Coming up for air!

Okay...so here is me being completely transparent...today was the hardest day since we have all been home together. Faith is sick...a constant fever (thankfully, it comes down with meds), an upset stomach, sore throat and headache...poor thing feels miserable. Samuel and Caleb have their first Doctor's appointments tomorrow and I am hoping our doctor can take a peak at Faith's throat too. I am also praying that she will be well for her surgery next Friday (she is having her tonsils and adenoids removed).

Samuel seems to go through episodes of sadness and it just breaks my heart. It's not that he cries...he just doesn't talk and he looks so sad. It's not all the time, but when I see it creep up on him my heart just aches. I think he feels lonely. He was a very social young man in Ethiopia...everyone seemed to know who Samuel was! And now, here he is, unable to truly communicate with us on his age level (our communication feels more like on a 2 year old level right now) or to fully understand the things that are going on around him...from movies, to CD's, to family devotions. I know it is just a season, and I know that it will get better and he is still so full of life...but when those moments come I can do nothing more than hold him, tell him I love him and I am so glad he is my son and then just cry out to my Heavenly Father to meet my precious son where he is at!!! On a more chipper note, I crack up every time I hear him say Grace's name...it's a tongue twister for both he and Caleb and comes out sounding like "Gooyace"! :) He calls her name often and Grace has blessed my heart over and over again with her servant's heart in keeping an eye on Caleb, riding bikes (way more than I know she would like too) with Samuel and just plain ol' setting aside her desires to meet other needs!

Today was also cleaning day and I have realized that it is going to take WAY longer to clean than I ever planned for (I am starting to think I might have to make a night out of it!). One of our two bathrooms that normally takes about 5 minutes to clean took over 25 minutes with all the interruptions! :) I can smile about it now but, I will be honest, I had to do some serious heart checks and crying out to the Lord earlier!

And then I realized that I had to figure out my homeschool curriculum order ASAP so that I could send it in to our charter school so that they could process it and order it for me. There was also the curriculum I needed to order myself because it would not be covered by CVA...not to mention that as I was thinking about the fact that homeschooling would be starting in less than a month I could literally feel the ulcers eating away at the lining of my stomach!:) I had to remind myself to not worry about tomorrow for tomorrow will worry about itself (Mathew 6) and that God's grace is sufficient!!! :)

As I look back on today, there are many things that I could do nothing to change...like Faith's sickness and Samuel's sadness...but one thing that needs to become a fixture is our old routine and that includes rest time in the afternoon!!:) One of my goals in keeping a routine has always been to stay one step ahead of the kids. Right now, without the presence of a schedule/routine, I find myself about 5 to 10 steps BEHIND all of them...and they are almost always going in different directions and leaves me very lost and overwhelmed...or, in other words, exactly where I was today...trying to come up for air but feeling like I was drowning!!! :)

But, therein lies the beauty of the Gospel...the beauty of Christ in us (in me!). Even on days like today,because of Christ, I can echo the words of Paul(though I am only beginning to learn the depths of them) when he says in 2 Corinthians 4:7-10:

"But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies."