Words



"I'm sick mamma, really sick."

 

Words you don't want to hear from your child, especially when she is literally halfway across the world.

 

"I found this lump in my breast mamma, while I was sick in India."

 

Words you thought you would never hear coming from your 20 year old daughter.

 

"I'll be right back ladies..."

 

Words you do not want to hear from a lab technician doing an ultrasound on your 20 year old daughter.

 

"It should be me laying there and not you."

 

Words I say to my daughter that is getting an exam that is 30 years too early.

 

"The tumor I see is abnormal. We will schedule you a biopsy as soon as we can. The biopsy is 7:30 a.m. the day after tomorrow."

 

Words you never thought you would hear concerning one of YOUR children.

 

"This day did not turn out how I expected."

 

Words the doctor said after a grueling six hours in his office.

 

"Babe.., it's not good. This is crazy.I can't even believe it."

"It's gonna be okay. We will get through it.  Tell Sarah I love her."

 

Words spoken on the phone between two parents.

 

"Babe, the realtor called and we just sold the house.  We ARE gonna be okay. We WILL get through this."

 

Words you don't want to hear 30 minutes after finding out your child might have cancer.   When you have no place to go.  When you have no back up plan.  When you have to be out in 4 weeks.

 

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid." (John 14:27)

 

Words I easily wrote on someone's facebook post.  And two days later they are words that I had no idea I would be clinging to with everything I am.  Words that I say, words that I know, but are they words I believe, truly believe?

 

"Yes Lord.  Through my fear. I trust you.  Through my countless tears. I believe you.  Through the sleepless night, I feel you there."

 

Words I spoke to my Lord.

 

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"And she had breast cancer and her hair fell out, and her eyebrows fell out, and she did the whole thing on national TV!!!"

 

Careless Words spoken from a group of older women sitting next to a nervous girl and her parents in the waiting room...waiting for her name to be called for a biopsy.

 

" Hey Hon, you need to tie your shoe!"

 

Words spoken from the same group of women, as my daughter was walking back to her biopsy. Those words only let me know that yes, that is my baby walking back there. Wasn't it only yesterday I was tying her shoes? 

 

"I would pay a trillion dollars to let this be me and not you."

 

Words any mother would say to her daughter.

 

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"Have you heard from the doctor?!?!?! I am a bundle of nerves!"

 

Words sent across the phone from a mom to a dad, a wife to a husband.

 

"What's wrong Mrs. Zluticky? Why are your eyes watering? Are you okay?"

"I don't know, maybe I have allergies..."

 

Words spoken between teacher and student.  Asked by a child who is all too familiar with pain and can sense it in others. 

 

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.  I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

 

Words that I still believe.  Even though it is hard.

 

 "It's benign."

 

The only words we wanted to hear from the doctor's mouth. And we did.

 

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"The doctor agreed to see you.  Get her here now."

 

Words that are such a relief after still messing around with what has made her so sick from India.

 

"I am finally starting to feel better. I'm going back to school"

 

Words spoken from a girl, after just flying home from half-way around the world, did nothing but face a week and a half of poking, prodding, needles, and doctors. Handling it all with the grace and beauty and strength of someone who believes.

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That has been our last two weeks.

Totally unexpected.

 

I don't know why God allowed us to have a good outcome when so many wonderful families do not.

 

I do know that as a family in ministry, we meet so many hurting people. Families in crisis. Families who do not get a good report. Families without hope. And it is so easy to give them scripture. 

 

Sometimes we need to be brought to the place where we know how it feels to hurt.  We know how it feels to be scared. Really scared.  We are faced with the scripture and Jesus gently asks,  "Do you REALLY believe what you say? What I say?"  

 

Yes. With humble and grateful hearts, we do.

 

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The Corndog Mom

I got such a sweet surprise from my husband for Christmas - a brand spankin' new laptop.  If you follow my life at all, you already know or wouldn't be surprised  that Elisabeth picked half the keys off my really old laptop.  It got really hard to type with my ghetto-rigging of the broken keys and all.  And he got it just so I could blog. And look at facebook. And watch Netflix in bed. Ya know, everything a laptop was meant for.

 I am so excited and have been thinking of how I could re-do my blog to make it more helpful/useful/not-just-mindless-funny-stories. Blogs are obviously everywhere and I have read some blogs of incredible  moms out there who are cooking like, food dug up straight from the ground that their 3 year old planted. Then they put a recipe up, in which their beautiful potato is somehow made into a hamburger, photographed on a really cool earthy looking plate - with a perfectly clean house in the background!!!

 

But look what my two year old can do! She is learning how to roll a ball of cookie dough in a big bowl of sugar!!! But before you judge, please notice my big bowl of uneaten fruit in the background. Its right past the dirty towel and behind the casserole still left out from breakfast - 6 hours ago. I promise I try.

This is probably the best to what I can contribute to the food blogging world - a frozen corndog on a paper plate. Photographed in my always messy kitchen, on top of my oh-so-attractive, whitish, marblish, 70's laminate countertop.  My kids will never go hungry even though I have killed every possible garden like vegetable that I have tried to plant in my ground before it barely got bigger than a seed. They will never go hungry because I always have a big box of corndogs in my freezer.

There are blogs that show all these really cool artsy-fartsy "re-purposed" crafts. Gals who find something like a dresser at a garage sale, (that currently looks like the one I have in my boys room) then strips it down, pulls out drawers, gives in a fresh coat of paint and WA -LA - Its now a dresser-turned-toddler bed that looks like it came from a Pottery Barn catalog. I try to make a prop for a puppet show and Elisabeth gets involved. So I try to be the sweet, patient, creative mom and let her make one.  What happens is she gets glue all over the table, chairs, and floor.  I loose it and when she starts walking and leaves glue footprints on the carpet and I yell.

 Then 4 weeks later I lovingly wrap up this little craft with a sniffle and put it in a box marked "Elisabeth's first craft she made all by herself."  (And we just won't mention the ugly yelling part of the night.)

There are teaching blogs.  I'm not even going there. (I do not want to incriminate myself on the world wide web.)  And deep spiritual blogs. Well, that is the type of blog my husband would write.  If he would blog. But he won't. (Like he doesn't tweet either and his FB posts are always just youth announcements.  (C'mon babe. How boring is that?!?! I will gladly post some funny things for you. - I've seriously offered but he won't let me.  I wonder why?!?!)

If you are any of these bloggers I commend you.  I think you are awesome.  Seriously.  Some of you guys are half my age and already got it together on the whole parenting/cooking/housewife thing.  I look up to you.

My blogs are just about every day real life. The life of a corndog mom. That even though I am going to do my best to feed my kids healthy foods, you will still see pizza rolls and corn dogs in my freezer.  My 2 year old is a crazy little mess.  In the course of a ten minute phone conversation about therapy services she receives, she dumped out all hundred jillion Apples to Apples cards all over the floor, throws a whole tin of Dominoes across the room and then runs in the bathroom and smears my Clinique foundation all over the toilet seat.  I'm pretty sure she thought it was fingerpaint.  DARN EXPENSIVE fingerpaint little girl. I'm not kidding. My boys are these awesome cool Jesus-loving young men who play too many video games and put silly putty all over their face and inevitably winds up in their hair.  Their little sister gets ahold of it and it ends up in her hair! That I have to cut out! And I yell - again.

I have about 50 goals in my head for this coming new year.  And most of them involve becoming a better mom, wife, daughter of the King. Some of ya'll have it down. But a lot of you out there are like me - making the best out of a messy, unorganized, chaotic life.  But I know I must keep trying.  I must "run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus- the author and perfector of our faith..."(Hebrews 12:1-3) Trying to do what is best and right for my family.  Eating healthy, getting the two year old on a schedule, being a godly example to my teenagers.

So my blogs in 2014 will just be more of me - writing about the mishaps, mayhem and ministry of these people I love.  Happy New Year!!!

 

See, taking a good family pic is next to impossible with this crew! It's complete with our dog's behind in the background.