First day of the soccer season

ahhhh...love those kids!
We had a great day at the soccer fields today! The weather was great and the kids had so much fun! Izzy played her very first game!
Think I am going to have to get this picture framed....it may be my new favorite!
Hugs!
K

One Year Cancer Free

Spent Friday morning at the doctor's office.

Monthly visit with Doc S and then off to get my thyroid, cholesterol, and sugar checked.

I have been cancer free for a YEAR.

Really? Seems longer than that....and at the same time seems like yesterday.

I am so grateful for everything that Doctor S and Doctor P and their teams did to make me well. I am so grateful that they were able to get rid of the cancer without leaving me with a trache, without chemo or radiation. All in all, noone would ever know that I had cancer on my vocal cords. My voice is a million times better than it was a year ago.

My voice is still raspy, but I sound like most people do when they are hoarse, and I have had times when my voice sounds really good. Doc said that I can get another steroid injection...or 2 or 3 and that will soften up the scar tissue to allow my cords to touch...and get rid of the raspiness.

Injection can be done in clinic rather than in the OR. I have not warmed to the idea yet. THAT may be enough to make me accept my raspy voice.

enough for now....5 soccer games today and then dinner with the deacons.....

hugs

k

been gone too long

I have been absent for too long. It always makes me feel better to write. As I have said before, I enjoy sharing what God is doing in my life and in the lives of my friends and family and it seems that seeing my troubles in print makes them much less troubling. Sometimes though, I find myself in circumstances that i don't quite know how to share here. I pull out my prayer journal and write there until things make sense again. This has been the case lately.....but things are making sense angain and I am back.

I have been in the most tremendous battle for about a month. I cannot even put words to it, other than to say that ….well…for the first time in a very very very long time, I finally gave up and just wanted to go to bed and stay there til it was over.

Today I remembered that I challenged Satan a while back. Told him to hit me with his best shot. I had a friend that had been ripped from his grasp and I told him “you cannot have her back, she is on our side now,  I will fight you for her”….well, I underestimated him….I think….or maybe I just got tired of fighting. (this has ben going on since late last year) He did not attack my marriage, my job, my church, my family, or my friends. He made it personal and attacked me…just me. He has made me doubt everything I have lived for these past 15 years. He reminded me of every terrible choice I have ever made. He has reminded me of every failure and every flaw. He berated me with different versions of “How could you ever think that God would use YOU?” until I actually began to consider that maybe this was not Satan but a wakeup call….How could God use me? I have been fooling myself all this time and just playing “church lady”. It is a joke.

Honestly, I let Satan suck the very life out of me. I thought that I could storm the gates of hell and declare war on Satan and he would not react.

2 things happened….

He DID react….and I forgot my verse….

The one who is in me is GREATER than the one who is in the world.

Not even sure why I am telling all of you this other than to ask you to pray for me…with no drama please. To be honest, I am a bit embarrassed about it and don’t want to talk about it. I am fine now that I realize what the heck is going on. However, I am fairly sure that Satan would be glad to have me off his list of worries (as he would any of you), so just pray for me if you think about it.

I am much less freaked out about this in light of remembering my challenge to Satan some 3-4 months ago.

As with everything, I cannot imagine that I am the only one that has gone through this….so I’m sharing

Hugs all around,

K

ps...sweet Izzy learned how to tie her shoes today and Brian passed the test to get into the Jr High band. Man! I love those kids!

 

I am working on the FLO Bible study, specifically a section on God 's plan and purpose for you, for me, for us.....MORE specifically on how none of us are the same and it is our differences that make us valuable. It is the differences, not the similarities, that make us a body of Christ rather than a nose of Christ or an elbow of Christ.

So, I'm all doing this lesson, feeling pretty good about the whole thing, and beginning to wonder why we all want to be like someone else anyway. That's when God stepped in....or maybe it was Satan...or maybe God nudged me and Satan took advantage of the situation....or maybe it was Satan the whole time and then God used it for good....at any rate, I had a melt down.

In my downward spiral, I decided that not only am I a terrible friend, but, compared to the women in my life, I am a terrible mom, wife, ministry leader, church member, employee, child, grandaughter, housekeeper (okay, the housekeeper part is true)...

Ever been there?

Man I hate it!

BUT I have learned that my mom and my friends accept me and my meltdowns, so I e-mailed them. Told mom I was getting out of the ministry. It is too hard. Most of the time I feel like I am beating my head against the wall. Told my friends that I feel like I have done something to offend them and that they like eachother more than they like me (canNOT believe I just typed that....sooooo 6th grade....but, that's how I felt at the time).

All three of them responded with "take a breath and think about what you are saying". Actually, it was more along the lines of "are you NUTS?"

Now that I am out of melt down mode, I can see that I was VERY much under attack. In the middle of feeling so good about writing the section of the FLO Bible study on "Where do I fit in?" which talks about how GOD made us all different to serve different purposes, I totally freaked out because I am not like the women God has placed in my life.

As much as I hate that I had the meltdown, I am also glad I did....it helped me finish that part of the Bible study.

We aren't supposed to all be alike and just because we are NOT alike doesn't mean that one woman is "better" than another.

I am not getting out of the ministry. I love it and I love the women I serve. I am a great mom for MY kids....the ones GOD gave me. I am a good wife for MY husband...the one God gave me. God put us all together because HE knows we are good for eachother.

HOPEFULLY the next time I start to beat myself to death because I am not "as good as" someone else, I will QUICKLY remember that I too am "fearfully and wonderfully made" and I am made the way GOD intended.

Hugs!!!!

K