Guatemala? Gift vs Guilt.

Hello, It's Monday! Monday is now my day off. I work Tues. through Friday now. It is nice to have a morning when the kids are at school and I can sit and drink coffee and blog....

Guatemala is on my mind this morning. I found out last week, that if I want to go it is wide open! I had thought there would be a selection process, but I guess not. In case you are not a regular here, my church is taking a small team on a short term mission to Guatemala in May. I have really been feeling a call to the mission field for the past few months, so when this opportunity came about I jumped at it! 

The thing is, if I go, it means leaving my husband and kids for 10 days. Don't get me wrong, I would love to have my whole family go, but it just isn't practical for both logistical reasons and financial reasons. So, if I want to go, it means I go by myself. 

I was so excited! I still am, but now the fear and guilt is starting to set in. 

Yesterday after church I met with the two men who are organizing the trip and their wives. They are all so nice, but talking with them made it REAL! I am not an adventurous person by nature. I do not thrive on adrenaline, in fact I hate adrenaline because I have a tendency towards anxiety! So looking up Guatemala and reading about the crime rate, the rape and kidnapping of tourists, thinking about flying, going through the whole airport, travel process is kind of getting to me! Isn't that silly? I wish so badly that my husband could go with me!

Then there is the guilt. The guilt of leaving my kids for 10 days. Am I being selfish? Pursuing this opportunity at the expense of my family? I try to tell myself that I am setting a good example, that I am doing God's work! But there is still that voice that says that my primary responsibility is my family, how dare I leave them to pursue something that will only benefit me?! I was talking with another woman about this the other day and mentioned the guilt she said "well, I know I couldn't do it, but there isn't anything wrong with it." What I heard was "that's for bad moms who only care about themselves." 
I am trying to look at how it will benefit my family in the long run. My hope is that in the future, if it is God's will, that our whole family could go on a mission trip. By me going first, I think it will help that process in that I will know a bit about what we will be dealing with etc.

I am praying, praying, praying. If this is God's will then I pray He would give me peace. I know that the enemy will not want me to go and I know that he will use guilt and fear to control me, but I need to be able to discern between my own feelings and God's will. 

I am open to prayers if anyone wants to offer them up? =)

Thanks for reading!

Update on my sons learning disability testing....

Well, I went to the meeting last week to find out the results of my sons testing and see what the school was willing to do for his learning problems.

I had prepared myself thoroughly! I did a lot of reading on special education law, the federal and state. I also found this wonderful forum at http://millermom.proboards.com/index.cgi that was invaluable for me. I am sure I will be spending much more time there in the future as well. I would highly recommend it! There are a lot of very experienced parents and teachers on this site that were more than ready to offer support and advice whenever I needed it!

So I was ready for anything! I wasn't sure what to expect, I had heard horror stories about schools trying to get out of having to provide services, minimizing issues etc. But my sons school was wonderful! We went over the results step by step. And he definitely had some areas of concern show up, one was processing speed. He demonstrated slow processing speed in everything! He also scored fairly low in reading fluency, math calculation and writing, which did not surprise me at all.
The way the eligibility guidelines are written someone like my son can actually score low average, being very borderline for eligibility, even though he is literally at the bottom of his class and struggling desperately.
I was very fortunate, no....blessed, that the team at his school looked at the big picture and found him eligible.
They are going to provide him with 45 min. per day for reading and 45 for math and he will also get occupational therapy assistance weekly. I am so glad he will be getting some help!

Now, I have very mixed feelings about all of this. First I am so happy that he will be getting the help he needs, but then I am fearful for him. My oldest two have always done fairly well in school and are both athletic. I have never dealt with this before. I am afraid of the teasing my son may get, and how will he feel about himself when he realizes he is in the "special" class? But then again he has been through so much already and has always been an overcomer! He had a severe speech articulation disorder that would take most kids 5 or more years to deal with. But my son started practicing on is own and corrected all of the errors by the end of 1st grade! He was terrified of water, especially in his face and would never leave the side of the pool when we would go swimming. But in first grade he wanted to do swimming lessons and he overcame his fear all on his own and can now dunk his head under water. There are more examples, but he has such a strong spirit!
I just need to remind him and myself of this, I know that he will make it through.
I have a 3 year old clammering for my attention so I will need to get going, but I will post links later to all of the invaluable resources I found and used during this process, so others can benefit from this info!

He answered me!

Yesterday morning in church God not only heard me, but He answered me!

I have had so much on my mind lately, with work, stress, my son's health issues etc. I have felt harried and weighed down. So, yesterday morning during church we had a time of prayer, one of the elders came up to the front of the church and prayed and then we all sat in silence praying. During this time, I brought all of my frustrations and worries to the Lord, as I did this I thought about my son and his recent learning problems and my anxiety over picking up his learning disability evaluation this Tuesday, I prayed that the Lord would help me to see His perspective in all of the challenges my son is facing and will face. 

After the prayer time we had some worship and then the pastor went up to the front to begin his teaching. He started off with reading a passage from the Bible and then paused to share with us what God had done in his life. He shared that growing up he had several learning disabilities, and that he had been unable to read all through elementary school and middle school and that he had been in special classes all growing up. As I listened to him speak this, tears began to pour out of my eyes, our pastor is a great speaker and exhibits such passion during his teaching! I would have never guessed that he had any problems with reading or learning!
He said he felt he needed to share this to show what the Lord's power can accomplish in a persons life.

I immediately felt that this was the Lord speaking to me! (it is bringing tears to my eyes even now) All of the sudden I realized that no matter what those learning disability eval results are, my sons life is in God's hands. And in God's hands, there are no limits to what can be accomplished!

Praise God! =)

A chance to witness!

Here it is, Thursday again. Last week I blogged about how I was home alone, but silly me, left some charting for myself to do and instead of enjoying a nice day off I spent the day charting and on the phone working. Well, today I made sure all of my charting was done yesterday, so I could enjoy my day off! I left my little girl home with me today so we could have a mommy/daughter day! =)

I wanted to share something that happened last week while I was working. As I have blogged, I have really been feeling God's call on my life lately. It is a great feeling!
And the other day when I went to visit one of my hospice patients in a nursing home I was approached by a nursing student who was doing her clinicals there. She is a first year nursing student and she said she is interested in hospice and was wondering if she could follow me while I was there. Well, she was already familiar with the patients since she was doing her clinicals so confidentiality wasn't an issue, so I told her yes!

I was a bit nervous as I am relatively new to hospice nursing myself but she was very sweet. I explained what I was doing and what my goals were for the day and then we went in to see the patient.
He isn't far from death, but still awakes when spoken to and has an awful time with pain and anxiety. After doing my assessment I was talking with him and knowing he has a strong faith in God I asked him if I could pray with him. I felt a little self conscious as the nursing student was standing there watching me, but I wanted to do what I knew was right and needed. He said he would like for me to pray with him so I took a quick glance at her and then bowed my head. I said a short prayer and then after saying goodbye to the patient the nursing student and I walked out.

I tried to explain to her that I had a strong faith in God, and although I would never force this on a patient, if I knew they had a faith and found comfort in prayer I was always happy to pray with them. She looked at me and told me that she had never prayed before and didn't know how! She said she wasn't raised with any sort of faith background. My heart went out to her. At first I thought maybe she was uncomfortable with it so I told her that if she were ever in a situation where a patient wanted prayer she could call on a chaplain also. But she told me that she wanted to learn how to pray, she wanted to do that if her patients wanted it.
At this point we had walked out to the nursing station and there were a lot of people standing around. But I looked at her and told her that God was always there and ready to listen!

Now, I realize that I just barely introduced the concept, but it felt so good to have maybe planted a seed! It felt so good that God chose me to be a witness to her that day! On my way to the office from there, I thanked God for that opportunity and prayed that He would keep it coming! I want to be His hands and feet AND voice when I can!

Have to share!

Well, I just had to share! A few weeks ago, I posted about feeling a desire for missions. I have not been able to shake this feeling! I have prayed about it and asked for God to give me some sort of confirmation if this was truly His will for me!

Well, until this morning I really hadn't received that confirmation. This morning in church as the pastor was doing announcements he said that the church was going to be forming a missions team to go to Guatemala in May and they were looking for people who wanted to go! I was on the edge of my seat........I guess there was a church planted there some years ago and since then they have sent a team down every year for about 10 days.
Is this why the Lord put this desire in my heart?

Well, I spoke with the pastor about it and I called the person who is organizing it and I am hoping to be able to go! They said they plan what kind of trip it is by who ends up going. If they get medical people they do a medical mission  and if they get construction people they do a building trip, and if they get both they do both. Well, I am hoping that other medical people volunteer so I can maybe use my nursing skills there.

So, now that I am all excited, I start to have all of these other thoughts. Is this really God's will?
Is this just me trying to make something happen? Am I being selfish to leave my husband and children for 10  days? My husband will support me but he is not looking forward to being alone with all 4 kids for 10 days by himself........
Or is it just the enemy trying to put doubt in my mind?

So, I pray.... I pray for clarity, to know God's will in this and for peace for my husband. I also pray for the logistics, could I get my passport in time, could I come up with the money required?
Only time.....and God......will tell! But I am excited all the same!

thoughts.......

I am sitting home....alone this morning. A pretty rare happening. I work as a hospice nurse and right now I am part time, working 3 days a week. When my case load is up I have to add an extra day in there and work 4 days a week so I have daycare set up for 4 days a week. Right now my case load is down so I am using today as a catch up day for charting and took the kids to school and daycare.
I decided to sit and drink some coffee ad blog before I dive into my charting...so, here I am!

Well, okay, just had to spend about 30 min. making work phone calls, but NOW I am going to blog and finish my coffee!

So much on my mind. My 7 year old son is being tested for a learning disability right now. This has all come as quite a shock to me and has brought a lot of guilt. I wrote about it a month or so ago, but I initially thought I had done something wrong with home schooling him last year, then I felt bad for not noticing it last year. But I came to realize, he pretty much progressed normally through last year. He was able to acquire enough skills to get him to a basic reading level, it is just getting beyond that point that is the problem. So, now I am waiting for the results to see what we are dealing with.
Every week when he brings his homework home I cringe. What I see is spelling tests with 2/10 right, sloppy writing all over the paper, pictures of stick figures in his art. I love him so much and I feel scared for him.
I did a lot of crying in the beginning when I realized how bad it was, when I was told by his teacher that he was barely keeping up with the class and was, in fact, at the bottom of the class. It broke my heart for him!
If you have read my earlier post you may remember that my son has been through a lot! And there is more in store for him medically. His asthma acted up this year and we are right in the middle of a reflux flare up.
In fact, he has an appointment with a GI specialist in Feb. and I am fairly certain that he will be having an EGD to scope his upper intestine shortly thereafter. He also has an appt with a nephrologist in Feb. and a kidney ultrasound due an idiopathic hematuria that is in our family. (microscopic blood in the urine).
Big *SIGH*
So, at first I was in denial about the learning disability, but have since accepted it and am doing all I can to be prepared and informed to help him. I have been very fortunate that his school and teacher have been wonderful. When we had our initial meeting with the school, I was prepared for a fight as I was told many schools try not to have to test kids, but in fact, all at the meeting agreed that he should be tested immediately! Then I asked for a copy of the results a week prior to our follow up meeting and they agreed readily to have it ready for me to look over. Praise God!
The I found this great website! http://millermom.proboards.com/index.cgi about learning disabilities. I have been posting on there and have found a wonderful online community of parents who have been through this and have been more than willing to give advice and even agreed to look over our results to help me be educated and informed about what we are dealing with!
Whew, that is alot! Well, I guess I will end this now. I wanted to talk about more, but I really need to get charting.......
Blessings to you all!

God Calling....

With all the changes of the past year, it has been too easy to let God go.....not totally, but I find myself getting so involved with the day to day activities and life that I don't make time to talk and listen to God. 

Well, I have really felt Him calling me back to Him lately. 

I am trying to think of some particular poignant moment where I heard his voice, but it is more like a daily whisper. I can feel Him and somehow I feel different.

Last week, I was watching a movie about a missionary, it was about his journey to and island and his life as a missionary sharing God's love with the inhabitants. As I watched, I felt this longing to be there! A very strong longing! Then after the movie was over, I thought "well, that's silly, certainly God wouldn't want ME to be a missionary! I have a job and so does my husband, we have too many kids, we don't even go to church every sunday......." But then I also was reminded that if it is God's will, He will make a way. "Okay, whatever" I thought.

But it has stayed in my mind. Then I got the book by Stormie Omartian, The Power of  a Praying Wife. I am barely a chapter in and I am telling you I see changes in my marriage! I won't go into details of our marriage, but Saturday night, we had a wonderful conversation about getting closer to God and bringing our family closer to God. It was a beautiful talk! 

Then we went to church on Sunday (yesterday) and it was one of the most moving services I have been to in a long time. The worship was incredible! It was one of those worship services where I could not keep myself seated, I had to stand and I just got lost in the worship. It was wonderful! And then I just felt different all day! I can feel God in our lives, making changes! It is a wonderful feeling! And still, the desire for missions is still there. 

I have prayed for a confirmation that this is God speaking and not my own desires and I am still waiting for it. So, we shall see. But feeling His presence as I have has been wonderful and I am so excited to see what He has planned for my family. My husband was sitting on the couch last night pouring over the church bulletin trying to find ways for us to get involved, this made my heart smile! 

I am so excited to see what God has in store for us!