Shop 'Til You Drop & Then Go to CHOP

The weekend went by so quickly it feels like a blur. On Thursday I had received an email from Elaine, the woman at church who we send our prayer requests to and then she crafts a prayer based on God's word and emails it out to anyone who signed up to be part of the prayer chain so that we can declare together God's word over the situation. Anyway, this particular request was from a woman who dreamed that there had been a hurricane - with forceful winds and rain - attacking her house while she was in it, even though her house was located far inland. She said she rarely has dreams, and she felt like God sent this dream to her as a warning to pray against it. I didn't recognize the lady's name (although, admittedly, I'm terrible with names) , so I assumed maybe this was a missionary living on some island. I said a quick prayer and quickly deleted the email. Then, as I was making dinner Friday night with the radio on, the national weather service out of state college interrupted the song to say that there was a thunderstorm heading to Lancaster County. That eerie computerized voice declared the storm could include hail the size of quarters, hurricane winds up to 70 miles an hour, tornadoes, thunder & lightning and flooding rains. It gave times and roads that would be affected, misprounouncing how we say them (for example the computer said 'five hundred one' when we call the road '5-O-1.') I remembered the email and realized that I almost missed God's "warning" completely. So, we prayed before dinner that God would spare us of the storm and that we would know it was him by the fact that not even the torrential downpour would hit. While I was feeling scared, I am excited to say that it no more than drizzled. We had thunder & lightning, but nothing else. Our electricity stayed on, our trees & roof stayed in tact, and we didn't have any damage. Praise the Lord!

Even dinner was good that night. I had asked Shawn to pick up just a couple items from the grocery store after work since our cupboards are pretty well bare. He remembered the milk and bread, but he forgot to get some sort of "carb-intense" side (potatoes or noodles of some sort) to accompany the steaks I had gotten out of the freezer. It really didn't matter because I thought steak and peas & carrots were probably all we truly needed to eat anyway. After I opened the veggies, Shawn said "I'd like baked beans, too." No problem! I told him I also discovered a bag of french fries when I was looking for the frozen veggies that was about a quarter full, and he said that sounded good, too. So we had a little mini-buffet. I thought it was delicious, and he seemed to, too! Hurray! We also played "Scene It," a game that Shawn gave me for my birthday. He won, but we had a great time playing it on the floor next to Joshua while he played with toys.

On Saturday, Shawn watched Joshua at Mom's house so he could be with Jamie. Meanwhile, Mom & I headed out to the Dress Barn where I bought a dress & matching jewelry with my gift card. We also looked around at the Gap & the Eddie Bauer outlets where I bought some t-shirts with birthday money. It was nice to be out and about, and I could tell Mom needed it - I had called her the day before and she wasn't doing too well. :( Saturday night we went to Mike & Bonnie's house for a cookout and played more badminton.

On Sunday we went to church, and the sermon was about the Bible being 66 bags of seed that we need to cultivate so it grows. The way this "seed" manifests into the promises that are declared is through our speech - that's the water that makes them continue to grow. He gave the example of their recent missions trip where Charlie, an ordained pastor in our church that helps with prison ministry, said "Mark, wouldn't it be nice to get bumped on this flight to get a free ticket. I'm believing for that free ticket." Pastor Mark & Charlie had arrived early to the airport, took their seats at the gate waiting for the plane, and the gal at the counter said almost immediately that the flight was overbooked and anyone who would like to be bumped for a free ticket could come and see her. They were right there. It definitely made me think about things that I talk about and declaring God's promises over our lives. For example, speaking that Joshua has been HEALED completely and that we have enough money to live, etc.

Over the weekend I also had the chance to catch up with my friend Jen, who had been in the hospital in Philadelphia the week before so that doctors could continuously examine her brain to figure out why she keeps having seizures. I also talked to my friend Suzanne, which is always a pleasure.

Yesterday Shawn had off work so we could go to Joshua's follow-up at CHOP, which I will write about in another post. This morning Joshua was up really early, and so was Shawn, who said he couldn't sleep even though he was tired. I heard from my sister Jen just after 8 a.m. who called to give me her room number at Women's & Babies' Hospital until after she has the baby. I told her I wouldn't call unless I needed Mike for some reason due to an emergency with Emma (better safe than sorry!). Mom had Emma over night while my sister Becky took Grace & Faith to her house since the older two play so well together and this week is Vacation Bible School at Petra, her church, so the girls will have lots of activities to do. When Jamie goes for his appointments later this morning, Emma will come over until late tonight when I will take her to Jen's friend Mary's house. Mary is amazing - three boys of her own the same ages (just about) as Jen's kids and she offered to take all three of Jen's for one night & day while Jen was in the hospital so the kids could play together. I'm anxious to meet the new McGowan baby!

After Jen's call, I fed Joshua his breakfast and then ate mine with him. He was still licking his lips, so I gave him some Cheerios (well, they're actually "Hoops" that are organic with whole grain goodness or something healthy like that) and took this video to share with you. He is adorable! I LOVE his new teeth. He also got into the crawling position from sitting three times already this morning, even though he only pivots from that point and scootches without actually crawling. He can still make his way around, though, with his own methods. He made his way around the toys he had been actively playing with just now to get a comfortable sleeping position on the carpet - soooo sleepy and soooo cute!