Finding Comfort & Peace in God

Once again I am at awe at how God is using Brayden to teach me and bring me closer to Him. This morning I was reflecting back on last night. BZ is teething and woke up several times and couldn't go back to sleep. However, each time I went up to his room, all I had to do was pick him up and hold him, and he was OK, the crying stopped. Was the pain gone? No, but he was comforted simply by my presence and my touch. All was right because Mom was there.

Somewhere along the way, we lose this ability to be so easily comforted. We realize that Mom and Dad can't always make everything OK, and sometimes the pain and hurt last longer than we want it to. Sometimes we don't know how long it will last. These are the times when our Heavenly Father wants us to cry out to Him. He longs to be our comforter, our protector, to bring us peace amidst life's hurts and storms. Why is it that we try to go through things alone? Why is it that we lose the ability to be fully comforted by His presence and His love?

Next time I am hurting, I want to remember the way Brayden lays his head on my shoulder and settles so easily into my arms when I answer his cries. I want to cry out to God and know that He is listening, and He wants me to let Him calm my hurts and fears the same way a mother does for her child. He is there, through it all, He is there, waiting, hoping that we will turn to Him so that He can bring us comfort and peace.

2 Corinthians 1:3-4
All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us

So Thankful

Spurred by reading the book 1,000 Gifts (wonderful if you haven't read it!), it seems like a lot of my thoughts and quiet time lately have been centered around thanksgiving.  I am truly embracing a sense of being truly thankful, for everything in my life, the good and the bad.  That ties in so well to the reason I started this blog.  I began typing these posts out for myself, as a way to sort of journal my thoughts and feelings about this journey and to remember all the ways God was showing Himself and His goodness in our lives.  What kept coming to mind for me was how much more I appreciate the simple little gifts God gives us, and since Brayden was born I have really tried to embrace this and take time to enjoy those everyday moments, hence the Stop and Smell the Roses theme. (If you don't know what 65 Roses is all about see that tab above).

This week I was feeling a little lonely with us all being sick and Brayden and I couped up in the house trying to get rested and well.  I was thinking how it would be nice to have my Mom and Donita here to help watch Brayden so I could get some housework done or just go to the grocery. Then I realized how thankful I am just to have that wish, to have that desire to want them here.  So many people aren't close to their parents or in-laws and don't think twice about not having them around.  There are so many broken homes and heart wrenching stories about things that tear families apart.  I am so thankful that we have the family and friends that we do to miss.  How blessed Jeff and I both are with wonderful parents, siblings, and extended families and friends.  God has placed such amazing people in our lives, and he continues to do so in Charleston.

The very first CF Mom I met here is an example of God's handiwork.  I asked Brayden's respiratory therapist (who is awesome by the way, we love her) for some ideas to get involved in the local CF community and meet other parents.  She gave me the name of one Mom who has chaired Great Strides and is very involved.  Her name is Peg, and she has a 27 year old son, Tommy who has CF.  I emailed Peg right away and she wasted no time in setting up a lunch to meet me and introduce me to another Mom.

The other Mom couldn't make it at the last minute so Brayden and I had lunch with Peg and her husband Tom.  Through our conversation we discovered that we were both University of Illinois alumni, we had both been in sororities there, and that sorority just happened to be Alpha Gamma Delta!  Another U of I Alpha Gam whose first born son has Cystic Fibrosis, this was not an accidental meeting.  Peg and Tom are such gracious and wonderful people and I am so thankful that I am going to be able to get to know them and partner with them to fight for a cure here in Charleston.  God continues to bring other wonderful people into our lives here as well, and we know in time we will have the same sense of thankfulness for our Charleston family as we do for our Fort Wayne/Midwest family and friends.

I give thanks to Him Who has granted me strength and made me able, Christ Jesus our Lord, because He has judged and counted me faithful and trustworthy, appointing me to the ministry. 1 Timothy 1: 12

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.  Philippians 4: 6-7

We love the sun!

One of the main reasons Jeff and I chose Charleston as our new home was because we both dreaded Indiana winters.  The cold is one thing, and let me tell you we both hate the cold. But, the never ending dreary skies and days upon days with no sunshine was what really bothered us both.  I must say, we have both truly enjoyed our first South Carolina winter thus far.  We love the sun! I think it's therapeutic to wake up and see the sunshine almost every morning.  Not to mention my skin is not dry and I don't feel stir crazy because we are able to get outside and play nearly every day.

Now I'm not trying to say that everything is perfect in Charleston because the sun shines most days of the year. Charleston has it's faults too, that's for sure. But, we're really enjoying exploring our new surroundings and discovering all that the area has to offer.  We try to see something new every week, and we've been fortunate to be able to take some mini road trips because Jeff has every other week off. We love that the beach is 15 minutes away, and the mountains are only a short drive North. Now if we could just convince some of our friends and family to move here...

We pray that God will continue to bring people into our lives so that we can build strong friendships here. The great thing is that there are so many transplants here, so there are many people in the same situation as us, with little or no family nearby.  We know we will meet some great people and have a Charleston 'family' eventually. We know this will take some time. In the meantime, we'll continue to soak up some rays and explore all that Charleston has to offer, and hope that we can convince some people to come visit and enjoy it with us!

Small Victories

Jeff, Brayden, and I have all been sick this week. It's been a rough time at our house, but amidst the runny noses, fevers, coughs, and watery eyes, there have been some small, yet exciting victories.  You may have to be a parent to get excited about things like this, but I'm sure every Mama understands =) The first came when Brayden finally drank from something other than a bottle.  I have been trying to win this battle for a couple of months now to no avail.  I tried small cups, tall cups, handles, no handles, soft spouts, hard spouts, straws, and everything else I could think of, but that boy wanted nothing to do with anything but a bottle.  It didn't matter what I put in it, milk, water, juice, he wasn't havin' it.

This week it was extremely important that I get him to drink liquids because his appetite was down and he wasn't eating as much as normal.  Again, I tried every kind of liquid in every kind of cup and the answer was always a cup pushed back at me or dropped to the floor...I heard a lot of thuds this week. I also tried giving him pedialyte in his bottle, which he didn't want either. The boy likes milk, in a bottle, period.  After a long, frustrating week of this, my prayers were finally answered on Friday when I got him to drink some orange Pedialyte in a sippy cup with a straw!  I had recently noticed him more closely watching me drink from my Parkview water mug that has a straw, so he must have learned how to do it by watching me. Needless to say, this was a huge victory in my eyes! Now to get rid of those bottles...

Victory number two came when I saw Brayden stack his wooden alphabet blocks by himself for the very first time.  He has always loved his blocks. Mommy would build them, and he would knock em down, typical boy, right? Then on Saturday I saw him stack one on top of another as he was playing. Such a cool moment, and so fun to watch him learn and marvel in his successes.  Jeff practiced with him again on Sunday and he was stacking them on top of Daddy's stacks as well...and then knocking them down of course!  It was a good week for BZ in spite of this nasty bug that we're all suffering from.  Can't wait to see what he will surprise us with next!

A Bittersweet Goodbye

Saying goodbye is hard, no matter what the circumstances.  Moving to South Carolina was an exciting, anticipated event for us. But, that doesn't mean that leaving Indiana, our family and friends, so many wonderful memories, and the place we had both called home for our entire lives was easy. In fact, it was far from it.  Moving day came so quickly, and everything became very real the day that big ole moving truck somehow maneuvered it's way, backwards, into Peony Court. They loaded up everything of ours from Matt and Ashell's house where we had been staying for almost exactly a year, and then everything we had in storage at Fast Print, and that truck was truckin' our belongings down South!

Jeff, Brayden, and I followed a day later, and were fortunate to have one extra passenger along for the ride...Grandma! So thankful my Mom was able to ride with Brayden and I so BZ had some wonderful company and entertainment for the 14 hour trip.  We said goodbye to many friends and family members the couple of weeks leading up to that, Jeff's parents, Matt, Ashell, and Davis the night before, and PawPaw (my Dad) that morning. We drove to Asheville the first day, and on to Charleston the following morning.  The car ride gave me a lot of time to reflect on our journey.

Sullivan's Island...we could get used to this!

It's a very strange thing leaving your home to call another place home.  Strange because in some ways, you don't know if the place you're going will ever really be home. There are a lot of anxieties, 'what ifs', and so many unknowns.  As I'm writing this post in retrospect, we have been in Charleston for 7 months now, and I really feel that both places are home to me. You know what they say, home is where the heart is.  Well, my heart is here with Jeff and Brayden, the two boys I love more than anything in the world. They are my life, my loves, my everything. But, my heart is also with everyone we left behind.  My heart aches to see some of the faces I haven't seen in so long, to just 'drop by' and say 'hi' to my Mom, Dad, Ken, and Donita, to have a meal with them, just to BE with them. I long to see Davis and Brayden playing together, such a precious site I don't get to see enough, to have dinner with Matt and Ashell, to know that Steph and Matt are just a short car ride away, to have lunch with Mimi, a night out with our friends, to have play dates with my friends whose babies I won't get to see grow up in person, the list goes on and on. 

So no, saying goodbye is never easy. In fact, the first time I went 'home' to visit, it was harder to leave than the initial goodbye. But, every time gets a little easier as we continue to build our home here in South Carolina.  Just as when we had to adjust our normal to a new normal with Brayden's arrival, and again with his diagnosis, we are finding our new normal here in Charleston.  We are so grateful to live in a world with Skype, facebook, free long distance calls, and email. I don't think we could have said goodbye without knowing we would have those things to make our family and friends feel less far away. We're also thankful that we're able to make it back to Indiana at least a couple times a year.

When will we be able to truly call Charleston home? I don't know the answer to that.  We don't know what the future has in store for us, none of us does. But, we know that God opened this door for a reason, and we are all in.  Part of my heart will always be in Indiana, but I don't think it's such a bad thing having 2 'homes'.  After all, 2 is better than 1, right?

Our new home - Mount Pleasant rental

When God Opens a Door...

After life had gotten back to normal for us (a new normal, but normal nonetheless!) Jeff and I again discussed our plans to move to South Carolina.  We decided that if God had a plan for us there, he would open up doors, so Jeff began to casually look for jobs again.  From the start of this looking, it didn't take long for the doors to start opening.  Jeff saw a nights position at a hospital, which was exactly what he wanted. He applied, had a phone interview, and was asked to make the trip to Charleston for an interview.

Fast forward several weeks, and Jeff was offered the job as a night pharmacist at MUSC (Medical University of South Carolina). When God opens a door that wide, that quickly, you better believe we were going to leap through! I think it took both of us a few days, maybe even weeks, to really comprehend that this was happening. We had been talking about it and planning for it for so long, and God had worked it all out in His timing.  Although Jeff and I are both planners and doers, we have slowly learned that God is in control, and His plan is more perfect than ours will ever be.

We had one month to prepare for our big move. That was one of the shortest months of my life. Packing with an infant is no easy task! Thankfully, we had the help of family and friends, and we already had half of our belongings boxed up from the previous move. We were also trying to spend as much time as we could with family and friends, and see those that we hadn't seen in awhile.

Another example of God's perfect timing is that we already had a vacation planned to Myrtle Beach in May, right after Jeff got the job offer. We were able to take a couple of days and head to Charleston to hunt for rental houses, and Jeff got his pre-employment paperwork all taken care of.  This also gave us and Brayden some time to spend with Jeff's parents before our move.  Finding our rental house was another thing that fell perfectly into place. Long story short, we almost settled on something due to slim pickens, and we ended up with something bigger, cheaper, and with more of the features we were hoping for at the last minute. God is so good, have I mentioned that yet?!? Everything seemed to be falling perfectly into place...except the fact that we would have to say goodbye to all of our family and friends, and everything we knew as home for most of our lives. Yea, there's that...

The Fam in Myrtle Beach

Oh yes, BZ loves the beach!

Treatment Time

Our 1st Hospital Stay & Brayden's Dedication

One of the hardest things about CF is the unknown.  An individuals prognosis falls on a spectrum: those with mild forms are very healthy, and only slightly impacted by the disease. In fact, you would probably not even know they had CF. Others are sick often, in and out of the hospital, and seem to have ongoing problems, these are the severe cases. Some fall somewhere between these two extremes.  The hard part is, there is no way to know where you will fall on the spectrum.  All we can do is do our part to keep Brayden healthy, keep his environment germ free, stay on top of his treatments, pray, and BELIEVE that he is well. 
In the beginning, it was so easy to get sucked in to reading all the stories online about the things that people with CF have gone through. The terrible hospital stays, the meds upon meds, the coughing, the near death experiences, on and on. It's all there, right at your fingertips. There came a point, however, after a couple of weeks of this for me, that I said enough is enough! It does me no good to read that stuff. To be aware that hard times may lie ahead, yes, but I want to focus on the positive. Brayden's future is in God's hands, and He will be walking with us every step of the way.

We feel fortunate that because CF is now being diagnosed through the newborn screening, we have been on top of Brayden's treatment virtually since he was born.  In addition, treatments are available now that weren't available 20, 10, even 5 years ago. Finally, a change is coming for those with Cystic Fibrosis. I want to focus my energy on fundraising for and encouraging the CF community, and I won't have the time or energy for that if I'm caught up in reading these stories.  (Plug Great Strides...sign up and walk with us or donate and support our team via the BZs Buddies tab!)

Unfortunately, our first trip to the hospital came far too soon for us. But, now we know what to expect should it happen again, and we are going to do everything we can to see that it's a long long time before we're back there!  Looking back, the hospitalization probably wasn't necessary, thankfully, but we're glad we had a better safe than sorry moment instead of a we should have taken care of that sooner moment.

Brayden had what turned out to be a sinus infection in mid-April.  He had a cough, runny nose, and low appetite for a couple of days that didn't seem to be getting better so we called the pediatrician, they saw him, and put him on an antibiotic.  I think he started the antibiotic Wednesday, and by Friday afternoon it still seemed like BZ was getting worse, so we called the CF clinic.  Given that the weekend was upon us, they decided to admit BZ to Parkview to rule out any RSV, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc.  Reluctantly, I packed our bags and Brayden and I headed to the hospital. Jeff had to head to work for the evening shift that weekend.

Happy even in the hospital...that's BZ!

We spent 2 nights in the hospital. They poked and prodded our poor buddy, gave him breathing treatments and CPT every 3-6 hours, and pumped him with antibiotics.  Thankfully, all tests came back negative, and it turned out to be just an aggressive sinus infection.  After 2 nights of little sleep and too many people poking and handling my baby, who turned 4 months while we were in the hospital, we headed home.

We went home late Sunday morning, the same Sunday that just so happened to be Brayden's baby dedication at church.  Given the circumstances, it was the perfect opportunity for us to reaffirm that Brayden belongs to God. He is a perfect, precious gift that God gave us to care for and teach His love to, and we will remember that day and that weekend fondly because it was such a great reminder of how thankful we are that God has chosen us to care for Brayden, to care for him and teach him all about God's love, mercy, and grace.


Here are a couple of pictures from the dedication, and the prayer that we prayed for Brayden on that blessed day.

We pray that Brayden will grow up to be a strong man of God. That he would be blessed with many
opportunities to experience Your love and share that love with others. We pray that he seeks Your
wisdom and turns to You for continuous guidance throughout his life. May he have comfort in knowing that You are always with him and care about him so much. Lord, give him a heart of compassion towards others and also instill in him a purpose to be a witness of Your gospel.
We pray that You would give us wisdom as parents to love and raise Brayden in a way that honors and pleases You, and that through our love for him, Brayden would come to know and accept Jesus as his Savior and Redeemer. AMEN!