right time to love you well!  And we have been loved well this week!

We will pull out of here tomorrow afternoon/evening sometime.  I can not even begin to tell you how difficult this will be.  And that's because I can't really fathom how horrid that whole experience will be!  I know my children are in good hands this week!  They will be loved and cared for well.  But the heartache is horrible!  In the words of my six year old, I'm afraid you'll come back empty handed.  In other words, she is terrified her daddy is going to die!  And folks, I can tell her I do not expect that to happen but I can not look her in the eye and promise her that he won't!  And that...is killing my mama heart!  So please pray for us as we say goodbye tomorrow and leave our children here!  Pray for sweet Aunt Elaine who will be here caring for them!  Thankful for those that will be loving my family even while we are gone!

We have the privilege of a very special sweet friend going with us this week so Zine and I will not be alone!  Thankful for God convicting a heart to go bear the burden with us this week.  God's actually convicted several hearts to go with us.  But we feel the less people the better.  In huge amounts of stress, I am NOT a people person!  I need my one maybe two people but that's it!  So...we are super duper grateful for a friend going with us!  Now it does come with anxiety...I will say!  We're not used to being with people!  And we definitely don't know how to be cared for very well...we'd much rather do the caring!  And when someone says, this is all about you, what do you want... I feel my insides crawl.  We do not want this to be all about us!  We don't like that type of attention to say the least!  So God is definitely humbling our hearts in this process!  We are swallowing lots of pride in this process.  I'm afeared there is much more to swallow!

We will begin each day at 7:30 am.  The process should be completed around 3 pm each day.  These are going to be some long days!!  They have prepared us that Zine is going to feel very bad.  So couple that with his already decreased mobility, we are prepared for a very difficult week!  We will drive home on Friday after the treatment is over!  So we will be gone 5 nights!  I rarely am gone one night much less 5!!!  And then we will have to be very careful for awhile, because he will have literally no immune system.  His entire lymphatic system will be gone!

Even today, as we have talked and shared with our children, Zine said...no matter what this will be okay!  I don't know what the outcome will be, but I know that God is in this and He will work His will and His ways in our lives and because of that...it will be okay.  Now the girls in this house all argued with him over that statement!!  However, in reality we know that God is with us!  We are filled with some anxious thoughts.  We are very much dreading this process, but we are at peace and know we are doing what God desires for us to do!    So we walk forward, with brave faces and we get an opportunity to trust God deeper than many will ever get to experience!  Our children get to learn to exercise their faith in deeper ways that many ever do!  We would have never chosen this life.  And we would sure like for this cup to pass from us!  But I am confident that God is using these struggles to shape us to be more like Him!    And He is going to use this heartache in our lives to minister to others.  Doesn't make what we are going through worth it, but grateful that God will be able to use our lives in ways that we probably can't even imagine!

We ask that you pray for us this week.  As God prompts your heart, just utter prayers on our behalf.

I will try to post an update or two, but  make no promises.  The brain is just not functioning very well!

Here's the song Krisann and I have been listening to over and over again this week!  It says what our hearts feel.  We want some mountains moved, we want some water parted, and we would like answers as to why God chooses not to heal!  But even in those desperate places, we continue to cry out to Him and we continue to trust in Him!