Today starts a month long celebration for children with down syndrome.
It is “National Down Syndrome Awareness Month!”
All over the United States different organizations will host the Buddy Walk to raise money for awareness and honor special children with down syndrome.
Our Topher is celebrating his 7th year of being apart of this organization and let me say that he truly feels special! On this day we as a family and friends look to his “abilities” and rejoice in what he is becoming. We focus on another year of accomplishments and embrace the completeness of joy he brings to our lives.
Thank you family and friends for supporting Topher in presence and in prayer, he is so grateful! In his direct words, “Thank you hot mama and hot daddy”!
To become involved in promoting awareness of Down Syndrome go to:
October 1, 2008
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I thought I might express some insight from an earlier post. “Am I smarter then a seventh grader?” My husband and I decided to home-school our oldest daughter this year. Actually I am teaching and he thought that was a GREAT idea!
Not too bad for the first 25 days, Just like any new adventure in life you must roll with it and dip with it.
We have persevered through math, journeyed through history, written enough index cards in Grammar to educate the 5000 and creatively experimented in science!
I would like to attest to the fact that anyone can homeschool. The only pre-requisite is you MUST be disciplined!. I shall not attempt to define discipline because it looks different for each individual. Before we started this venture I often imagined how our typical day would unfold. For me, we would start and REMAIN on a very structured schedule because structure makes me HAPPY! While my “seventh grader” thought we would rise late and watch lots of reality t.v. during long breaks from that six letter word, S-C-H-O-O-L!
Much to her surprise and mine, everyday starts and ends very differently from what we imagine. It certainly does not include rising late and watching excerpts of ” What not to Wear”!
What I have discovered about this venture is I get to be apart of the moment when she gets it. I get to see how God created her mind to think and understand the importance of each opportunity to learn something new and express a new idea. If I can home-school, anyone can home-school!
So what’s up…….. I am doing what I do and doing it with ALL my might!
The older I get the sweeter my journey with Christ gets! The more I seek Him the more I find Him! Interesting isn’t it…. There is a song playing on the local christian radio station and the lyrics have caught my attention. ” I don’t know what you are doing inside of me. It feels like chaos but somehow there’s peace. I know that somehow it’s BIGGER than me. I’m given into something that’s HEAVENLY!”
Life is BIGGER than us and the world throws chaos at our front door. I am certain that is why God urges us to cast ALL our cares upon Him. In the midst of doing life, or better yet the chaos, somehow there is HIS peace. In the depths of a call that is beyond your ability, He is saying HOLD YOUR ARMSUP and grab onto me. I want to bring you into something heavenly. I often wonder if preparing a child to enter a world of broken promises and emptiness and to not be sucked into the windfall of deceit is closely related to how Christ feels when we accept Him. He has never intended for us to do life alone. He has completely laid it all out on the table and said,“LIFE IS GOING TO BE HARD”!!!! Then in the next breath He says don’t fear it my child because I have overcome the brokenness and deceitful emptiness. Just HOLD YOUR ARMS UP and grab onto me. I will carry you through the twists and turns and walk with you through the chaos and sit with you in the mercy seat.
I want to bring you into something HEAVENLY………
September 12, 2008
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OK…..So in a perfect world the guy always gets the girl, the rain never messes up your hair and you do actually see the light at the end of the tunnel! I know in the one and only perfect place, HEAVEN, there is a greater reason that parenting has turned MAD in Lewisville!
I have never in my life experienced the great difficulty as such this week. I am a girl who embraces the humorous side of life even in the not so humouous stuff! Like the air conditioning unit leaking and ruining the carpet. Leaving a nice musky aroma to brush across the sense of smell. My computer deciding to catch a disease and totally crashing leaving no other option but to purchase a new one! Don’t know when that will be!
In Isaiah 26:3 it says, ” He will KEEP me in perfect peace; whose mind is stayed on HIM, because I trust in you!”I have camped out on this verse and claimed that in my chaos. Now, I must say that I did request to SUPERSIZE and have God himself step in and clean house. Much to my suprise He felt as if I were the better fit for that position! A little side road of adjusting to change will certainly blossom a healthy dose of humility and thankfulness.
I am not sure that there is any great point in this other than I know in the midst of my chaos how to remain in PERFECT PEACE! My mind at all times must stay on Christ. He is in control of my everything. I must trust in Him because He is the sanity inside the hot mess of life.
PERFECT PEACE…………..
September 4, 2008
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Well I am not going to try and feed you with a million reasons why I have not blogged lately. Primarily because I do not have a million reasons only one good one! My computer has been sick! Just down right afflicted. It may soon enter into the diseased category. Needless to say I am typing as we speak from a back-up desktop! PRAISE THE LORD for a back-up. I have a gillion thoughts to express that will follow in the next few days now that I have re-entered cyber world.
A little FYI…. I also have a Facebook! It has been a blast and I have re-connected with some people I have not seen or heard from in a while!
“Blessed is she who has believed that what the Lord has said to her will be accomplished!” (Luke 1:45)
At some point in your walk with Christ, He will speak a GOD-SIZED dream into your life. One that will seem impossible when you look at who you are in the flesh but one that is attainable when we allow Him to reveal who we are in Him. Never ever in a million years could I have convinced myself that God would change generations beyond me through me. That my children’s spiritual heritage would be based on my obedience to His call upon my life! WOW- pretty overwhelming yet amazing at the same time! Then as I seek to treasure His word daily He reveals to me time and time again that, “Nothing is IMPOSSIBLE with God!” (Luke 1:37)
What has God spoken into your spirit that you are doubting could ever happen?
August 7, 2008
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TO BE DETERMINED………… I am taking the plunge and homeschooling my soon to be seventh grader. Not because I want to but because God said to.
First of all I have absolutely no idea, how in the world she is already going into the seventh grade and secondly, it has been quite a few years since I was there! I know I just dated myself a little but let’s face it I am truly up for the challenge of a lifetime. Certainly the equipping is going to come in a VERY LARGE SUM, almost osmosis like, since she starts school in exactly: 7 WEEKS, 3 DAYS and 19 HOURS!!!!!!!!!
It is impossible to please God without what? FAITH!!!! My life’s mission is to be pleasing to my creator. To live in total abandon to His call upon my heart. To allow His desires to be my desires. To walk blindly in the faith that His ways are higher than my ways and that His plans result in greater outcomes than mine.
Can you imagine it? What if Abraham had not laid Issac on the altar of sacrifice? What if Moses’ parents had not hid him? What if Noah had not built an ark? What if Rahab turned away the spies and refused to allow them a hide out? I don’t want to live in the “what if “. The GREATEST Hero’s of faith could not see beyond what they were called out to do, they just remained sure in what they hoped for and believed in what the could not see. So, if braving the world of seventh grade in the capacity of my home is my call to faith, then earnestly I seek HIM and I will ready myself to listen and follow His voice!
“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him“. (Hebrews 11:6)
Many a few have stood in my shoes, said the wife of the down and out! I am the one and almost only who’s had the greatest pleasure of caring for the man of my dreams.I follow, only close to thirteen years, after his lovely mother, Joyce! Before you go and get all weirded out, he was the man of her dreams in a totally mother- son way!
Minus the ringing of the bell, I have gained another person to be totally dependent upon me. An overwhelming thought when you stop to ponder on what that really means. Without you and what you have to offer then the day to day reality of functioning would be near the impossible.
I have been reminded these past few weeks that in the grand scheme of things there is only ONE who can meet our needs. Christ alone is the wellspring of life. He makes the IMPOSSIBLE-POSSIBLE! To the work of Christ, I am a hand at times and a foot at others. It is my total dependence upon Him that:
1. Guides me
2. Satisfies me
3. Strengthens me
4. Equips me
Isaiah 58:11, ” The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame. You will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring whose waters never fail”.
When life hands you hurt bring it to the one who can heal, when it hands you uncertainty allow His peace to pass ALL your understanding, when the day is covered with darkness allow His light to shine into your soul and when it “seems” all hope is lost allow your circumstance to be gripped in the hands of the HOPE giver.
June 24, 2008
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By The Way, I registered on-line tonight for the “No Other God’s” bible study. I also signed up to chat with an on-line bible study partner! I have not gotten her name yet but I am pretty pumped about gaining a new friend in Christ!
It’s not too late if you are interested! We start a week from today!
I will keep you posted on how things are going!
June 11, 2008
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