Friday, July 07, 2006

Trust in the Lord with all your heart...

(I had two other pics for this blog, but blogger wouldn't let me upload them!!! After 4 days of being frustrated, I am giving up and just posting it as is...)

Back when I was a kid, all the way through college, I was very afraid of lightning. I think it may have started when I was about 3 and the house across the street got hit by lightning and burnt down. We lived in the country back then and they had a lot of horses. I wasn't even there the night the house burnt down (I was at my aunt's) but for some reason I have it in my head that the horses were screaming. I remember my aunt telling me the same night (across town) that the lightning was God's hand and fingers coming down from heaven...it sure did look that way! I am suprised that did not make me scared of God, on top of lightning!!

Anyway, for years I was afraid of lightning and thunder. I had a job at a place called Drug Emporium and I used to hide under the counter during bad storms. Sometimes, I even cried. It was very embarrassing!

When I was about 23, my first husband, David, and I went on our annual trip to the Durango area to visit the most beautiful place I have ever seen....Electra Lake. (Here is a pic of it...I have a better one, but I'd have to dig it out and then get my scanner working...and, as you know from the previous blog, I am having computer problems so I don't want to deal with it!!!) We would go there every year with his family for about a week. His parents' best friends' mom owned a cabin there and we all loved it up there.

Not very far from Electra Lake is Ouray, Colorado - a wonderful little touristy town that I had first visited when I was 15. Ouray is nestled in the midst of towering mountains on every side. To get to Ouray, you have to go through hairpin turn after hairpin turn down the mountain. (It's called the Million Dollar Highway - it cost a million dollars per mile to build) From Silverton to Ouray is 22 miles but it can take up to an hour and a half to traverse that, just because of how slow you have to navigate the turns. David and I decided to visit Ouray one day, so I could show him "the Little Switzerland of America." As we started out, it started to rain and storm with lightning and thunder to boot. Now, on a good day, the road down to Ouray is pretty scary....especially after growing up with my dad who liked to go all the way over to the side of mountainous roads to look down them! But trying to go down it in blinding rain with lightning and thunder was terrifying. I curled up in the little space between the passenger seat and the engine and hid my head. I was sobbing and basically freaked out. I was very close to throwing up. I honestly thought, actually I was 100% sure, that we were going to die.

It was at that moment that I decided to pray. (I was a Christian back then, but not church going, spirit filled or very knowledgable) I prayed for God to take us to heaven quickly and without pain but while I was praying I began to feel more peaceful. As the peace was coming over me, I realized that we might not die and I got back into my seat and kept praying. I was actually able to look around and not freak out. Then I was completely overcome by peace and realized that if I was going to trust God, I was going to have to do it completely. There really wasn't any point in trusting him to take me to heaven, if I couldn't trust him to take care of me on earth. I had never felt so free as that moment, when I realized I no longer had to worry.

I was never again scared of lightning and thunder, in fact I love them now. Mountainous roads are beautiful to me now too, although I am still unlike my dad in that I like to stay FAR from the side of the cliff. This afternoon I relaxed and enjoyed a beautiful lightning storm and was reminded of that trip to Ouray and reminded of how important it is to truly trust God. You can't pick and choose what you will trust God with. You can't pick and choose parts of the Bible to believe. Our relationship with God must be an all or nothing deal. When we don't give our all, we don't experience His all and we will never be able to fully experience His kingdom for us here on earth.

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Insane? or in Christ?

Emily says our meal-time prayers. The other day she got done praying over the food and was ending with:


"And please make sure Mommy isn't insane, and Daddy isn't insane and Brittany isn't insane."

We were all trying our best not to laugh (she gets very hurt when we laugh at her prayers)A few minutes later, while eating, I tried to casually bring it up:
"So, Emmy, where did you learn the word insane?"


She had NO CLUE what I was talking about! "Insane? I don't know that word!"
So I asked her what she had been praying about.
She looked at me as if I was crazy and said:
"I was praying that you wouldn't be in SATAN! Y'know? You should always be In Christ!" Well of course!!


At this point we all busted out laughing and had to apologize profusely for hurting her feelings. I think we were all just so relieved that she wasn't worried about us being insane!

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

NEWS

I was waiting to announce this until I told my parents - and now they know

so.............(drumroll please)..............

We are expecting another little one!!

We are thrilled about this! God gave us the vision to have a large family a few years ago, after we lost Jacob, and we are excited that we are on our way. We are hoping to have two more children (including this one) of our own and then, once we are in our 40s, start adopting. Of course, we will wait and see what God leads us to do at that time, but that is the vision He has given us.

Children are a gift from the Lord; they are a reward from him
(Psalm 127:3, NIV).

Kaedra update 7/4/06

It has come to my attention that I should change the name of our blog, considering it is not usually about Kaedy anymore! So we are The Lynn/Coon Family blog, for the time being. ;-) I am going to try to send an update about Kaedra at least every other week, though, for those of you who check in here just for those!

To start off, Kaedra is doing wonderfully!!! She is making great leaps and bounds in her development. She is almost walking - the most she has taken is 3 steps. She stands by herself all the time and even can squat and stand back up, with no problems. She LOVES to climb everything and everyone. We have to be really careful with her, she wants to climb in her crib when she isn't in it and out of it, when she is!

She now goes to church 3 times a week...Wednesday and two times on Sunday. She loves church and jumps up and down when we pull into the driveway!! She is starting to recognize the people there and form some bonds there, too. She loves Annie, one of the girls who works in the nursery on Sunday mornings. Annie is Colton's big sister - the little boy that Kaedy is "betrothed" to! :-) (might as well get that pesky marriage thing out of the way while they are little!) He speaks sign language, too, so they can even communicate well! Actually, he had taught all the other little ones in the nursery sign before Kaedy got there, so everyone in there can sign!

Speaking of sign, Kaedra has a huge sign vocabulary. She can make sentences and is starting to learn her manners with "please" and "thank yous". She even learned "sorry" and has used it a couple of times! LOL. She is being verbal on and off. Today she said MOMMY!!! It isn't her first time, but she hasn't said it in a very long time. And today she said it over and over and over. :-) <~~~~ very happy mommy!!! We aren't worried about her verbal development. We think she will take off with it, once she is ready.

She is on no additional oxygen at all (just room air) and her vent settings have been minimized yet again. She is on very little pressure support and is getting no actual breaths. We go down another two increments this week and she should be completely off the vent during the day by Sept 1st. Then we will work on overnight! She is able to come off the vent for a few hours at a time with no problems. Our doctor is really happy with her progress, as are we, of course!!

We no longer have daytime nursing. We had a few days in a row where all of our nurses were sick and we got used to taking care of Kaedra all by ourselves. I LOVED it. It was truly my first chance to EVER get her all to myself all day long, for more than one day and I didn't feel like I was in anyone's way or that I was doing something wrong. I finally felt like we had our baby!! And we had our house! Right after that, our nursing hours were cut by insurance (Hallelujah! God working in the background) and we decided to just ask for night nursing. I love it this way. Actually I am ready to cut the hours down a little more, but insurance will be doing that Sept 1st anyway, so I may just wait until then. We are having a great time with her and we feel like a "real" family now. I am actually getting more done now, than when I had nursing....go figure! :-)

Okay, those are the basics for now...I will try to update y'all about her as important things happen or every other week.