Sacrifice

This past month has been wrought with hurdles and difficult days. It has taken me a week to recover from all that has gone, my body has craved sleep furiously.

The middle of October began with the stomach virus and diarrhea that never ended. Truthfully, I thought it would never end. Paul and Leah had intermittent vomiting and diarrhea for a month. Josiah only had it on two separate days, and Justin and I were spared the virus' wrath.

The vomiting happened mostly in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning. Paul had it the worst, about every three days, just as I thought it wasn't going to come back, it would happen again… vomiting several times without warning and then the diarrhea. There was so much laundry… the carpet was cleaned and cleaned…. the bathroom was sprayed with vomit more times than I can count when he didn't make it. Oh it was not pretty at our house. I even had the doctor test their poop and all the tests came back negative. (Gathering a poop specimen is probably the grossest thing in the world to do. Can you imagine being the lab person having to test poop all day. No way could I do that!) I missed 3 Sundays at church because of sick kids! We did not sleep much because both Justin and I were up with sick kids every other night between Paul and Leah. It was hard!

Finally, it's over, but then we were hit with colds and I took Paul to the pediatric urgent care this past Thursday because he started screaming that his ear was hurting. He screamed and screamed. He requested to go to the doctor, he was in that much pain. He screamed all the way there, the whole time while waiting, and asked that the doctor make his ear better the second she walked in to the room. He had an ear infection and 5 minutes after they put the numbing drops in his ears, he felt better. Thank the Lord for numbing ear drops!!

In the middle of all of the month-long intestinal troubles with the kids, we had a pregnant guest come live with us and her 2 year old daughter, for 2 weeks. She was also on bedrest because of high blood pressure. They stayed in our guest bedroom in the basement.

"whatever you did for one of the least of these 
brothers of mine, you did for me" - Matthew 25:40

She was in a difficult situation and I knew without a doubt that we were to welcome her in our home and love her and serve her and be Jesus to her in a tangible way. I am not going to lie, it was hard, I was exhausted, but there was so much joy and peace in my heart in being able to love her in this way and be obedient to the Lord's call for us love.

"A new command I give you: Love one another. 

As I have loved you, so you must love one another." - John 13:34

 "By this all men will know that you are 

my disciples, if you love one another." - John 13:35

When someone outside of your family comes to live in your home there has to be sacrifice. Sacrifice of what I want to do, sacrifice of doing things like we always do them, sacrifice to be quiet when a very tired pregnant mother is sleeping downstairs, sacrifice to adjust our lives around someone else's needs for a while, sacrifice to change another child's diarrhea diapers and give her baths and rock her to sleep and sit upright all night with her on your chest so she can breathe cause she has a cold and is scared because her momma isn't there because she's in labor with her little sister. Sacrifice. It did me a lot of good. I spent a lot of time praying for strength, energy, and wisdom. He was Faithful. There was peace, amidst the chaos and noise and messiness in my house. We felt an honor that God would use our family in this way. 

 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. 

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, 

as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms. 

- 1 Peter 4:9-10

This whole month I've been taught what it means to sacrifice and serve with joy, even when it's not always fun. JOY =  a state of mind and an orientation of the heart. It is a settled state of contentment, confidence and hope. I hope I can apply what I've learned this month. I don't always serve my family with joy, it becomes something I feel like I have to do, I do things grudgingly and get irritated and slam cabinets and grumble under my breath. I need to shift my focus to serve with joy and do my work as a mother as if I am working for the Lord. It is only then that I will not get overly angry about cleaning the pee off of the bathroom floor for the 5000th time.

*I wrote this a few days ago, and it was scheduled to post tomorrow. Ironically, Josiah woke up vomiting in his bed and here I am again, on the couch and holding a bucket for my child while he's sick. My strength is gone, Lord I need yours!