Today I am thankful for our great-grandmother’s peaceful passing this week. Katie Fulton was 104 years old. She lived a long and full life. She was a loving christian wife, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother and great-great-grandmother. She was blessed to see so many generations of her family and her family was blessed to be able to share so many generations with her. I never had the chance to meet her personally, as she has been in a home for the past few years but I’m thankful to have been able to know of her.
30 days of thankfulness
Life In General {30 Days of Thankfulness Day 9}
Today I’m thankful for life in general. It goes by so fast, can end so quickly. Each day is a cherished moment we cannot get back. I’m thankful that I have the opportunity to live, that God has blessed me with as many days as He has, for I know he could come calling at any moment to take me home. I’m thankful for each day with my children, for every moment He allows them to remain here. I hope they live a long life and I do too, so that we are both able to see grandbabies and great-grandbabies and share our great joy and love with them. Life is a wonderful gift and for that I am very thankful.
Thankful for Family {30 Days of Thankfulness – Day 6}
Today, I’m truly thankful for my family. For my children. For my Mother, my sisters and my brothers, my neices and my nephews. A year ago I did not know them all and I’m thankful that this year the Lord brought the opportunity for us to know and meet each other. I love my family so much. God has truly blessed me in this.
1 Timothy 5:8 If anyone does not provide for his relatives, and especially for his immediate family, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.
Thankful for Pets {30 Days of Thankfulness – Day 4}
Today’s thankfulness is a simple one. I’m thankful for my sweet little doggie Clairabelle and our sweet over-grown Labrador, Sassy. Both our girls are extensions of our family.
Sassy belongs to Josh. She is his duck hunting buddy and well, his best pet friend. He loves to take her with him on rides in the boat or truck, both of which she really enjoys. He enjoys tossing her duck decoy in the pond so that she can fetch it back to him. She brings his heart great love.
Clairabelle, or Claire as I call her, is my baby. She’s a lap dog at heart. She loves to snuggle up next to me wherever I’m at and is never very far away. She sleeps at my feet at night. She kisses my toes to let me know she loves me. She keeps me company and for that I love her. She loves to fetch too and Sassy is her best friend. It’s adorable to see them together.
I’m not at all a dog person but Claire is one dog who has my heart. She’s my favorite pet ever. I’m very thankful that I was lucky to find her from a good friend.
We are both thankful for our extended family members. They make our heart filled with even more love than we can imagine.
Learning To Read Through Struggles {30 Days of Thankfulness – Day 3}
I had other plans for today’s Thankfulness post but the Lord has changed those to something else. I have so many things to be thankful for, but tonight I am most thankful for the Lord answering my prayer to find something that my son will connect with in Reading and Writing.
My son is nine and he struggles with reading. He’s had a hard life in his few years and though I’ve done my best to teach him, I know I could have done better at times. He has undiagnosed ADHD. He has all the symptoms and I know his Bio-Dad has it too, so it’s easy to see in him. This was a big reason why I chose to homeschool him. I didn’t want him to be medicated for something that doesn’t always need medicine to control.
I prayed a lot about homeschooling before choosing this path. God quickly answered me with a big old YES by placing things in my daily path to show me homeschooling was right for us. It has allowed my son to be comfortable with his learning disabilities and to go at his own pace, instead of being lost in the shuffle of public school.
Back to why I’m thankful: Earlier today my son came to me with some very simple stick figure drawings he had made. He had this whole book concept developing in his head based on Lego Star Wars, his favorite game at this time. He asked me to help him write the words that are developing in his mind. With his ADHD, writing the words out can be hard for him to do alone, especially when there are a lot of thoughts involved in the process. So he dictates his story and I write it for him, letting him see his words come to life on the paper.
Lately, I have prayed a ton to find something to capture this little boys attention and just get him reading more. I have searched for the perfect book or subject for him but wasn’t able to pinpoint anything that would really grab him. That is until today. This simple dictated book of his own making is the key to all I’ve been praying about. God has finally answered me, in my own son! It’s absolutely amazing to me, and for this tonight, I am MOST THANKFUL!!
Epilepsy Loss {Thankfulness post/Epilepsy Awareness} Day 2
Today when I got online I found out extremely sad news about a friend of a friend of mine online. For the past week I have been praying for this beautiful family, whose daughter was suffering with constant seizures that the medical team was unable to stop. This poor sweet child went through a horendous ordeal. In the end the gracious Lord decided to take her home to Him. Now this sweet Angel sits beside the Throne of God, while her parents mourn her passing.
I am terribly saddened by this news of this beautiful little girl. My own precious daughters suffer from Epilepsy, a seizure disorder. At 3 and 4 months of age, respectively, I watched them both begin their battle with this disorder. Although I, myself, have it, I never realized the impact or effects of it until they began their own journeys.
My oldest, thankfully, was never too bad with her seizures. They would happen, we would increase her medicine and they would be under control. Thankfully, by the time she was four, her fight with this disorder was pretty much under control without the medication. This does not mean that it’s over for her, only that we can control it unmedicated at this time.
My baby has had the worst time of battling. On the day she turned 4 months old she was placed onto medication, after being subjected to 20 different tests to see why this was happening and to make sure it was not abuse related. Two weeks later her medicine stopped controling the seizures with no warning. Laycie suffered 9 grand mal seizures and multiple petit mal seizures at 4 1/2 months old exactly in a 13 hour period. It was the worst and the scariest day of my life, thus far. The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do is sit back and watch my babies suffer with this disorder, not knowing if it will stop, not knowing if the medicine will work, not knowing if like the beloved angel mentioned above God will call them to Heaven.
Thankfully for us, God has seen fit to allow my daughters to continue upon their journey in life. They have not yet met His purpose or fulfilled his Glory. I am thankful, beyond measure, that He has blessed me with these three beautiful children and that He allows them to live each day. I pray every day that this disorder will end with my daughters, that they will not have to watch their own children suffer through it and know the hardships and fear of watching their children suffer with this, as I have watched them, my mother has watched me, my grandmother watched her and my great-grandmother watched my grandfather. I pray this is the generation that it stops with, but if it doesn’t we will deal with it as it comes. We are blessed that it is not something worse than this that affects our life and we are THANKFUL every day to have another day to love them, to hear their sweet voice and see their beautiful smiles, to fill our hearts with love and joy, just as God intends.
Please keep the family of the sweet girl who passed away this week in your prayers. I weep for her mother and pray she can find Peace and Glory in the knowledge that her sweet daughter is now safe in the arms of our Father, never to have to suffer with this disorder again.