October is Rett Syndrome awareness month…in honor of my friend Colleen and her little girl Claire I am going to take an hour a week this month NOT speaking to raise awareness… What is Rett? That is a great question…I have never heard of it before I met Colleen I had no idea…In an interview at Chris Morris’s blog Colleen described Rett as this “Rett Syndrome is a rare genetic disorder that primarily affects girls. It limits how the synapses in the brain connect. This leaves them with severe motor challenges. Most have little purposeful hand use, are completely non-verbal and require assistance if they can walk. Along with the severe apraxia comes scoliosis, seizures and GI issues. Not every child with RTT has all of those however they are common across the population. Girls with RTT like Claire are born healthy and develop typically for the first year. We had no idea that anything was amiss until she was 14 months old. After batteries of testing, blood, urine, MRIs she was diagnosed 2 weeks before she turned 2. She fed herself birthday cake that year and continued to feed herself until Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving dinner, 2007 was the last time she …Read more
“Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.” Matthew 6:26 Now is the wrong time for me to write this post. My life is in constant disarray. Things that I had dedicated myself to for life are falling apart. I’ve been hurt more deeply than ever before, and it has been consistent and constant. Days open with more than enough troubles of their own. Life HURTS! Now is the perfect time for me to write this post. My life is in constant disarray. Yet I know a God who hovers over the waters of chaos and disorder. My God doesn’t just dominate situations. Rather the loving Creator comes beside me and dwells in relationship. There is so much FREEDOM there! Freedom to cry and have God weep with you, freedom to ask God questions, and freedom to accept that peace and presence are sufficient answers. My life doesn’t have to be close to perfect for me to know that my God’s love for me is perfect. In this I am freed to be careless in the care of God. …Read more
“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? “ -Matthew 6:26 Do we genuinely believe that God does what He says He will do? Do we think He will come through and provide for our needs? Most of us would say that we do. We trust Him and believe His word is true; but then we are tested in that. Maybe our bank account is low and we wonder how we will pay the next bill because another unexpected bill came up. We begin to stress out and worry; and our faith wavers in the storm. The truth is that God does provide for our needs. The problem is that we want more. When more doesn’t satisfy we want even more. And we sit back and consider that God might have lied to us. Why haven’t we received that promotion? Why can’t we get pregnant? Why can’t we buy a bigger house? Why did we get passed up on that job? And on and on. We analyze life and we see unmet expectations. We wonder if God meant what He said. If I honestly look …Read more
Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are not you more important than they? The words of the fictional character, Hubbell Gardner*, came to mind as I read Matthew 6:26. In a way, he was like the country he lived in. Everything came too easily to him, but at least he knew it. Strange? Perhaps. But on further examination it’s not so strange. While a bird may not store grain in a barn, the bird is industrious and uses everything that nature has provided. In some ways things come easily to the bird. Grains, the materials for building a nest, water, even protection from other birds and animals are naturally occurring. Yes, some of us provide food, water, and shelter for the birds, but these are an unexpected bonus. Because nature provides could it be everything came too easily? People of faith, too, are industrious and work with what is provided and the truly industrious even multiple it. Hardships, disappointment and loss are part of life. Still the Lord provides. He provides in many ways: found money when you could really use some, …Read more
