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Please pray with us for Jesse and Christina and “Baby Boo”

If the baby isn’t born before Friday, the birth mom’s doctors are planning to induce labor.

There is a chance that Jesse and Christina will only be able to keep this baby for a week because of legal matters. (It’s complicated!)

And Certain Man and I plan to head for Ohio on Sunday afternoon.  There are Yutzy family issues that desperately need attention the first part of the week, and Youngest Son graduates from college the latter part of the week.

I can’t begin to tell you how torn this Grandma’s heart has been.  I really want/need to go to Ohio.  I want to be with my husband, and I really want to be there for the week with his siblings/family and then to be able to attend to Grad things.  But this is our first grandbaby.  And if they need to give it up, this week coming up is all the time I might have to be his/her grandma.

I know that a week isn’t all that long, but we want to pour all the love and prayers and touching and hugs into that little one that we can.  I can’t very well do that from Ohio.  From the very beginning, I have sensed that the Enemy has plans for this little one, and not for “good.”  I long for you all to stand with us in praying for Jess and Chris and especially Baby Boo.  God’s ways are not our ways, and I know this better that I care to admit.  (Especially about now, I would like to be an advisor to The Most High).  And even if this baby isn’t ours to keep, we can pray that the Satan’s plans for him/her would be hindered.  That the love that has already been poured out for this family would provide healing for the pain, and that God would somehow stamp His Image on that tiny heart and turn it early towards a Heavenly Father. 

Oh, Lord Jesus, would you stretch your strong arm tonight where ours cannot go, and bless this little one? Bless the birth mom with peace, and with strength and comfort as the days stretch out.  Protect this baby for the good of the child, and for Your Holy Name’s sake.  May the days ahead be so touched with Miracle and Glory and Grace that we cannot miss your loving hand in our lives.  I pray that each of the birth family would sense it as well.  Enable us to serve you faithfully and with joy.  Cause us to rest in the knowledge that you are not indifferent to any of the people involved here — that you will continue to be GOD even when it seems like evil prevails and things are so confusing and sad.  We know that you have a plan.  Help us to be careful that we don’t hinder that plan by looking for selfish and earthly solutions.  Grant us the presence and comfort of the Holy Spirit. And through it all, Lord Jesus, May you receive the honor and glory.  In your Holy Name I pray, with Thanksgiving for who you are.    Amen!         

I fell so in love with “Three Little Birds” and “Who’s My Pretty Baby” that have been playing over on  www.xanga.com/purpleamthyst76’s site that Middle Daughter went on line and bought me the three CD’s that were available by Elizabeth Mitchell. I think I like “You are my little bird” CD the best, but I do enjoy the others, too.

Youngest Daughter had chosen “Three Little Birds” for the soundtrack on her part of her senior video. (Each Senior chooses a song and while it is playing, a variety of pictures from their life so far are shown) .  Anyhow, she chose it with Bob Marley singing it (which is okay–if you are 18, that is) but still a bit different from the version on my new CD. Even before I had received the CD”s, the song from purpleamethyst76’s site was stuck in my head, and I kept singing it over and over again until it really got on her nerves.

I didn’t realize how much I was singing it until one day she suddenly said, “If I hear one more family member singing MY song, I am going to CHANGE it!” I really didn’t want that to happen, so I immediately tried to not sing it around her — and that’s when I found out how much I was singing it. One day I even got out the beginning of the first words and had to quick make up a new tune and change the words to something that sounded authentic until I could get out of sight and hearing. Thankfully the choice is now turned in and there is no more changing it.

Whew! I can sing it again!

♫Woke up this mornin’, smiled at the rising sun.  Three little birds. . . on my doorstep . . .♫

What a great Easter Season this has been!!!  A week ago right now, we were feverishly trying to get ready to go to Michigan for Uncle Luke’s funeral.  In all honesty, it has been almost too busy to think about things in a proper manner.  I was looking (very briefly) at some sites this morning, and saw where someone had noted that Xanga just wasn’t all that “cool” anymore.  With Facebook, Twitter, Utube, etc. Xanga is on its way out (so “they” said, anyhow).

Stuffin’ Nonsense!!!

I would much, much rather read a xanga blog any day than surf over the facebook and read one sentence things that make me wonder, “What in the world was behind that???”  And those little one-liners:  “Sally Jones really, really doesn’t like it at all.”  It drives me crazy!!!  What doesn’t Sally Jones like?  Why doesn’t she like it?  It is something I could fix or pray about it?  Sometimes if I know the person, I go through all sorts of mental gymnastics that include things like, “Is that put there so someone will call and ask what’s wrong?”  “If I do call and ask what is wrong, will they think I’m meddling.”  “But then, they put it out there on the web for all to see, and if no one even pays attention, will they think no one cares?”  “But maybe they just want people to pray/feel sorry/be inquisitive etc., etc., etc..”

And then there are all those applications.   I don’t know what to do with these things.  They sound so interesting, but I can’t figure out what to do with them.  I don’t mind being related to everybody and their dog.  It’s been the story of my life.  But the pokes, the easter eggs, the flowers, the gifts, the jabs, the quizzes. Ah, the QUIZZES.  “Somebody in your town called you stupid.  Take the IQ challenge now and prove them wrong.”  “How Amish are you?”  “What woman in the Bible are you most like?”  There is no end to them, and even though I am quite sure people who send them to me may be slightly interested in the results, I am also just as confident that I won’t seriously hurt their feelings if I decide that I really don’t care which shakespearian drama character I am most like. 

My kids think that the solution to all my problems would be to just not even go on Facebook.  And that would be my choice, (probably) except for one thing — Where else will I get a chance to see fresh pictures of babies that are heartwarming and reassuring?  How can I not be at least a little bit interested in finding old friends?  I confess that I am, and it is no small source of delight.  And I do get brief glimpses into the lives of our five adult children and the three beloved in-laws . . .

But I can’t put my heart on Facebook the way I do here.  It doesn’t seem right somehow to expound on the people I love and the choices that make up my life and the lives of the people who live and laugh and love at Shady Acres.  There’s never enough room.  I don’t get the feeling that people are really interested, anyhow, and my precious Xanga Friends might not get a chance to go over there and look things up.  They just might be like I am — enough facebook handicapped to be stymied by the whole facebook thing.  I really get concerned that I am missing important things in the lives of friends when the oldest message on my opening page is only three hours old, and I haven’t really checked things for a couple of days.  Oh, dear!

I’ve been wanting to write a big post on here about our eventful trip to Michigan last week, and maybe I will get around to it yet.  I am experiencing a rather difficult day with my knee, (it felt like something went a little haywire in there yesterday at church and it has been complaining ever since).  That makes me feel unable to really get the trip together into a neat, little, entertaining package and give it the twist of solemnity and hilarity that made it THE tip to remember.  I hope to have a chance to do that later.  It was a time that could warm the coldest heart, and I wouldn’t have wanted to miss it under any circumstance. 

It is time to change a washer and to get this knee up again.  Blessings to all my dear, dear friends in Xanga-land.  Let’s use Facebook as a servant, and keep it in its place!!!

Oh.  Right.  Xanga, too!

We spent two days going.

We spent two days coming.

And we were only gone three nights.

What a wonderful, wonderful time.

How special to see so many people in my family.

How refreshing to meet old friends.

How blessed to be able to celebrate the life of a good man.

But oh, how wonderful it is to be safely home again.

I am suddenly very, very much ready for my very own bed.

Tonight, in far away Michigan, my precious Daddy’s twin brother, Luke Yoder, passed over into Eternal Life.  We knew that it was going to happen.  Those who march to the drummer of lou gehrig’s disease are not known for escaping his insidious clutches.  Tonight the disease claimed another body, but it didn’t/couldn’t claim the spirit.  Those who knew and loved him know for certain that he is home free.  With his papa and mama, with his brother John, his sister, Ruth, a growing number of in-laws already there, a baby sister he never knew, and  his twin brother, Mark.

Memories are wonderful things.  They crowd into your mind at the strangest time and divert attention needed somewhere else.  They hover at the back of your consciousness and influence moods and choices and actions.  They climb into bed with you on cold nights and warm the coldest hearts.  They ride in the car, and raise their heads at places where you learn to finally expect them — parking lot at church, Philadelphia Zoo signs along the interstate, and always, always, a small graveyard beside an aging brick church along a Delaware road.

Memories are running wild through my head tonight.  I remember that when we were little children, we knew that, even though our Daddy dearly loved his large array of brothers and sisters, that there was something special about Uncle Luke.  He would write letters to him, and Uncle Luke wrote back.  His large, distinctively impressive handwriting would nearly fill the front of a regular sized envelope.  In the early years, it was rare for them to talk on the telephone, but I remember that there were special occasions when there were phone calls made.  One Christmas eve, in particular, I remember.  It was before we remodeled the old farm house, so it almost had to be the Christmas of 1957.  It seemed like a wonderful Christmas to all of us.  Clint (7) and Nel (5) got this hen with a target on her side with a set of dart guns.  When you hit the target with the dart, she would lay an egg.  I was four and I got a rubber doll.  I forget what Markie got.  He was 18 months.  We sat on the floor of that old living room and life couldn’t have been better.  I remember Daddy suddenly deciding to call Uncle Luke and while I certainly don’t remember any of the conversation, it seems that it was at that moment that I realized that there was this special person who was so important to my daddy who lived far away and his name was “Uncle Luke.”

He has been an asset to almost everything he has endeavored to be involved in.  He has benefitted his family, his church, his community, the larger church through his conference, and through many unknown avenues, the world.  He was an encourager, a manager, a minister, and a friend to many in addition to being a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a grandfather, an uncle, a cousin, etc.  The ripples go on and on, and we will not know until eternity where they have left their mark.  As an extended family, we have been prodded, encouraged, amused and sobered by his frequent missives to our family forum, the Yodelings.  He would end his words to us with the same admonition almost every time, “Make it a good day.”

His family has had a tough six months.  There have been hard decisions, difficult things to do, heartbreaking declines that they witnessed and they have hung in there and they have also finished strong.  They were there tonight when he went gently, quietly into the presence of the Lord he loved so much. 

He had fought a good fight.

He had finished the course.

He had kept the faith.

“Well done, Good and Faithful Servant.”

If only I could see where he is tonight . . .

Thirty Years ago today, Daniel and I were having a momentous day.

For one year, 11 months and 15 days we had been the recipients of a “tenuous” blessing.  I say “tenuous” because much of the time we didn’t know if the little girl we loved and counted as our own would ever truly be our legal daughter.  Even the morning that we dressed her in her prettiest dress and headed to downtown Columbus for the adoption hearing, we knew that there was one more thing that could raise its ugly head to stop the proceedings.

As our caseworker and lawyer sat with us in the waiting room, I overheard the lawyer say, “There wasn’t any appeal filed, was there?” 

I remember thinking, “That is exactly why we hired this guy, wasn’t it?  To take care of the legal aspects so that there could be no going back?” 

Our caseworker was the best.  She said, “Nope.  There was none,” and I could breathe again.

It was so simple, once we got to this place.  We went in, there were some questions, and a pronouncement by the judge, and Christina Elizabeth Yutzy had a new name, (officially, at least) a new Daddy and Mama, and even a new birth certificate.

We came outside of the courthouse into the city smog and we told her that we were going to lunch to celebrate.  “Where do you want to go, Christi-girl?” we asked her. “We’ll go anywhere you want!” 

There was only one place that would do for such a celebration.  “I wanna go to McDonald’s!” was her instant reply.  I remember Daniel and looking at each other, both of us were hoping for a more grown-up place, but it was her day, and so, McDonald’s it was!

I remember sitting in that McDonald’s, looking at her bright eyes and listening to her prattle.  Just as I knew that all of life and death is in the hands of our Heavenly Father, so I knew that something wonderful had changed in the known future of us as well as this beautiful little girl. 

“She’s our to keep!’ I remember thinking in that McDonald’s that day.  “She’s ours!  No matter what happens, no matter what comes, she’s our very own.”   I cannot begin to describe how that felt to me after almost four years of being a foster parent, and also the loss of three much wanted babies through miscarriage and fetal demise.  There was this quiet wonder, a calm and a peace that settled into my heart.  The greatest satisfaction of all was the knowledge that God had intended all along for this to be our child.  The time leading up to that day had been marked by so many uncertainties, reversals and shoddy legal work, that it seemed impossible that she would ever become ours.  I remember standing in my sunny kitchen one afternoon in the Ohio house that had heard her childish laughter, her first words, her first prayer, seen her first steps, watched her grow from little more than skin and bones and lethargy to this curly-haired youngster, full of life and song, and thinking, “Lord Jesus, if they take her away from us, I cannot stand it.” 

We knew how dreadful separation was.  One after another, children that we loved for a time had gone on to other homes, or back to their parents, and a part of me died every single time.  When I thought about being bereft of yet another child that we loved, and one that had become so much our own, I couldn’t stand it.  I remember standing there in the kitchen, crying myself almost sick, clenching and unclenching my fists as if I could somehow, in the opening and closing of them, will my heart to hear the voice of God to my heart.  I kept thinking I heard Him saying, “Who do you choose, Mary Ann?  Do you choose Me and My Will even if it doesn’t include Christina?”  I thought that I would throw up, it was so intense, and I didn’t feel like such a question was fair of God to ask of me, but I could not shake it off.  And I remember exactly where I was standing, and the peace that flooded my heart the minute I said brokenly to Him, “I choose You.   I choose YOU!  Whatever comes, whatever happens, I choose you.  But whatever comes, whatever happens, Oh, Lord Jesus, please take care of this precious child.”

And over the next months, miracle after miracle happened until that wonderful day in April, 1979 when we finally “got her papers” and she “could stay for ever and ever!”  (Her definition of what happened that day.)

Sometimes it seems as if we, as a family, but Jesse and Christina especially, are facing the same sort of thing.  If you could remember to pray for them and to pray for “baby boo” and for the circumstances surrounding the upcoming birth and the decisions that need to be made.  I don’t want to say too much here, except to say that the God of miracles is still God.  He will do what is best.  Sometimes He seems to take a LONG time.  Sometimes things go suddenly, but I still want to trust His timing.  Even when it isn’t mine.

He is God.  He is worthy of our Trust.

It’s a wonderful rainy morning in Delaware!
We are in great need of rain,
This is most a most welcome development!

I need to bake bread.
Rainy days make the best bread.
I am so pleased.

And the gimpy knee is
enjoying a pretty good day.
In spite of the weather.
I am ecstatic.

So I am going to bake that bread.
Resting in between, of course.
Ah, what sweet bliss I feel
To be able to do it.

And tomorrow is a
“Fifth Sunday”. 
There is something so heartwarming
About church potluck.
Life just gets better and better.

“Lord of all,

To Thee we raise

This our hymn

Of Grateful Praise.”

I would like to ask you all  to pray for my mother SweetMama1129.

I was just beginning to believe that I was going to make it through this day (yesterday was hard on me!) when the phone rang and it was my Sweet Mama’s Cancer specialist from St. Joseph’s Hospital in Baltimore, MD.  I spoke of the battery of tests that she has been having in preparation for the followup, and yesterday morning, before Aunt Ruth’s funeral, she had taken herself in for some blood work and a CT Scan with contrast etc., etc., etc., because she thought she could manage herself since my knee was not up to par yet.  “I’ll be just fine,” she stated stoutly over my protests.  “I’ve done it before, and I can do it again.”  I should have insisted that someone go with her, but I actually forgot to call one of my sibs until she took off on her own.  She called me around 11:30 and was home again and everything was done.

At the meal, following the  funeral, she came and sat across the table from me and she and my Aunt Gladys were talking about the fact that Aunt Gladys had once claimed to be 15 years younger than Mama (she is, actually, only 3).  Aunt Gladys thought it was a good joke (seriously, it WAS) and Mama was acting like she had her nose out of joint over it (seriously, she probably did!)  Anyhow, I looked across the table at the two of them, and my heart gave a sudden lurch.  My Sweet Mama looked really off color to me.  I asked her how she was feeling and she said, “I’m really tired.  That stuff I had to drink this morning did not agree with me, and I don’t feel very good.”  She went home before too late, and when I talked to her later she reiterated that she was tired and not feeling very good.

Fast forward to this morning when Dr. Ziv Gamliel himself called me and said that the tests yesterday showed pulmonary emboli and that he wanted her taken immediately to the hospital.  He wanted a duplex scan done, he wanted her hospitalized for a couple of days with an Heparin IV drip and then he wanted her to be on coumadin.  He wanted to talk to her general practitioner to see if he could get her into the hospital without going through the emergency room, but if that didn’t work out, he faxed me the report and wanted me to take her straight to an emergency room with the report in hand and to insist that his orders be followed.  Mama’s GP is getting elderly.  He is from Maryland, and he really didn’t want to oversee this, so Dr. Gamliel said to just take her on in.  We had sorta’ planned to go to Seaford since that is where the testing was done but we really don’t know any doctors there.  We discussed it as a family, and the siblings sorta felt like Milford might be a better choice.  Then Deborah suggested a pulmonary care doctor that she sees when working in ICU that she has a great deal of respect for.  She contacted him and he agreed to be the consult if we went to Milford emergency room. Milford is closer for most of us, so that is what we decided to do.
 
It’s been a long day.  Mama was admitted to her room (205) around six this evening.  The initial report is that the duplex scan was negative for any blood clots in her legs.  They started IV heparin (**edit:  My eldest brother, Clint and his wife Frieda were in tonight and reported that she has had a shot, but that they haven’t started the drip — in any case, she is receiving treatment.) and it will be a “wait and see” situation.  Mama is very tired, but she isn’t in any distress;  no shortness of breath, no pain, just very, very weary.  A few weeks ago, she had a cough that we thought was connected with a cold, and she told me this morning that she had coughed up some blood at some point, she thinks, but isn’t sure.  The doctor says that the cough could very well have been from these emboli.
 
After Dr. Gamliel called this morning, I called my sisters, Alma and Sarah, and it suited Alma to drive us to the hospital.  It is hard for me to not do the things for Mama that needs doing, but God made us a family, and my siblings are more than willing to help out, and I needed them so badly today.  We got to the hospital and things went pretty well until around two, and then I crashed.  Christina and Jesse brought me home to my LaZboy and some percoset and I left Mama in the capable hands of Alma and Nel and Rose.  We are very pleased with how things are being handled.  Mama seems to be accepting that this is necessary at this time and the doctors and attendants are going out of their way to humor her.  (It never ceases to amaze me how young, handsome men bring out the charm for my 80 year old mama!  It makes me laugh.  I mean, even Dr. Gamliel.  He shakes my hand properly, but he HUGS Mama with joyous abandon.  They just all love her . . .and I’m not blind.  She is still pretty!)

And that is the news from Shady Acres and places round about.  There are many things to occupy all our hands and hearts these days, and much for which to be thankful.  Let’s not forget how good we have it, and to remember the many, many less fortunate than we are.  It is easy for me to forget — when the  knee is aching and I’m so anxious to do the things that need doing, and I feel like I am somehow being neglectful of things important . . .

But really, I have it so good.  And I am quite certain that God knew I needed a strong reminder that things are really never under my control anyhow. 

“Ah, Lord Jesus, tame this restless heart!”

Various and Sundry

Some of you are aware that this is the season of testing for our Sweet Mama and the ongoing followup visits with various and sundry doctors. 

Yesterday was the day for the one that she was the most anxious about.  It was an EGD, checking her esophagus, and looking at the scar tissue left from her surgery four years ago.  When the doctor came into the waiting room, and motioned me into the hall to give his report, my heart sang a little song of joy.  Everything looks great!!!  He said that he was very pleased with the insignificance of the “stricture” at the place of the scar tissue, and that he won’t need to see her for another year.  They did their usual precautionary biopsy, and we will check back on that, just to be sure, but all in all, it looked great.

The reason my heart sang a little song of joy at being called into the hall is that he talked to me there in the hall.  There’s a private room that the same doctor had taken a family into just before he did Mama’s EGD and was there for a long time.  When the family came back to the waiting room, there were tears, uncertainty and general despair.  While I was waiting for Mama to come out of recovery, I had a chance to talk (semi-privately) to an elderly family member (a sister of the patient) and she was composed and friendly.  We chatted about numerous things, and then I said, “I’m sorry, but you got bad news today, didn’t you?” 

Her face fell, then she said, “Yes, we did.  I guess it doesn’t have to be fatal, but it doesn’t look too good.” 

I said, “You know, four years ago, my mama went back there and came out with terrible news.  She had esophageal cancer.  And I guess, at the time, they didn’t really think she had much hope, either.  But she has done so well!  We were through radiation, chemo and surgery, but she came through it all really well.” 

Her face lit up.  “I saw her go through here,” she said happily.  “She does look real good.”

I said, “Can you believe she’s eighty?”

“You’re kidding!” she scoffed and at that very moment, the doors opened, and they pushed SweetMama out on a wheel chair.  She was smiling, chatting with the nurse that was pushing her chair, her hair was neat, and she was dressed, ready to go home.  “That is hard to believe!” she chuckled.  “She looks real good!”  And I thought so myself.

I’ve been thinking so much about life today.  How the happenings of life keep on happening.  It’s a hard time for alot of the people I love right now.  And so often, there are not happy endings to the stories — at least as we see it.

There are many Bible words that help me at a time like this.  But knowing that all through the many things of the Bible that I cannot understand, God had a plan and even when it didn’t look like it, and even when no one believed that He did, He STILL DID, comforts me more than I can say.  And we can pray.  That’s me and you and everyone.  For each other.  For ourselves.  And I believe that a great many of us do.

We’ve had a tradition on the Yoder side of my family that a cousin’s choir sings two songs at the funerals of the aunts and uncles.  Usually a song that was specially picked by the family of the particular individual, and then the song that was my Grandpa Yoder’s favorite, #207 in the old LIFE SONGS, “If on a Quiet Sea.”  I was thinking tonight about the simple message of that song:

If on a quiet Sea, towards Heaven we calmly sail
With grateful hearts, oh God, to thee, we’ll own the favoring gale.
With grateful hearts, oh God, to thee, we’ll own the favoring gale.

But should the surges rise and rest delay to come,
Blest be the tempest, kind the storm which drives us nearer home.
Blest be the tempest, kind the storm which drives us nearer home.

Soon shall our doubts and fears, all yield to thy control
Thy tender mercies shall illume the midnight of the soul.
Thy tender mercies shall illume the midnight of the soul.

Teach us in every state to make thy will our own.
And when the joys of sense depart, to live by faith alone.
And when the joys of sense depart, to live by faith alone.

This is not the time of the “Quiet Sea” for me and my family, it’s true. 

So many of you have asked about my knee, and it seems rather inconsequential in face of what so many people are facing, but I thought that I would still update you.Today at my follow-up, I finally saw the pictures of my bones, and was able to listen to the doctor without too much fog on my brain.  First of all, I am grateful for all the concern over whether I have been doing too much.  I haven’t.  In fact, in light of everything, I guess things are healing fine.  But the truth is, there is big trouble in there, and I was told that this might be as “good as it gets” until the knee is replaced.  

WOW!

You can believe that I am praying that it isn’t so.  And there is a good chance that things will suddenly turn around and for no real reason, I will do okay.  This is what I AM PRAYING FOR!!!  I don’t think it will always hurt like this, as the doctor did tell me that the procedure they did has a 3-4 MONTH recuperation time.  Which means I have no business being discouraged about the pain at 19 days.  Given the fact that there is still some swelling, bone pain from the procedure, and the fact that the area that is most messed up is the weight bearing surface on the inside of my knee. 

HOWEVER!!!  Now listen closely, all you bossy people out there.  I am allowed to put all the weight on it that I possess.  I am to use the crutches or a walker when the pain makes it hard to walk.  I am to use them whenever I feel a need for stability, and so you will sometimes see me with them (and I probably need them at that particular time) and you will sometimes see me without them (and I am not disobeying any orders or doing something that is hazardous — it’s probably just a good day.)  But I am to practice walking, and there are a few other things that they hope to try if things are still in disarray in another month.

Please pray that I don’t waste the lessons that I am supposed to learn in these days that cause me to become restless and impatient.  Pray that I will be a ready pupil of the Grace that I can certainly talk well enough about, but find hard to put into shoe leather —  er, um, recliner leather.  Pray that I will Listen to the loving counsel of my husband and family, but that I will not be lazy about doing what I can and should do, even when it isn’t comfortable.

And may I say one more time:

If God’s grace isn’t enough for days like this,
it really isn’t enough.
And I have found that it is enough!!