My Selena
Our lives have been shaken up a bit in the last week. Things were humming along nicely, but always when you think everything is perfect something comes along to shake it up. You know, like how God likes to shake our foundations once in awhile?
Selena. She is always the one I have had dreams about. She is so steady and calm, but the one I lost in the Schottenstein Center when she was 9 years old. She said mom I wasn't lost - but I said to me you were. I'm not sure why it's not the crazy older or younger kid that I have scary dreams about, but it's not. It's always her.
She has crazy dreams too. Dreams we talk about and dissect. She is older and wiser than her 16 years. She is meant for something higher, and God knew that when she was just a little girl. It's also I'm sure why He knew she could handle things.
Injuries suck. I'm just saying it how it is. When she fell last week at soccer camp at Cedarville College and heard those three pops as she went down, God already knew what he was doing. I can't say it was meant to happen, although that is what she tells me. He probably knew she could handle it. As for me, the tears wouldn't stop. The parent of any athlete can tell you just how hard it is to see your child in pain and off the field.
Soccer isn't our everything. There is more to life than getting on that field and just going hard. But to a 16 year old going into her Jr. year of high school, it's pretty darn important. She blithely tells me mom, it's okay. I have my senior year and I'll be better than ever. As for me, until I see that MRI result (which is happening tomorrow) I'm believing God is knitting her back together.
In the wise words of Pee Wee Herman (!) ".....knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting..." If anyone has not seen Pee Wee's Big Adventure then you must google it. Those words were never wiser!
Below is my entire blog post from the Holmes County Bargain Hunter. It's what I feel and what I know. Because without faith, what is there?
Selena. She is always the one I have had dreams about. She is so steady and calm, but the one I lost in the Schottenstein Center when she was 9 years old. She said mom I wasn't lost - but I said to me you were. I'm not sure why it's not the crazy older or younger kid that I have scary dreams about, but it's not. It's always her.
She has crazy dreams too. Dreams we talk about and dissect. She is older and wiser than her 16 years. She is meant for something higher, and God knew that when she was just a little girl. It's also I'm sure why He knew she could handle things.
Soccer isn't our everything. There is more to life than getting on that field and just going hard. But to a 16 year old going into her Jr. year of high school, it's pretty darn important. She blithely tells me mom, it's okay. I have my senior year and I'll be better than ever. As for me, until I see that MRI result (which is happening tomorrow) I'm believing God is knitting her back together. In the wise words of Pee Wee Herman (!) ".....knitting and knitting and knitting and knitting..." If anyone has not seen Pee Wee's Big Adventure then you must google it. Those words were never wiser!
Below is my entire blog post from the Holmes County Bargain Hunter. It's what I feel and what I know. Because without faith, what is there?
A God of small things
By: Melissa Herrera
"He performs wonders that cannot be fathomed, miracles that cannot be counted." Job 5:9
Miracles.
What are they? Do they really happen or are they just coincidences?
….or maybe they are just God’s coincidences?
Children’s bodies are strong. Smooth, supple skin that tans in the hot sun. Endurance and energy that comes from a hidden wellspring that is deep within them. The belief that nothing is going to happen to them.
It’s that wild abandon that we sometimes lose as adults. We see our own mortality as the years gather around us. As children, 30 seemed so far away and so old. I laugh when I ask my kids, well how old is he/she? Oh pretty old, maybe your age. It’s a sense of yourself that keeps you young, no matter what age you are. Even at 42, I still feel 25… though you could never pay me enough to actually go back to that age.
I certainly don’t look 25, but I’ve had lots of strangers tell me I don’t look old enough to have an almost 21 year old. Thank you kind stranger.
I believe in miracles. I believe with abandon.
My dad has been gone now for close to two years. He lived a full life with a lot of sickness at the end of it. Through it all, he still looked – to me anyway – like the very tan, healthy dad I remember. He would have a heart procedure, and come out and say, “No, I wasn’t afraid. I feel great.”
I don’t know whether I actually believed in miracles until his ventricular storm happened. His heart went wild, and his defibrillator even more. When a paramedic neighbor came over to mom and dad’s house in the middle of the night, he was close to gone. At the hospital, he was gone. For 45 minutes they worked on him as he wasn’t breathing nor his heart beating. They told us to be prepared. Still, they took him to Aultman Hospital where he was put under a new technology at the time – a cold blanket. It lowers the temperature to where the body, they say, can start to heal itself. For days we all waited. He would open his eyes and look around, and in my mind I was thinking he’s just not there. It’s not going to be him, he was down for so long.
I’m not sure, at that point, where my faith was. All the doctors told us was that if he woke up, he wouldn’t be our Dad anymore. Too much damage. Not enough oxygen.
I don’t think Dad or God was listening. He woke up. And he was Dad. And he lived for another three years, against all odds.
What I need to remember is that those odds weren’t God’s odds. God has a different set of odds that aren’t of this world. We witnessed a miracle, and The Tribe of Clyde had their Dad, Grandpa, and Great-Grandpa for bonus time. That’s what he always called it.
I think… no, I know that my God is the God of small miracles. He’s with us in times that may seem insignificant to the world. Times that are small in scope to others, but dire and heart breaking in our lives. Times that, although aren’t life threatening, mean the world and more to who they happen to.
My heart pulses loud and fast today. I believe, with an abandon that’s against all the world’s odds, that God will perform a small miracle today and in the coming weeks. It’s insignificant to you. Nothing but a mere blip you might hear about and say, Oh wow, that’s too bad.
Still, I choose to believe. Because if we don’t believe in miracles, hope against hope, and throw it all to the wind and say God, it’s yours – what is there to believe in?
Whether God chooses to bless us with this miracle, I don’t yet know. I do know that I choose to believe until He shows us otherwise. Because miracles still happen. Big, small, in front of the world, and behind the scenes. So many have given up hope and tell you it can’t happen. I, for one, choose to believe.
Let go and let God.
Miracles.
What are they? Do they really happen or are they just coincidences?
….or maybe they are just God’s coincidences?
Children’s bodies are strong. Smooth, supple skin that tans in the hot sun. Endurance and energy that comes from a hidden wellspring that is deep within them. The belief that nothing is going to happen to them.
It’s that wild abandon that we sometimes lose as adults. We see our own mortality as the years gather around us. As children, 30 seemed so far away and so old. I laugh when I ask my kids, well how old is he/she? Oh pretty old, maybe your age. It’s a sense of yourself that keeps you young, no matter what age you are. Even at 42, I still feel 25… though you could never pay me enough to actually go back to that age.
I certainly don’t look 25, but I’ve had lots of strangers tell me I don’t look old enough to have an almost 21 year old. Thank you kind stranger.
I believe in miracles. I believe with abandon.
My dad has been gone now for close to two years. He lived a full life with a lot of sickness at the end of it. Through it all, he still looked – to me anyway – like the very tan, healthy dad I remember. He would have a heart procedure, and come out and say, “No, I wasn’t afraid. I feel great.”
I don’t know whether I actually believed in miracles until his ventricular storm happened. His heart went wild, and his defibrillator even more. When a paramedic neighbor came over to mom and dad’s house in the middle of the night, he was close to gone. At the hospital, he was gone. For 45 minutes they worked on him as he wasn’t breathing nor his heart beating. They told us to be prepared. Still, they took him to Aultman Hospital where he was put under a new technology at the time – a cold blanket. It lowers the temperature to where the body, they say, can start to heal itself. For days we all waited. He would open his eyes and look around, and in my mind I was thinking he’s just not there. It’s not going to be him, he was down for so long.
I’m not sure, at that point, where my faith was. All the doctors told us was that if he woke up, he wouldn’t be our Dad anymore. Too much damage. Not enough oxygen.
I don’t think Dad or God was listening. He woke up. And he was Dad. And he lived for another three years, against all odds.
What I need to remember is that those odds weren’t God’s odds. God has a different set of odds that aren’t of this world. We witnessed a miracle, and The Tribe of Clyde had their Dad, Grandpa, and Great-Grandpa for bonus time. That’s what he always called it.
I think… no, I know that my God is the God of small miracles. He’s with us in times that may seem insignificant to the world. Times that are small in scope to others, but dire and heart breaking in our lives. Times that, although aren’t life threatening, mean the world and more to who they happen to.
My heart pulses loud and fast today. I believe, with an abandon that’s against all the world’s odds, that God will perform a small miracle today and in the coming weeks. It’s insignificant to you. Nothing but a mere blip you might hear about and say, Oh wow, that’s too bad.
Still, I choose to believe. Because if we don’t believe in miracles, hope against hope, and throw it all to the wind and say God, it’s yours – what is there to believe in?
Whether God chooses to bless us with this miracle, I don’t yet know. I do know that I choose to believe until He shows us otherwise. Because miracles still happen. Big, small, in front of the world, and behind the scenes. So many have given up hope and tell you it can’t happen. I, for one, choose to believe.
Let go and let God.
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