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Wish I had pictures to show of Christmas but I actually didn't take any. I was too busy placing the video camera in a place that could get the shot and situating my iphone so that Robert could watch on facetime. And then making sure that no child walked or stood in the way of either! It was madness!
We made some Christmas treats for our pastor and neighbor and other close friends. Robert bought the girls a cardboard play house that you can color which needed to be kept clear of any busy boy hands. So I used several large boxes and made a playhouse for the boys too. That was Christmas Eve. My parents drove in that night to surprise the kids the next morning. And dad put together the train table Robert got for the boys. I need to take a picture of that too. Haven't gotten around to it. Before mom and dad left the day after Christmas I got them to help me put away my decorations and tree. We are officially in End-of-Deployment-Preperation mode. We don't have a for sure date for him coming back (sometime in February)but I am taking it slow and starting to organize and give the house a good cleaning. Getting the carpets cleaned and the van detailed, trying to get the leaves picked up in the yard.... We are very excited for Daddy to come home and want to be able to relax with him! We will not be sharing when he will be back for sure for security purposes. And also because the girls want to be surprised and the fewer people that know the more likely that will happen. You do have my vow that I will do everything in my power to video tape their reuniting and, I guess post it on youtube? I've never done that but it's the only way I can show it on the blog too. I will also be posting a few pictures today since it is Friday. But I do that with my phone app since my pictures are always on my phone anyway. So I will get on that soon, hopefully. Peace Out friends and have a happy new year, since I probably won't blog again until 2013. This video is meant for advice for pastors but is helpful to others as well.
What's the best things you did for your kids? http://thegospelcoalition.org/resources/a/whats_the_best_thing_you_did_for_your_kids On December 2nd we went to a local show called Bethlehem Revisited. A church in Manhattan, KS put it on. We visited this church when we first moved here and really liked it. But the drive was a bit too much in Robert's opinion. Evidently they do this every Christmas and it is free and very popular. We drove out to a park in Keats, KS and from there (after a good bit of a wait) we get on a school bus and they took us to a more remote area. Everyone in this place are dressed biblically and carry lanterns and are standing around fires to warm themselves. As a group of about 30 they take you up into the woods on a slight incline. I wore Deakin on my back and people in our church helped with the other kids. The first stop was Moses. He was standing by a fire and told us about how the world came to be. Basically a short overview of the first five books of the bible. And always pointing toward the promise of the messiah! We went walking a little further to the next station where there was Abraham by his fire telling his story. Further on there was Micah and a few other prophets who told about the coming Christ. All through out this stations there were children every now and then yelling, "He is coming!!" Finally we got to watch the scene of the angel coming to Mary and telling her she would give birth to the waited Messiah. And from there we watched, at several different stations, the Christmas story. Complete with a short walk through the busy street in Bethlehem with people trying to sell us things. Eventually we got to the long awaited stable and got to sing Silent Night around a live "baby Jesus". Then we watched the Priest Simeon bless Jesus and warn Mary of how much sorrow she would feel. And got to see a cross and here the story of Jesus being killed and buried. There was the last station with a grave and a large bolder moved aside. It concluded with a small room built outside where our guide spent about ten minutes laying out the Gospel for the group to hear. It was awesome! And such a great reminder of the amazing gift we have in our Redeemer! I didn't get a lot of pictures but here are a few. I wish I had a picture of the manger but I was video taping at that point. The kids loved this so much. I absolutely loved that the program reminds us that even the Old Testament is about Jesus. At one point when a speaker was talking about the wise men in a dramatic way he fell to his knees talking about how they had fallen to their knees to worship Jesus. Cal was listening intently and went to his knees at the same time, it was such a sweet moment.
I hope and pray that all of you that may read this will be reminded of the amazing miracle of God becoming man as a sacrifice for us. Celebrate this miracle and never forget it. Not too many pictures this week. We been organizing and getting rid of stuff around the house. But here's a fun story. Yesterday morning our Internet went out. So we couldn't talk to daddy without the wifi and I'm not computer savvy and couldn't fix it on my own. I ended up on the phone off and on for 3 1/2 hours with Robert (causing him to stay up till 11pm his time), him looking up all sorts of issues that could be wrong. Me communicating horribly what the computer was telling me and him trying to dumb down his instructions so even I can understand! Finally after trying things I never even knew existed on computers he said we had done everything imaginable and it still wasn't working. So I just needed to call the company and pay the arm and a leg to get help. But at the last minute he told me to make sure the cable was still connected where he had spliced it half way across the room. I went and looked and the cord was undone, just laying there in two pieces where a child had unscrewed it. Ha! Oh man. Such is life! He told me to tape it so its harder for them to get apart and hide it. Which ofcourse, I haven't done yet. (He would've done it that very moment!). I gotta remember to do that.
When our baby son died during my eighth month of my fourth pregnancy we experienced much blessing and love from many directions. It was a time of seeing how much people cared for us for sure. Many cards, flowers, phone calls, letters, packages, meals, and hugs. But there are two people that stick out for me. And not because they gave more or listened more or loved more. I could name several people that gave WAAAY more. I think it's because they filled an empty place that I barely even knew needed filling right at the moment that I needed it most. Which, of course, is God. No effort on these ladies' parts could've gotten it done. It was the Lord providing through them. I think about their influence a lot. So I wanted to type it out.
The first woman was a woman that had never gone through anything like we were, who I had spoken to a handful of times at church and had always been quite friendly. I did not know her intimately, would've called her an aquaintance at the time. After Jasper was born I was left with this natural need to talk about him as I would have talked about any of my living children. To tell people who he looked like, to share his birth story, to talk about his weight and height. But when a baby dies people don't ask those things. And, as a mother, you are left violently silent. Feeling as if no one wants to know your baby or hear about him. Which ofcourse isn't necessarily true, but it's how you feel. We had taken many pictures of Jasper and my sister edited them to make them look as good as possible, all mainly in black and white. Some parents will say that their stillborn looked like they were sleeping. Jasper did not. He looked dead. Which was very scary for me and left me very vulnerable in sharing his pictures. But as a mom, you so want to show your baby's pictures off. To this day I have a whole file on my phone of his pictures. Just because it makes me feel better, having them close. We took a photo album up to the church for his memorial service and set it up with his lovey and urn. I was very careful to choose the best looking pictures. This one woman, when she looked at the pictures, she gushed over them. Just oohed and ahhed as if he were any alive child. I could've fallen to the ground and cried it so blessed me. To this day, heck, right now as I type this I'm sobbing at the memory! I hadn't expected anyone to act like that while looking at his pictures but it was so what I needed! The second woman, she knows who she is, was sent to me by God. I had stopped going to church because I felt like no one knew how to be around me, or maybe I didn't know how to be around them. I couldn't sit through a service without sobbing like a lunatic. And since I didn't feel like sobbing like a lunatic in front of everyone I just stayed home. About two months after Jasper's birth when things were getting really bad for me emotionally. For whatever reason right around the one month mark things went way down hill. Robert had left for a training for three weeks and the church was preparing to bring me extra meals for while he was gone. I found myself struggling to do normal everyday things without fighting back panic attacks. I recieved an email from our pastor's wife telling me that a woman and her family had visited church and heard our story during the prayer requests and felt like she must do something for us. The pastor's wife told her it was perfect timing as Robert was going out of town and I needed meals. So this woman cooked a meal for a stranger who's baby died and brought it over to my house. The first time I met her she was on my front porch with a meal and crying. There was not awkwardness or bluffing like nothing had happened. It was the same day that I had spent some time reading the Word for the first time in two months (really reading, not just skimming), the same week I had gone back to Zumba and had to retell multiple people what had happened to the baby they last saw me pregnant with, the same week Robert had left. I had spent most of the morning crying on the way to Zumba and bawling on the way home. I needed this new friend right...at that...moment. God said, alright, it's time. I went to church the following Sunday (if I'm not mistaken) because there was now someone there that didn't act awkward or as if nothing had happened. No one at church was hateful, don't get me wrong, it's just, for whatever reason, the Lord gave this woman the attitude I needed. When she saw me there she came straight to me and hugged me hard and long because she knew what it took for me to be there. And then she looked me hard in the eyes and studied me to make sure I was alright (as she has done everytime I've seen her since, ha!). Some days when she looked me hard in the eyes she smiled and asked how I was, and then other days she would soften and hug me again and tear up and command me to tell her what was wrong. These two women edified me and built me up in the simplest of ways. As did dozens of other people at that time with meals and childcare and random emails checking on us. These women caused me to look around at my church family and pray, "Who needs something, Lord?" Because some may not say, "Hey! I'm having a crappy day and need somone to invite me to dinner!" Some may not even know how to say that or that they need it. I couldn't very well have said, "Hey! I need someone to gush over my son's pictures." Because I didn't know how much I wanted that. Now I'm gonna chase a rabbit trail... I've been thinking about how we are to out-do one another in honor and service. Wealthy, poor, sick, healthy, weak, strong, we all need serving and need to serve. At our church recently it was brought to our attention that the nursery needed help with volunteers. Can I just confess and say that my first thoughts were somewhere along these lines, "Fine! Let some older woman who's kids have moved out and can actually clock out of her job do it! Let a woman that's husband is home do it. Let the mom that gets a break when her kids are in school do it. Let the man or woman that gets to actually worship without wrestling a one year old, disciplining a four year old, and answering questions from a 5 and 9 year old do it!!" All of those things are true. Those people should be doing it. But that doesn't mean that I shouldn't. So I prayed for a couple weeks about this attitude of mine. About how the Body should be made up of people who are serving one another and maybe that starts with me. So I volunteered and Sunday I served for the first time in the nursery (at this church, I've served in MANY others). I prayed all morning for an attitude of service and love for these mamas that would get to hear the sermon. And you know, God is good. I had fun with those kids! We always forget that it's better to give than to recieve, don't we? I mean, we say it all the time, but we always forget. We bought a new tree. Robert said to get a big fat one that we can have for a good long while. Knowing the absolute horrific persecution being done to Hobby Lobby by our governement I decided to show them our family's support by shopping there. It was a great hardship and sacrafice. *sarcasm* But I will definitely be looking for anyway to give any support to Hobby Lobby for standing up for their right to refuse to pay for others' abortions. And to be honest, a part of me can not believe that I just had to make that statement! That we are even in a place as a country that people are being FORCED to pay for the death of a stranger's child is absolutly brain exploding, right?! I'm just.... obviously so niave to be shocked that we have declined to this point. What some would call progress. sigh.... I'm done..... for now. So we bought a nine foot tree, a few new tree decorations and a small tree for downstairs without any decor for it. I told the kids that if they wanted it decorated then they had to make ornaments. Amazed at how big of a deal that is for them. They are all over it! Also I bought two tiny trees for their rooms for a just a few bucks a piece. They have already made many gifts and wrapped them for eachother and put them onder the trees in their room! It's so cute! Cal even wrapped one of his balls for Deakin. And better yet, eveything was 50% off! Thank you Hobby Lobby! I cried after I left. Because they had a nice young boy that helped me load the tree box. I had removed half of the back seat thinking that might be enough room. It wasn't. So we uprooted the other half of the back seat and shoved it to the side. Still not enough room. So we moved one of the five point harness seats up a row and pushed the box up on top of the second bench row. That finally worked! But I felt so sad afterwards, thinking of how Robert and I usually would be the ones manuevering and shoving that huge box. God bless that young man, he was so patient and nice through all that. For our view on Christmas: http://coffmanfamily.weebly.com/1/post/2009/12/christmas.html
We still feel good about how we do Christmas. It's fun. Listened to this because Trip Lee was involved but found this Jimmy Needham guy! Gotta love his voice and this song and video is so moving. Preach it.
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LindseyI'm the mama and wife. Updating you on our life! Archives
January 2022
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