Another Roller Coaster Week

1. Last Saturday was spent on retreat at Christ Episcopal Church in Pottstown, PA, and what a lovely day it was (except getting stuck on the Schuylkill Expressway--when we were looking for the Pennsylvania Turnpike--on the way home because of bad signage). I was out of the house from 7 am to 7 pm and my kids were safe at home with Daddy. It was a one day conference called "Celebrating Christ the Healer" with Russ Parker from Acorn Christian Healing Foundation as our main speaker. I think I took 9 pages of notes. Lots of good stuff to listen to and be encouraged by, as well as prayed for. I was introduced to the concept of Christian Listening and I wish I had the leisure to tumble off to Texas to take actual courses from the Institute for Christian Healing. Someday, hopefully. Still, I was able to absorb enough to certainly keep me thinking and praying and behaving a little differently in the mean time. And listening. :)

2. As many of you know, Alex has been struggling since about Memorial Day. His anxiety has been difficult to manage, for him and for us (medicinally and emotionally), so we've been trying a couple of new things, with mixed results. We went back to see the doctor on Wednesday afternoon with some observations from home and school and our doctor decided we needed to try something new. We are going to start the new medication tomorrow but in the mean time we've had to start easing him down to a lower dose of the current anti-anxiety medicine, which is always difficult. I remember how hard it was for my body to change drugs and how miserable it made me. Please pray with us that God will ease the transition for our darling boy. He was up late last night with terrible insomnia and fought with us when we tried to wrestle him back into bed, crying himself to sleep while I prayed and prayed.

I've gone back to all my comfort music this week, lots of Iona and John Michael Talbot. Lot's of The Lord's Supper, which I memorized as a child. The last song, "Lamb of God," has been my theme for this week. And, since the song is so old, there are no helpful YouTube videos, but here are the lyrics:

Lamb of God
Who takes away the sins of the World
Lamb of God
Who takes away the sins of the World

Have mercy on us

Lamb of God
Who takes away the sins of the World

Grant us Peace

Lord, we are not worthy

Lord, we are not worthy

Lord, we are not worthy

To receive you

Only say the word, and we shall be healed

Only say the word, and we shall be healed

Only say the word, and we shall be healed

I have been singing this every day, all day, breathing this ancient prayer over all the pain of my life. 

Last month, I made reference to the Samaritan woman in Matthew 15:21-8. Here's the passage again, from The Message translation:

From there Jesus took a trip to Tyre and Sidon. They had hardly arrived when a Canaanite woman came down from the hills and pleaded, “Mercy, Master, Son of David! My daughter is cruelly afflicted by an evil spirit.”

Jesus ignored her. The disciples came and complained, “Now she’s bothering us. Would you please take care of her? She’s driving us crazy.”

Jesus refused, telling them, “I’ve got my hands full dealing with the lost sheep of Israel.”

Then the woman came back to Jesus, went to her knees, and begged. “Master, help me.”

He said, “It’s not right to take bread out of children’s mouths and throw it to dogs.”

She was quick: “You’re right, Master, but beggar dogs do get scraps from the master’s table.”

Jesus gave in. “Oh, woman, your faith is something else. What you want is what you get!” Right then her daughter became well.

This woman was persistent and Christ healed her child. Sometimes, as the parent of special needs children, I feel like a beggar dog settling for scraps, but today her persistence gives me hope. And I can trust that Christ will ease Alex's pain.

3. Persistence in prayer has paid off in other ways in our lives this week. On October 6th, Marshall mislaid his wallet, he thought, while he was cleaning the garage. So he kept cleaning and I cleaned in the house, hoping to find it in one of the many, many piles of stuff that lie everywhere (but we are making headway, thanks be to God!) and we prayed. And we prayed. And my parents prayed. And then Wednesday afternoon, 10 days after the wallet went missing, I got a call from our library saying someone had found it there and turned it in to the front desk. I was reminded of Luke 15: 8-9, and we rejoiced greatly.

Also, one of my dear friends has been Alex's Sunday school teacher for several years and last Sunday morning, she had a major breakthrough with him and with the rest of his classmates. He finally seems to be grasping more of who Christ is and his classmates are starting to understand what autism means and why he has difficulties sometimes listening and participating in class. My son has such a concrete mind that the ineffable nature of God is often hard for him to understand. But all these years of listening to the lessons, of participating in the classes where Christ is honored and discussed and listened to are finally making an impact. This is also an answer to prayer. 

4. Baseball season is almost over and since both the Nationals and the Orioles lost last week, I haven't been doing much more than checking the scoreboards, but I watched the Tigers sweep away the Yankees last night, which was a good thing. Even the 800 lb gorilla deserves to stumble, now and again.

What I have been watching is the new seasons of New Tricks and Flashpoint. And this is a good change because it means I can now cope with some additional drama in my life, even if it is only televised. My DVR has been recording hours and hours of programming for me that I just haven't felt emotionally capable of facing. 

I also deleted Rookie Blue and NCIS: Los Angeles off of my favorites. The former is just too much about who is sleeping with whom and the latter is too violent without having a good reason to pile up the corpses quite so high, even though I really like the actors. It needs better, less manipulative writers.

5. Not much stitching this week; too tired from all the running around. Still, I made a little progress last night:

6. Miranda has lost two teeth in the last two weeks and I haven't even one picture of her holy smile. I meant to take one, really. Sigh. I haven't transitioned to taking pictures with my phone yet, not really.

7. The ladies who clean my house are just finishing up as I type this so even though is grey and rainy outside, the house will be clean to start off our weekend.

We really have to decide on Halloween costumes. Alex has settled on the red bird from Angry Birds Space, who looks like this:

But, because he is so similar to the regular Red Bird, there is no official costume available. We have to jury-rig something. Well, Marshall may have to jury-rig something. The extent of my costuming abilities consists of going online and ordering a costume.

Here's Jen. And if you missed her hilarious ruminations about being an introvert from earlier in the week, read about it here. I had been thinking all this time that I was an introvert, but maybe not.