This week I’ve been enjoying the emphasis I’ve put on this holiday season. I’ve been focusing each day on giving God an Advent gift by being kinder to others. I was doing pretty well on responding with love and kindness to Kory and Kaleb, until yesterday. Kaleb pitches a fit at times when things don’t go his way. His explosion of anger is contagious so I usually respond in kind. He gets a consequence for his outbursts, but I realized yesterday, I don’t. Of course, I have to ask for forgiveness, but I know my behavior grieves God as much as Kaleb’s behavior grieves me. I was humbled. Motherhood has definitely impacted my spiritual life.
I’ve been waking up each day with the words of my friend, JaRon, going over and over in my head, “Now, what you goin’ and worryin’ about tomorrow for? None of us have tomorrow. All we have is today!” She said those words when she knew her days were numbered. Each day since then, I’ve been focused on just being thankful for this day, because truly, it’s all we have. This whole thing with Kory’s heart has made me even more aware that life should be lived just one day at a time, and rather than occupying my mind with all the “what ifs,” I’m just thankful each day that today is a good day. The Bible says we are to be anxious for nothing, and that God doesn’t give us a spirit of fear, so I just don’t go there. I know whatever direction God leads, He’ll be there with us all the way and it’s during our times of having to rely on our faith that we get to know God all the more. He loves me more than I can ever know but it’s times like this where I get to see just how that plays out. As I wrote to my step-mom this week, “It would be a very scary time if I didn’t have my Jesus.” But thankfully, we are at peace.
Kory saw the cardiologist this week and he was “very disappointed” Kory still has angina pain. Something is obviously not right, he agreed. It could be a clot forming, but he didn’t think so because Kory is on blood thinners. It could be an artery collapsed just outside the edge of the stent, but he didn’t think that was it either because of where he placed the stents. I could be another artery that needs stenting – he said he saw one that was somewhat clogged but was sure it wasn’t vital. It could be, as he hopes, a problem with Kory’s esophagus. He said spasms in the esophagus can sometimes cause angina pain and perhaps Kory had that problem all along. Who knows. He will have a stress test next Friday to see how the blood is flowing in his heart to help determine where the problem lies.
Personally, I feel like we had a genuine miracle with the stents even being able to be put in last month. Whenever I’ve seen miracles, I see that Satan tries to steal the blessing, so my secret desire is that the angina is just a phantom symptom trying to get Kory to doubt he was healed and that they will find nothing wrong, but that’s just my ever optimist self wanting the best in a situation. Of course, the logical course of action now is that he will need bypass surgery if somehow the main artery is indeed blocked, but I’m not even thinking about all that until I see what God does between now and Friday. We are praying for another miracle, but we know God has a plan and He is in control, no matter what happens.
Kory hasn’t given any of this much thought at all since he’s been obsessed with painting watercolors. He has done ten paintings of the same scene in an effort to try to control the colors and image. He’s not been to bed before midnight all week, often up til 2am just sitting in the basement painting. I’ve never seen him so dedicated to any project in his life. I bought him some professional quality paints for his birthday, but he doesn’t want to use them until he feels more comfortable with his craft.
I was in LaConner this week and stopped by the Norwegian bakery there to talk to Linda, the owner. She’s a big fan of my column and loves to talk about Norway. I told her about Kory’s line drawings and his watercolors so she asked if she could sell some of his work in her store. She said people are always coming in and wanting to buy something other than the baked goods, so I took her some cards I made and some 11x14 enlargements of his prints of Norway and she now has them for sale. Kory is still shocked that people like his stuff so well. I’m sure we won’t get rich on it, but it’s nice he has something to do that is easier on his body than carpentry. I’m already out of wall space in our house so I’m not sure where we will hang his work, but it’s certainly frame-able and worthy of display.
We finally got the tree decorated last night and the rest of the house prepared for Christmas. I’ve yet to finish the Christmas newsletter or get the cards printed (I had to make them myself this year because Kory was too busy with his own creations.) I’m taking things at a much slower pace though so I’m not in a rush.
Kaleb is looking forward to his birthday next week, but I haven’t done much to prepare for that either, so I hope he’s not disappointed. It’s hard to keep him focused on school work with the hub-ub of the holidays and his birthday thrown in there. He finished a big mid-term test for his Johns Hopkins Honors Chemistry this week and he didn’t do so well. He’d been pulling a 93% in the class and studied well for the midterm, but didn’t finish taking the test before we took a break for Thanksgiving, so when he finished it up this week, his mind was on other things (like his upcoming birthday). He got a 70% which really disappointed him and his teacher. It lowered his overall grade down to 81%. Johns Hopkins flunks students if they are under 85% so he has to be very intentional the second half of this course if he’s going to make it. I felt horrible for him because on one hand, the stuff he is studying is way beyond anything I am capable of, and certainly light years ahead of kids his age, so the fact he missed half a point here and there on the test seemed so cruel. He got 2.5 out of 3 points on many questions, meaning he understood the concept but failed to write some little fact, so he got dinged. I am so impressed that he could even answer questions like “Why do the crystal lattice formations of ionic compounds shatter when struck in a particular way?” or “What is the difference between atomic orbitals and molecular orbitals?” How about – “What are the three principle types of intermolecular forces?” or “Give an example of a triprotic acid.” He just rattles these answers off like some little professor. Why he loves this stuff is beyond me. I’m just thankful my only involvement with him for this class is writing the check to pay for it, and it’s a six month class, which he’s trying to do in three months so I only have to write one check, not two. He’s so thoughtful.
One day at a time, I say. Just takin’ it one day at a time.
(PS - the photo is of some of the kids in the debate class I teach. We all went to Lights of Christmas together on Thursday and some of them interviewed the talking Christmas tree - Bruce the Spruce.)
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