Join Me On the Journey

I wonder…Did God miss me when I wandered so far away all those years? Did He grieve when there were times that I didn’t thank Him for the life He had given me and I didn’t ask Him what would be the best next step in my life? I wonder, did He miss me when there were triumphs in my life that I didn’t share with Him? I wonder, did He grieve when, in the lowest times of my life, I didn’t call out to Him for help?

As I share each and every day with my children, I think sometimes about how God feels. I see my children discover new things and connect ideas. What is the absolute first thing that they do? “MOMMY! Clarissa’s having kittens!!!!” “Mommy, why are the guineas fighting?” Mommy, what does outdistance mean?” “MOMMY, Sophia fell out of the tree!”

Every day, a thousand times a day, my children come to me with their pains, their frustrations, their questions, their triumphs…sometimes just for reassurance. Yes, it’s overwhelming sometimes, but mostly, it is just precious.

And every day, my children tell me in so many ways how much they love me. I’m a very touchy-feely, verbal person. (Sanguine ) Two of the four children are like me in that respect, and several times a day, they will spontaneously say, “Mommy, I love you!” I never get tired of hearing it.

I think God must be like that, too. He must never get tired of hearing that I love Him. He must really want me to share every little thing in my life with Him.

Today, I have asked forgiveness for all the time I spent shutting God out of my life and I made a new commitment to include Him in every aspect of my life. Won’t you Join Me On the Journey?

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It’s my baby’s birthday today. She is two. I am officially “babyless.”The story of my little Mariah is nothing short of a miracle. Everything was going very well in my pregnancy when I went in for my ob visit that day–or so I thought. Since I have high blood pressure, my doctor decided to order an ultrasound to obtain a baseline weight measurement. Women who have high blood pressure sometimes have problems causing the baby not to grow well so her weight would need to be closely watched.

I could tell from the way the ultrasound tech was acting that something was not right, but I was unprepared for what the doctor told me a few minutes later. She told us that the baby wasn’t getting good blood flow through the umbilical cord. It was a very unusual problem and they wanted to transfer us to Rochester, Minnesota. The other option was to deliver Mariah via C-section…that day. There was no guarantee that she would survive another 24 hours in my uterus.

Now, being a doctor can have its disadvantages. Sometimes, knowing so much is not helpful. I knew the implications of what they were saying. If the baby had not been getting good blood flow, she had most likely been denied proper nutrition, perhaps even proper oxygenation. She was already a pound underweight for her age. I was really scared that there had already been permanent brain damage. My husband and I had just a few hours to make the decision of whether to transfer to a tertiary care center, deliver a baby immediately, or continue with the pregnancy and take our chances.

We opted for the C-section. (They didn’t think that she would handle the stress of an attempted vaginal delivery.)

I was so scared. I cannot even express how scared I was. In fact, just writing about it now is bringing those emotions to the surface, and it still doesn’t feel very good! I tried to pray, but I just wasn’t in a good place in my walk at that time in my life. I praise God that I have since sought Him and I am walking so much closer to Him. I sometimes wonder how I would have handled that situation if I had been closer to God at the time.

So, my little Mimi was born two years ago today; a two pound scrawny little thing who came out screaming. I’m not sure whether she was screaming at the injustice of being ripped out of a warm, quiet, dark, protective environment; or whether she was screaming, “Thank goodness! I was starving in there!”

Today, as I finish this post, she’s sitting on my lap sucking down goat’s milk from her sippy cup. (I milk goats.) She appears to be no worse for the wear despite her rocky beginning. She’s pretty small for her age, but one of my other daughters is also very petite. (They get that from their father’s side of the house, LOL.) She’s definitely two. In fact, she started with “the terrible twos” about a month ago, and my son (who will be three in a month) decided that he had obviously missed something, so he joined her.

My God is so good! He is so faithful! I praise Him for protecting her and I am so thankful that she’s a part of my family.

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Today, I would like to share an email from a dear friend of mine. I hope it may help someone!

As many of you know we are homeschooling our boys this year. One of our reasons for homeschooling them was because of Brandon’s struggle with reading and more specifically reading comprehension. I have had them home with me for 6 months now. Brandon is/was still struggling with reading comprehension. I have tried numerous things with him to no avail. This was Brandon.

Now I will share Preston’s problems. As soon as I brought him home I knew he had a problem. He could not read. If I gave him an easy book with pictures he could picture read and/or memorize the book and read. Anytime I would try and have him read a book without pictures it was a disaster. I tried starting over with a phonics program with him and that didn’t help. It seemed to help when I would cover all the words except the one he was reading. Although he still had trouble with switching letters around. I questioned dyslexia with Preston and I did talk to someone who works with kids with dyslexia but I didn’t like the answer I got so I didn’t research it further. I just kept struggling and not really getting anywhere with him.

Both boys were having trouble but both were completely different problems. Brandon was a good speller and was a fairly fluent reader but can not comprehend what he read. Preston cannot spell and struggles with reading but he can comprehend what he did finally read. Brandon struggles with memorizing math facts Preston has them down.

Then a dear homeschool friend of mine suggested getting colored transparencies. So after much prayer from and with my dear friend, in January I finally started researching an email I received in October from my Godmother about the Irlen Method. The more I read about it the more I realized I had to get my boys tested. The final kicker that had me make an appointment to get the boys tested was one day I yelled at Preston because he wrote on the table with a marker. Anyone that knows Preston knows that we have called him our “Space Man” since he was very little. We have called him that because he is always walking into things and is a klutz. After I yelled at him I realized I just yelled at him for something he has no control over. Earlier that morning he went to throw something in the garbage and bent over and hit his head on the counter. One of the symptoms of Irlen’s is poor depth perception. So he didn’t mean to write on the table but did because he couldn’t judge where the edge of the paper was. I apologized to Preston about yelling at him and started looking for a screener.

We finished our initial screening today for the two older boys and they have both been diagnosed with it. The correction is either colored overlays and/or colored lenses. The difference the colored overlays made for Brandon brought tears to my eyes. I wish I would have known about this 4 years ago when all his troubles started. This is something that is hereditary. I did sit in on the test and watched and listen to them ask the questions. After we were all done the screener asked what I saw and we decided it would be beneficial for me to get tested too. The boys need to go for testing yet so that they can get colored lenses or tinted glasses.

My hope with this email is to bring awareness to as many people as possible about Irlen Method. They say that 20% of the population has it. Anyone who is a teacher I BEG you to read about this on the web at www.irlen.com and talk to your schools about getting testing for this for the kids. Anyone who is a parent and have any of the symptoms I list, contact me and I can get you in touch with a screener or even talk to you more about it.

• Do you have night blindness?
• Do you have trouble catching a ball?
• Are you tired of re-reading for comprehension?
• Do you have trouble staying on task?
• Do you or your child guess at the words?
• Do you lose your place?
• Do you hate math?
• Are you bothered by headlights at night?
• Are you easily distracted?
• Are you bothered by florescent lights?
• Does reading become harder the longer you read?
• Do you have trouble spelling?
• Do you reverse numbers or letters?
• Do you or your child have ADHD?

If you can answer “yes” to any of these questions you could have Irlen’s and CAN be helped. I have lived with it for 30 years and I am excited to have my turn to get screened and helped. I would had never thought I had it until I sat in on the screening of the boys today.Thanks for taking time to “listen” to me.

Peace and Love
Jolene

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