Not Me Monday, Stellan Style.....

This Not Me Monday is in honor of Baby Stellan. He remains in the PICU for treatment of SVT. You can go to MckMama's site for all the details of his illness.

I DID NOT spend this week consumed with thoughts of Stellan.

I DID NOT constantly check for updates I may have missed.

I DID NOT share his story many, many times.

I DID NOT fall on my face before God and cry out to Him on Stellan's behalf.

I DO NOT pray for each beat of Stellan's heart.

I DO NOT know that Stellan was formed by the very Hands of God.

I DO NOT know that He is fearfully and wonderfully made.

I DO NOT know that The Great Physician knows Stellan inside and out.

My heart DOES NOT break for MckMama and Prince Charming.

I DO NOT pray continually for them, too.

I DO NOT ask God to love on MckMama and Prince Charming as only He can.

I DO NOT pray for his Doctors to have wisdom for his treatment.

I DO NOT pray for his Nurses as they care for Him.

I DO NOT pray that God will use Stellan's story to touch someone that doesn't know Him.

I DO NOT ask you to stop now and pray for Baby Stellan.


=],

Gracie

It was a very pleasant surprise to wake up this morning and find MY VERY FIRST BLOG AWARD. Yippee!!! Thank you my BF, Alicia!

Here are the rules for this award:

1) Put the logo on your blog or post
2) Nominate at least 10 blogs that show great attitude or gratitude <--sorry I couldn't do 10
3) Link to your nominees within your post
4) Let the nominees know that they have received this award by commenting on their blog
5) Share the love and link to the person from who you received your award

I am awarding this to the following:

Jennifer @ Grace Like Rain
Erica @ Scottsville
Lorie @ Thinking Out Loud
Cindy @ Still His Girl
Raechel @ Finding My Feet
C2 @ Christian the Christian

Have a great weekend all

=],

Gracie

Wordless Wednesday......

This was Monday's sunset as we traveled home from our softball game. I pulled off on the side of the Interstate to take this picture. It was breathtaking and I was amazed at its beauty.


=],

Gracie

I AM.....

God said to Moses, "~I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: '~I AM has sent me to you.'" Exodus 3:14 NIV

Have you ever wondered just who God is? I mean, really, who He is? In my life, He is all things. How is that possible? He is My Maker, and Creator. He formed me in my Mother's womb. He knows the number of hairs I have on my head.

When I was a little girl, I saw Him as a superhero, someone who would swoop in and save the day. At the age of 7, during Vacation Bible School, He became My Savior, when I asked Him in my heart.

His role, however, has expanded over the years. You see, when there is sickness, He is The Great Physician. When I've lost loved ones, He was My Comforter. When I am in need, He is My Provider. When the enemy is seeking to destroy me, He is My Defender. When I am in need of direction, He is My Guide. When it's dark and I can't see, He's My Lighthouse. He is the Still Small Voice that whispers reminders of Who He is. He is the Air I breathe each day. He is each Beat of my heart. He is my All in All.

When Moses asked God, What if I go to the Israelites and tell them you've sent me, and they ask me your name, What am I going to tell them? God's response is the verse above found in Exodus 3:14. The answer was not complicated, or drawn out. It wasn't fancy. It wasn't a riddle, a puzzle, or a code that Moses had to decipher. It wasn't in a foreign language that required translation.

It was plain and simple.

"I AM WHO I AM. Tell them I AM has sent you."

What does that mean? It means no matter where I am, what I'm doing, or what I am facing, He is Who He is. He doesn't change.

Plain and Simple.

He is ALL THINGS, at ALL TIMES.

First and foremost, He wants to be your Savior. He loved us so incredibly much that He gave His only Son to die for us. He gave the very best He had, in spite of who we are. You see, He knew us and what we would become and He loved us anyway.

What He's not, however, is a ginny in a bottle that we can snap our fingers at and *poof* our wishes be granted. Sometimes, we have that concept of Him. It's wrong.

Plain and Simple.

I AM

Plain.

Simple.


=],

Gracie

Prayer Request.......

Please continue to pray for Baby Stellan. God is greater than any sickness. He is The Great Physician. This has not taken Him by surprise. He is the very One who fearfully and wonderfully made him. He knows him inside and out. He is able to do immeasurably more than we can think or even imagine. What satan intends for harm, God intends for good.



=],

Gracie

Not Me Monday........

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

The story I'm about to tell, absolutely, positively DID NOT happen......

My eldest daughter, Haley, is a member of the high school softball team. Before her game started Tuesday, she and her friends were running around, laughing, and carrying on like teenage girls do. They find what they believe to be a weed. They pull it up and start running around with it, passing it around. They were shaking it at each other, and laughing, really having a hi-ho time. A lady from the opposing team sees them, and proceeds up to our Coach and yells, "That's our prized magnolia tree". GULP!

Apparently, the weed they had just pulled up, was not at all a weed but a magnolia tree and obviously a prized one at that. Our girls had absolutely NO idea they had pulled up a tree. Once our Coach was yelled at by the Magnolia Tree Planting/Landscaping Committee President, he did what any good Coach would do, He hunted our girls down and yelled at them, lol.

Thinking they were going to jail for destroying a prized magnolia tree, they took the weed back where it came from, replanted it, staked it up, watered it and prayed over it. Yes, they prayed over it, that it would grow and become a strong magnolia tree and not die.

Man, this so does not look like a prized tree


I hope this works.....


Let us pray.....


These 3 will now be forever known as the Steal Magnolias


Mission Accomplished


My daughter is the Steal Magnolia on the left =)


At the risk of sounding like a bad Mom, I must tell you, I couldn't be mad at her because 1.) I didn't know it was a magnolia tree, either and 2.) It was just too darn funny for me to be mad.


By the way, We did win the ballgame 13-1. My Superstar, Softball Player said, maybe if they had been more worried about softball and less worried about that weed, they wouldn't have lost so bad. I don't know, sounds pretty logical to me.


Have a great week!


=],

Gracie

Braces, Xanax, Happy Juice, and Balloons......

Ok, I should be sleeping, but I'm not at all sleepy so I decided to blog. In just a few short hours, the sun will be shining and I will begin a busy Wednesday. I'll start my morning at the Orthodontist with my 12 year old, Kylee. She will be getting her braces put on today. My 17 year old, Haley, has already been there, done that and as you can tell from my pic, I am currently there, doing that (for the second time). Next month will be a year since I had my braces put on. How I ended up with braces at 37 for the 2nd time, you ask? It's a looong story that I will post one day. It is just another testament to my craziness, if you wanna know the truth.

Well, since I am WIDE awake, let me give you the tootsie roll version, short and sweet....I wore braces when I was a teenager. Very uneventful, nothing out of the ordinary. I wore my retainer, as instructed, for the year following their removal. Little did I know, over the span of 20 years that followed, my teeth shifted.

In the age of MySpace, my daughter posted pictures of the family on her profile. I was looking at her pictures one day and one of them was a side view of me smiling. I saw a gap in my teeth, not like a little gap, but like a BIG GAP, where you could do some serious shopping. Now, my family and friends would debate the size of my gap, but it may as well have been the Grand Canyon because that's what it looked like to me. So, 2 weeks later I had braces. I couldn't stand that gap. I didn't know I had a gap that big. Certainly, nobody told me and I didn't look at myself smiling in the mirror sideways. My teeth were perfectly straight in the front or so they seemed.

So anyway, I have braces for the 2nd time and LAST time. I will wear that retainer forever cause believe me, I won't be attending this rodeo again. Yes, my hubby and my friends think it is absolutely ridiculous that I have braces, but I don't care. I thought about that gap all the time. So, hopefully in about 8 months I'll be finished and best of all, GAPLESS!!!

Anyway, back to Kylee, she has hers put on today. She is only excited about the pretty colored rubber bands she gets to have, lol. I will need a Xanax for the appointment, not because braces are bad, but because Kylee is a horrible patient. I'm telling the truth, she is, she knows it and will gladly admit it.

I can't take a Xanax, however, for two reasons: 1.) Because I don't have a prescription for Xanax, good reason, huh? 2.) I have an appointment for an EGD tomorrow @ 1pm and I can't have anything after midnight, which was about an hour and 15 minutes ago here in Bama. That is the procedure where they run the light down your throat and see what is going on in your esophagus and stomach. The GI Doctor is 99% confident I have a narrowing of my esophagus from acid reflux, thus the difficulty swallowing and hoarseness. The difficulty swallowing, of course, from the obvious, the esophagus narrows, food doesn't go down easily. The hoarseness, from the acid irritating my vocal cords. The acid causes you to develop scar tissue, which in turn causes the narrowing. Makes sense, huh? Once he locates the narrowed area, he will inflate a balloon to dilate it open again.

Oh, the marvels of modern medicine!!!! I just praise Jesus, for the happy juice I will recieve prior to this procedure. He also changed my medication around and told me sleep propped up on pillows. I usually sleep completely flat, without a pillow, so this has been quite a change. He said it was like any other irritation, once the irritant was gone, it would slowly get better. I pray this is the source of my problem and this fixes it.

Say a prayer for me. The worst part of the procedure is not being in control. Like, I hate the fact that I will be out of it after the procedure when He is discussing the findings. The nurse in me needs to hear each and every detail and ask questions. Ok, the OCD, control freak that happens to be a nurse, needs to hear each and every detail and ask questions =) There is nothing I can do about it, though, except think of all possible scenarios and make a list of questions for the Hubby to ask, lol. I'll be out of it for a good part of the afternoon so I will catch up with all of you, my blogging friends, as soon as my happy juice wears off.


=],

Gracie