As you can see, I decided to not write a blog post this week. Actually, for the last few weeks, I’ve decided to not write a new post. And then I listen and see if that’s really what I’m supposed to do or if it’s just what I want to do (or not do rather…). And then the timing of an old journal entry or Facebook post is too timely and that turns into a blog post.
Easter Sunday. Resurrection. Walking out of the tomb of sin and death and looking forward into new life. That’s what we just celebrated, right? But a notice about one of my posts from a year ago popped up on Facebook yesterday, and, after reading it, I thought we also need to look back and celebrate what we have survived. Not celebrate in a party and streamers sort of way, but at least mark it somehow, like a funeral celebrates a life.
I left my son in the hospital tonight. He is four. After a third seizure ten days after the second one, we scheduled an overnight EEG (electrodes glued to the head of a four-year-old for 24 hours) to try to identify where the seizures originate.
While waiting the three weeks for the appointment, he had a fourth seizure.
Then this morning before the time that he usually wakes up, he had another one…on the day of the EEG.
Tonight, I left my small son in the hospital hooked up to electrodes all night.
I had a great shopping trip planned. No, not to Madison Avenue in New York City. I had Kohls Cash!
Kohls is a local department store. When you spend a certain amount, you receive a coupon for $5 or $10…to get you to come back to spend even more, of course. I had a $5 coupon and I needed some fleece-lined tights. It’s cold here! I had worn my new cute sweater dress the day before and realized I needed them.
Even though I usually publish the Lifeline Friday posts just to Facebook, this one is a little longer and I want to share it on the website too.
While I was running errands yesterday, I turned the radio on for the first time in weeks as I usually listen to CDs (yes, I’m old school). I turned it on just as a new song started…and from the very first note I realized it was Blessed Be Your Name by Tree63.
In case you missed it, that is the song that I referenced in this week’s blog post. I wrote about it in 2014 for what turned into the first part of this week’s blog post – about God’s presence – and here God was, showing up two days later in a song that was first released in 2003!
Every blessing You pour out
Tree63, “Blessed Be Your Name“
I’ll turn back to praise
And when the darkness closes in, Lord
Still I will say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord”
I sat down to write an entry in my journal one morning several years ago. As I was typing this title, a song came on the radio with the above lyrics. “Bless,” “blessing,” and “blessed” popping up all at the same time…hmmm…
I didn’t have anything exciting planned for the day that would make me think these words were fitting. No new car or vacation planned that would seem like a blessing. I wasn’t even sure why I had started typing those words for the title; they just flowed out of my fingers.
I grew up in a small town (yes, I’m a small-town girl – no, I won’t start singing a Journey song). My parents grew up there too and most of my grandparents. I also had the amazing blessing of having 3 other sets of grandparents. One of my grandpas had 7 siblings, 3 of whom lived nearby and none of whom had grandkids when I was born…so I was kind of a granddaughter to all of them.
One quick internet search finds dozens of recent articles and research studies telling us to give. They describe actual health benefits of giving our time and financial resources to others. It’s also what many of us were taught from a young age:
It’s better to give than to receive.
I love hair cut days. An hour of relaxing, a scalp and hand massage, that hot water while someone else shampoos my hair (I’m always cold). Can you envision that too? (If your salon doesn’t do all these things, contact me. I’ll hook you up!)
Deep calls to deep in the roar of Your waterfalls;
all Your breakers and Your billows have swept over me.
Psalm 42:7 HCSB
Cody ran down the hall and stopped in the doorway, “I have SEIZURES!”
A mom five feet away gasped and grabbed her toddler to her chest in horror.
Cody took off into the room while I stood frozen in the doorway. Stunned at the other mom’s behavior.
Ashamed of my son’s seizures.