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Tuesday, March 1, 2011



Mike was gone last week for five days on a trip. The first day that he leaves I am always COMPLETELY overwhelmed at the thought of "holding down the fort" on my own. Most of it is mental, but I just like to KNOW that if I need him, he is close by. He got home safely and the past several nights I have been up with my youngest with pneumonia. The weariness is starting to set in. As I took my first drink of coffee this morning, I glanced out of my kitchen window and noticed that my grass is turning green. RELIEF....the first sign that spring is around the corner. My tulip leaves are starting to peak up out of the ground.

Now, Michael is wheezing, MillerAnne is wheezing with a fever and so is Josie Love. As I take turns holding each of them my heart breaks. I CANNOT help but to think of all of the children out there that have no one to hold them when they are sick. I KNOW ya'll probably get tired of me speaking about this but I just cant help it. When I speak of "all of the children", one in particular pops into my mind....my sweet little angel.

When we were in Uganda and Josie was running a fever I went to the nurse and asked for some advil that am, she gave it to me and Josie started feeling so much better....when we returned from Kampala late that afternoon, her fever had come back. When Mike went in to ask for more the nurse replied "I gave her some earlier" and Mike replied "10 hours ago." As Mike walked back (advil in hand), I could tell that he was ANGRY. I will never forget giving her that advil thinking...would she have gone to bed with no meds to ease her pain?

Josie KNOWS. Tonight when she started feeling bad, she came up to me held her arms up, said "hold you" and laid her head on my shoulder. She LOVES to be LOVED. She gets the biggest grin on her face every time someone wraps their arms around her. She knows different. The caretakers in her babys home were very loving...but it was not a mommy's love. And it is not a 1:1 ratio, so sadly, she spent many nights alone in a bed, burning hot with a fever, with no one to love her and that is just the cold hard truth. Now that she is mine..that BREAKS me. I know her little wimpers. I know her little breaths when she has a cold. AND I know what her warm tears feel like as they roll down her sweet little cheeks.

SADNESS......that is what my heart feels. I cant help to think that if my heart feels this sad, what my heavenly father must feel. He loves us more than we can fathom, so the heartbreak must be SO MUCH more significant. I CANNOT IMAGINE.

So, while the circles under my eyes look as though i have been awake for months, and my chest is now congested and I am coughing...I feel peace. Peace in my heart that I am making a difference in someone's life. A child's life. MY child's life. Each and every one of my children's lives. Because they have a mommy and a daddy that love them with EVERY inch of our hearts. And I will do EVERYthing in my power to SHOW them how to SHOW God's love.

As I look around, I see A TON of people speaking of God's love. There are many women's and men's bible studies. There are MANY books to read. I see a TON of people attending all of these things and speaking of them...but not much DOING. If there is ANYTHING that I have learned from my sweet friend Katie, it is to SHOW love....not speak it. My heart wants to SHOW love, and it starts in my own home, with my husband, my own children and grows from there.



11 comments:

Lara said...

Amen. I found myself sitting in my church service on Sunday feling strangely disturbed because the thought kept crossing my mind: none of this is leaving this building. We're hearing all this truth and it is not taking us anywhere new.

Aaron and Erica said...

Beautiful...this post is beautiful. Thank you for sharing!

Joy said...

Suzanne,

I read this post late last night and I had to come back this morning and make a comment. I love this. We have a sweet foster baby girl and as I rock her and love on her I often think "what if." What if she wasn't with us? What if no one was loving on her? What if she was with her mother? I just praise God for His ability to put these sweet babies right where they need to go. Thank you for sharing, and I hope your family all gets to feeling better. Sick babies wear on a Mama's heart.

Connie said...

Amen, Suzanne! SHOW deeply, and enjoy the sweet blessings God has given you to SHOW love to.

Shonni said...

What a sweet post. Praying that you all feel better soon!!!

Anonymous said...

As I started reading your post, I couldn't help but think of Steven Curtis Chapman's song Spring is Coming (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bco4kmBHEKQ). It always gives me a lift...

So glad that Josie is a part of your beautiful family, where she can get all the lovin' that she wants, whenever she wants. Love you all!

Andy

Gwen Oatsvall said...

TIME FOR BIBLE DOINS SISTER !!! glad to trudge the road w/ ya

Teresa said...

Perfectly said!

Love said...

i get you and i'm so, so thankful that God has opened my eyes and hearts and MOVED us to action. i think of all the things that we could've missed and i'm so thankful that we're not. may we never grow weary of hearing His whispers [and shouts!] and being moved to ACTION.

i've been loving this: emotion without action is irrelevant. A to the MEN.

i'm thankful for you, suzanne.

Carrie said...

Amen Suzanne! I am there with you and feel like I say the same things all the time, but I will until I turn blue because I want people to know what showing love to my children who once were orphans means and so they will join in too! God bles you and may you all feel better soon!

Polly said...

Thrilled for your sweet family to have the opportunity to travel to Uganda. I am going in July to Kampala and am looking forward to it so very much. Praying for your sweet family as they serve and act as the feet and hands of Christ

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suzanne
I am a lover of Jesus. I have the most fabulous husband that anyone woman could ask for. The Lord has blessed us with 7 beautiful children. I started this blog so that friends and family could follow our trip to Uganda to visit Katie Davis. I have decided to keep blogging to help bring orphan awareness to the world around me.
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