It is well with my soul

When peace, like a river, attendeth my way,
When sorrows like sea billows roll;
Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.


It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.


Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.


It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.


My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!


It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.


And Lord, haste the day when my faith shall be sight,
The clouds be rolled back as a scroll;
The trump shall resound, and the Lord shall descend,
Even so, it is well with my soul.


It is well, with my soul,
It is well, with my soul,
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

This is one of the hymns we sang yesterday at church. This is one of my favorite songs, however I am not sure that I ever really stopped to think about the words. What does it mean for it to be "well with my soul". Am I ok with God's plan or am I still trying to control it all.

Life has not been easy for me lately. There have been a few things that have thrown a wrench in MY plans. Of course these things are no surprise to God. Just as I thought things were finding a new normal several new revelations have appeared that may have a large impact on my family. Time will tell how this plays out but for the moment I am put in a very unique position. I have have 2 ways things could go and both will change my life in some way.

So while trying to sort out all the changes, and trials in my life right now I find myself wanting to complain. I know my closest friends would probably say I am a whiner right now. I have forgotten Job. I have forgotten that no matter what is going on in my life it can always be worse. We have a roof over our heads. I have 5 beautiful children, a wonderful husband, and so much more. What do I really have to complain about? I feel sometimes that I am like my 2 year old who is prone to being upset when he does not get what he wants. Lately he has come up with a new way of dealing with disappointment. He will come to me and ask for something like some candy. When I tell him no he responds with "awwww" in his cute little voice. Then moves on. No whining complaining, or fits. Just a simple "awww" then deals with it. I strive to be like my 2 year old in this area. I want to just say awww and then be able to deal with the fact that what I planned is not alway what God planned.

So God created the universe. God has numbered every hair on my head. God loves me. God created me. God created my children. Nothing going on right now surprises God. He has a plan. He has the big picture, and I have a tiny port hole view of things. I can only see right in front of me but not to the left and to the right. So I should trust in Him, and sing "it is well with my soul". If I am trusting everything in Him all of these things should be well with my soul. In the mean time I will also remember that Hebrews 11 promises rest at the end of this life. I'm gunna need it!

large family???

I don't feel like we have a big family, but I am constantly reminded how big we are compared to other families. As we are often asked questions like "Do you know what causes that?" and "Are you done yet?". 100 years ago people would have been proud to have a family this size, and so much larger. No we don't have a farm, we live in a subdivision, but we still have chores to do. I think chores build character in children. If children are raised without ever having responsibilities how will they ever learn? They will not one day wake up and say "I would like to start working hard now!" Instead they will either learn the hard way through many failures, or just never get it. I pray my children learn to work hard so they will be prepared for the hard times later in life, and enjoy the good ones even more.

Having a "large" family has brought a few challenges to our home. The average family in America is 1.86 children according to the 2000 census. So guess what homes, and cars are built for. With the invention of the minivan people thought ohh hey this is great it will fit the whole family! Well for us, yes we fit in a minivan however there is zero room to move once you include car seats, and forget about adding groceries! Plus if we have guests we would have to travel in two cars because we would not fit in one vehicle. So we upgraded I'm sure much to my neighbors sadness. =) We now drive around in a 12 passenger van. I love the leg room, the space for my children to move, and the fact that when I put on my turn signal people MOVE!

According to the 2000 US census there are 1.86 children per family. Think about that. There is one mom and one dad. Now if the average family has less than 2 children what is going to happen to the population of the country? Yes people from other countries become citizens all the time. But think about your family line. In just a few generations your family line can completely disappear. That means the heritage of your family will become extinct if this trend continues. And yes I have heard the over population ideas. For anyone that would like to tell me that our country is over populated I encourage you to take a road trip! Please look hard to see if you can possibly find some extra space where a family might be able to fit. I for one have driven across the country a few times. Trust me we are not over populated! And what about jobs if we have more people. Umm HELLO if there are more people then there will be a higher demand for things, and in turn will create more jobs. Just my 2 cents.

Back to my "large" family:

Laundry is another item that is challenging for a "large" family. First of all unless you have a super capacity washer you are in trouble. I have 2 boys that are 4 and 2. They make a mess!!!! So their clothes have to be washed every time they wear them. Plus I have determined boys are gross. My girls can wear a skirt twice before it needs to be washed some days. Not all days but some. They can get messy too! Keeping MT. Laundry under control sometimes takes some effort. The house God gave us had a folding door to a area in the hall that held the washer dryer, and the water heater. Sounds good right? Easy to get to, confined right? So where to you put your dirty stuff? Where do you put all your detergent? In our case we make our own detergent so we have a 5 gallon bucket for it. Our solution was to re-wire, and put new plumbing in the garage, and move the laundry area to the garage. My husband had it done in a day. Now we have an area for our dirty clothes 3 bins, whites, darks, and linens. Plus room for our detergent, and our laundry baskets. Plus no more constant noise from the washer and dryer being on while we are trying to do schoolwork. Spin cycle can be loud!

Now food for a "large" family can be challenging. Big pots, big pans, storage for the food, and then where to put all your supplies. First extra counter space is needed. I have learned that the kitchen table is a great place to do prep work. When making pancakes it can take all day! My solution: 2 griddles. I can now make 10 pancakes at a time! We hardly ever had waffles because it took so long. I found 2 belgium waffle makers on sale. So now it takes 15 min or less to make pancakes or waffles for our family. Half the time it used to. Plus now since we have the empty space in the hall where the washer and dryer were my husband installed shelves and we have a pantry. Or as one of my friends calls it the prayer closet. (The first few times she came over for a meal as I was preparing things I would leave the kitchen and come back with food. Finally she asked where I was getting all the food. I told her I left the room prayed real hard and as I walked back the food appeared. =) Then she followed me and saw our lovely pantry.)

Living in a society where children are not cherished is very challenging. We get many comments of "my your hands are full" and "are they all yours?" from people not realizing how rude they are being. I love to see the looks on their faces when I tell them I homeschool my children and do not have babysitters. Their jaws just about hit the floor. In our society money, status and entertainment are cherished. At the end of the day I have my family to cuddle with, and spend time with. At the end of my life I will be able to say "Wow that was a lot of fun! God blessed me beyond what I could have ever imagined for myself." And I pray now that my children will all be able to look back at their childhood and be able to remember that family is more important than money, status and entertainment. Some things are more challenging but they are soooo worth it!

When everything you work for has to change

For the last 7 years I have been in "fix" mode. My daughter at a young age started displaying strange behaviors. Doctor after doctor told me she was fine. Finally at 14 months old we got her physical birth defect diagnosed, then came the physical therapy, and the hours and hours of exercises to strengthen her body so she could turn a door knob, and put on a shirt.

Ahh relief. For a brief few minutes we were just excited that there was a solution to a problem. However that quickly faded as other behavior issues began to present. Drooling was one of them. After a child is 2 they usually do not keep drooling on themselves. This alone took a lot of my time reminding her to stop drooling. Also bed wetting. Countless hours were spend changing sheets. All of which doctor after doctor told me were normal. Then there was a break through. The physical therapist said "I'm not sure what it is but something is a bit off." I thought what? Someone else finally sees it too! Then the diagnosis seemed to all go along the lines of auditory processing problems. Then after a trip to the pediatrician we found out about absence seizures. I thought all seizures meant you were on the ground convulsing. No not these ones. But it explained all the drooling, and the bed wetting.

By then I had already began testing different things on her. I eliminated MSG from our diet. I could not believe how many foods had it in there. By the time I was done there was nothing in my cabinets but things with one or two ingredients. More and more time and brain power was spent on learning what foods our bodies do best with, herbs, and nutrition. I also noticed that red food coloring had a large impact on her. After the MSG and red food coloring were eliminated the seizures and the drooling seemed to get so much better. I tried so many different things on her. We have tried allergy testing. She has no allergies. We tried heavy metal testing. She is fine. We have not vaccinated her.

Recently she has gotten worse. I'm not sure honestly if she is the same and my level of dealing with it has changed, or if she is really worse. We went back to the neurologist. The type of seizures has changed. She is now having convulsion seizures in her sleep. But this time I also came armed with my "list". I had written down all of her "odd" behaviors. My list was met with a sympathy look from the doctor. I was then handed a questionnaire. I filled it out as carefully as I could. As I read the questions I realized what the test was for. It was a autism questionnaire. When I read the questions and noted how many times I had to check the "all the time" box I knew what the results were going to be before I had finished filling it out. The next day the doctors phone call confirmed what I already knew. She is autistic. Her IQ when it was tested at 3 was well over genius level. It is because of her "smarts" that others, and doctors didn't see anything wrong. Her abilities to repeat information she has heard kinda threw people off of where the focus should have been. Autism is not how much you know but how you interact, and behave. When she has a full blown melt down because one of her toys is touched by someone else that has nothing to do with her "smarts" but it does effect the whole family.

I have spent the last 7 years trying to "fix" her and make her better. I never thought it was one thing that would help but I did think that there was a magical combination of things I could do to make her better. After all it was a "magical combination" of things that fixed the morning sickness so there must be a fix for her too. So now what do I do now that this can't be fixed? There is no magical pill to fix this, or combination. The diets and treatments that people talk of all the time for autism get there children to be better but not perfect. She is already high functioning, and I'm pretty sure it is because of all we have done already. So what do I do now? How do I help her now? I can't fix her so what do I do with her?

We are planing on trying something new so that our house works better, and her frustration levels stay low. She has been very frustrated lately. She will be getting her own room. Her own space. Her own tape. Yes tape is very important to her. She will be able to go to HER space and just be herself. No one touching her things. We hope that this will benefit the whole family. This should bring her frustration level down, and in turn the rest of the family's frustration down. Her bedroom will also be in a spot where it will be much easier for me to keep tabs on her.

So how does one change from fixing mode to dealing with it mode. In our case there is no one thing that caused this. This has always been her. From birth this has been her. Because of her birth defect we know that at 6 weeks gestation, there was a short time that there was a lack of blood flow to her. So I guess that means we are lucky she is here even. I'm pretty sure that has something to do with the way her brain works too. Nothing could have prevented it, and there was probably no real cause for it. Just a freak thing that happened. So now I guess we have to learn how to cope and deal with the cards we are dealt instead of fixing them.