DAY 9: PRAISE YOU IN THIS STORM

We are on day #9 / travel day #2.  Today, it's me, Courtney, taking my turn again to share how Mom is doing.  The first night in the hotel went well, as soon as we got into our room Mom pulled the curtains shut and picked out where she wanted to sleep.  It wasn't more than a few minutes before she got into bed, pulled the covers (LITERALLY!) up over her head and shut her eyes.  Mom uses a c-pap to help her breath through the night.  As we were getting it ready for her, we realized we forgot distilled water.  My Dad and Uncle Gary went on an adventure to get some. Almost an hour went by before they returned with the water.  We got the c-pap all set up and tried to get Mom to wake up to put it on.  She DID NOT want to wake up to put it on (understandably).  When we finally woke her up she pretended to be sleeping, so we would leave her alone...when we realized she was faking it, my sis, dad and I broke out laughing, then from under the sheets came mom's giggle! (Which made us only laugh harder!) We were all rolling!!!  Finally, after quite a long time she cooperated enough to let us get onto her.  After that, she slept right through till morning.
We started the day with a successful morning.  We all took turns getting ready as Mom watched the news and drank her morning coffee.  Then I worked on packing up the room as Dad and Jess helped Mom get ready for the day.  As soon as she was done Mom was ready to GO; but she was patient with us as we packed the car and sat down for a quick breakfast.  Mom walked through the continental breakfast set-up at the hotel to check out what they had.  She selected a hardboiled egg and a pastry for herself...No hospital food today! Once we were done eating we were ready to hit the road.

Mom slept a lot of the way today, but in-between her naps she played rummy with Jess, played with her puddy, looked at pictures, and I read to her from Crazy Love.  We made pit stops about every 2 hours.  We ate at Subway for lunch.  Mom walked right into the line.  We ordered her tuna, but she pointed out a few toppings (after a plain tuna sub last night, she knew she wanted a little more on her sandwich).  The next pit stop was Starbucks for her frappuccino.  The Starbucks really perked mom up.  For the final 150 miles the trip today I road with Uncle Gary.  I called to check in on Mom and found out Jess had her writing out the alphabet, numbers 1-10, and our names!  Nothing like a little therapy session in the car with your daughter!

After we arrived in Bloomington, we were ALL hungery for dinner.  We found a nice and quiet resturant to go eat at with Mom.  It was SO nice to have her with us out to eat.  We ordered her a tonic & lime, her favorite drink.  Before she tried it she put the lime in her mouth and it was MUCH more sour than she expected... she spit that out, but she loved her TONIC and ate a good dinner.

Reflecting on the day with my sis, something we read in Crazy Love really stuck with us.  Francis Chan, author of Crazy Love writes, "Many spirit-filled authors have exhausted the thesaurus in order to describe God with the glory He deserves.  His perfect holiness, by definition ensures us that our words cannot contain Him.  Isn't it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?"  We are really resting in the perfect holiness of God as we ride through this Storm.

Also in Crazy Love the author explained some characteristics of God:
1. God is holy
2. God is eternal
3. God is all-knowing
4. God is all-powerful
5. God is fair and just

That is a lot for us to take in, but it reminds us of WHO God really is and that He is with us now.  God is bigger than what we are going through and He is going to use Mom's stroke for His glory and to make us stronger in Him.  We can, and will, continue praying for Mom’s recovery and healing fully back to the Lynn Besch we all know and LOVE.  We will praise HIM in this storm.

We heard the song, Praise You In This Storm, but Casting Crowns a few times today on the drive and it really hit home today. LISTEN HERE:

Where have you seen God's grace in your life today?