Here’s a prayer to see broken lives healed.

A prayer to see people in chains set free.

A prayer to see my eyes opened & my heart laughing.

A prayer to see the fatty layer of comfort that surrounds my apathetic life being ripped off, exposing the person I try so hard to hide.

A prayer to see our western culture less interested in hoarding & more interested in giving. Less interested in possessions & more interested in life.

A prayer to see my sick heart a little less filled with sin & a little more filled with love.

Change our hearts, Father-You’re our only chance.

One day I am gonna miss Chloe jabbering away in her little girl voice in the backseat. Last night she said, “I am gonna climb a tree & be a skunk & eat leaves.”

Apparently, Chloe wants to be a mermanade (mermaid) when she grows up. She is going to swim in the river & have a king & a pet flounder. Before the Little Mermaid movie was out, Chloe wanted to be a pretty & tall sunflower out in the sunshine.
Jordyn wants to be an artist when she is a grown up.

I wish I knew what I wanted to be?

I am a happy little camper today. The girls are both at school/preschool. I am off work today & it is raining outside. I am sitting here in my pajamas with a cup of coffee in my hand. It truly is the little things in life that make me happy. Forget the new cars, new clothes & all the money other people have. Give me happy kids, a free day & coffee anytime!

It is so hard for me to grasp the fact that I have been without a father for 10 years. My father died on Oct. 10th 1996 around lunch time that day. My parents divorced by the time I was 3. He lived in Texas most of my childhood/teen years. I honestly don’t remember him being there much except for some during the school summer vacation & Christmas. As crazy as this sounds, I thank God for the cancer. I would not have really known him or built a bond without that year of struggle. I was away at college when I found out Dad had cancer. He came to visit me around October & I knew something wasn’t quite right. I think deep down he knew something was wrong, but he had not even had the diagnosis yet. He had a growth on his neck that was rather strange that he was going to “have checked”. A day or 2 before Thanksgiving he called & told me that I needed to come home immediately. What I did not know is that he was already in the hospital. I found out on Thanksgiving day in 1995 that my father had cancer. He asked me to sit in his lap when he told me through tears that he had been told he only had a matter of months left to live, but that he was going to fight. I had NEVER seen my father cry until that moment. Nor had I sat in his lap. Dad lived until October the following year. The cancer battle lasted almost 11 months. I was there for the first chemo treatement. I was there for the anger. I was there for the extreme sickness, the tumors, the loss of vision in one eye, the loss of mobility. I drove him to & from treatments 4 to 5 days a week. I cleaned up after his sickness. I watched him roll around on the floor in pain & agony. My father was a very strict baptist & never watched t.v. He bought a t.v. & I remember laying on the couch (he had a sectional sofa & I would lay on one end & he would lay on the other) watching Touched by an Angel & Walker Texas Ranger. Through all of this we grew closer & I learned so many things about my father. He fought so hard. One statement he made one day sticks out in my mind. “God doesn’t have to prove anything to anybody by healing me from cancer. He doesn’t have to dig himself out of a hole. My healing may be death & being with him.” Someones true character is revealed in their death. I had a year to see his character revealed. People I had never met would bring over food & pray over him. Over & over people stating how Dad had been there for them during their time of need & they wanted to return the favor of kindness. In my Dad’s most desperate moments he clung to Christ. He said, “Bottom line, all that matters is that JESUS SAVES!” After almost a year of fight, Dad died at home surrounded by family. I was holding his hand when he took his last breath. That is a moment I will never forget. I felt his spirit leave this earth.

I have missed my Dad for so many of the big events in my life. My wedding, the birth of my 2 little girls. But I miss him so much more in the little things. I miss him when my car breaks down. I miss him when I need that fatherly advice. Just the fact the option to talk to him has been taken away from me has ripped my heart out so many times over the years. I am thankful that where father is there is no more pain & no more suffering, but I still miss him. 10 years later it is just as hard to think about it all.

Because I am a scrapbooker, I will be putting more frequent journaling & tidbits on my blog. It is so easy to forget the day to day activities & the funny things kids say, so I am going to start typing them up to remember.