Along with MANY others. Finally getting to hug Joel and Jess and touch baby Cora was nice. But it broke my heart even more to see friends in such pain and to shed tears with them.
I think about them constantly throughout my day and pray every time. But at night when I lay my head on my pillow, the thoughts pour in.
Here are some verses that I've been turning to:
"For I know the plans I have for you saith the Lord, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11
I know God has a plan for little Cora. He has a plan for Joel and Jess. Nothing happens on this earth without first passing through Him. He is a GOOD God. And I know that he will have only GOOD come from all of this.
"Now the Lord of hope fill you with all the joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Ghost." Romans 15:13
The only way we can truly have peace and and hope during this time, is through the Lord.
I know that the Joel and Jess are touching so many during this time. Their faith is a true testimony. If you haven't read Jess's blog yet, I hope you will. Through the pain and suffering they are going through right now, she is finding things to praise our mighty God for.
I am just in AWE and tears fill my eyes when I think about the number of people who are praying for this dear family. Jess said they have heard from people in China, Italy, London and France who are praying for Cora. Thank you to all of my friends and family, for praying for this family you've never met....and for passing this prayer request to those you know also.
When Taylor and I prayed last night, she said "tank you baby Corwhah, make her feel better" I know that lots of other little ones all over are praying for little Cora too. Prayers from toddlers...nothing can beat that.
So now we just wait. We wait to hear the results from Cora's biopsy. We wait to find out when she'll go home and when she'll start treatment. We wait till we can see and hug Joel and Jess again. We wait to see what the Lord's plan for this family is.
I put this song on my ipod after seeing the movie Fireproof. I listen to it all the time. And have loved it even more these last few days. I think about this waiting game that Joel and Jess are having to go through. And how they are able to see God and his grace and mercy through it all.
We must truly remember that everything on this earth is HIS. Even these little ones....belong to him.
It has been amazing to see the support system that is lifting the McClenahan's up....truly AMAZING! Continue to pray....visit Jess's blog for specific prayer requests.
UPDATE: Jess (Cora's mommy) has now updated their blog....you can read about their journey so far and see pictures...straight from the source! Here's a link to Joel and Jess's blog: The Macs
I know that many of you who follow my blog don't know Joel, Jess and Cora. If you'd like to keep up on the latest updates, two of Jess's friends have been updating with some of the latest, click here or here. I believe there will be a website and "Cora" blog coming soon. So please click on these links to keep up with the latest and continue to pray for Cora and her parents. It's so hard to understand this. It's so hard to cope with the fact that cancer has attacked such a little body.
My heart has been SO heavy for the last few days. So I can't even begin to comprehend what Jess and Joel are going through.
I do know that they are leaning on God and trusting him in all that happens. Joel and Jess are an amazing couple, I wish you could all know them.
We know God is good. We know He is in control. He loves Cora more than any of us do--even her parents.God gives us these little ones to care for--even THEY are His. So I hug mine a little tighter and more often now. And pray. Please continue to pray....no matter how far disconnected you are, God hears your prayers.
Of course he did it when he was at Papa and Nana's house...so we didn't get to see his ACTUAL first steps. But he did it plenty more for us when we picked him up!
I have YET to get him to do it for a video...so you can just get the idea for now with these pictures of him standing all by himself!!!
This is almost 2 months earlier than Taylor's first steps. I think this little guy just wants to GO!
Oh, and he FINALLY started clapping...the little stinker just watched us clap for so long and wouldn't even try.
Now, he's all about the clapping...in fact, he spends most of his day clapping.
Surely, you don't all have your Christmas stuff down already...do you? We didn't get all of our Christmas down until Jan. 10...so what.
Our tree made it down sooner than that. And who knows when our outside lights will make it down.
Taylor really had a hard time watching all the things she has LOVED the last 2 months go into boxes. We tried really hard to explain that she would see them again. When we took down the tree, we organized the ornaments back into the shoeboxes for each person...
Dave and I have ours combined in 2 boxes....most of them are his. Growing up, he got a new ornament every year. He even has an ornament with his picture in it, from when he was 5, or something like that....so cute! After we got married and had our very own Christmas tree, his mom gave his box of ornaments to him. A tradition we will DEFINITELY be continuing for Taylor and Mason.
Here's our 2 boxes...
Taylor's box....notice the barn ornament? We thought that was the perfect ornament for this year....after her birthday party in October. I'm not sure how she has so many already.
And NO....we don't purposefully treat our 2nd child differently...
but here's Mason's box. Really, there would only be one ornament in there, the "Baby's first Christmas" one that we bought him this year. But I felt really bad and gave him the free one we got at Hallmark for buying 2 ornaments.
I probably would have tried harder if the purpose of these pictures were to show you how beautiful the flowers that Dave sent me were.
Don't get me wrong....they WERE beautiful.
But does anyone notice anything wrong with this picture?
Um, yeah......if you know that my birthday is in September, not January, you are probably a bit confused.
The delivery lady (who I THINK was also the one who made this arrangement up) handed these to me and said "Happy Birthday!"
I said "Anniversary...it's our anniversary."
OOPS!!! At least the card was appropriate and had the message that Dave wanted on it.
The other bad thing is that he asked her to have them to me by 4:00...before he got home.
That would have maybe been more funny...for him to have NOT been there when I received these. I probably wouldn't have corrected her if I had have been alone...I would have just pretended it was my birthday and wondered what Dave was thinking.
Regardless...the flowers are BEAUTIFUL! I wasn't expecting this at all...he doesn't do this all the time....so it's always a surprise when he does...I kind of like it that way.
Get this...my husband, who HATES to play games....suggested we play Monopoly the other night after the kids were in bed.
So we did.
The monopoly game we have (which was left in the game closet by the previous owners of our house) was missing all the money. We tried to use the money from The Game of Life...but it wouldn't work.
So not only is it convenient to have Dave's parents a few blocks away for the kids' sake...but also for times when we need to steal Monopoly money. It started out fun.
Until he started buying EVERYTHING he landed on. And then he started buying houses on EVERYHING he owned. I know, I know, it's the point of the game. I owned lots of property too...but not for long.
He would wait until my marker got near the "high-priced" properties. When I got close, he'd stop me right before I rolled, and he'd say he wanted to buy some houses. He'd put houses on ALL the properties that were anywhere from 5-10 spaces in front me. (use your probability skills with 2 dice and you'll know his strategy here)
He'd get done buying houses, I'd roll, and land on the property he JUST bought houses on.
It got to the point that it was no fun to even roll the die. The whole board was a danger zone to me.
I got sent to jail 3 times. It was more fun being in jail.
I was down to this...after mortgaging all that I had. And then I landed on Park Place with 2 houses.
Game over.
I was going to just take a picture of the board, with all his houses, everywhere....
but then he wanted to lay all of his money out AND all of his property titles out so that everyone could see what he finished with.
He said "make sure they all know that I owned all but 4 properties on the whole board"
What a proud moment in his life.
Maybe he should take his monopolizing skills elsewhere and do something worthwhile with them.
He's lucky I'm going to be out of town this next weekend...otherwise, there would definitely be a re-match happening.
