Mommyhood Unrefined

Once upon a mountaintop, three trees dreamed of what they wanted to become when they grew up. "I want to hold treasure," the first tree said. "I will be the most beautiful treasure chest in the whole world!" "I want to be a strong sailing ship," the second tree said. "I will be the strongest ship in the world!" "I don't want to leave this mountaintop at all," the third tree said. "I want to grow so tall that when people look at me they will raise their eyes to heaven and think of God. I will be the tallest tree in the world!" One day three woodcutters climbed the mountain. With a swoop of the first man's axe, the first tree fell. With a swish of the second man's axe, the second tree fell. With a slash of the third man's axe, the third tree fell. The first tree rejoiced when the woodcutter brought him to a carpenter's shop, but the busy carpenter was not thinking about treasure chests. Instead his work-worn

I've been telling myself since this all hit the fan, that the Lord will equip me for each new realization as it comes. New sobering realities of our limitations surface each day. This brings both of us to a new level of surrendered each time. Today was one of those days. Ryan had two absent seizures at church today. When he comes out of them, he loses his train of thought and gets very angry and verbally abusive. It was in front of the pastor's wife. It was in front of our sons. My heart broke in service singing a hymn. The name escapes me, but the gist of it was longing to be home with our Lord. It occurred to me in perfect clarity that, until Ryan meets Jesus, these anger outbursts will continue. This is something that has been going on a long time in our marriage. It's ripped us apart. Now that we both have an explanation, I am thankful it's not a character flaw in him. Regardless of that relief, how on earth am I going to continue to deal with this heartbreak on

Sunday marked two weeks since the seizure and I haven't had the gumption to come home until today. I can hardly face our house, the bathroom, our bedroom. I've been diagnosed with PTSD and the boys are still having night terrors. Nonetheless, today was the day we needed to come home, especially now that we've all fully recovered from the stomach flu. My mom came with me to help unpack and get all of us settled before Ryan got home from work. We had started on a large painting and popcorn ceiling removal project in our guestroom before Ryan's event happened. We left the room in pieces. A couple from our church completed our project and painted and re-textured the ceiling for us while we were gone. They also had straightened the whole house. Everything looked different than the way we left it, which was surprisingly exactly what I needed. I started unloading food into our fridge and my eyes locked onto our "To do list" on the whiteboard. Ryan's list

Something has come to rock our lives in a big way. Unfortunately, this is not happy news by any means. I will attempt to foreshadow what our life was like before twins. Here is t he beginning. Ryan, my husband, was 17 when he suffered a concussion playing football with friends 8 years ago. This concussion led to the discovery of a tumor on the frontal right lobe of Ryan's brain. This tumor is called an oligodendroglioma. No one knows when this tumor started to grow, likely in adolescence, but it was by God's grace it was found. None of us would have known it's existence otherwise. Ryan did not have any obvious side effects and continued with routine MRI follow ups. Unfortunately, the tumor started to grow after we got engaged in 2009. The growth led to the need for brain surgery. His first brain surgery took place in January of 2010, six months before we said "I do." Not all of the tumor was removed. That brings us to now. I've been very lighthearted in my pr