USC - 12 Covenants

I love this! These are the 12 Covenants that the USC football team commits to if they want to play football. I shared them last night and applied them to serving in the church. Thought I'd share:

1. We will accomplish what we do together. We share our success and we never let any one of us fail alone.
2. we are fully grown adults. We will act as such, and expect the same from the people around us.
3. We will not keep secrets. Information that affects us all will be shared by all of us and we will quickly and openly work to separate fact from fiction.
4. We will not lie to ourselves or to each other. None of us will tolerate any of us doing so. We will depend on each other for the truth.
5. We will keep our word. We will say what we mean and do what we say. We trust the word of others to be good as well.
6. We will keep our head. We will not panic in the face of tough times. We will always choose to roll up our sleeves rather than wring our hands.
7. We will develop our abilities and take pride in them. We will set our own standards higher than our most challenging opponent and we will please our fans by pleasing ourselves.
8. We will treat our locker room (church facility) like home and our teammates like friends. We spend too much time together to allow things to go bad.
9. We will be unselfish and expect that everyone else will exhibit this same quality. We will care about each other without expectations.
10. We will look out for each other. We truly believe that we are our brother's keeper.
11. We are students at USC (members of CFC), and as such we will strive to graduate(strive for excellence). We take pride in our grade point average (level of excellence) and expect our teammates to do the same.
12. Losing cannot and will not be tolerated in anything we do. There is no excuse for losing a football game at USC. (There is no excuse for losing or giving in to a battle against the enemy! Souls are at stake!)

Home Again . . .

Well, my brother's family along with me and the kiddos made it safely home early Saturday morning. It was smooth sailing as far as the ride goes, but we received a phone call shortly after we entered Kansas . . . .

Apparently my Dad had grabbed one of the nurses and made an inappopriate comment to her. (I will not go into details to maintain some sort of dignity for my Dad) Anyway, my mom was in tears - she didn't believe he did it, but I wasn't sure what to think. His behavior was completely inappropriate, but could be considered a "normal" behavior for someone with Parkinson's and/or dymensia. I did my best to consol my mom, but what do you say to that? There wasn't much I could say. The nursing home wanted to move my dad to a different facility because they said they couldn't "deal" with him. I was (and still am) of the opinion that people in nursing homes with mental issues (Parkinson's, dymensia, altzheimers, etc) tend to normally show "abnormal" or inapporiate behaviors and that being in nursing home care, it's just part of the deal. I felt like it was "one strike" and he was out.

It was the weekend though, so nothing would happen until Monday. Well, on Monday Mom called again and he did the same thing to another nurse - now, we had to admit that he really did in fact do these things though after my mom talked to him, he had no recollection of either incident and said he would never do what had been described. We knew that, but obviously the medicine or the disease was causing these irrational behaviors.

Yesterday my dad was transferred to Omaha to a facility to help wean him off his current Parkinson's medicine and try to find a different one that may work better. They were very helpful and kind according to my mom. She was at a point of giving up on the med's and just letting him be, but they feel it is worth one more shot at finding something to help with his thinking processes and eliminate his hallucinations and vividly morbid dreams. The facility tries to only keep people 7-10 days and then returns them to the nursing home they came from. There is a chance that it will take longer because Parkinson's patient's med's can be difficult to stabilize, but we'll see how this goes.

My mom had to go back home, so Dad is 5 hours away from Mom and I feel a million miles away from both of them.

Please be in prayer for my Dad - that the doctors will figure out what the best course of action is for him. Please be in prayer for my Mom - that she would be strong in the Lord and confident in the decisions she has to make for my Dad. Please pray for peace in my entire family as we walk through this hard time knowing though that we are not walking alone.

Heading North . . . .

Well, Friday afternoon I leave with the kiddos and my brother's family to head to Nebraska to see my parents and my Grama. This will be the first time I've seen my dad, not at his home, but in a nursing home. I am praying that I can be strong for the kids and not break down in front of them. This is one of those moments you pray never comes, but you know is inevitable.

Watching your parents go through things like this is, in fact, in the natural order of things. It really doesn't make it much easier though. Now, I've never lost a child, and I pray I never do - I have a dear friend that lost her 8 year old daughter . . . that's NOT in the natural order of things, so I imagine that to be exponentially more difficult than this.

The thing is, I have been very sheltered from death in my family. People have died, but it's been great-uncles/aunts and one Grama. That was in the natural order of things too. I think I am struggling with my dad so much because he's still pretty young - he's 67 - not the average age of a person in nursing home care. Heck, I have an employee at Batteries Plus that's 72 and he can outwork some of my young employees!

I know fairness has nothing to do with life, but I still struggle with the "fair" thing. It's not fair! He wasn't a drinker (occassional, but not a lush - and not at all the past 15 years), he wasn't a smoker, he was a great dad and a great provider for our family.

I could stand before God and argue until I was blue in the face, but the bottom line is - God is in control and He is not surprised by my dad's condition nor my frustration, anger and sadness.

I thank God often for the fact that my dad turned his life around about 11 years ago. If it wasn't for that - I don't know what I'd do or how I'd be reacting to all this. But I do know - I have hope - that one day, my dad will be free from the cage of his body, without pain, confusion, and frustration. One day, I will see him again healed and whole and free.

I love you dad!

Struggling . . . .

I got word yesterday that my Dad is officially in a nursing home from this point forward. It's been an up and down sort of a deal because of his behavior on medications, his ability to still walk around and "function" and the struggle of my mom wanting to be able to care for him, but not fully being able to anymore.

At first the nursing home wasn't sure they could handle caring for him because he can still walk around and go do some things on his own and often he will go into other people's rooms, try to leave, etc. The other day he took someone else's glasses insisting they were his and wouldn't give them back. His own glasses . . . . yeah - they were on his face, but there was no convincing him. He has hallucinations, but at this point they aren't violent or anything like that. He sees people. He sees me, my brother, old friends, strangers. . . . . At this point, the good and bad news is, his behavior right now is probably at its worst. There will be a time when he can't get up and move around and that will actually make it easier on the staff at the nursing home. It isn't really good news, but it will make the staff's daily challenges a little less.

Parkinson's is an ugly disease and I hate that my Dad is struggling with this. I hate that my Mom is now alone, traveling the roads between where my Grama is staying and where my Dad now is. I hate that they are so far away. I hate watching my strong, stoic Dad disintegrate.

We are going to Nebraska over spring break and it will be a difficult visit to stay at my parent's house without my Dad there. It's going to be hard on my kids . . . it's going to be hard on me.

I broke down last night for the first time. I cried like I haven't cried in years. My eyes still have the puffy evidence of that cry this morning.

I know this life is temporary and one day my Dad will be free from the chains of Parkinsons. In the meantime, I take one step at a time, hoping I can be strong for my mom and my kids and that God will hold me up. I don't like struggling. I don't like it at all.

Live Like You Were Dying . . .

At church we've started a small group series titled, Live Like You Were Dying. This series is based off the song by Tim McGraw. It's a 4 week series that focuses on living your life to the fullest - with no regrets. This week our Pastor spoke on speaking more sweetly and MAN was I challenged this morning with that . . . and it's only Monday!

I got my kids up and moving this morning as usual. They get 45 minutes to get ready - which they really only need about 30, but I give them that extra slow moving, lack of focus, distraction time just in case. Well, this morning I looked at the clock and they were supposed to be out the door ready to go in 10 minutes. I looked at the kids and looked back at the clock and went into panic mode. One was still in PJs, hair a mess, and didn't have her teeth brushed. My son, was barefoot, hadn't brushed teeth, cleaned his glasses and wasn't sure where his coat was. It's moments like this that speaking sweetly does not come naturally! I kept hearing Pastor's sermon in my head and I struggled with how to light a fire under their butts by speaking nicely. I probably failed miserably, but I did try not to sound like a raging lunatic. I think that's progress. Not perfection, but progress.

I hope that's all Jesus is asking of me as I can never reach perfection, but I am working on being more like Him this week with my words. The goal is to make this week's challenge into a new and improved lifestyle.

God help me!

Fire Breathing Dragon

The oddest thing happened last night . . . . I took some echinacea because I've been feeling a bit run down and I have too much to do this week to be sick! Anyway, you know how you take a pill and sometimes it feels like it just doesn't go all the way down? Well, it felt that way, so I drank some more water and didn't really think anything about it. I was having a conversation with my man, when I . . . . well, I burped. . . . the next thing I know my nose is burning and Dennis' eyes just about bug out of his head. Apparently the outer casing of the pills had dissolved, but there was still poweder from the pills in my gullet somewhere. This dark green powder came rolling out my nose. Dennis said I looked like a smoking dragon! After the burning stopped, he and I got to laughing. What a weird thing! Making' memories! LOL

"Snooze Button" . . . A funny story told by Dennis

Yesterday morning, (Saturday, January 2nd @ 6:30am) I went into Rachel's room to wake her up. She likes to get up slowly! As I was rubbing her back and head to no avail, I began to get more rough. At some point she passes out of "coma" and into "fake sleep." She pretended to not notice that I was shaking her like a rag doll. When she finally realized that I was not going away anytime soon, she began to feel her way around my head with her eyes completely shut. She checked out every portion of my face with her fingers until my curiosity arose enough to wonder what she was looking (feeling) for so unsuccessfully. So, I asked her:
"Rachel, WHAT are you doing?"

Her response (in an annoyed 14 year old gruff voice):

"Just look'n for the SNOOZE button!"

That was the funniest thing I'd heard all month coming from a 6 year old that has never even USED a snooze button! I didn't even know she knew what one was let alone have the intuitive reflex to look for one on her assailant's head! The last of my little ones . . . I cherish her silliness and will miss this stage immensly!