Healing

The other day, Jordan was with me in the car and I happened to be in a nostalgic mood and was playing Keith Green. I brought his attention to a song called "Walk and Talk" and told him the song was based on the story in the book of Acts about Peter healing the lame man who was begging for gold. Jordan was astounded. He said, "Peter healed someone?! I thought it was only Jesus that healed people." I was then astonished at this gap in his spiritual education, just as much my fault as his Sunday School teachers I suppose (I didn't suppose it was the fault of him not listening. Though he has a problem tuning into instructions and things, he's amazingly attentive to every story ever told to him and recalls the stories in amazing detail.).

I went on to explain to him that, yes, not only did Peter heal many, but Paul and many other believers in the New Testament. In fact, the Spirit of Jesus lives in us when we become a christian and ask him in and that the same power that raised Christ from the dead is alive in us and working in us and there fore the asking. But I then had to explain that, though such miracles of healing were not unheard of around the world (I have read detailed accounts from believers in China, for instance, as well as South America.) but that they were far and few between in America and the rest of the Western world that same as they were for Jesus' home town. When Jesus visited his home town, he could perform few miracles because of their lack of faith. I explained that we have much faith in many other things, such as modern medicine, money, modern technology and that we don't feel the need for God in this area in such a way as to cry out to him as our only hope. Just as necessity is the mother of invention, lack of options leads us to lean finally on God.

I finally wanted to leave a note of hope that according to Philippians 4:13 that we can retain the hope of being able to do all things through him who strengthens us. We are never without hope because we serve the God of all hope.

Last night, Jordan had 102.8. I think he'd been sick for a couple of days, but as noted in the former post, he can be a bit of a hypochondriac and the boy who cried wolf did not get my attention until he laid in bed for 2 hours without anything to do and didn't feel compelled to get up and complain about being bored. So I took his temperature and it was a little over 100 and later snuck up to 102.8.

Needless to say (for those who know what today's schedule was to be... we had prepared for weeks for the "Sunday Night Sing" in Old Settler's Park for which I was part of two different ensembles for a total of four songs) we were in a bit of a panic. But then I remembered that panic shows lack of faith in Him who has control and was not surprised by all this and started to pray. I then decided it would be disobedience to fail to pray for my son and I got out some olive oil, but a little on my hands and went to pray over him. It encouraged me that he suddenly looked comfortable in his bed for the first time all evening (he had been dozing fitfully all evening and it was now about 11:00 p.m.).

The next morning, while praying, I found myself distracted by trying to plan in my head what to do if Jordan was still sick. So to try to focus, I pulled out "Power of a Praying Parent" and turned to Chapter 13, because it was the 13th of the month, and the chapter was the one where I was supposed to pray for health and healing for my children. Hmmmm.... . Then I opened my bible and randomly chose to read the end of Ephesians and my eyes fell on the passage where part of the will of God is described as being to speak to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Then, using these two things, God spoke to my heart that I needed to know that it was his will for me to sing tonight and that he also wanted to teach Jordan about the faith that I had felt was so lacking in America... the faith to believe God for the healing of our bodies.

I went to him when it was time to get up, and he was sleepy, to say the least. I told him to get out of bed and that God had healed him (he didn't have a fever) and gave him some Chamomile tea and he actually ate breakfast too. He has been fine since! He took a nap this afternoon, but not only has the fever not returned, he hasn't been coughing like he was all day yesterday.

I went in to tell the girls to get ready for church because God had healed Jordan. They exclaimed "Thank you God for healing Jordan". And Brynn, who had been wearing a crown of flowers on her head that I had made for her from some plastic flowers from Michael's, said "I want to give my crown to God, can I give it to him to say thank you?" And then, I guess inspired by the story about us laying our crowns before him in heaven, took that wreath of flowers and bowed down to the floor and laid the flowery crown in front of her. She really loves doing things like that and I've been thinking she would be great at interpretive dance and that may be the way she most loves to worship.

Anyway, I just wanted to share our little miracle and give God the glory. And Mom and Dad, the message you forwarded about prayer and the child's straightforward belief that, of course, God would answer inspired me to pray in this matter as my children would expect me to and to expect the same response from God that my children would expect. So thank you. :)

Again?!

I can't believe it! the Duggars had another baby! Another girl! They're actually had about twice as many boys as girls before the last girl, so maybe she's wanting to break even. This is child number 17! She is my hero. She looks calmer and happier with 17 than I manage to be with my 4. And I'm not sure I feel qualified to be raising them.

Case in point: I took Jordan to the doctor today. He was complaining that his stomach hurt worse than it ever had and that when he tried to "go" it felt like it was trying to come out where it shouldn't. I'm imagining UTI's and stones being passed and all sorts of horrible things. Then he complained his stomach hurt so bad he couldn't breath. Now, this is a boy who tends to imagine symptoms sometimes to the point that he actually creates them. This is the boy who called us up to the school because he went to the nurse convinced he couldn't feel his heart beating and was convinces he was having a heart attack, the same day that they had shown a film on heart disease.

On the other hand, I remembered that even the boy who cried wolf eventually met one and that maybe this time it was appendicitis. He did say that he felt like he was going to explode. Well, the reason became clear that he felt that way for a completely different reason when the nurse asked when he last had a bowel movement... /sigh/

Yup... I just paid a $20 co-pay to discover that my boy has constipation and gas and just about everything he'd described to me were symptoms I'd felt too many times in my own life to be able to plead ignorance in the matter. I wanted to just crawl in a hole somewhere by the time the doctor came in. How horribly humbling. I tend to pride myself in being able to diagnose simpler maladies so that I only go in to the doctor for true emergencies. And now all of a sudden, I felt like one of those filler patients on House that come in thinking they are mortally ill and find out they've been chewing too much sugarless gum or something.

On the bright side, our very sweet family doctor checked Abby's ear while we were there to make sure her swimmer's ear had cleared up, which I was concerned about because it was still hurting 5 days into the antibiotic drops. So the trip wasn't a complete loss.
Now, you'd think this was a symptom I should recognize in a child by now with my oldest being 9 1/2. But we've been pinching pennies lately, trying to finally put ourselves on a budget, and normally I'm a stickler for keeping fruit, veggies and salad in the house, but for the past 6 weeks or so, about every other week, we are out of such snacks. So it all makes sense.... now... $20 later... /sigh/.

New to the blogging thing...

Yes, I have a 9-year-old now that is non-plussed by the things that are new and amazing to me. My Ipod for instance... when we finally podfitted the family, we called Jordan in to see the new and amazing piece of technology and he said "Yeah, mom... it's an Ipod... so?" Well, it's amazing and new to me. I just noticed that if I look at the word Ipod too quickly, it looks like Izod in my perifpheral vision.

So here I am sending my thoughts out onto the Internet, which still blows my mind. I kind of thing one should have a healthy fear of the Internet. If I get too comfortable here, I may never leave the house again or learn how to interact with actual human beings. But the reality is, the human beings that I'm most closely related to are scattered across the country, and even the ones that live in town become difficult to maintain relations with. Why? Because often, in order to care for my four children (9, 7, 5 and 3) in a away that keeps them from living in squalor or suffering from parental neglect, I hit the ground running around 6:30 and don't stop until my eyelids get heavy in the late evening.

Don't get me wrong, I sit and relax once in awhile. I'd have been committed long ago if I didn't, but sitting in front of computer is not my first choice for leisure time. But I've decided that perhaps my friends and family need a little bit beyond the halting conversation that happens with 100 interruptions. So I'm starting to blog. Pray that I keep up with it. Once I get a habit going, I never let go, but it takes alot for me to finally get a new habit. Actually I love new habits, and acquire them often, but rarely establish one.

So in brief, here's what's going on with the Stokes' right now. School starts the 27th, so We're gearing up for that, taking stock of the closets. Brynn, by the way, has about 5 things that fit her in the closet, outside of the sun-dresses they all share (they all wear the same dress size 6 or 6x) and it hit me, after discovering the sparseness of her wardrobe, that she has worn little else besides those dresses for the past month, and she'll need something else fo the monkeybars at school. And I took Jordan for shoes today and was embarrassed to discover that the largest current pair of shoes he owns are, though new enough to be in great condition, are already a size-and-a-half too small!

Nick is playing the piano at church at least once a month now, which he enjoys alot. They usually let him have a mic at the piano also so that he can do background vocals along with the reast of the background vocal team while playing piano.

We've actually had a couple days without rain! And I'm actually happy about that! My back yard is a swamp on one side. And the prediction is more of the same for August. I'm not complaining alot because I usually dread the summer around here. But the allergies have been awful. Up north, they depend on the winter freezes to keep down the population of bugs and weeds. I think it's the other way around here. I think the 100 degree temperatures usually kills off all but the strongest of living things. But it is lush green and buggy.

Well, I'd better get to work figuring out how to finish this off and send my invites to this thing. Maybe add a picture or two. :)