Beautiful Day

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

By the grace of God

Today is a new day of reality.
Peter went back to work. He took a whole week off to be with Jamie, he's a really good dad. Jamie said the best thing out of all this is that she got to spend time with daddy.
But he had to go back to work. So it started the first day of responsibilities mostly on me.
I was a bit nervous at the beginning of how this all gonna work. Bode, my 11 month baby, was a bit sick for a couple of days, a bit of fever and cold, so he had been very clingy. I could hardly put him down on the floor for just a few minutes or having a friend cuddle him...he would scream straight away.
I had organised for him to be in childcare today, but in the back of my mind I had thought over and over if I should cancel that, because it just didn't seem it'd work. What if he kept screaming as soon as I got in hospital? It's about 30 minutes drive. What if half way through treatment the childcare wanted me to pick him up? Maybe I should just keep him with me.

Well, I decided to still give it a go with childcare. I dropped Ellie, Kate, and Bode at three different places, school and different childcare for Kate and Bode. Then I took Jamie to the hospital. They took some blood, then we went to the clinic for chemo treatment. There was about 2 hour wait. Jamie coped very well. She had to have needles on finger and bottom. It was very unpleasant to watch, but she didn't cry at all. She just held my hands very tight when it hurt. The nurses were very kind and skillful. She did a lot of drawings and color-ins while waiting. It was quite a long wait, the other patients told me to just get used to it.....there're gonna be lots of hospital visits, at least twice a week for now. Meanwhile I sorted out car park ticket, medicines from the pharmacies, got some lunch from the canteen,etc. Amazingly, the childcare didn't ring.

I found myself saying again and again today, by the grace of God, by the grace of God. ......By the grace of God, I got a carpark space in the peak hour of the busiest day, by the grace of God, Jamie went well with all the treatment, and nothing went wrong, by the grace of God, Bode settled quite well in the childcare, I picked him up at nearly 4pm and he was quite happy, by the grace of God, the treatment finished at 2:40pm, just in time for me to rush back to school to pick up Ellie at 3pm......by the grace of God, the first day of hospital visit when everything is new and unfamiliar to me I was able to go with just Jamie and I had somewhere to drop off all the other kids...by the grace of God someone dropped us a meal at dinner time to ease the burden....

There're so many things to be thankful in the last week. I could hardly write them all down. I did try to collect them in my notebook and I got a long list...
One thing I decided to do is try to be aware of God's blessing, to be aware of how the angels fill in the gaps. God's grace is sufficient. Where there's trouble, grace abounds. I remember Donna Crouch used to preach, look out for blessings....when her daughter broke her arms God wispered in her spirit, look out for blessings.....I remember Venessa preached, collect your harvest, pick one fruit at a time, keep picking them and you'll soon have a whole basket of fruit and that's how you have your harvest....

Every night before retiring for the day I'd like to retreat to my journal book and write down God's whispers in my spirit. And I found it so refreshing and encouraging. He filled up my strength during these moments so that I had peace to go on the next day.

Yes, one day at a time. I'm just so thankful for God's grace in my life.

I can write so much more, but it's 1:30am now. I'd better go.

As seen by Susan @ 12:42 AM

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Jamie came home

I was just at the colour conference when suddenly Peter rang me, "Jamie's got leukemia..."
So I rushed to the hospital. Somehow that morning I just didn't feel like going to the conference. I didn't know why, usually I'm quite passionate about colour. I've actually said I didn't want to go, but the friends who stayed at my place convinced me to go, and Peter even agreed to take the baby for me for the day. So I went....but only stayed in the conference for 20 minutes or so.

Jamie has been complaining about a backache and tommy ache for 2-3 weeks. It started at a dance lesson. So I thought she must have hurt a muscle somewhere. I did take her a couple of times to a doctor, and had her x-rayed. I've registered her for colour kids, but then her school had an excursion and she really wanted to go, so I let her go with the school while other kids went with me to colour. Around mid day the school rang me telling me that she threw up and needed us to pick her up. So Peter went to school and took her to a doctor. Peter asked for a blood test, the doctor looked at him, and said, are you sure you want a blood test? And Peter insisted. She was quite fine after school, and even went for her art lessons. The next day the doctor rang Peter up, saying the blood test result was very serious, and Jamie needed to be sent to the hospital straight away.

So we spent the whole week in the hospital. She was confirmed of leukemia the next day. And chemo started on Monday. Jamie's such a brave little girl. Once a nurse poked deep into her arm for 10 minutes trying to get some blood and kept poking at the wrong spot. Peter couldn't even look at her. She had tears rolling down her eyes, but she didn't make a sound. She cooperated so well that the nurses said she's the best patient in the whole ward.

Peter took a week off work and stayed with her day and night, while I spent most of the days there but came home with other kids for the nights. The support and encouragement from church, school and friends are just overwhelming. The hospital facilities are just fantastic.

She was staying at the Westmead children's hospital. It's such a children friendly place. My other kids were having such a good time there. The support from the hospital staff and volunteers are amazing. While she was staying there, there were school teachers offering schoolings, play therapists came and play with her and do arts and crafts, hundreds of videos and dvds, computer games everywhere, entertainers, singers came to her bed to sing songs for her and even offer free guitar lessons....hundreds of people were praying for her.... she went into hospital with a small bag, and she came home with a full car of presents and stuff.....

She came home yesterday(Sat), as an out patient now. We'll just be going to hospital for treatments, but will be living at home. She'll be staying home for a while as it's the changing season time, lots of colds and flus around.

It's a challenging time for all of us. But I believe God's grace is sufficient. God will turn every situation around for good. Please continue to stand with us in prayer and faith.

As seen by Susan @ 9:08 PM

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Jamie

My beautiful daughter Jamie has just been confirmed of Leukemia. She's been in hospital since yesterday which we just found out. Poor little thing has to go through a few operations this week and extensive treatment over at least the next two years.

Please pray for her!! We believe in miracles.

As seen by Susan @ 3:07 PM

Friday, March 02, 2007

Purpose of deserts

I used to think that desert is a kind of punishment. Because we did something wrong, then we ended up in desert.

Now I've changed my way of looking at this. You see, Moses spent 40 years of his life learning how to do desert, finding all the routes, tricks and life skills on how to survive in desert, so that later on he could practically lead people to do desert. It'll be hard for a prince in the palace to cope with leadership role in the desert. Abraham spent 13 years of his life learning how to be a parent on a practical level before he was entrusted with a heaven blessed boy. Joseph spent numerous years of his life in the prison learning from other prisoners all the mistakes they'd made that upset Pharaoh, so that later when he was working with pharaoh, he was wise enough not to upset him and made him happy enough to trust him on a daily practical basis. Imagine how hard it is to live with a bossy pharaoh?

There're lots of practical lessons and skills to be learnt in the place of desert, which is to build up the character that's needed in order to handle the job that God would want you to do. It's like an Olympian, before the glory, before the championship, there has to be sweaty trainings. There has to be practical skills to be learnt, practical muscles to be built up before the real talent, real gift and real calling can emerge.

As seen by Susan @ 9:05 AM