Ambulances and Celebrities

This past week was a doozy! Monday Laila was just a little off all day. We went to A basketball game at Covenant Christian High School in the evening and she was just kind of dazed and we just couldn’t quite figure out what was going on with her. We got home and ate dinner and while we were at the table she said that her back hurt and she didn’t feel good. We laid her out on the floor so she could stretch out and maybe thought she was cramped up and a few minutes later she started what looked like shivering cold but all over her whole body. Her eyes kept rolling in the back of her head and I knew we were in trouble. I called Jack over to her and panicked look on his face said it all as well. Laila has had epilepsy for almost 3 years but her seizures have always been staring, focal seizures except for one day that she had a slight twitching when she was at school but I was not able to see that. This was terrifying. Just thinking about it in writing about it right now has me in tears. Jack and I sat and watched her and kept calling her name and asking her if she was OK and after a few minutes she closed her eyes and whispered “I don’t feel good.” She rested for a few minutes and then started shaking again. This went on and off for about 45 min. We called her nurse and called her pediatrician and their advice was to call 911. We have never done that before and it was terrifying. I know I keep using the word terrifying but that’s all that keeps coming to mind. By the time the ambulance arrived she had stopped seizing and was very very tired. Our normal local hospital was not excepting patients so we had to go to our county hospital and long story short we did not have a very good experience as they had a traveling doctor there who was relaying information incorrectly to Riley Children’s Hospital and never even called her pediatrician to ask her advice. He just told us to increase her seizure medication and go home. I was unhappy and made that known but had no control. So I headed home, slept a few hours (since she was sleeping it off as well) and then got up and drove her to the emergency room at Riley. Thankfully her Neuro Geneticist was on the ER service that day. It took us about eight hours of waiting for him but we finally got to see him. It was explained to me that when Laila was diagnosed with epilepsy her EEG showed that this was a possibility at some point. I had never heard that before. So her epilepsy is progressing and again I’m terrified. I never want to have to see that again, I never want my other children have to watch their sister be taken away in an ambulance again. I am back to a state of fear and confusion. I don’t want to leave her side, I don’t want to let her sleep in her own room, I want control and I do not have it.

While we were dealing with all of that, we were trying to help Jack’s family with the planning of his grandmother’s funeral. She was very, very special lady to me who taught me a lot about faith, family, and being a strong Godly woman. She lived a long amazing life and struggled greatly the last several years and so this was an amazing blessing for her to be at peace in the kingdom of God but still the loss leaves an ache for all of us.

So all in all it felt like a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad week. BUT… The Lord is good and the Lord is gracious and he loves me more than I could ever understand.…

Emma and I had signed up to be volunteers at Winter Jam in Indianapolis Friday night. Winter jam is an amazing Christian concert with 10 bands for $10. The place always sells out and volunteering means you get in early, you get a good seat, and you get to be a helper so all of those things are a bonus! Jack and I had volunteered before and it was an amazing experience and we got to see the whole concert and help with child sponsorships during intermission. This volunteer experience was different. They had Emma and I set up to run a merchandise booth of one of the bands we hadn’t heard of before and we found out that we wouldn’t be able to watch the concert. That was very disappointing and coming from the week we had, I thought wow that’s just par for the course right now. I had promised Emma a fun night just the two of us and that she would get a chance to see one of her favorite singers perform, Britt Nicole. We got all set up at the booth of this band that I can’t even remember the name of, and the merchandise manager got a call that he had a few friends that were coming to help him with the booth and he didn’t need us anymore. To be honest, my first instinct was to say OK thanks and run to a seat and not volunteer at all. But, I knew that wasn’t the right thing to do so I told him to ask the volunteer manager if they needed us anywhere else. Turns out, they needed help at the Britt Nicole merchandise booth! That lifted Emma spirits so we headed to go work there. It was still disappointing to miss the concert but it was very cool to be working for one of her favorite singers. We were met with some opposition from some ladies that were working the booth who were also disappointed about missing the concert and took their aggression out on myself and Emma. It was very disappointing. But, as I pulled them aside and confronted them on it I found out that they were also having a no good very bad week and they cried and apologized for treating us that way. We both decided that you never know what somebody else is going through when you look at them. Everyone has a struggle so we decided to cut each other some slack :-) we worked out a compromise that we would be able to go watch Britt Nicole perform and they would cover the booth while we cover the booth so they could see Crowder. When we got back from watching her amazing performance, Britt’s personal assistant was informing guests that the concert was running too late and she would not be signing autographs. We were pretty bummed because we thought maybe we would get a chance to meet her since we were working her booth. THEN the assistant walked up to Emma and said she’s not signing autographs but I’m arranging for you personally to be able to meet her! We both about flipped out! We went down a special security elevator onto the floor and behind the stage and there she was. No, we are not starstruck people who think one person is more important than another, but Britt’s music has meant so much to Emma. If you have a daughter please check her out because her music has such a positive message for girls to be who they are and to love who they are and who Christ created them to be. The tears I had been holding in all week broke the floodgates and I cried and told her how much this meant for me to be able to have this happen for Emma after the week we had. She hugged me and then she grabbed our hands and she prayed a big, bold word of the Lord over our lives and over our family. It was the most amazing experience!

Emma and I talked on the way home about how the night turned out so differently than we had thought. We were disappointed and frustrated at how things had worked out when we first got there, but we had no idea of the plan that God was working out for us. Isn’t that just like life. I’m reading through the Bible again this year and as I go through the old testament and I see all the times that God’s plan was so weird and so backward from what we ever would’ve thought. He threw Joseph in prison to accomplish him becoming in charge of the whole land of Egypt. He made the Israelites slaves so that he could show Pharaoh and the Egyptians his power and his might to bring the Israelites out of Egypt and to show that he is God. There are a lot of things in our life that I do not understand. I do not like. And I would do differently, but I am not God. And I know that this was no gigantic miraculous thing but it was one more thing worked out to show me that he sees us and he loves us and he has blessings for us, no matter how hard the heart ache to get there. I’m thankful for the days that I can remember that and I pray and ask him to show me a glimpse of who he is because when I do, he always shows. Always.

I hope this encourages you today and I ask that you will continue to pray for fear and anxiety to be kicked out of our minds. That we would live one day at a time and trust our amazing God with our lives and especially with our children.

Ephesians 1:16-23 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.