Enough Cookies For Everyone

So, I read a story today that really got me thinking & got me hurting... 

My version of the story goes something like this:

Once upon a time there were 4 kids, the Mom gave the oldest kid 6 cookies & said there are enough cookies for everyone. She then left him there with a decision, a choice to make. Clearly, there were enough cookies for everyone. But just because there were enough, even more than enough, didn't mean each sibling would get a cookie yes? Yes!

We ARE 'the kids' my brothers & sisters, the church, we have ALL the cookies,enough for everyone. Dare I say, more than enough. But has the truth of what God has called us to do permeated us to the point that we can not help but SHARE-OUR-COOKIES ???

What are you talking about with this cookie sharing nonsense?  Glad you asked for clarification. What am I trying to say is this, simply, we have more-than-enough but I don't think we really want to share out of our abundance with those that have less than nothing. Well, at least not in a way that actually costs us something.

If we are the sibling with 6 cookies here's what our giving may look like: 5 cookies for me,  1/2 of a cookie for 2 of my siblings, and zip for one or maybe a few crumbs... (not a great example but you kinda get the drift???)

Here's what I was thinking through today as I was baking & listening to the radio. I scanned the channels for some worship music and I heard "Let's count down together and on the number 1 you pick up the phone and call in your pledge (DJ commences to over-the-top countdown) 3-2-get ready, here's our # again, oh I feel like this is gonna be a huge pledge round, and  1 .... GO!!! Remember YOU keep us on the air, without you there is no WJZUS, there is no ministry, marriages will fail, teens will be depressed, kids will go without winter coats..." Serious heart felt legitimate begging to keep this station on the air. Now, don't hear what I'm not saying, I LOVE me some worship music but just roll with me on this...

Church, WHAT if we stopped being over-fed on spirituality & everything else here in America (and other over-fed countries) and began to starve ourselves a teensy (or whole lotta) bit so that 

OTHERS-MIGHT-LIVE?

I started thinking of all *we* (the majority of those who profess Christ) have in relation to those who have ABSOLUTELY nothing or as close to nothing as you can get & still stay breathing another day.

A few examples:

• Simple things like money to grab a Starbucks or Bold-Bean when the mood strikes
• Enough extra to do date-nights or girl's night out here n there
• Disney vacays OR Disney passes and multiple vacays a year
• A trip once a month or several times a week to Chic-fil-A or McD's
•  New clothes when the season changes or the kids grow(even if they are on clearance etc)
• Money to eat healthy or organic or a new diet to try out every month
• Hair cuts, hair coloring....
• Extra curricular activities for the kiddo--soccer, dance, martial arts, art or voice lessons
• Cable, Internet, Netflix....
• Extras that are pretty important, cars, multiple cars, cars that equal a house payment
• OR church stuff like buildings with A/C or rent money to pay for said building
• Church staff payrolls that  realistically could run a small country
• Church programs every-night-of-the-week, all the latest everything, a hi-def t.v. in every space, a coffee bar, rubber-bracelets with our catchy slogans, t.v. ads, insert here____what your church spends the budget on...

Think it over with me, when is our closet full enough, how many books do we need to own, how many toys can one-kid-play-with,do kids really need their own rooms, do we really need a t.v. in every room, if kids birthday parties cost more than it would take to send 5 kids to school for the year in some countries, if our family vacation costs as much as it would to feed a village for a year.... where does it stop? When do *we* have enough & put the brakes on so that-others-might-live?

I am personally doing almost every thing in my life in excess. The Reeves would not be considered rich by most in Americas standards, but I promise you the food we waste, the water we waste, the stuff we allow ourselves to indulge in, we are sitting fat!    MAJOR POINT---I am NOT saying things or doing things or enjoying things are bad or paying a church staff member;s salary is bad etc. What I am saying is, where does our being over-fed STOP & us being starved so that OTHERS-MIGHT-LIVE begin..... What are we teaching our kids about the King & His kingdom? That *we* deserve to be over-fed because we are HERE in the good ole USA & *those* people over there  deserve to go hungry/starve or watch their kids die from lack of clean drinking water or have zero education because they picked being born in the wrong country?

Darn it we deserve to listen to Christian radio & have date nights & watch our kids play soccer each week. After all we give our 10% to the church (well, let's be honest..most of us really don't). Or we will give 10% when we get our bills caught back up & for now we do give a dollar here n there to those beggars on the corner or we buy a turkey for that Thanksgiving basket. God knows our heart after all, when we moved to that bigger house or got that bigger car He knew we'd be tight for a while  .....  Really? I am just as guilty as most whom I have heard the stories from, but IF we are living in America & make more than 2 dollars a day we are among the richest on the planet. If we STILL do any of those things above (buy fast-food, take a vacation, do date nights that cost extra etc) and aren't concerned with GIVING to our God to help the least of these, have we been duped? Have we been lulled into a false sense of identity as believers by all the 'feel good' messages preached in our churches "I'm OK--You're OK"  "We are all just doing the best we can, God wants you to pay all your bills 1st & give the left-overs to Him" & "He WANTS you to be RICH, just give to our ministry and you will be BLESSED".or  "Every day is a Friday..."? Have we bought into consumerism and all-about-me-ism hook line & sinker and totally thrown out all the verses/passages/stories in HIS Word about what PURE RELIGION actually is, or what TRUE FASTING really looks like? OR crazy ideas like  that widows mite---giving lavishly out of her poverty? What if we are mostly just getting fatter & fatter & fatter while we contentedly cover our eyes to the others who are wasting away??? Do we really LOVE God & keep MOST of 'our stuff/money/time' & feel pretty darn good about that wee bit we share or begrudgingly give... And think about all this in terms of EVERYTHING, not just your moola....what about your time, your schedule, your days off, your stuff... Is it REALLY ours once we bet the farm on the TRUTH? Haven't we agreed to live counter-culturally? Shouldn't our lives look more like Jesus' who had no place to lay his head? I'm just asking for me because when I roll over in bed and complain because a child has crawled into my bed and stolen my cover..my next thought is of the orphan-head-of-household who is raising his younger siblings and sleeps on the bare ground each night. These thoughts keep me up at night right now, just being honest. I want God to ask me hard questions and I want to want to give Him the right answers...  "Whenever you've done it to the LEAST OF THESE, you've done it to me..."  Am I so full of me, mine, ours that I am missing Him? Missing those He put me here to see....

We keep most of the cookies & share a bite or two or maybe some crumbs...

What if we saw the plight of the orphan & widow, the hungry, the oppressed, the heartbroken, those in bondage, those with no cleaning water, no indoor plumbing, the sick...the LEAST-OF-THESE... the way those DJ's saw the need to stay on the air. Those jokers are DESPERATE to raise money, they talk like the world end if they don't get that 10000. dollars THIS hour to get THAT matching grant.. WHAT if we, those who profess to LOVE God started living in a way that TRULY cost us something? Why stop at 10% as your benchmark for giving, that's Old Testament Old School anyhow right? Why don't we get CRAZY & just ask the Spirit of God what He wants from us? Isn't it really about a LOVE relationship with Him anyways? Believing in the depths of our being we are here as part of a much-bigger-plan. No one should give begrudgingly right? Shouldn't we WANT TO pour into the kingdom of God? Wasn't our rescue from darkness to Light worth it? Don't we want to see others rescue????  Don't we want to live out the WHOLE Gospel & not just some life of half-way religion? Are we in a LOVE relationship with God or are we in a rules-based, what's the minimum He requires from me check-list??? I know I am GUILTY of living an over-fed life, I am GUILTY of teaching that to my kids... Is there blood on my hands? I think yes. I am not writing this to condemn, I am just putting thoughts & questions out there and seeking feedback....

"Where your treasure is--that's where your heart is"

Is He really my treasure? 

And do I want to be a part of His lavish-love-rescue-plan?

Reading Ann Voskamp's latest blog this morning is where all this came from, she is truly a prophetic voice to America in my humble opinion...  PLEASE.READ.HER.BLOG. She says all of what I am trying to say (& way more) much more eloquently and beautifully.

From her blog today...

“God gives the world enough of what it needs. All He asks is that we distribute what He gives.”

We know it, North American Church: Unless we distribute the manna, too many of us we will eat the maggots of too much and even more will eat the gnawing weevil of too little — and all of us will die."

 http://www.aholyexperience.com/2014/10/what-the-north-american-church-is-the-most-hungry-for/ 

God,   

Have You really given us all more than enough? What do You require? 

Show us... 

Teach us...

Lead us... 

Forgive us..

May we begin to feel how overstuffed we are & see the starvation around us and then may we move into action..

CHANGE US OH GOD

May my words here honor You Lord and be received in the way I intend them... 

 "When you give God your leftovers, you give God what you can afford to give and not what changes how you live." AV

 Could we really ever out-give God & what He has done for us?

More food for thought can be found in the book The Hole in Our Gospel & Radical among other amazing books.

Oh & yes, if you feel led to just share/help  those on your 'home-soil' because "We have people starving right here & kids that need homes!"  I say this, A. JUMP on it and  B. Let me know how it radically changes your life :) Everyone has a purpose, a mission, a call to sacrificially live..I bet Jesus, the Spirit of God will point the way/where to yours!

Does LOVE ever fail? Autism awareness & A Mommy's heart..

In an ever increasing burden to free my children from Autism/Sensory Disorders/Toxic Health I have begun the ever dreadful DETOX..

 This is a quick snapshot of my true heart yesterday as we walk this road out:

Prayer Journal Entry April 15th, 2013    *As it is written, as it free-flowed from my overwhelmed heart, after reading 1Corinthians 13 and in the midst of blaring worship songs...

Love always protects,  always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 Cor. 13

Love never fails.
God, I have to say that I feel like love does fail. I love my son but I most certainly have failed him.

I am a horrible Mom incapable of doing hard things for my family...

What do I do Lord? I truly long to give up---I long for this new baby to NOT have to be a apart of this nightmare that I am the cause of.... :(

How do I protect my son, my daughters, my unborn child...How do I trust?And how do I expect these kids to trust me?
How do I hope in tomorrow when I fear more of what I had today Lord?

How mostly do I persevere?
I want to quit. I want to surrender.

I wish I could believe my son would be FREE one day. (That all my children would be free)

Oh God be merciful to me and help me..give me wisdom..show me the path to take...

Lead me..make this about me and You, not about my selfishness..Be more to me than I can imagine.. Come to me please Lord.. MORE than my way, Your way..Not my thoughts, Your thoughts..

"there will be an end to this struggle but until that day comes, still I will praise You...and I will fear no evil, for my God is with me and if my God is with me..whom then shall I fear?"

Are you my Hope? Do You see? 

So today I have already experienced a few outbursts of anger, a few defiant moments..."I hate you, I wanna die, kill me now" etc..and not from Levi this time.. I desire with everything in me to see my family FREE and it pains me deeply to watch them trying to struggle out of this darkness.. And I do feel like a failure way more than not.. 

It has also (as my struggles usually do) sent my mind and heart wandering to what other Mommas must do to walk out of their family's darkness...
The Mom whose child has inoperable cancer
The Autistic children trapped with no words, no emotion, no 'good moments' on the horizon
The Mom who has to work daily just to make a few bucks because there is no Daddy and she does not have the luxury of staying home to 'free' her family
The family whose Mommy died this week and she leaves behind several small munchkins and a heart broken husband
And especially the Mommas who live on 2 dollars or less a day, mostly less than a dollar a day...and maybe there's a Dad maybe not..and maybe she doesn't have AIDS, yet..And maybe she can't sweep her floor because her floor is dirt, and she can't detox her children because she can't afford the medicine that would kill the worms in their bellies. And maybe only 3 of her 6 children have died already from treatable/preventable disease etc....
Perspective...
A Mommy's heart can be broke over and over again and for many Moms pain & devastation are the norm and they are truly desperate.. I pray today that as God allows me to be broken for my family He will burden me deeper to be a rescuer for the 'least of these' as well....

   
And I can see a light that is coming for the heart that holds on,
 A glorious light beyond all compare
And there will be an end to these troubles,  
But until that day comes
We'll live to know You here on the earth, 
And I will fear no evil
For my God is with me
And if my God is with me
Whom then shall I fear?
Whom then shall I fear?
(Matt Redmon, You never let go)

Trying to choose the TRUTH over the lies & fear today, to seek these things as posted by the AMAZING leader of Above Rubies that I read this morning :

" What will you be doing in your home today as you mother your children?

You will be caring, comforting, consoling, cheering, counseling, encouraging, feeding, guarding, guiding, leading, loving, nurturing, nourishing, praying, protecting, teaching, training, succoring, strengthening and sweetening.

What a beautiful full time career! Each one of these are powerful and anointed roles that come from the heart of God. You couldn't be doing anything more powerful. You couldn't be involved in a greater ministry than revealing the heart of God as you prepare your children for this life and eternity.

Be encouraged and inspired today, dear mother.

Love from Nancy"
 

Sometimes Autism whispers, sometimes it speaks, and sometimes it screams! {A snapshot of our life with Autism}

{“Hope knows that if great trials are avoided great deeds remain undone and the possibility of growth into greatness of soul is aborted.”  Brennan Manning, Abba's Child
 Post dedicated to a man whose truth has helped me walk this road out, thank you Mr. Manning! }

  April is Autism Awareness Month so in light of my 'yesterday' I thought I'd share another quick snapshot of the behind the scenes life of a family walking it out...

First of all a few FACTS:

Did you know ...

• Autism now affects 1 in 88 children and 1 in 54 boys
• Autism prevalence figures are growing
• Autism is the fastest-growing serious developmental disability in the U.S.
• Autism costs a family $60,000 a year on average
• Autism receives less than 5% of the research funding of many less prevalent childhood diseases
• Boys are nearly five times more likely than girls to have autism
• There is no medical detection or cure for autism

I spent this morning crying .. over several things but mostly over what Autism does to a family. If you do not have children with Spectrum disorders/symptoms/signs it is probably similar to hearing about how an alien on another planet lives. It will be insane to you, you will maybe think things like "Well, my kid wouldn't be permitted to do that Autism or no Autism", or it can't be that bad...(and my children are High-Functioning, can't even imagine if they were full blown Autistic..my heart truly goes out to those families...)

Here is a random jumbling of things from my 'yesterday'...

I home school, and  all of my children have at least one symptom of Spectrum Disorder (some have way more than others), which makes an interesting time.  Levi, my only boy, whom I would 'catch a grenade for' (yeah, I just said that), is my full blown Aspie. 

Side note/more facts 1st...Asperger Syndrome =  22 Main Asperger's Symptoms, highlighted are some of the ones that really fit him to a 'T' :

Loneliness, manifested in at least two of the following 4 symptoms:
- Problems with the establishing close friendship;
- Avoids big noisy companies;
- Has no interest in acquiring friends;
- Often prefers to be alone
Impaired social interaction, manifested in at least one of the following 5 symptoms:
- Refers to others only with his own needs;
- Awkward social relationships;
- One-sided relationship with peers;
- Difficulty in recognizing the feelings of others;
- Detachment from the feelings of other people
Impaired non-verbal communication, manifested in at least one of the following 7 signs:
- Limited facial expressions;
- Not able to read emotions in facial expressions of others;
- Not able to transmit information through the eyes;
- Does not look at others;
- Does not use hands to express himself;
- Gestures are large and clumsy;
- Comes too close to others while speaking
Poor speech, appearing in at least two of the following 6 symptoms:
- Violations of intonation;
- Talks too much;
- Says too little;
- Inability to engage in conversation;
- Idiosyncratic use of words;
- Repetitive speech

Sometimes Aspies are super-intelligent/gifted and there are some crossover signs that apply to both. Levi fits this. Some of his quirkiness is from his being gifted some from his autism. Referred to as the 'grey area' because it's hard to define them...
Inordinate ANGER/Violent tempers are another sign autistic children may exhibit! Good times!

Anyways back to my day, being a home school Mom I have not only a day full of 'normal household' things to accomplish I also am 90% in charge of seeing that the munchkins get an education. So, these are the kind of things that happen on a regular basis in my home, these are from yesterday :

~Give Levi a list of items to accomplish for the day. Must be incredibly specific. Minute details or he won't 'get it' or he will do the very minimum required to get by so he can right back to 'interesting stuff' like designing ten thousand Lego's on Lego Digital Designer.  *Clean guest bathroom = insignificant vs *Lego Batman, Lego Lord of the Rings, Lego Duck Dynasty = INCREDIBLY important!!
~Three days this week Levi refused to sit down and do his math with me, refused you say..how can this be? Can't you just take away a privilege or spank him or _______ fill in the blank with what you think would work.  Nope, Levi is so stubborn that it has very little affect on him..any kind of consequence. He would rather go with out TV and Music and get his way than to do his math when he is not 'ready to do it'. I have other children and a husband, I can't just sit and 'force' him to do school. There aren't enough hours in the day.. And did I mention violence? Pure scary ot of proportion meltdowns and anger?...How do you tell the difference between blatant defiance and autism Kim? Isn't he just being a brat? MAYBE, but when someone gives me a chart that differentiates it all I'm all over it!! Otherwise it's a day by day, situation by situation, trying to seek wisdom kinda deal. And boy do I fail miserably at figuring it all out!
~Kaitlyn and Chas were going to make dinner yesterday.. Levi's 1st meltdown at the injustice of the world came when he was not allowed to go with them to the grocery store. (They were taking Bella this time). 2nd meltdown came when he realized that I got them to get him GF Pizza for dinner because what they were cooking was not GF & he probly would never eat it..In my mind I am being kind, to him he has just been grossly mistreated because HE HATES PIZZA and everyone else gets something good.  What? since when do you hate Pizza?...

*Another side note, Autistic children usually eat a very very limited diet. Here is the list of what Levi eats at this moment (subject to change on a dime as you see above) :
GF bread + apples + apple sauce + white rice (if it is from a Chinese restaurant ONLY) + GF pancakes + sometimes GF pasta +  NON GF bread-sticks when he is allowed + biscuits (from out, when he is allowed) + French fries + tater tots/hash-browns + pistachios + straw berries if that's all-we-have + soda if he can get his hands on it + smoothies with everything I can possibly hide in them about 5 times a week + potato chips + ANY sweets pretty much + CANDY (if he can get his hands on it)  As you can see, MOSTLY white stuff, carbs, junk.. IMAGINE planning your families meals around all these amazing choices :)

Back to last night..after realizing he wasn't getting white rice from out he flipped out. He picked up my re-bounder trampoline and threw it across my bedroom, he began to physically try and hurt me, all the while speaking rage and violence into my life.. "I hate you, I'm gonna kill you, I'm gonna punch your belly (I'm pregnant), you're an idiot, you're not fair, you hate me, I'm gonna get a gun and shoot you, I hate Kaitlyn, I hate Chas (sorry Chas if  you're reading this, he doesn't really hate any of us..this is how Autism SCREAMS!)" (Sending my husband almost nightly texts begging for prayers is a normal part of my routine...Breaks my heart that I add that to Ray's already full plate...) So, I physically had to hold him for maybe fifteen minutes, while all 95 pounds of him wrestled to get away.. ( BTW I have had to hold down my kids about 50 times, sometimes for over 2 hours when they are in these fits of rage) I had to give him a quadruple dose of melatonin to get him to settle even a tiny bit..  Chas was very kindly offering to help me with him but I know that would have only enraged him further at the moment so I did what I do and bore the brunt of his rage until it passed...  (I am no martyr btw, nor trying to whine or complain..just trying to illuminate what a typical family with Autism may be walking out...)

He eventually settled and was content to eat some 'plain buttered pasta' and join us for our family movie.  When the movie froze I decided to go ahead and put the girls to bed so they wouldn't drive Kaitlyn and Chas nuts.  Levi however was in my room within 5 minutes letting me know his sister had abandoned him
 and he was broken hearted and scared to death. Another NEW thing for him is 'losing his big sissy'. They have always had a love/hate relationship in a way because they are so similar and him being autistic makes it very very hard to deal with many times. Sometimes she is the best thing for him, sometimes she just has to get away from him because they butt heads and he will-not-listen to her.  Again, an autistic child does NOT function like the average child.  Levi has MAJOR fear issues & he has major "I can only think about things from my needs perspective". His sister's new relationship is pretty much irrelevant to him. If it's not benefiting him he is unhappy. Now, let them take him out alone and spend quality time just doing what he enjoys--game on, super happy Chas is in your life kinda attitude. Kaitlyn's age makes her more like another parent at times and just as he gets very jealous of my time away from home, he gets very jealous of Kate's...
~We have JUST begun to try and implement bedtime routines that are quasi-normal again. After 15 moves in 2 years and 20 in 5or so he is a wee bit unsure of where he will wake up and  autistic children DO NOT require the same amount of sleep as the average kiddo.  I don't have the luxury of an 8-8 schedule where the kids are tucked neatly in bed and I am off to  a 'me time/free time wonderland' ESPECIALLY with my husband being gone over 1/2 the year at bedtimes. This means 5-7 nights in a row I am here trying to deal with frightened kids and autistic or spectrum ones at that. There is no quick bedtime routine... Sometimes I spend 4 hours, YES, 4 hours of my night attempting to get them all settled and asleep.. Many times I give up in sheer exhaustion...  So, bedtimes are a trial but I am determined to get them past the fears and into their own rooms sooner than later...
~So last night, at 11:30pm I finally had the girls to sleep and went to be with Levi on the couch (who had come into my room no less than 4 times to get me) and who had spoken evil words to his sister in the mean-time over her choice (which is a normal choice) to not stay downstairs with him. We attempted to have a serious talk about how it is NORMAL for his sister to be growing apart from us. That sooner than later she will probly' be gone for good.  DOES NOT COMPUTE, sorry he is NOT a fan, he is NOT getting it, he DOES NOT care, he will 'never leave' his family and just doesn't understand WHY his sister would kinda deal..  

AHHHHHHHHHHHH & ughhhhhh, breaks my heart that typical 'normal' family things are NOT the norm here. I wish sometimes for a 'normal' family'..where we all sat down together and ate one meal, where the smell of certain foods didn't send my son running to puke & hide out in my room with his food, where you assigned school and they just did it, where you tucked them in bed and read a story or two, prayed and walked out to spend several hours alone or with your husband or grown children, where HATE, anger, violence wasn't your 'NORMAL', where it wasn't a struggle to go to church each week, where it was easy to hang out with others 'just because' and know that your night wouldn't be interrupted because of a food choice, or someone saying the 'wrong thing', where you picked out an outfit and it didn't 'feel weird' or itch or squeeze 'my toes too much', where loud noises didn't send us into a full blown panic or meltdown.. (this is not just Levi, like I said he has full blown Autism but all my kiddos have sensory issues...) Where my week didn't consist of one or 15 meltdowns of my own, sometimes in front of kids, mostly when alone as I worry over them and regret my actions or lack there of, or hate that I can't get them 'well/healed'... They don't enjoy having these issues, Levi ALWAYS comes back after and is sad for what happened as is Bella.. They don't enjoy not being able to do 'all the normal things'...and it tears me apart inside sometimes..I struggle with being a good wife and mom because everyday is an unknown and I just want to live my life well and love God and my family and others well...  I could go on and on. But I will spare you that..   

(at this very moment as I am typing a fight erupts over the fact that Levi stopped a show before the theme song had finished playing. Isabella immediately went into one of her meltdowns. Picked up a guitar & wanted to slam it over his head. She is now in my bathroom screaming about how much I hate her and she hates me, she hates everyone, she is freaking out, now out and standing next to me balling up her fists and threatening me... All because 'the theme song didn't play through'---these are the quirky little things that literally send my kids into a fit of rage..can you imagine???..two minutes later, she is fine..wow, good times!)

ON the POSITIVE side:

Having a not so normal family has helped me to realize just how important it is to not take life for granted, to be incredibly grateful for the break troughs--"What, you WANT to sit with your sister and watch a show and NOT be alone?" HUGE!, to appreciate the powerful gifts God has put into these kiddos and how their relationship with God is tested and refined all the more because things 'don't just come easily' and EVERYTHING is a big deal.  Did you know when Kaitlyn was much younger she was hand picked by the Director at the Florida Ballet to be the "Up & coming dancer to watch out for."  Who would've known this painfully shy girl, who couldn't even stand socks to be on her toes because of the line, could now wear tights and kick butt at dance even tho she had just started taking dance lessons 2 years prior & would go on to get solos and dance in front of her city at the Florida Theater??? ... AND  then a few years later aiming for being a part of the company there one day she would choose to quit after agonizing over the fact that the morals (sin) of this Dance Studio did not match up with hers (Gods). She gave up a pretty huge thing because she wanted to live purely before God.  To me the victories like this are what make it all worth walking out such craziness with them when they are younger.  My prayer is for my Levi, who is a freakishly talented (from God) artist, that one day he will be able to move past his anger and uncertainties and fears and blow people's minds with his ability to capture things on paper...or computer... or whatever!  He is truly one of the sweetest most sensitive boys everrrrr and when those qualities shine I am in awe of him. I KNOW God can use him mightily... Same for each of my children.  The struggles are what have made me into who I am and I know if I had had the easy way out with 'compliant, super obedient, gentle most of the time kiddos' I would never have had to deal with a TON of junk that was stored up in my nasty angry heart.. They refine me as nothing else does and cause me to dig deeper and beg more of God than I ever would have if life was 'cake'. I do get truly depressed at times over this.. But as they reveal my own weaknesses to me and make me desperate for the HOPE of God and His strength when I would have long ago given up I know that I must go forward !! ... Unless you are the Momma of an autistic/spectrum family I do not expect you to even remotely grasp what our life is like behind closed doors and once in a while in the public eye...  I am jealous of you (with the sorta normal lives!!!) BUT I know that I am 'right here where I am supposed to be' because God saw fit to make me the wife and momma of this family. I am blessed beyond measure that my family puts up with me. I am blessed beyond measure that God has trusted me with a whole house of 'special power' children..they teach me and grow me in just-the-ways-I-need...  I may never really grasp or understand the 'why' of it all but I know that the struggles of today are nothing compared to what the reward will one day be....
  
(and as I end this post Levi is attempting to choke his sister (over an injustice) and she is now having to ignore him because he is going into another meltdown and she is attempting to control her own anger this time...all in a days work... and I grew up with 3 older brothers, I know about sibling rivalry but this is rivalry on acid!!! Scary junk goes down over here...oh and he had to have more GF bread and NO FRUIT because the fruit is not 'new enough' and he can NOT eat the apples I have because they have spots on them....oh, that's my boy!!! ) 

Thank You God for trusting me with these children...forgive me for all the times I fail them and my husband and You...let me help and encourage other Mommas to stay the course and know that they are JUST the right Momma for their blessings! Even when their blessing is trying to murder them ;)   YOLO!!!!

Surprise...this just in-------

So--this will not be my typical post.. ;) This is just a WOW, let me real quick grab a sec. to share a quick update about our journey~~~~
Ray has been approached about helping a new church plant...Ray has prayed and asked a few local Pastors/friends to pray & share wisdom..Ray has felt a peace and said YES...
(and by saying yes to this--by default he says no for now to other things)
I am in shock..this is absolutely crazy (but God is in the crazy business)..I am still trying to catch up to what all has just happened...
So for those of you just getting the news, you're in good company!
Please pray for us as this news, while great,wonderful, humbling, amazing..will also cause pain for us and others..it will unleash, as I am already seeing, tons of warfare...it will add another huge layer to our already crazy life ;)
AND I also know God is in the Kingdom business..it is an honor to be asked to help with a church plant...it has put a smile on my husband's face I haven't seen in a long time..we are 'wanderers' and we seem to just 'Go' where we can be used...we want to see His kingdom advanced and for folks to know about a Love that never fails, a Savior, a God who redeems, and that maybe the glimpses of heaven on earth will give people a Hope that one day all will be set right ....
I have no idea where this next step down the narrow road will take us but I am following my leader and my God and I know that His ways are not mine...that's where faith comes in & I want to recklessly live out all that He has for my family!!

Can you believe that's all I'm gonna type..surely a record!!!

~~~
I crumble at Your kiss and grace
I'm a weakling in the dust
Teach me how to cling to You
With all my life and all my love
Father come to me, hold me up 'cause I can barely stand
My strength is gone and my breath is shot, I can't reach out my hands
But my heart is set on a pilgrimage to heaven's own bright King
So in faltering or victory I will always sing

And on the road to beautiful

My seasons always change

But my life is spent on loving You

To know You in Your power and pain

You're my portion in this life
You're my strength now in my fight
And to You I pledge my heart
In the pain and in the dark I'll love You
I'll love You, I'll love You



I'll love You... 

Repeat:Repeat

Broken record. I feel like I am constantly saying the same things over and over and over... There is truly nothing new under the sun.  I want to give an update on our life/living/dying situation & as I re-read all my old blog posts I see that , well, there's nothing really new to say...   

So I won't bore everyone with a uber long post about the same old same old :)  I will just jot down a few random things and call it a night.. (Of course anyone who knows me knows I truly do not know how to 'quickly jot down' anything but it sounds good right?)

We are moving..WHAT? Do you find this hard to believe? When I say, after each move "If I ever have to move again.." HA, how many of you laugh and say, yeah right..   It seems that we are officially wanderers. With no clear place to call HOME. Each time I move I really want to believe it will work this time. That we will unpack and settle in and we will just BE.

So, since that doesn't appear to be the reality I get to live in at this time let me tell you what we are up to:

 1. As of tonight the wonderful (she says with a slight smirk) City Council has decided the fate of our City's Police yet again. My husband has a job --for now. 2. Since my husband still has a job he is eligible for off duty work as an officer. (We sometimes get notified of 'Courtesy Apartments' that are available to Police. These are apartment complexes that will give an Officer a reduced or free apartment in exchange for that officer providing 'Policing' for the community. ) We are as of this weekend going this route again. We have prayed and sought God's plan for us & this is the choice that gives my husband peace. We can no longer afford the town-home BECAUSE of all the repairs and moves. We are going farther and farther into a deep dark hole with each passing month ... 3. We are doing this as a major step of faith as we still need to rent or sell the town-home.   (Which has passed the air sampling tests)

The following is just a free flow of my random odd crazy thoughts about all this:

• I feel like we have really been learning that this world is not our home! With all the moves we have had to slowly learn  that some things are just not forever and some things are not worth getting to attached too. That just because I am in America or a Christian certainly does not guarantee me a 'dream home' or money in the bank. The less attached we are to the trappings the better. The more we spend on & are attached to worthwhile or eternal things, like. humans :) the better!!
• I feel like this will be a freeing thing for us as Ray has decided this time that once we leave we will never come back--no-matter-what. I want to believe that..I want to see this as a 'crossing a Jordan' of sorts. We can't go possess what is ahead if we are always looking back.
• I am looking at the coming year as a "year of pursuing holiness" for our family. In every way. I feel like we (or others--like the toxic home) have polluted our bodies and our minds....our lives in the last few years... and the rush of all these moves has left me ten steps behind all the things I want to be doing with my family. I want to see us examining every area of our lives and deciding if the things we are pouring into us are 'clean'..are they holy..are they pure???  I know that I am not the wife and mom I want to be and I see things in my children that I want to see changed as well. I am sure Ray would agree that there are things he wants cleaned up and purified --in him and in us.
• If we have moved roughly 15 times in two years and about 20 in 5 years then I have probably logged about 20 weeks JUST packing and unpacking ... maybe more.. can you imagine? This move has really hit me really hard thinking of all the time that has been stolen or given away to MOVES, time that I could have been doing so many other things with....  My homeschooling has suffered, my quality time with each kid has suffered, date nights have suffered...time to GIVE AWAY has suffered. 
• When I think of all the instability the moves have caused it really hurts my heart. Especially for Levi, he is one of the main reasons we make this move other than for the  financial. He has not slept in his room in the last 8 months more than a handful of times. He has serious fear issues and would rather sleep on the couch outside my bedroom than be upstairs where his sisters are. In the apartment he will have a bedroom that joins his sisters and is only a short walk to mine. No stairs!
• When I think of the financial craziness this has put us in it also makes me very sad. At this point it doesn't matter that Ryland never took ownership of what they caused ... What matters is us chipping away at the debt and our reliance on our own selves in times when we maybe could have had more faith and not ended up in such a mess. I hate that we are not able to pour into the 'others' of this world  as liberally as we once did and desire so much to do so again... I hate the thought that we are just not able to make ends meet on just Ray's income.  I hate that not once but twice we have had to drain our savings to pay for 'house stuff' when we had plans to surprise Kaitlyn with a car 'soon'..
• As I am packing I am looking around and saying HOW do I still have so much STUFF? What an indicator of our heart. Gross! I hate the things that 'keep me'. I want o learn to live with way less and yet have way more--way more of the important things. Moving from a 4 bedroom town-home with a 2 car garage to a 3 bedroom apartment with no garage is helping me to weed through and decide..Is 'it' really worth it? I want to embrace the 'wanderer' that we are becoming and be free to GO when God says GO... this packing a bazillion boxes is for the birds! 
• The apartments we are moving to are near the beach. We have been told for years that with our toxic bodies and Levi's Aspergers we need to try to live near the salt air. We just could never find anywhere at the beach that we could afford for a family of 6 that my husband would actually feel ok leaving me home alone at... It makes me sad that we weren't desperate enough to just live anywhere, safe or not, but I have to trust my husband and honor his heart.  This apartment should NOT be ours. We went and checked into the job (courtesy officer) a few weeks ago and out of all the apartments in the city it was closest to the beach (five minutes away) and really a nice complex. I told the Lord we didn't deserve it (we don't) and I would live wherever He wanted.  I was sad anyways when the manager let us know that Ray worked on the same shift as the current officer and she needed to hire someone on the opposite shift. Long story short the manager emailed us the next day and said the current officer remembered working with Ray in training and went to bat for him...he got the job. 
• I am going backwards now..to the statement about taking a year to pursue holiness. Moving to this complex will cost us. Ray will have to work on all his 'off duty' days. This will greatly limit our coming and going. No trips, no super late nights, no visiting family out of town without some major fanangling. Ray will have a much longer drive to work which means that much more time at home for 'just us'..me and the kiddos. We already miss him about 1/2 the year with his crazy schedule. BUT I know that pursuing holiness means discipline and seeking to do hard things... You can't pursue holiness that easily if you get to do whatever you want whenever you want. And when Dad's around life is so much more of a party.   We will also move away from some of our best buddies. We will miss being five minutes from them. It will cause us to take our friendships more seriously and not so 'for granted'... 
• Remember these are just the random thoughts..no particular order and no real reason for writing except I just wanna vomit it out and be done...so thanks for indulging me.  One of the things that makes me the saddest is we are moving further away from 2MM (2nd Mile Ministries, an urban holistic ministry we have been partnering with for several years now. My heart was screaming THIS IS THE YEAR WE WILL MOVE TOWARD DOWNTOWN AND BE CLOSE TO 2MM!!! all this past year. I just new we would be near Brentwood. And yet, we will now be farther away than ever. I can not convey the pain this alone causes me. BUT I must believe that the timing is not right, or not yet...
• The previous bullet is where I mostly am right now personally.. I am at a place where I am just trying to rest and believe that God will speak louder than our selfish desires..that IF and WHEN He is ready to move us into more of a missional/ministry life again HE will make it obvious and HE will make the way. I second guess what we are doing all-day-long. Did we somehow miss God, are we sposed to still live in the town-home, are we sposed to be moving to the Brentwood area now? Why can't He spray paint me a sign in the sky with bold colors..   This is the way Reeves family, walk in it_____!!! More than anything I just want to be pleasing to HIM and deep deep down I want to believe I will choose His ways over mine and I will live out what really really matters...no matter the cost...
• For now, I cling to the fact that He knows we need to get well..we will take this year..or as long as He allows to get CLEAN, to get healthy and whole again, to pursue holiness, to find out what really does mark us as HIS!!! I want my life to shout I am the King's and His ways are so so so much better than any I could contrive or you could contrive and HIS ways lead to LIFE and not death.. to FREEDOM and not bondage...to LOVE and not hate!!!  Do I falsely think we will be sickness free, sin free, burden free..no way... BUT I do have a feeling in my gut that this year will be a difference maker for the Reeves... I do feel that we will love God with more of us by the end of it.. I do know that if we choose to have FAITH and not doubt we can do anything according to His purposes for us !!!
• What will I find at the end of this year... NO IDEA.. If I could figure out God and put Him in a box and write up a little formula.. oh ho ho my friends, I would be the next "Make everyday a Friday" wonder... I have no desire to 'figure it all out' .. I just want to walk one day out at a time, placing a little more faith in Him than I do in me, or Ray, or Sheriff's or churches or City Councils or money.. I want to spend time with my kids enjoying simple things, I want to do art & dance with my beloved 2MM kids, I want to date the man of my dreams, I want to breathe salt air deeply!!! I want to worry a lot less and laugh a lot more! I want to sew, I want my 19 year old to teach me to decorate cakes, I want my son to not be afraid of 'things that go bump in the night' but to be afraid of not living for 'so much more' than what his little 10 year old body has already seen, I want us all to learn to play an instrument & sing really LOUD (my voice has been gone for may many months due to the toxic house), I want to share the HOPE of my God more recklessly and passionately than I ever have before.... I want to be closer to the path of adoption, I want to care more about what others need than what I want, I want o look back in one year and say Jam up--we DID it guys, we made HUGE changes, we worked HARD and we have come so FAR!!!   I want to feel CLEAN and healthy and whole and as close to 'Holy' as a family should be who are walking humbly, loving mercy, and seeking justice for the 'others' around me...  Hmmmmmm, I think that is all....

~~~A definition I found that I love and is the idea of what I mean by Holy, not holy like 'holier than thou'..THIS kind of HOLY>>>>~~~Holiness is the virtue by which we make all our acts subservient to God. Thus holiness or sanctity is the outcome of sanctification, that Divine act by which God freely justifies us, and by which He has claimed us for His own; by our resulting sanctity, in act as well as in habit, we claim Him as our Beginning and as the End towards which we daily unflinchingly tend. ~~~ 

(Disclaimer: please read my previous posts if you have no idea what I mean by our 'toxic home' and to see my heart in that I realize our reality is STILL nowhere near the reality faced by millions daily.. I do not live in the dump. I am not widowed, I am not trying to live on less than 2 dollars a day....  I am constantly reminded that there is ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS someone who is wayyy worse off than we are in many ways.. I want my joy and devotion to God's Kingdom to shine through in ways that would help the 'least of these'.. all my ramblings are foolishness in comparison and if all I do is clang around and whine and have no LOVE to spread I am worthless... so take my words for what they are worth, not much, may my actions shout much louder and be worth much more :)

No, this isn't the most well,thought out, grammatically correct, most-sense making blog ever..   I am full of excuses as to why, SUPER bad headache, gotta pack tomorrow, don't care, do care but too tired to care, need sleep ....  Anyways, I am grateful that you took the time to read... Grateful for any advice you may have on our goals for the year... 

~Special Delivery~ aka Where are we now??????

“Sometimes we need to know we’ve been delivered TO someone not just FROM something” So, I am sitting trying to think best how to give an update. (Thanks for asking by the way, don’t we all want to know someone is out there thinking of us, caring how our life is going..) So, my quote up top here is what is really resonating with me right now. We as a family have not yet been delivered from the Toxic nightmare (read earlier posts for the full story of what that means) BUT I know that one way or another ultimately we will be…whether here or Heaven..so I’m not here to give some wonderful update about our great health, a huge lawsuit win, or a great new safe home to move into.  But to know, as the quote says, that my focus can be on the Someone who delivers, rescues, redeems, has helped me to regain my perspective. I am a follower of Christ, I believe in the One True God and I have Hope because He is my Hope-giver!  HE, God, is what gives my life it’s purpose and He is what I have been delivered TO from oh so many things in the past. Often He tells us to ‘remember’, to rehearse in our mind, to recall the things He has done, to purposefully tell the ‘lies’ the Truth.

Many many many times, way more than I care to admit, I am forgetful. I don’t remember and I focus on what is in that moment stealing all my attention. Right now it is STILL the Toxic nightmare. This ‘season’ that is apparently not going to go away is constantly in the forefront of my mind. It sucks away wayyy to much of my day and it threatens to do me in…. I forget what all He has delivered me from and how much better my life is when my focus is on Him and things of eternal value.

So, before I give a quick update let me say this...mostly we are, as a family, trying to really navigate WHY we are here (on planet earth). What our purpose is, how we can best live that out & how we can move forward in a way that keeps our focus NOT on our circumstances or what we’ve been delivered from or need to be delivered from BUT on the Maker and what He considers important, valuable, needed…. Focusing on the Lover of my Soul & how I can grow in my relationship with Him & lead (with Ray) ,my family in loving Him with EVERYTHING!

 We have reached a decision that is incredibly terrifying to me as a mom but it is really the only choice we appear to have at this time. We are choosing to move home. We have been in the midst of more tests, more moves, more issues these last months and now the time has come to just call it quits….there is no more money to pour into a lawsuit that is ‘promised to take up to two more years just to really get started. It is promised to cost us more than the house is even worth to fight Ryland, it has now been promised that it will take thousands upon thousands to make the home ‘safe’ according to industry standards, for our particular family...and all that money could be spent in vain because there can be no guarantee that our ‘hypersensitive’ family won’t still get sick there.

We feel that at this time our best choice is just trust a family friend to come in and help us do a few ‘healthy’ upgrades to our A/C system and yet again just put the fate of our family back in this Ryland home (which is ultimately JUST trusting God no matter what....) Here is partly why…we are getting sick everywhere we move now. We are obviously not going to have an easy time of it anywhere at this point. As I sit here typing, I literally have a nose that is leaking like a faucet, a migraine headache, I am tired & I have the itching/scaling rash on my eyes. Many of my family’s symptoms have returned since living out of the town-home. Getting much worse since this last move from upstairs to downstairs. (I scraped an inch or more of sludge out of my A/C closet when we first moved in here...gross…an average family could probably live here and be fine..not the ‘freak show’ Reeves though!) And we are just tanked financially, Ray is working off duty jobs just to pay the bills & sometimes that is just a juggling act of who may not get paid ..yet..we are still committed to paying every bill that has resulted from this nightmare. We just can’t go into any more debt or sink another dime into trying to solve the overall problem from 'out here'..we need to be home and slowly making changes to the home as money allows.

I wake up many days and compare my crazy life to those who are in true poverty not just physical sickness/financial  bondage. I think of the statistic that every six seconds a child will die of preventable/treatable things. Those mommas would LOVE a way out, right this minute…many will not see an answer though. There is nothing that makes my family a special case. We do not deserve being rescued any more than millions of others today. Many more families than you know live in Toxic homes or have run from them and there is no ‘safe’ house waiting for them. Many have paid thousands upon thousands with no lawsuit win waiting on them to recoup all the debt. Many people today are homeless and/or jobless..there will be no rescue for them by days end either.

 I do not like the state of our dying, decaying, sick world...I do not like having a body that is becoming ever sensitive to everyday things that will always be around me. I don’t like, in fact I hate to think that my son will get sicker than he already is when we move back home… I also don’t like to think of kids with cancer, people starving, children with worms in their bellies and worms in their feet, millions being sold into slavery, kids being tied to beds and left to die because  they have ‘aged out’ of the adoption system usually because they have Downs or some other medical need that makes them 'unwanted' & even though my people (Christ-followers) profess pro-life,we are mostly pro-our life and sorta pro-birth (after the baby is here we don't really do anything to help or rescue them, right? Big finger pointing at myself first) …….there are many many MANY MANYthings I do not like…but I can’t blink and make it all ‘ok’ or GO AWAY.  There is not always a magic answer or maybe there is and we just aren't willing to see it or make it happen....I don't know.....

For us, like I said in the beginning it is more now about finding our family’s heartbeat…what spurs us on each day…we can’t keep focusing on this toxic nightmare, we can’t keep living in the ‘tempoary’..we need some kind of strong footing again, we need a purpose, a plan…we need to pour our lives into things that matter, forever things….we need to put our focus back on the Someone who we were many many times before delivered TO, He is what gives us our meaning…. I am thinking right now of the verse ‘What does the Lord require?’.. And He tells me in His word that He wants us to Walk HUMBLY, to Love MERCY & Seek JUSTICE…& I am thinking of what I learned this past week in my Mercy Triumphs Bible Study..'A person can live with pain a whole lot easier than they can live with purposelessness'....

When I think of that verse & saying.. I immediately think that if we can’t escape the decay, the dying, the people in need of rescue ALL around us..I think that we have more than enough to do to be the hands n feet of our God and that part of the ‘why’ in us going through so many battles is to SEE what it is like to wish desperately for a deliverance and wonder when one may come..

In our twenty plus years together Ray and I have walked out some pretty crazy times, we have ourselves been desperate many times. I want to be on the end of providing now. I am NOT saying we are going to be well all of a sudden and not have house issues. I am not saying my Aspie kids won’t have wayyyy more needs than I feel qualified to handle, I am not saying eating our way out of ALL this debt won’t be overwhelming. I am just saying we are in between a rock and hard place. We feel there is no other choice but to ‘go home’ AND at the same time I am saying the home will NO LONGER be our everyday all-consuming subject…

There are needs all around us, true needs, marriages falling apart, orphans needing care, kids needing to learn to read or paint or dance, hungry mouths needing to be fed….and on goes the list….WE (the Body of Christ) are supposed to be the one’s living out His redemptive story and helping Him BE the rescue plan for the world. IF that is our focus and we are pouring our lives into others then I believe we will find healing, maybe not the physical kind, maybe we will face way more sorrows as we move home, BUT I want my kids to know that we are living for Something and Someone that is much more important and worthy than what this temporary life is calling us to believe….

Sick houses, toxic houses, they are real…and many are suffering…we will more than likely now live out our lives with insane reactions and illnesses to ‘stuff’( I alone have MCS and just going to the grocery store or my friend's homes with candles burning makes me incredibly sick sometimes). Some of those reactions could be deadly. I can’t pretend to know what will happen as we move back home in a few weeks . I can’t pretend it does not freak me out..big time. I can just walk it out one day at a time…begging God for His kinda peace....one that can’t be explained….

So, that’s kinda it…no real answers..or true smoking gun to say exactly how all the mold spores got where they got (lotsa theories, lotsa possibilities but no 100% guarantee that would get us an easy win)…no BIG great ending to this story...no ‘happily ever after’ has come our way..no million dollar lawsuit and “boy did we showed Ryland” to report…

More questions than we have answers at this point, more fears for my kids as we move home ‘again’, more money spent on a home that may still make us very sick….

Sorry if this is kinda all over the place..I just wanted to get something out there in writing to everyone that’s been asking…

I know what we can use though..PRAYERS and loads of it…we are truly seeking HIS will above ALL, we are open to HIS plans and His purposes…we do not wanna make any mistakes and go even half a degree off His path….we covet your prayers..we want our lives to count & be an offering to Him for all He has done, to point others to the Hope that can only be found in Him…all of this will one day be gone, we want to store up our treasure in Heaven…we want to be found faithful as spouses to one another, as parents to these kids and hopefully more and  to be faithful to ‘whatever’ He asks us to do…..loving HIS redemption story in our life and ready for the next chapter..to Him alone be the glory!!!!