Trusting God

I had a conversation with a friend of mine last night and it has left me pretty much lost. It doesnt make sense that it did, but it did. So, I am trying to make sense of it in my head today and figuring out where God wants me.

Last night, my life was being compared to Josephs. Although, he had it much worse than I do. He was put in situations that could leave a person wondering, "Why, God", and the same goes for me. Why would God take my Mom? Why would God have me move to my Dad's house? Why would God have me get a job? All of these questions race through my head, but I'm left with no answer.

One thing I do know though, is that Joseph trusted God. Trusted that God had a plan for his life and that each event had to happen to work for God's plan! This is what I am missing. I wonder sometimes about my life and WISH that God would use all these unfortunate events in my life to do something amazing, but then I come back to reality and know it wont happen. I have no faith I guess that God can use me. And I'm still struggling with believing that God can use my life to impact someone else.

I was in a MAJOR slump this morning before going to work, not being sure of anything. My same friend asked me last night what I love to do. What I could do for hours and it only seem like minutes, and I couldnt answer. I dont know. I honestly have no clue how to answer that. So, while thinking about that and my whole trust issue, then wondering what a "real" friend is, oh my, just TONS of things going through my head, I ended up just going to my bible and looking up scriptures on trusting God and having faith.

Psalm 4:5 "Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your TRUST in the Lord"
Psalm 56:11 "In God have I put my TRUST: I will not be afraid what man can do unto me"
Psalm 118:8 "It is better to TRUST in the Lord than to put confidence in man"
Psalm 146:5 "Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose HOPE is in the Lord his God"

Prov. 3:5 "TRUST in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding"

Micah 7:5a "TRUST ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide..."

Hab. 2:4b "The just shall live by FAITH"

Luke 17:5 "And the apostles said unto the Lord, Increase our FAITH"

1 Cor. 15:14 "And if Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your FAITH is also vain"

2 Cor. 1:9 "But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not TRUST in ourselves, but in God which raiseth from the dead"
2 Cor. 5:7 "For we walk by FAITH, not by sight"

Col. 2:5 "For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the Spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the steadfastness of your FAITH in Christ"

2 Thess. 3:2 "And that we may be delivered from unreasonable and wicked men: for all men have not FAITH"

Heb. 2:13 "And again, I will put my TRUST in Him, and again behond I and the children which God hath given me"

James 1:6a "But let him ask in FAITH; nothing wavering.."

These are a few of the verses I found. It helped me a lot though to read these and to get out of the mess I was in this morning. Also, going to work and seeing the smiling faces of each child helped!!! :) ;) Please be praying that the Lord would open my eyes to what he wants for me, and for me to be content with where he has me, TRUSTING he has a plan for me! :)

~Danielle

How I spent the day...

As you all can probably imagine, I figured yesterday would have been awful for me. Wasn't sure how I'd get through the day or even want to do anything. And that's how it was in the morning. I struggled a lot. Had some pretty bad thoughts, and a lot of pain, but certain people were very encouraging to me and I thank God for them. :)

Our plan for the day was to go out to eat with my brother and sister and Joan, a friend of our families. ( Actually she was my Mom's best friend ) So and before doing that, Tara had the idea of buying a tree and planting it in memory of my Mom. So, that was the plan!!! :)

So Mandy and I really had nothing going on at home, so we decided to leave early. We had a few places we wanted to go and then thought of more as we were out. We went and visited my Mom's doctor. He is the nicest man. We wanted to just say Hi and tell him about our upcoming movie premiere. He knew that we had made a film and said he wanted to see it. Well, we loved seeing him. And he took us back into the kitchen area and just sat down to talk with us, it was so neat. Then from there we went to the Hospice place and sat and talked with our "social worker" for 30 min. probably. She will be coming to the premiere, along with some other Hospice employees. It was really neat to see them, and when we walked in, they all remembered us, and my Mom was only on Hospice a week.

So after making those stops and a few extra, we went to plant the tree. The school where Tara works said it would be fine to plant it there and they also said they would donate a memorial stone to put out by it. So....it was Tara, Mandy, Joan, Jason..which is Tara's boyfriend, and me all out there trying to dig this hole for our tulip tree. It HAD rained like the night before but the ground was still hard as ever! :( So, we all took turns trying to break the ground and dig this hole. After Tara tried, I decided to try jumping on the shovel! :) I did that a few times..still no hole. Then Tara held on to me and I stood up on the shovel and I jumped up and down SEVERAL times...still no hole. THEN, we had the brilliant idea to have Mandy jump on my back and THEN I jump up and down with Tara holding on to me...guess what! STILL no hole.
I couldn't believe it. Thankfully, Jason WAS with us, and he took over. Witithin 10 minutes probably he had the hole dug, and that's without jumping up and down or carrying someone on his back! ;)

So, then it was time for us to plant the tree. It ended up looking very nice. So, then it was time for our next thing. Mandy and I had bought a "thinking of you" card for my Mom for us all to write in. So, after writing my message in the card, and having just planted the tree, I lost it. I HATE having people see me cry too, so I just walked away and got in the van to be alone and thinking "hopefully" no one will see me. I just miss her SO much! So, we all went back to Tara's house, and we were going to let off the card then. We had also bought one Happy Birthday balloon to tie to the card and let go. Well...bad news! The card was too heavy and it just fell to the ground. :( I couldnt believe it. I tried ripping up part of the card, where we hadn't wrote to make it lighter, that didnt work. Then someone suggested tearing it, (like that was going to make it lighter) well, I tried, and once again, failed. SO...we then had a very ugly looking card, torn, and sort of shredded. :( We decided that we needed MORE balloons. :) So, everyone went to the restaurant to meet Kyle and Taryn there (brother and future sis in law) and Mandy and I went back to Deals to get 4 more balloons! :) By this time, it was getting dark, and ready to storm! :( So the wind was VERY strong and we knew the card would be taken off by the balloons. :) So when we got to the restaurant we called Tara and Kyle and had them come out. Joan also came to take some pics. :) We all held on to it then on the count of 3 we let it go and said "happy birthday" well...then I cried some more. Watching the balloons just drift away was hard. Kind of felt like letting HER go. I know it doesnt make sense, but it was HARD.

Well, having our waiter really lightened up the night for us. He was very...umm, just different, but very nice! He was lots of fun to all of us! And kept us laughing...a TON. Tara brought an ice cream cake for all of us and then after eating it, Joan had a gift for each of us. I couldn't believe it. She is SO thoughtful. She gave me an angel and she said I was the last to buy for because she knew she needed JUST the thing. The card that came tied around the angel said, "Though words alone can't ease you loss, Nor take away your pain; This Angel lays its gentle hand to comfort and sustain" I thought it was perfect! I hugged her and cried and she just whispered to me, "Danielle, you and Mandy are so fortunate, you got the best years with your Mom...Tara and Kyle missed out. She loved you SO much" That just made me cry even more. I was crying because of the gift, but also all the hurt came out again.

So although I did cry a lot, I think a lot of deep down hurt came out and I actually feel a little better! :) By the time we left the restaurant it was pouring out...I had parked around back too, so Mandy and I had to run in the drenching rain! :) But that's not the worst. From the restaurant, we had to get some things from Wal-Mart, so, by the time I parked... :), it was REALLY REALLY pouring outside. And we looked at each other and just decided to go for it! ..Oh, I wasn't parked close either! ;) So we did it. Mandy actually stopped and took off her sandals and RAN barefoot in the parking lot. Which sounds crazy but was a good idea, because I was slipping all over in my flip flops, they get slippery when they are wet! :) By the time we made it to the door, we were drenched. Everyone was staring at us and knew we were crazy for even trying to make it. Our hair was wet, umm...all of our clothes were wet, it was awful. All the staring we got and lots of questions from people..."Woah, you guys got REALLY wet" or there were some "Is it raining outside??" :D Umm... YES!!! :) It was a lot of fun though, besides being freezing cold it was a nice way to end our day! :) We thought of Mom's poor card though...for sure it's all wet and gross now. :(

So...that was my day! Exciting, huh??? Hope you all aren't too bored with reading about it. Oh, and sorry bout the pics. They are very blurry...Tara doesn't have the best camera! :P But...you'll get the idea from them! :)

-Danielle

"Happy Birthday Mom"

I've really been thinking a lot how my blog has sort of turned into some sad blog, instead of the hope I had before. And So, I was determined to do a "nice" post, but then, my mind started wondering again and my emotions started rolling...and well, now I have
this post. Tomorrow will be my Mom's birthday and the first one without her. It's going to be VERY hard. I decided to go back to the post that I made on my Mom's birthday last year. Here is what I said...

MRI and BIRTHDAY

Okay, I'm sorry it's been awhile since I have wrote anything. I've been waiting until today though, so I could let you know something about the MRI results. Well, I'm sorry to say this, but I still can't tell you very much. Just because, I don't know very much. I have what I think, but I could be 100% wrong. What is looks like to me is that the tumors have either stayed the same or shrunk, but the swelling is much greater. On the pictur e, almost half of her brain is taken up by gray, when the rest of the brain is black. So we aren't sure if that is the tumor or the swelling. We are really praying it is the swelling. It makes since it would be the swelling.

I had a long talk with David last night, and we both said that no matter what the results said, we wouldn't stop believing that God is going to heal my Mom. H e does what gets most glory to him, and through my finite brain, it seems that he would get so much glory this way. There are many friends of ours, that would almost mock us with somet hing were to happen to my Mom, because we didn't use traditional medicine. Also, things as far as custody of my sister and I would be such a disaster. I hope I never have to go through that. So, no matter what, as long as my Mom is still breathing, I will believe that God is going to heal her. Or, I am praying that I can always believe that. When things get tough it is hard to always think that way. I want to give up and lose hope, or run away from my problems, but that never changes anything. I have to rely on the Lord for my strength, and know that he will get me through it.

On a better note, my Mom's birthday was really good! I think she enjoyed it more than she would have thought she could. We had lots of visitors today and lots of cards and flowers showing up. It was so nice to see my Mom getting excited. She hasn't been so happy for a long time. Instead of going out to eat, like we do for b-days, we bought steaks and grilled them at home. The Lord blessed us with great weather today , in the upper 80's, maybe even the 90's. It was just a really good day.

Tomorrow, I get to look forward to laundry and packing, OH and cleaning and cooking. Those are a given though. :) I'm also looking forward to cutting my Mom's hair tomorrow. I cut mine tonight, but that was a first...and a last. I won't do that agai n. It 's too hard, I'll stick with other people's hair. Hopefully mine will grow out soon!

Thank you everyone who has been leaving comments on my blog and has been praying. May the Lord bless all of you!

Love, Danielle

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As sick as my Mom was then, I wish I could go back to having her here, with cancer or without. That is so selfish of me I know, but my heart aches for her. At least then, I could tell her how much I love her and everything else she should know. I was told many times from people that, the 6 weeks mark is the hardest, or the 3 month mark, well to l et you all know, for me, its not getting ANY easier. Almost harder, and I dont understand why. Am I doing something wrong? I try to hide my pain a lot, but I'm afraid it still shows through. I dont th ink the hurt will ever leave.

I dont know what to write now...I feel as you know all of this, it's like I write the same things everytime. And I'm sorry about that. I just wonder why I am taking this SO hard for so long. Last week my sisters and I went to a wedding shower, and on the way Tara wanted to talk about Mom. I thought I would be fine, but I wasnt. I couldnt stop cry ing. So, I glared out the window trying to hold back tears so Mandy or Tara wouldnt see me. The thing is, I dont cry like, Oh I miss my Mom type of cry, it's like, I cant go on, type of cry. I think since my Mom died I've had this void in my life. A void that can only be filled by Jesus Christ. And maybe untill I do that, I'm gonna have this hurt. I am not sure. Even if the pain doesnt go away, I know that having Jesus fill that spot is what I need. I cant look for it in memories of my Mom, family, friends, or activities. Just HIM! Please pray for me as I try to do this.

Well... it will be her birthday tomorrow, so I was going to post a few pictures that were from her birthday 2 years ago. Before she was ever sick. When things were good, and we were all happy! I have to remember...I'll see her again! :(

Happy Birthday Mom! I love you and miss you very much!

-Danielle