Well, six months later and I guess I am ready to post.
This has been a strange week for me and my family. Things just seem to be a little amplified.
Monday my Dad moved from the hospital where he had spinal surgery a week earlier, to a "rehab" hospital. To me it looks like an ultra nice rest home. The thought of my Dad being in a rest home, no matter how nice or temporary, has unnerved me a bit. Don't get me wrong, I am so grateful that he has the opportunity to go there and get the rehabilitation he needs to be independent again. I am so glad my mother is not faced with trying to lift him and attend to all his needs 24/7. But still I don't like the feel of my Dad being in an institution of any sort. I want him to heal and come home. I am grateful for my legs that work, and a back that does not ache! Lord please bring my Dad home!
Second..Gulp..Sigh.. How do I start? Deep within the confines of Baylor Hospital's Transplant ICU in Dallas, Texas, my mother's first cousin's 19 year old son, Nicolas, lies in a medically induced coma as his body adjusts to the brand new liver he received Friday night. The events that brought him to this point were dramatic and severe... The stuff that soap operas, novels and movies are made of! But the God who has carried him this far is soo good! I will go into Nick's story more as we learn his fate, but tonight I am so grateful for the miracles that have kept him alive this week and the hope his story has given me. Lord thank you so much for not giving up on Nick! Please help all of us to be there for him and his family in the grueling times that are to come! AND thank you for the generosity of the family of the person who gave Nick his liver! Please comfort them as they grieve and reward their selflessness!
Third, this is the hardest one for me to write about! In the fall of 1982, in the John Glen Jr. High choir room a bubbly, smiling Hispanic girl with the prettiest long curly dark hair and the coolest clothes introduced her self to me. Her name was Lisa . We were both 7th graders. She was fun, cute, cool and had a tinge of valley girl in her speak! We were never best friends, but good aquaitances. She came to my 7th grade slumber party. We had drama together in High School. I always liked her. Years later when we were both out of college and single we spent Spring Break in Las Vegas with a bunch of other singles from our home town. A year or two later after I started dating my husband, she started dating one of my husbands college fraternity brothers. She was at our wedding.
Last Tuesday, I received a shocking e-mail. My old friend Lisa had just been arrested and released on bail. It seems her finger prints and DNA match evidence collected 11 years ago from a plastic bag that held a lifeless newborn baby girl, wrapped in a towel and abandoned along side a rural highway that runs from San Angelo to Brady.
Lisa married Robs friend seven years ago and is now eight months pregnant and mother to an adorable four year old little girl . Her husband has sent e-mails telling us not to believe what we read and to pray for Lisa, as her pregnancy is not "holding up well to all this stress". Can you imagine?
The abandoned baby was found four months prior to the Las Vegas trip Lisa and I took in March '94. I was friends with her when this supposedly happened. Could she have been pregnant with out any of us knowing? It has kept me up at night. How could the sweet,bubbly Lisa I knew have done such a thing? But how could her fingerprints and DNA match if she didn't? Lord please let some good come out of this. Shelter her daughter , husband and new baby with your love and hope as they face all that Lisa is up against. Please give Lisa the courage and the words she needs to face her accusers without damaging the precious life she carries inside her!Lord help these people!
Finally, John Decker, the father of our good friend Chad died today at the age of 64. Cancer. Chad and I grew up together in San Angelo. He was Rob's fraternity big brother in college. Chad and Rob exchanged groomsmen duties as he married Debra two moths before Rob married me. A few years ago the Deckers lost their daughter Gina when a blood clot broke loose and caused an aneurysm hours after a routine knee surgery. She had struggled with crippling rheumtiod arthritis most of her life. Gina left behind a devastated husband, two precious little girls, and among others, a heart broken Daddy. As sad as I am for Chad and his Mom, I can't help but hope that somewhere in heaven yesterday a daddy and daughter danced for joy as they were reunited! John Decker is finally at peace.
As much as I love my life, I pray that soon we all are dancing in the streets of Heaven. Lord please come get us as soon a you are ready! We long to be with you!
So this week I have seen so much drama and pain, hope and fear, heartache and joy. I guess every person has a story to tell. Life is never the same "average or normal" for any two people. God has a plan for us all.
Lord thank you for my worries and burdens. This week I realize I would not want to trade! Thank you for your faithfulness! Please help me to look beyond faces of the people I meet so that I see you in their story.
Monday, June 28, 2004
LIFE Amplified
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6 comments:
Cool post look forward to more.
how heartbreaking. I just can't imagine. What's the latest on this?
I wish I knew how to put links in my blog post! There are two articles in the Brady Standard about this case. Basically the courts are waiting until Lisa's baby is born to proceed. Lisa maintains her innocence. As far as I know, she says she has no idea how her finger prints and DNA match the evidence. No matter what, prayers are definitely in order here!
I really don't know much about Blogging but I am appalled at what I just read. How can you justify using first and last names when talking about people's personal lives. I realize that Lisa's problems are in the paper for all to read but I don't feel it is necessary for you to give out first and last names on a BLOG. How can you justify that. If I were Chad or Lisa I would be horrified to know that you are writing about personal things. How can you claim to be their friends and then turn around and use thier full names for all the world to read. I am sooooo disturbed by this especially since you seem to be a Christian.
Anon~
I have no idea who you are but really, who asked you? This post was written 8 months ago. It was my first post. I had no idea really that anyone else would even read what I wrote here... at least not anyone I didn't know. Blogging is wierd in that way.
I did not write anything about Chad or Lisa that I would not say to them in person. I still grieve for Lisa and pray that all this will be over soon so she can go back to being the wonderful mother and wife she is known to be. My only words about Chad and his family were kind and expressed my fondness for them and my greif at their loss and my hope for his Dad and sister in Heaven.
I am a Christian. I'm not sure what your idea of a Christian is, but I don't see how giving out first and last names on this blog could make me any more or less Christian? Sorry if it offended you. You could at least sign your name if you are going to call my Christianity into question.
It is people like you who make people like me turn off anonymous comments. If you have something further to say to me, you will have to put a name with it and not hide behind being Anonymous.
Marie~
Thank you for registering. I like to know who I am and am not talking to. I disagree with you completely. I do not feel it necessary to explain everything here but, the e-mail I got about Lisa was from her husband and it was soliciting prayers and various types of support. They want their side of the story out. They are requesting prayers of strangers, friends, anyone.
The Deckers thought what I said was a "lovely tribute" to both John and Gina and were flattered.
Since you don't know me, and I assume you don't know these people, it may seem like I was just dishing my friends, but that is not the case at all.
The information in this post was offered out of concern, but I have no control over how readers choose to take it. If you want to, you could look at all prayer requests as gossip. You'll notice I also mentioned my Dad and cousin in this post. Do you think I was gossiping about my Dad and my cousin? No, I wasn't. I was earnestly asking for prayers. And yes, I was venting. That is why I started this blog, which by the way, is not supposed to be a publicly published blog ...therefore, I really didn't expect to get much stranger traffic.
Last January I wrote a post that talked about why I blog if you truly care to know.
I understand your perspective in a way, but really, I think you rushed to judgment. I assure you that when I request a prayer I am only doing so because prayer is the most powerful force on Earth, or so it has been in my life. I hope you have experienced the power that comes from people praying for you. It is an amazing thing.
Your point on respecting others privacy is noted as much has changed since I began blogging. I can't say that I appreciate your comment because no one really appreciates be snap judged and ripped, but I can honestly say I appreciate you taking the time to register and respond. Thank you.
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