parents and plans

"Do you like being a mom?" a nurse randomly asked me yesterday, and I quickly answered "Love it."

"Until they're sick."

Man, it's just got to be the worst thing in the world, seeing your child not doing well in any way: physically, emotionally, spiritually...and not being able to trade places with them, not being able to fix it, not really being able to help.  The only redeeming factors I can think of is that

1) it puts us in a common-hood with the Father God that I just didn't understand before...His unwaveringly, unconditional love for each of us, His mega-desire to just spend time with us, His heartbreak over our heartbreak or our choices or how we live, and that

2) there seems to be nothing that gives us a better opportunity to really consider and truly determine to rely on the Lord fully than to give Him (and give Him and give Him) our children as HIS to care for, provide for, raise up, guide and direct, Father and love.

I'm so thankful that we have ruled out some major issues that Sofie might have had, though she's still not acting herself and is still causing some concern...It might be a long road to figure out exactly what is going on with such a little one and so many possibilities!   Lactose intolerance? Some kind of allergy or virus? I don't know!  But He does, and we've gotten so many big toothless smiles from this little one today that I am just thankful.

Meanwhile, tonight is a night we've been looking forward to for a while...we have the chance to be at and speak at Seeds of Greatness, one of our supporting churches.  Being at SOG is always such an encouragement to us both and we can't wait to be back there tonight!

Tomorrow Matt's going golfing with the guys and we're spending the late afternoon and evening at Uncle Don's.  Friday, the family is going to a children's amusement park called Dutch Wonderland, and while I'm going to HATE missing out on Lily's experience, I'm afraid there's no way Miss Sofie's going to be quite ready for an amusement park!

We have a few more friends and family to see over the next few days, and suddenly we realize our time in DE is winding down.  We plan to spend NO more time in the hospital and as much time as possible with our East coast friends and family...

We want to thank so many of you for your priceless prayers and emails...we're incredibly grateful and blessed to have you in our lives.