my son whom i love

i have two children you have met my daughter and now i would like you to meet my son jordan.

he just was promoted to shift manager at cvs. he works hard and most days very hard is probably more accurately put. that's him laying on the floor next to a stack of totes that gets unloaded every monday. he labeled this photo another day at the office. funny, he is funny. he is a fun guy to be around. he has a very bright personality and his presence lights up the room. everyone loves jordan from family, friends to customers who actually tell the manager to keep him at this store. under all that sunshine is a down cast beautiful guy. when he hurts we hurt. his life to him has just crashed again. his car was totalled and the insurance company has labeled him as a high risk and he will have to seek insurance from a high risk branch of insurance. he doesn't know this yet and we have no idea what the cost will be. he does have tickets on his record. even though they were very minor in the grand scheme of life they are there and have caught up to him.

yesterday was a very difficult day for him. he has been without a car now for 2 weeks. he had to go to the bump shop and remove his license plate from his baby and turn over the key to them. state farm will be towing it today to where ever. we stopped at another dealership. he drove another gli that they just got in. the reality is now that he was basically dropped from our insurance and who knows what he will be able to afford really if anything.

i'm used to crying, but when i see my tough 6'1" tear up i know things are bad for him on the inside. he says nothing ever happens to his friends and everything always happens to him. i know that is not exactly true but he does not get away with anything in life. for the most part i've been aware of this, and happy for it, but i think: will he get so angry with God and never surrender his life to Him, or; how low will God have to take him before he looks up.

he says he is not lucky. i told him there is no such thing as luck. when i mention God is in control of our lives he lets me know he doesn't want to hear that speech again. somewhere along the line jordan thinks he is on the same playing field as the rest of the world. given he gave his heart to God when he was 5 and he had to buy a study bible for his 13th birthday and began underlining things he felt were important while attending wednesday night prayer meeting. satan is just not interested in his friends. do you get my thoughts here?

i really don't know what plan God is working out for him. i do know, His love is measureless for him. His plans are perfect for jordan and His thoughts of him are higher than mine. He wants to be the Lord of jordan's life. i always pray that the Lord would not let my kids forget Him. my repeated prayer is that He go find that one lost sheep, in this case two.

it hurts extra deep when your kids hurt. when you see their life take turns you ask where is this going to end up and how does it turn out?

Lord i continue to ask that you intervene on behalf of my children. Never give up on them no matter what.

mom update

i can't even begin to thank you all for your prayers. my mom's name is wini.


it has been only 24 hours on the oxygen, but really no change at all. she slept almost all day today. she washed up this morning in shifts but did not get dressed or comb her hair until 4pm. she is still eating 3 meals/day which is good. her ankles are retaining water. they go down pretty much over night but look bad by evening. i mentioned her congestive heart failure but we don't know if this has any bearing yet but i feel it may. her blood work came back with a hemoglobin of 10.7 and the dr. wants her to take iron every day. she has a lot bowel issues and fears and does not want to take iron...her daily centrum silver has no iron. she used to take theragram-m and switched because the stores stopped carrying it. her neutrophyls (sp?) were elevated but she has always had an elevated white count. so tomorrow we will get a copy of the blood work for ourselves and have them fax one to her cardiologist.



she keeps referring to her age...88. well what can you expect...i'm 88 years old janel. she has never been her age, never ever, until now. she hardly has any grey hair to which she is so proud.



so this morning before it got too hot i worked in her rock garden. she was inside on the couch in and out of sleep and i was outside taking my issues out by digging up weeds in a place we both enjoyed year after year. i cried as i pulled those weeds and moved rocks around. i felt at times i couldn't finish. every year she and i would go to the nursery and pick out some new perennials and go home and plant them. we both would be so excited at our selections. we used to say that being at the nursery is like being in heaven. she and i got out about a month ago, she pushed herself for one last time. it was too hot to really enjoy it, she stood in the shade at one point. she bought a pink phlox and some tall pink dianthus. even then she was planning some new things for the front of her house.

she also has a rose garden and would send home a beautiful bud to put on our table and now i'm bringing them in to her table.

p.s. our son who just got a promotion at his job at cvs, bought his dream car, a jetta gli, got into a car accident. it is not drivable. he is ok. my husband went to the impound lot to take a look and couldn't find the car. there is so much i could write here but just ask for prayer for him.

mom ~ prayer

my sister and i took mom to the doctor last thursday. mom's symptoms are wanting to sleep 24/7. she can hardly force herself to stay awake. going to er is out of the question...probably ever. her dr. did blood work and took her oxygen. it was 71. she asked mom how much she smoked per day. my mom's countenance fell like a rock...she quit 20 years ago, bless her heart. the one accomplishment she is so very proud of herself about, the doctor thought otherwise. she said after 55 years of smoking it was the hardest thing she ever did. we saw her try and try again only to fail until finally the Lord gave her the desire of her heart. we were all so amazed.

going to the doctor that day was a huge undertaking. she is the kind of woman who never wants to let people see her look bad. she had to have her hair washed and rolled 3 days before the dr. appointment then not comb it out until that day, and wear her makeup. washing her hair, no just getting the stuff she needed to the kitchen sink was exhausting and she was out of breath and had so sit down first for a while.

so tonight at 6pm the medical supply company is arriving with the dreaded oxygen. if this doesn't work, we think it may be her heart. she has congestive heart failure too. we didn't talk to this doctor about that because she sees a cardiologist and we have not gone in with her at those appointments in the past because she would not let us.

mom is a woman who's entire self esteem is taking care of her family and home. she is at a standstill right now and she isn't handling it well, i'm scared she is giving up. her and i talk 2 to 3 times a day. she means everything to me. i will write about her again soon.

please pray this oxygen makes a difference in her health. she keeps telling us she is a burden and that can't be farther from the truth. after my dad died mom read the entire new testament out of her scofield bible. her eyes gave her fits but she needed to have that done before He called her home, i know that was what she was doing.

this is so, so very hard. my mom is my very best friend. i just don't know if i can do this.