I almost got up and testified Sunday night.  I had something to share, but did not think it fit in at all.  Through the whole service I prayed that if someone would mention "transformation" I would get up.  No one did, until I was walking to the nursery to get the babies and heard Bro. Steve say it as he was talking.  Silly I know, but I still don't feel totally connected to everything that is going on since the babies were born. 

 

Anyway, Sunday morning while I was getting ready for church I had a dream come to my mind that I had a few months after we moved into the Cross Plains church.  In this dream the people who had bought the Dickerson Road church said that we could come back one last time and take out anything of value that we had left behind.  They were going to be remodeling and didn't need most of our stuff.  So I think it was a Saturday and we were down there emptying everything out like sound equipment and furniture.  By the time we were done it was stripped bare.  The roof was even gone!  A gutted shell of a building.  We all stopped for lunch.  We were sitting on the sidewalk having sandwiches and other things when a lady walks up and rudely asked for some food.  Bro. Steve looked at her and asked, "Is it really this food that you want, or do you want something more?"  I knew he was asking if she wanted Jesus.   The dream flashed to another scene of her sitting on the ground with all of us and Bro. Steve explaining the scriptures to her.  Just then a deformed man with a grotesque face walked up and yelled at the woman.  He said, "Hey what are you doing here?  You used to be just like me!"  The woman jumped up and excitedly said, "I know, but I'm changed!  Come here and listen ..."  That is where the dream ended.

 

I thought about the dream all day long.  More than anything, what stuck out to me is how when you really come to know the Lord, you are transformed.  You are not the same.  Your brokenness is healed, your feet are made to walk straight and He gives you beauty for ashes.  I also was struck with how angry that man was because the woman had changed.  I think it is human nature to hold on to our hurts and scars as a weapon against having to really grow up and deal with things.  I was thinking of how for the rest of my life I could introduce myself as, "Hello, I'm Janelle. I suffered from postpartum depression."  Anyone can take on those characteristics, like, "Hello, my name is (fill in the blank) VICTIM."  Someone said Sunday about how we can pridefully wear our badges of good works; well, I think we can also carry around our badges of everything that has gone wrong in our lives.  I don't want to do that.  I don't want to bemoan my circumstances for the rest of my life.  I have salvation.  I have hope in this world and the next.  I have the Holy Spirit to connect me to the Lord.  I have a way of not just coping through life, but growing in Christ.  And it may irritate others who would rather hold onto the deformities.  But I pray that I will fulfill 1 Peter 3:15 "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear."

One year ago today as I was walking down the stairs with my hands full, I tried to step over Lydia who was laying on the steps, and I fell and broke my ankle.  I lifted my foot in the air and it just kind of fell to the side.  I thought the bone was going to break through the skin.  I pushed my foot back in place and set it on the ground.  I looked at Ann (she saw the whole thing) and she looked like she'd seen a ghost.  Total terror and shock.  Aaron came flying down the stairs and started praying for me like there was no tomorrow.  I honestly thought the Lord would heal me instantly based on the prayers he and I were sending up.  But then we realized I would need to go to the doctor.  We had the presence of mind to think about needing a referral, so we called Dr. Yim.  He said to call 911, so we did.  I will never forget being carried out on the gurney and looking back into the house to see my two babies in the bassinet.  Lydia was so sad, she kept telling me she would put Cinderella on for me to make me feel better.  The next morning I went into surgery at the same time I had been induced a week earlier.  I was out on Morphine, and I thought I was in Sodom and Gomorrah because two male nurses were flirting over me as they wheeled me to the operating room!  Then later that day I came home.  Hardest walk up the steps I ever had.  Matthew and Aaron had to lift me up each step.  Then the pain block wore off and I thought I was going to have to go back to the hospital.

 

Funny part of this, a week or two earlier Colleen had told us about an ER episode where this woman has a stroke and can't speak or move, but is having a dialogue with everyone in her head.  She can even look at herself in the bed, but can't move.  Then when I had my epidural for the twins, the nurse told me to tell them if I had a metallic taste in my mouth.  Well, the night I came back from surgery, I was laying in bed and the pain block was wearing off.  I started yelling for Aaron because I needed more medicine.  He was on the phone with the surgeon so he couldn't come right away.  Then I thought I tasted metal in my mouth and I thought, "Oh my God, I've had a stroke!  Aaron can't hear me!"  I sat up in my bed and looked back to see if I was still lying there.    When Aaron walked in I was thrashing about on the bed looking back at the pillows.  LOL  It is so funny now!

 

I don't mean to dwell on this, but you know how you have defining moments in your life?  Having twins and then breaking your ankle 6 days later is a defining moment.  Everything in your life can be marked by before and after it occurred.  This is because you are changed by it.  We've heard so many testimonies of people being in the world and hitting rock bottom with drugs, alcohol, etc.  That doesn't usually happen when you are born and raised and stay in the church.  But I think we still have to hit rock bottom to come to the end of ourselves and our capabilities.  This was that time for me.  I remember laying in my bed and feeling like I was in a very dark cave.  I lay there thinking, "I cannot get myself out of here.  Where are you God?  Am I forsaken?"  Of course I wasn't.  Over the next 6 weeks 33 different people came and stayed in my home 24 hours a day.  A few of us kept getting that scripture about in my weakness, He is strong.  I was thinking that would mean I was going to rise up somehow and be such a testimony of God's glory; Me, I was going to do it.  But I saw that His glory was revealed THROUGH HIS PEOPLE!  God created us to live, worship and go through heartache in a community.  We are not to be alone, and we really aren't capable to go it alone through all the hard things life throws at us.  I look back at this time, and probably talk about it too much, because I learned so much.  I hope I am different from it.  I understood (not just head knowledge) that charity in I Cor. 13 is the love of God in action.  Not because I memorized the scripture, but because it was ministered to me so sweetly by all of you.  I love you all so much and have such a debt of gratitude!

Happy Birthday to my Mom!!!  I keep having the line from Yankie Doodle Dandy go through my mind, "Born on the Fourth of July ..."  Of course the funny thing is she isn't even a citizen of the US!  She is still a citizen of Great Britan.  LOL  But I do love her and am so thankful for her.  This time last year she and Ann had already moved in to take care of the babies and I hadn't broken my ankle yet. 

 

Busy, busy, busy!  It has been a marathon lately.  First we were getting ready for the babies' party.  I am so glad that went well.  I appreciate everyone for coming.  I'm glad the weather was okay too.  Then the next day we took the kids to Beach Bend amusement park and we had a lot of fun.  They have some good rides for kids.  It was so funny, we felt like we had been there forever, and when we got back in the van it had only been 3 hours!  Then we got to celebrate Heather's 30th birthday with her - HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY TO HEATHER!  And  now it is the 4th.  On the 4th, I always think I'm going  to turn around and it'll be Labor Day.  Summer goes by so fast.  Aaron has been  home from work since Wednesday, and all the women out there know that throws a different dynamic in the house when your husband is home.  Saturday every day.  I love Aaron being home.  I always go through separation anxiety after he goes back to work after a vacation. 

 

I am sitting here trying to get up and  clean my house.  My mom's cousins are in from California, and we will all be over Matthew and Chrissy's today.  I am sure they'll come over at some point, so I have to clean.  I need to make food for today too.  It's going to take another cup of coffee before I can get to it.  I know this has been all over the place.  Hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July!