Wow – the lessons the Lord has taught me over the last 3 days! I suppose I’ll just start at the beginning. Tuesday, Olivia had her 12 month checkup at the doctor. Everything checked out great with her, and she is growing by leaps and bounds. At the end of the appointment, I mentioned that I was thinking about bringing Maya in to see him, but thought I might just wait a month for her 3 year checkup. I explained that she seems to get a low grade fever fairly often with no other symptoms and that she has been complaining of foot pain more and more lately. I go to Dr. Seth Kaplan (in Frisco), whom I really like. He tends to be rather proactive, but that is definitely my preference. At any rate, he said he’d like to see her in the office this week, so I made her an appointment for later that afternoon.Long story short – after examining her, he sent us to get blood drawn to test for Leukemia. Yes – Cancer. Maya did really well, even though they took 2 viles of blood from her arm. Of course, she screamed while they drew the blood (staring at the needle the whole time), but she recovered pretty quickly afterwards. It took everything in me to not cry with her. Afterwards we went to McDonald’s to get her an ice cream. When we got home she showed her Papa where she had a “hole where they took out my blood”.

For what seemed like an eternity, we waited to hear the results. I prayed, cried and thought a great deal. It was only about a 36 hour wait, but the Lord showed me so much in that time. He showed me how fragile life really is and reminded me that we have no guarantees here on earth. Our only guarantee is that if we admit our state as sinners and enter into a relationship with Him as our Savior, we will get to spend eternity with Him in Heaven. That is one thing that believers can be assured of, but there isn’t a ton more beyond that. We know that God is good, and that He loves us. We know that He works all things together for good for those who love Him. None of the things we know, however, assure us 50 long years with our children.

The Lord also reminded me of what an incredible gift our sweet children are. He lovingly lends us some of His children for a while and gives us the tremendous privilege and responsibility of showing them the Heavenly Father’s love. Parenting is such an awesome gift, and I know at times I treat it like something I just have to survive. I LOVE our girls tremendously, but I can get lazy and impatient and not always mirror Christ’s love for them.

Maya is such a sweet little thing, but she has her mommy’s type A tendencies, so naturally we can clash a bit. She has her own ideas about the way things should be done, and it takes more than a short explanation from me to show her otherwise. At the thought of her being ill, I thanked God for her strong will and determination, knowing that would help her fight whatever sickness might be overtaking her sweet little body.

The Lord has also taught me that it isn’t my job to control my children and mold them (and their behavior) into exactly how I think they should be and act. It’s my job to learn and nurture the personalities and talents the Lord has given them and help mold them into who He has specially designed them to be. Right now it looks like Maya is headed to be an entomologist, but she may grow out of her passion for bugs. Who knows? 🙂

God parents His children (believers) with love and grace. He doesn’t always bring down the iron fist on us. He abolished the Law, and through Christ, provided us with grace. Through this whole situation, the Lord has shown me I need to be more graceful in my life, specifically with my children. Life is short, and the small battles usually aren’t really worth fighting. If how I parent them is what is going to teach them about how the Father loves us, it must be a parenting style overflowing with grace. I cannot get hung up on my legalistic, suburban Frisco version of parenting. If Maya wants to carry crickets around with her in public, and I don’t want her to because I don’t want other moms to think badly of her or me, it is ridiculous for me to bring her to tears because she has to leave her little friend behind because “girls aren’t supposed to like bugs”. God made Maya a bug lover. I love God, and I love Maya, so now bugs are a part of my life. People may look at us and see a little girl with a gross bug and an irresponsible mom, but they will at least see joy in Maya’s big brown eyes.

Praise the Lord and His grace over our family that the test results all came back normal, and Maya is a healthy little girl today. Above are some recent pictures of my own little gifts. 🙂