A Special Thanksgiving

I hope as you read this, you can reflect on having had a wonderful Thanksgiving Day celebration, whether it was filled with your family's annual traditions or possibly some sort of new adventure -- in a new place or with new people.  My family continues to be amazed at how God provides for us each day, although He sometimes has to adjust our "grace goggles" a bit before we can see His blessings.

This year, we had the privilege of sharing an incredible Thanksgiving meal with two other families, including a total of 14 children!  Bob & Brenda were our hosts, and the first surprise we found upon arriving to their house was that the dining room and living room had been completely rearranged in order to accomodate one humongous, long table that would seat the entire group.  (It was actually three tables, but they were arranged end-to-end so no one was relegated to "the kids' table".  I mean, who remembers feeling like they were missing out on something, even if completely imagined, because they were sitting at a tiny table in another room separated from the adults?!)

Seven of the children present around that very long table provided the most unexpected blessing.  In addition to our hosts and ourselves, the third couple are the house parents for a boys' cottage at a children's home in an adjoining county.  Of the nine boys they have under their wing, only two were able to spend the holiday with relatives away from the home.  That left seven boys, ages 7 to 13, as well as the couple's own son and daughter, to join us for turkey with all the trimmings.  What a treat!  Each of them was exceptionally well-mannered, engaging in conversation, smiling, appropriately interspersing "please", "thank you", "yes, ma'am", "no, sir", etc.  Their attitudes were so cheerful, you would never guess their prior childhood years had been anything short of ideal.  This is a tangible example of how the love of Christ can transform even a hardened, broken heart.  These children are now receiving love and encouragement every day from these house parents, and God is transforming their lives. 

We are so grateful to Bob & Brenda for inviting this sweet family who has been called to give away their lives every day.  Each of us was challenged to take a closer look at how much we take for granted in our own lives and where we may be called to reach out to and give, even sacrificially, to someone else.

We would love to hear how you recognized Thanksgiving Day this year and what made it special.  If you would leave a comment below, others can also enjoy hearing about what made you grateful. 

Side note: What Thanksgiving Day recap would be complete without mention of how incredible all the food was?  Turkey prepared two ways, lots of veggies, Brenda's famous Pretzel Salad, home-baked bread, and more!  I felt just like "S" in the photo below.  Too many choices...  This pie rack only represents about half of the delectable desserts we had to choose from.  And choose, we did... more than once!  :)

What a Difference a Day Makes

God has shown His loving kindness to our family yet again today. If you're aware of the series of events our family has experienced in the past year or so, you're probably starting to catch on to the recurring theme of His faithfulness.

Our day started with the oral surgeon and his staff arriving to the office much too early on a Friday morning so he could get Cole's procedure worked into an already busy schedule. The whole surgery took only about 20 minutes and included removing one tooth, cleaning the socket of tiny fragments of fractured bone, placing synthetic bone graft material into each of the three tooth sockets, and restoring the gum tissue back to its normal anatomic position. In looking at the finished product, my untrained eyes think he did a most excellent job!

An "after" picture is included at the very end of the post, so if you are squeamish and don't want to see it, you can read the post without having to see the image. It's really such an improvement from what his mouth looked like on day one, you may want to see for yourself.

The hardest part of the day was coming off the anesthesia and driving back home. Cole was chilled and was shaking, trying to communicate with a mouthful of gauze that the pain was unbearable. A very different experience from when his big sisters had their wisdom teeth pulled. I tried to reassure him all the way home that we were almost there, but it was the longest ten-minute ride of our lives. Things have steadily improved since that point. He was able to sleep for a few hours after the first pain pill started taking effect, and he woke up with a healthy appetite and cheerful attitude.

Shelby says her biggest disappointment is that he's not funny. She was hoping he would be silly and loopy and say ridiculous things he wouldn't remember later.

To sum up: excellent surgical result, rough start to pain control, but otherwise a pretty good day. We continue to credit our heavenly Father with having protected Cole from potentially a much worse injury, for arranging the circumstances to provide him with excellent medical care, and for the prayers and encouragement of so many friends.

Another interesting thing is how many people have approached us to share their story and let us in on the secret that they are wearing one or more prosthetic teeth. Who knew?

Step One

I'll start tonight by risking to state the obvious. I'm not good at brevity. But let me take a stab at quickly summarizing today's visit to the prosthodontist and where we'll be headed from here.

After the obligatory harrassment about why he wasn't more careful on the jet ski, Dr. Andy examined Cole and said best outcome would be by extracting the one impacted tooth and then proceeding with three implants. In his opinion, we could spend a lot of time and money trying to save that one tooth, when the odds of success really aren't that great. No need to convince us further. Cole had already been saying since Saturday afternoon that's what he wanted.

We will meet with the oral surgeon for consultation tomorrow (the same guy who pulled Kalynn's and Alli's wisdom teeth) with an appointment for the extraction set for bright and early on Friday morning. We are thankful for the scheduler being so gracious and rolling out the red carpet to get us worked in at a moment's notice. After all, it's wisdom tooth season now that school's out, and their office is slammed!

Cole also had the impressions taken for his "flipper" today. We provided a couple of photographs of a grinning Cole, rather than trying to give an adequate description of what his teeth used to look like. We have high hopes the lab will do a good job to give him back his old smile, as closely as possible.

Thank you so much to those who have called to check on the pain, etc. He really is doing well with it. He is getting by with a couple doses of ibuprofen during the day and a low dose of narcotic pain reliever overnight. Just knowing the culprit tooth will be gone soon is reassuring.

We may have more news after the oral surgery consult tomorrow or you may not hear from us until after surgery on Friday. We are all looking forward to the day when we can post a picture of the boy smiling with all teeth showing! Thanks again for your continued prayers!

P.S.

I forgot to tell an incredible little "God-incidence" about the teeth.

While the kids were having fun on the lake, Charlie and I were just working around the garage and yard. You know, normal Saturday-without-kids-at-home kind of stuff. I was moving a sprinkler across the yard when I felt God speak to my heart reminding me that my kids are out on the lake, where dangerous things can happen, and I need to pray for their safety. Somewhere recently I had heard comments about how we are sort of safety obsessed in our culture today. We pray for safety before a trip. We often take ridiculous precautions even for routine activities. We would probably bubble-wrap our kids if it were possible. (If that IS possible, please let me know, because I'm seriously considering it at this point.)

Anyway, my whispered prayer was probably less of a "Please keep them safe" and more along the lines of "Lord, I can't control what happens, and they are truly in Your hands." It wasn't 15 minutes later that the phone rang telling of the accident. Coincidence? Most definitely not! Was it my "arrow" prayer that kept Cole's injuries from being any worse? Or was God's quiet voice to my spirit about dangerous things that can happen the tool He used to prepare my heart and mind to hear the news of something gone wrong? Certainly, I can never presume the mind of God. But I do know He spoke to me in that moment, and I know He will continue to hold Cole in His hands throughout the healing process.

Please Tell Me I'm Dreaming

Not that I would swap our normal, crazy lives for something mundane and boring, but I would definitely trade away the events of this weekend. Anytime!

The bottom line is that Cole and Shelby were on a houseboat party with friends at the lake when Cole had a jet ski accident that resulted in the loss of three of his front teeth. Makes me cringe all over again just typing those words. Actually, one of the teeth is still in his mouth, but it is impacted deep into his upper gum.

GROSS FACTOR WARNING: If you are squeamish, you may want to quickly scroll to the bottom of the post and read without viewing the picture. But I realize some of you may want to see for yourself which side comes up short when mouth meets jet ski.








Let me also take this opportunity to publicly declare we LOVE our pediatric dentist, Dr. Robin Wilson. When I called her in the middle of Saturday afternoon, she quickly agreed to meet us at her office immediately for an x-ray and exam. We were so thankful to have the assurance of what exactly was the position of the remaining tooth and that there was not even a fragment remaining of the other two. One side note is that God provided a sweet friend from church as the employee who also met us at the office and did the x-ray before Dr. Robin could get there.

I'm sure other mothers can relate to this, but when there is an emergency involving one of your family members, you just sort of engage, efficiently handling the necessary actions, not hesitating or thinking twice. It was not until the next day when our family was talking about the event that we realized how perfectly God had provided for where his face hit the jet ski. Had he collided even an inch or two in another direction, he could have had yet another concussion, suffered severe facial fractures, or maybe broken his neck or worse. Thank you, Lord. Reminds me of the scripture that instructs us to "give thanks in all things." This is not something we would ever choose, but it could have been so much worse.

Many of you already saw Cole in person at church, so you know he is really taking it all in stride pretty well. But this evening as he headed to bed, he said the pain medicine wasn't doing too well at reducing the dull throbbing. Please pray we will find the right combination of things to make him comfortable. And also pray specifically that the impacted tooth will quickly re-emerge and not be damaged. Dr. Robin told us it could take a few months.

Where we are headed from this point is to first of all wait for the gums to heal. As soon as possible, a dental impression will be made and a "flipper" will be crafted with fake teeth. We are told this is what he will wear until his jaw and skull are completely finished growing. Then he will have implant surgery done where new permanent teeth will be fitted into place through a multi-step process. This last phase is a long way down the road, with many factors to consider along the way. Again, God has provided a friend from church who is a periodontist and offered to see Cole and advise us along the way, possibly being the doctor who will eventually do the implants.

Thank you all so much for your prayers!

First Impressions

We were a cobbled-together little band of six who piled into trusty "Bessie" for the weekend trip to Tuscaloosa. In various ways, we were each responding to the call to pitch in and help the people of a community still partially numb from the disaster of April 27, 2011. I suggested taking Cole on this trip, knowing it would impact his life in a way that day-to-day ordinary life in Greenville never could. Michelle also wanted to take Cassie, and at the last minute we were able to add on fellow UA-mom Ginger and nurse Catherine. Each one, hand-picked by God for this adventure.

Some of my first impressions as we got closer to our exit on I-20 included what was playing on the radio. Most stations, even nine days post-storm, had switched from their regular music or talk format to a call-in program where people offering assistance and those needing supplies or volunteers could find each other. Even 20 miles or so before reaching Tuscaloosa, there were banners and posters advertising for tornado relief collection points or simply giving residents information on how to apply for assistance or where to go for shelter. The week before I had been frustrated with the media's nonstop coverage of a royal wedding I had no relative interest in and then the OBL assassination. The news cycle seemed to have quickly and painlessly moved forward from the massive needs across several hard-hit southern states. It didn't take more than a few minutes in Alabama for out little group to be brought back to the reality that these people had thought about little else than tornado recovery for the past week and a half. And some will likely do so for weeks, months, even years to come.

It also seemed so odd that we could drive along McFarland Boulevard, and aside from relief tents in the parking lots and military vehicles in abundance, there was no sign of the storm.

Then we were at 15th Street.

Buildings with blue-tarped roofs or no roofs at all. Cars scattered every which way with broken-out windows and covered in dust & rubble. Enormous chunks of concrete haphazardly piled where the tornado had tossed the remains of businesses. Trees that had become sci-fi-like, leafless, broken sticks and stumps poking out of the ground at random angles. And a few blocks later, we were again driving in normal-world.





Hard to comprehend how something so violently destructive could leave this kind of devastation along its reckless path through a city. But life on both sides of its wake seemed untouched. We didn't yet know about the people we would meet and stories we would hear over the weekend that would dispel the illusion of life being in any way normal, even if outward appearances made it seem that way.

Only the Tip of the Iceberg

I also wanted to share a couple of the pictures Kalynn took the day after the storm when they were able to return to their little house to retrieve some of their things. Here is what they found:


This is the front of the house, and it is one of the few that was left standing! It's incredible that Radley (the sweetest, bravest pooch I know!) survived being in the house without a scratch!

This is the view into their once-shady backyard.

Thanks again for praying us along on our journey this weekend. When I get my thoughts together to give a further update, I'm sure there will be some specific suggestions on how you might be able to personally assist in the relief and ministry that lies ahead for this city.

And HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to my own special mom and to all of you moms who are reading.

Tuscaloosa Bound

I know, I know, I haven't done an update in FOREVER! And don't panic -- even though it's long overdue, this post will be brief.

Today I'm not writing to give any news about Charlie's cancer prognosis but rather to solicit your prayers on behalf of another member of our family who recently experienced a life-altering event. Our oldest daughter, Kalynn, has moved to Tuscaloosa and is making plans to reenter the University of Alabama to finish her degree in English. Unless you live under a rock, you know that an extremely powerful tornado cut a swath of destruction right through the city on April 27. Kalynn's house was in its path.

Thanks be to God, she was not at home and was kept safe!

But the nearness to our family of the wake of devastation has urged us to get involved as a family to somehow helping with the relief efforts. Terri and Cole will be traveling to Tuscaloosa with a small band of six volunteers from Grace Church to serve this weekend. Charlie has plans in the works to go with a team of men for a week later this month. The marathon-like recovery will likely provide many future opportunities for service.

Please lift us up in prayer this weekend. None of us has ever been "boots on the ground" for disaster relief, and there will undoubtedly be things we will experience that will utterly overwhelm our hearts and minds.

I will post an update after we return as soon as possible. We each thank you in advance for lifting us before the Throne. Pray we will see the hurting community of Tuscaloosa with His eyes and that He would empower and equip us to be His hands and feet.