Reflecting ~

One of my projects that I have said I wanted to do for many years is to copy my journals to the computer. There are a few reasons for this ~ I have been keeping journals since I was pregnant with the twins ~ yes 46 years this week!! That’s a lot of journals. I have carried them with us ever since the first one I wrote. I don’t know how many I have but I do know it’s a lot. They have been carted in trunks, boxes, totes and now they are stacked under the kitchen sink, tucked into a cupboard and two small totes in the shed.

I actively started copying my journals to the computer since April 2021. I started with the journal “Every Day Blessings.” The date I first wrote in that journal was 3.6.16 – my dad’s birthday! I don’t know if that had anything to do with why I started the journal that day ~ it just was. Today I am up to 9.4.17, so about 18 months worth of writing YET it has been over 2 years that I have been working on this project. As you can see I haven’t been too consistent in this project ~ but I hope I am now in a place to be more consistent at working to get these journals copied. At least that is my goal.

As I copy pages my mind goes back to the situation I was in at the time that I was journaling and I am amazed that issues from 2016 & 2017 are still coming up for me. I truly must be a slow learner 😊

I then looked at today’s date…August 7, the day before my/our life changed forever 46 years ago!!! In reality doesn’t our life change every day, sometimes slowly, sometimes like a race car going 100+ miles per hour!!

Forty-six years ago I was a very young 19 year old, married for almost two years and expecting our second & third children. For those that didn’t know, we lost our first baby boy when I was just 20 weeks pregnant. We don’t know why he didn’t survive but we do know and trust that God knew what he was doing then just like He still knows what he is doing today! And will know what he is doing tomorrow and the next.

August 6, 1977, we had moved in with my mom, step-dad and sister to prepare for the birth of our twins and a move halfway around the world to the Netherlands. Saturday night, we were sitting on our bed, watching Your’s, Mine & Ours! We were laughing, it was almost 11pm and I had been running to the bathroom, it seemed like every 5 minutes. Just as the movie was ending, I went to get up and felt like I had either wet the bed or the bed (waterbed ~ do you remember those?) had broke. Alas, my water bag had broke…I was 32 weeks pregnant and it was way too early for them to be born. I can remember the events of that week as if it was happening again right now, from rushing to the hospital late in the night on Saturday, to the doctor coming in on Sunday, saying I needed to stay pregnant till Tuesday to give the babies the best chance possible. Late Sunday night hearing a nurse say to someone in the hall “ma’am I don’t care if your daughter has her baby in the hall but we are not using Delivery Room #1 until the twins are born.” I remember looking at Ron and my mom and saying “I think she is talking about us.” And we all shook our heads in agreement.

Early in the morning of Monday, August 8 our precious baby boys were born. Royce Alan, weighing in at 4 lbs 8 oz, 18″ long – my first recollection of him was a chunky dark haired little guy. Ronald James, Jr (nicknamed Jamie) was born 3 lbs 12 oz 19 1/4″ long ~ my first recollection of him was that he looked like an 80 year old man, all skin and bones! We were excited to have two babies yet so scared, not knowing if one or both of them would even survive. As the week continued certain things stand firm in my mind…having a lady who was making out the birth certificates tried to tell me I couldn’t name the boys the way we wanted to and my crying and my doctor coming into the hospital room, telling her to leave, spending time calming me down and the next day, a different lady coming in and we completed the birth certificates.

My being released from the hospital on Wednesday, August 10 and heading straight to the hospital EVEN though Ron told the doctor he would take me home…UH. I DON’T THINK SO. I NEEDED TO SEE MY BABIES!! And so we headed to Sunrise Hospital to see those babies…we didn’t get to hold them, but we could touch their little hands and gently touch their faces.

Late in the night, getting a call from the hospital and the nurse telling my mom we should come and see the babies. Royce was not doing well. And so in the middle of the night we made a trip to see the boys. They were so small. I remember standing next to Royce and Ron and I holding hands and praying over him. Then standing next to Jamie and he grabbing Ron’s finger. Precious memories we will never forget.

Thursday, August 11 is full of memories, time standing still and speeding at the same time. We got a call from the doctor wanting to do a blood transfusion on Royce ~ he was a very sick baby. Then waiting and waiting and then getting the call “if we wanted to see Royce alive, we needed to get to the hospital.” Ron driving, running red lights, my mom holding my hand, all three of us quiet in our own thoughts and praying. Arriving at the hospital, being ushered into the NICU unit and being told Royce was not going to make it, my mom asking for a chaplain, the chaplain came or maybe he was already there but the four of us stood around Royce’s bed and my mom telling me, to tell Ron to ask the chaplain to pray and as he said “Lord Jesus, love this little one….” and then Royce passed. He was three days old. It seemed to take forever and yet happened so fast.

We were then ushered into another room and the nurse brought Jamie into us, me sitting in a rocking chair, clinging tightly to Jamie and just praying that he would be okay. And we give thanks that Jamie was okay, we had some health scares when he was little but this week he celebrates his 46th Birthday!!!

and

A lot of life has happened in the last 46 years, we have added two daughters-in-love and four grandsons, one granddaughter and one granddaughter-in-love.

We have lived full time in an RV since 2006 and traveled to many different places in the US, worked in Texas, Missouri, Oregon, Texas, Utah, Texas, North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina, Kentucky, New Jersey and back to Florida.

We have experienced good days and hard times, we have celebrated weddings, said good-bye to many but most of all we have felt Poppa God each and every day in our lives.

One thing I realized while copying from my journal that though the state may change, the job may change, our neighbors may change I deal with many of the same issues wherever we have lived. And that’s what spoke to me today ~ below is copied from my journal, August 30, 2017 ~~

“Lord help me to study your Word and not just give Lip service to you.  Lord as we start a new week here at work, help me to be the positive these boys need.  Help me to love them, for who they are.  Lord most importantly help me to put on your armor! Your strength, your love.  And to also take care of me!  Making good choices: eating wise and to love myself the way you love me.  Help me to love and honor Ron, to speak kindly to him and to lift him up!  Lord, help me to focus on You in all my dealings with the boys, co-workers, supervisors.  Lord, most importantly help me to love you the way you love me.

Lord help me to be quiet, to hear what you want me to hear.

Desires ~ it’s a fact of life that you don’t always get what you want.  There is a difference between having everything you want and being satisfied.  God doesn’t promise to fulfill your every craving, every want, but if you live life in relationship to Him, you will be satisfied ~ fully satisfied.”

I still struggle to make time to be in the Word
I still struggle with finding the positive in my daily life
I still desire to love others for who they are
I’ve been working on putting the armor of God on each day
I still struggle with making good food choices
I still struggle with believing I am loveable just as I am
I still struggle to focus on God and His desires for me

Yet I think back to a conversation with my Bestie, she said remember that even though it feels like I am always starting over, I am actually taking my past experiences into each new day.

And I realize though the “issues” appear to be the same, that’s not true

I am in the Word more often than not
I do see more positive in my daily life
I continue to love others
I’m learning to put the armor of God on each day
My food choices are more better than not
I’m learning to love myself a little more each day
I do focus more of each of my days on Poppa God.