Happy New Year!

There are remnants of the Christmas celebration still all around my house. New toys to be organized. Parts to new toys to be found. Wrapping paper and gift bags to be put away for use next year. The task of taking down the Christmas tree and this year's decorations is still yet to be tackled. A college student to be driven back to her home away from home. A bored junior high student. Two little rug rats playing with all the new goodies given to them. Homemade candy lying on the counter going stale. It's still basically Christmas around here.

Even though my home looks like Christmas, the new year is coming in like a rocket...TONIGHT! I will most likely ring in this new year while tucked away in my warm bed with the family all asleep. While I should be looking forward, I cannot help to look behind at this past year. My heart keeps reflecting on how our life as the Pedens has changed by grace.

 

The year of 2014 started off with a big bang of fireworks, of course! We spent New Year's Eve at our home away from home...the emergency room! I had developed some life-threatening pulmonary embolisms in my lungs. This left me spending the next few months trying to catch my breath all the while dealing with the fact that because these were due to aHUS, I would spend the rest of my life going every two weeks to get an infusion to keep me alive.

 

Okay. Check. We got me under control. Shelli graduated high school and spent the summer at Camp Garaywa. Marli spent the spring months with softball and then the summer rehabbing her knee from a meniscus tear.

 

July came in with a bang as well. Fireworks for the Fourth! While Keith was at work on an early, hot July day, he had his first seizure and totally dislocated his right shoulder. We had no idea what the future held. The injured shoulder would require months of therapy to lead to surgery to more therapy. The seizures, however, are still undiagnosed  and he has had many, MANY since that mid-summer day. It has taken on a toll on him, and us.

 

Our health is only part of the story. You see, one cannot drive a vehicle in Mississippi until he has been seizure-free for at least one year. Well, that little tid-bit blows it for employment. Keith has the type of seizures that come with no warning whatsoever. This makes him a liability to any employer. With Keith being the sole provider for our household, this puts a little (okay, huge) kink in our financial issues. This means we have NO income!

 

In August, we took our oldest daughter, Shelli, to Delta State and left her to begin her future. We left her with no car (because it utterly and completely died two days before the day she was to leave) and with very little money in the bank. That day was no doubt one of the hardest of my life.

 

Sounds like a rough year. Well, yeah, it was. But through these past few months, I have grown and stretched in ways that I could have never imagined. The things that I have learned are God-things. Things that only God could bring me to and through. Growth spurts in humility and in trust, and in mercy and grace, and so much more than I can list.

 

We have lived on the absolute mercy and grace of God and those that He has chosen to take care of us. We have found friends that I venture to say we would have never known in such a way as we do now had it not been for these broken circumstances. I see others and their actions in a different light than I did a few months ago. Grace abounds now more than ever. I am learning to live, once again, in the moment and to find thanks and to give thanks for the good and the bad.

 

This past year has been so much more than the afar-off eye can see. As long as I am learning, I am growing. As long as I am growing, I am living. So as I close this 2014 chapter in my book, I will not look back in sadness or regret. I will look through my eyes of gratefulness and say that 2014 was indeed a good year for me.

 

Have a happy 2015!

There Really Are No Words

It is no secret that our family has been going through some serious financial hardships due to mine and Keith's health. Since August, we have been totally dependent upon gifts from friends and family. There is no doubt we could have made it without them. I cannot begin to imagine how life would be right now if it were not for the true love of angels.

Lately, our family has received more gifts than we deserve. Christmas gifts for the kids, food baskets, clothes, gas money...we have not done without. Today, we were absolutely blown away by the generosity of our friends. Keith asked me how we were ever going to repay everyone for the love, kindness and support they have given us over the past few months. I tried to come up with an answer in words, but adequate words cannot be found. There really are no words to describe how grateful we are. The only answer I could fathom was this...actions speak louder than words.

The only way I know how to possibly ever thank God and those ministers that He has placed in our path is to honor Him in all that we say and do. Keith and I are not in a position to "throw in the towel." We must keep the faith and keep trusting. It is not our place to question this path, but rather we are to accept it and while doing so, "honor the Lord our God."

I accept that this is our path. Though times it is definitely exhausting, I accept that "this too shall pass." Whether it be here in "my time on earth" or  if it be when I see Jesus face to face, this most daunting task that He has given me WILL be over. He will get the glory of this story one way or the other. It may be my eternal praises when I get to Heaven, or it may just be that He gets the glory in my earthly time, and the only way for that to happen is for me to be obedient is me for to live as a "living sacrifice."

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." Romans 12:1

This is what we are instructed to do anyway. Living upright is the least we can do for God who saves us from an eternal death in hell; it is "our reasonable service." I don't always make the best decisions or say the right things, but I do try to live intentionally for God. That is all I know how to do. That is the only way I know how to honor God and to thank those that are so generous with their lives.

I will never be able to repay the love, kindness, and yes, financial gifts that have been poured out to me and mine. There are some things that cannot be repaid. And I know without a shadow of doubt that the gifts that have come my way are backed with the love of God and true heart. I CANNOT repay that. But, but, but... I CAN continue trusting God and His promises and by loving others.

"Let Your mercies come also to me, O Lord---Your salvation according to Your Word. So shall I have an answer for him who reproaches me, for I trust in Your Word. And take not the word of truth utterly not out of my mouth, for I have hoped in Your ordinances. So shall I keep Your law continually, forever and ever. And I will walk at liberty, for I seek Your precepts. I will speak of Your testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed. And I will delight myself in Your commandments, which I love. My hands will I will lift up to Your commandments, which I love, and I will continue to meditate on your statutes." Psalm 119: 41-48

Since winning the lottery is most likely not in the cards for me and Publisher's Clearing House is not knocking on my door with balloons and big fat honking check, I can only give what I have, and that is my life and my testimony of the Lord's goodness and mercies on that life. This old world can take a everything from me, but it cannot take my testimony about my God.