Category: Blog

Peace out 2021

I hope you all had a happy Christmas celebrating our Savior!

I have been blog MIA for awhile now. I am sorry for the crickets my faithfuls. Praise the Lord for Facebook. Seeing everyone’s sweet pictures and adventures blesses me! And then disqualifies me from any fun or ambitious mom award. Good thing I am not competitive in this arena. Only all the other ones.

Basically because my brain isn’t as helpful when it comes to writing as of late. I write something and it doesn’t make sense or I forget how to spell easy words like children exercise, etc. Lots of excuses.

This year has been good. And hard. Reflecting on the very many years prior, I may have previously echoed a similar sentiment. Many sweet memories and moments have overshadowed the ridiculously hard and painful we have been fighting through. I truly do not know where we would be without a deep faith and love for my Jesus.

First…I am going to share some happy.

FYI, I have no clue how to format this all organized.

2021 in review.

Now the hard.

My dad spontaneously developed acquired hemophilia with factor 8. Super duper rare. He was bleeding internally and externally to the point he had over 20 transfusions. He also has dementia which is so sad. He has been so sweet. The crazy Italian has been tamed. And after 12 weeks in the hospital  his health is no longer at a critical level. Additionally, Chad and I had the pleasure of spending 5 days clearing out his apartment. Have I ever shared he was an organized hoarder? Legit. FIVE days people.  

December I had my 3 month post-op MRI. Truly was expecting a high 5 and sticker. Unfortunately this piece of work tumor has decided to double down in the growth department. She grew ALL the way back and then some. Think summer bod —-> post Christmas muffin top.

My oncologist put me on a new chemo infusion for a different kind of cancer. This particular one landed me in the hospital with a headache I only wish on child molesters.

Side note: I had the mother-load of hospital suites with an all you can eat situation. Like a cruise ship in bed. Not unlike my other stays, but still, I felt all sorts of special.

There is no specific chemo for my kind of tumor. Because that would be easy! My body is allergic to easy. 100%.

This specific treatment is risky as you cannot bleed or have surgery within a month of beginning or ending this treatment. Well three days after the first infusion, my surgeon called and said I needed to have surgery as soon as possible. That would have been helpful to know going in. But….God’s timing is perfect. God’s timing is perfect. God’s timing is perfect.

Due to the extremely aggressive nature of the tumor, (it is growing at a much accelerated rate), he has given us some news that truly we are all struggling with.  The only option to give me a chance to continue to fight this thing is to remove it completely. Remember how a portion of it is inoperable? Well, there is no other option but to go this route.
To say this a high risk surgery is an understatement-which is why they never could safely resect it.

Friends-we desperately need your prayers. Surgery is 2/1.

Please pray for:

-God to be gloried above all else. His will to be done and that our hearts would align appropriately.

-the surgery to go better than we could ever imagine; for no brain damage, preserved eye sight, no brain bleeds. That He would safely bring me through.

–for my surgeon, for wisdom, and a God given ability to remove it!

-for my sweet husband and family. This is not easy on anyone.

-for an uneventful and full recovery.

-the tumor doesn’t progress to a grade 3. 

We most importantly need to praise God for His perfect and kind character. In doing that, I need to share God’s sovereignty and love in this all. Had I had surgery right away, or tried to, I would have had a very sick surgeon who could not operate anyway. He caught the covid. I would not have had the time to mentally prepare. I would not have been able to have my long awaited city of hope appointment that would confirm the course of action my surgeon and oncologist have both recommended.
See? God is already at work. Even though there were some uuuuugly tears happening in this corner, He has calmed my heart in a tender and unbelievable way. Thank you all for letting me lean on you. Looking forward to seeing this bring glory to our living, almighty God.

 

Love,

Michelle

***if you share on FB, please let people know they might need to physically type the website aintnosupermom.com into their browser. Apparently facebook doesn’t like that I use God’s name more than 3 times.

Hi friends. Cheers to a NEW YEAR! Praise the Lord we all made it. I hope you had a joy-filled peaceful Christmas and New Years. If you had a break with kids, high five. You did it.

warning: longest post ever.

My prayers for this next year-for all of us reading, (myself included), are to pursue Christ and His agenda more aggressively. I have been told soft goals are immeasurable. I.E. I want to eat less chocolate. What is less?
This is a friends issue btw. Solid goal: I want to eat chocolate 1 x a week vs. 10.
Again. A friends issue.
My goal-read Gods word each day-write down the application of what I read. Serve or meet needs of at least one person/ family a week. Also, I am going to commit to reading one book a month because I am what you call an overachiever. Lastly, workout, or “challenge” my body. Due to the jiggle in my wiggle, it is time to get all south county and sweat. I had to type that out and express the goal.

There are so many praises. As in: no way to share the depth of answered prayers as they have affected so many lives on many levels. My gratitude transcends hugs, words, notecards for all your prayers. I am not saying prayers change God’s will, however, they sure encourage the display of His power. His mercy. His perfect and good character.

Rhonda is thriving. She is amazing: Walking, eating, pushing herself to do tasks and new things each day. She is going to be back to good by the grace and love of God. It’s not just her he has shown great kindness to, we all enjoy this miraculous recovery together and we get more of her.

Our Pastor reminded us this last weekend more time on earth is not the hope or end game. Happiness is not the goal. Our prayers and hearts need to be set on eternity, what happens when we take our last breath. Our purpose needs to be focused on Christ’ plan, not only our hopes. This was a good reminder that while we are encouraged to approach the throne with confidence,  our thinking and prayers need to align with His will for our lives. Submitting to His plan for us and what He chooses. His will is us sharing the gift of Salvation, the gospel.

That said, I want to share my hope. For this life and eternity to follow. How exactly have we gotten through the seemingly impossible trials? My faith. God’s promises and ultimate gift.

God is our one and only God.
He is our Creator. God is Holy, perfect in everything, in every way. Because He is perfect He is perfectly just. He must be separate from us and punish sin Hell: Eternal separation from His love, promise of perfection and a life forever void of sin, temptation, pain and suffering. We cannot exist with Him unless we are perfect and can live out a sinless life. Spoiler alert-we can’t.
He IS LOVE. His love is most beautifully displayed to us through the gift and sacrifice of His only Son, Jesus. He gave up His position in Heaven to live out the perfect, sinless life, be crucified and resurrected. Our sins are cancelled out due to His perfect obedience and should we put our faith and trust in the act of His sacrifice on the cross and resurrection, that it is ENOUGH. We too can be given the gift of forgiveness and Salvation: an eternity resting in perfection and joy. The response is naturally to turn away from the sin in our life, and live our lives for His glory, submit to His plan.

If this is not your heart, I beg you to dig deep and truly consider what you believe and why? Are you sure? There is no judgement on my end. just pray for God to reveal Himself to you. He isn’t going to show up all genie like and freak you out. I promise. He will put this on your heart, in your mind. My desire for you all to share my hope, faith and trust to a very real God. Thank you for reading my heart.

Surgery is set for January 21st at 7:30 am. I received an upsetting call from the first one who said the surgery was not a good idea. He strongly encouraged me to not move forward with surgery with anyone and proceeded to appeal to me by listing every single reason this was an extremely risky surgery and how could I do this to my family?

All the fears I had given to God and graciously been given peace about. This stirred up good ole…you guessed it-fear. I am going to perfectly real with you all, in my humanity, I am fighting anxiety big time right now. I mean FIGHTING. It’s a physiological experience, not necessarily a conscious one. I trust God’s leading me to this next path. I know He is faithful. He is trustworthy. He is with me at all times! I wake up, heavy chest, panicky mindset over nothing. Lets’s not even talk about trying to fall asleep. Breakfast? Did I order toilet paper? The important things in life. When I dare to begin to entertain the thoughts of what if? Have we used up His mercy? Can He really redeem this next step and bring me through? OF COURSE He can. But if He doesn’t-is my faith big enough to submit to His will? I am totally disappointed in myself. What an ignorant thought considering all He has given us! All I just shared with you and every single ridiculously generous answer to prayer. I promptly pray, confess, and remind myself of the reality of where my faith lies. And that my faith is big enough to trust Him with every detail.  Most of what I am anxious about is-Am I doing everything I can to relieve the burden where possible? What can I do to make this next season manageable?

Exhausting.

This is a constant look into the depths of my heart and redirecting of thoughts. Chad has endured a very challenging life trial with his mom, now me. Our parents share this burden as well. I think we are all running  on empty navigating seeking and petitioning Gods wisdom and will in my future as well as Rhonda’s. Please continue to pray.
-protection over our hearts and marriage
-Chad-steadfastness, energy, peace
-Children-That their hearts would be at peace, That their faith would grow, and can just be children through this next season

-that I would heal quickly and without complications so that He will be glorified and His goodness would be on display and I can get back to the roles He has assigned me

-for the surgeon, wisdom focus and that God would be at the center of every piece of this surgery

-anything else you can think of

I love you all so so much. Whether or not I know you, I love you. thank you all for your prayers, acts of love, care for myself and family. I will just never be able to share my gratitude.
xo

Fair warning-I am all over the place and you can bet your socks all below is much of the same.

Tears and tears and more buckets of tears. I am so overwhelmed with ALL the love. Friends, friends of friends-friends of friends of friends…your love is God’s love and it is so real I can taste it. Thank you my blessings!

This is who and what you are. I am a feeler. Whatever positive or negative purpose this serves it is what I am. Not who, I will not be defined by that, but it is how God made me. Whatever you feel deepest for or about, the way I feel now trumps that 1000%. This experience, seeing God’s work, His love on display so evidently through this trial makes every headache and sacrifice worth it.

This tumor…as hard as this reality has been through the last 10 years, has given me so much more than what it has taken. How could I ever know God’s love for me without feeling His presence, love, spankings, love, wisdom, love, protection, love and then His love yet again?

We hear these convicting/ convincing/ compelling sermons from time to time about our purpose, or gifts, or our mission field. I think in the middle or end of the sermon we respond with a heart of use me! Anything God!

And then maybe we don’t follow up on that. Speaking for myself here also people. I can encourage you from experience, do not be afraid of how He chooses to use and bless you. He equips and empowers you to do and endure what He chooses to use you for.

My prayer for all of you is to see God, not me through this trial. That you would see Him for who He is. The Creator/ our creator/ your creator. That you would accept you are His. With that you would trust in the blood and resurrection of our Christ as payment and promise of eternity. Friends, we are His-God has complete control and protection of our souls here on earth and and forevermore.

I give them eternal life and they will never perish and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all and no one can snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.

-John 10:28-30

This truth is the core of my peace, my comfort, and my complete ability to surrender. I don’t know that I could ever have made it to this point without knowing and trusting in His sovereign nature and everlasting love for me.

Onto the what if’s.

Ugghhh. I never play that game. NOT.

Guilty.

Unfortunately those are our, my, natural response to circumstances we truly have zero control over. We have to turn those fears, (because let’s be honest that’s what they are), into the opportunity to go back to who God says He is and His ever faithful promises. This is what deepens our trust and faith.

So…what if I make the wrong decision?

He is God who promises to give wisdom.

If anyone of you lacks wisdom ask God who gives generously to all without reproach and it will be given to Him.

James 1:5

What if I lose everything?

He is a God who provides. Manna anyone? Jesus?

What if I am in danger/ might get hurt?

He is a God who protects.

I lift up my eyes to the hills.

        From where does my help come?

    My help comes from the LORD,

        who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;

        he who keeps you will not slumber.

Behold, he who keeps Israel

        will neither slumber nor sleep.

The LORD is your keeper;

        the LORD is your shade on your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.

-Psalm 121:1-6

So many verses and promises to help ease our anxious hearts. I share these with you because these are my truths. And this is what I turn to. I pray you will too…we all will be in this corner or the 57 other kinds of corners Satan tries to put us in. We need Him!

While I don’t hope that you all are in THIS situation, I do wish this blessing on everyone. I pray for deepened faith, love and prayers where you can experience God as I do. Truly this is one of the greatest gifts I have ever been given. My family and friends included. This is their trial too.

Thank you again from the bottom of my my lovelies. I am excited to see what God will do!

Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say REJOICE!!!

-Philippians 4:4

It’s here.
How do people go through these times without huge love and incredible friends and family? Unmet people that love and pray for you like you are family? Ahhhh. Chills and tears.
God has so graciously given you all to me, to be strengthened, comforted, cared for. You are all my people and I love you and cannot ever show the gratitude I have for all that you do for us and all the heard prayers. I have been at this long enough to know, praying can be hard. Distracting. Confusing when we don’t know what to pray for. While it’s not an art, it is a discipline, one that I have had the privilege to get better at over the years. It’s not always easy to find the words or time-I remind myself that the Holy Spirit knows what to pray for when I don’t. And then I can ramble.
I feel like in this situation, this is me. I ramble as I don’t know what to pray for past the obvious. So I have been thanking and praising in trusting that He knows my heart.
Please continue to pray or ramble in prayer. Not just for me. For you and anyone who needs it-because the more we do this, the more organic our relationship with our Creator becomes.
ok.
An update from my pre-op.
My doctor has this insane virtual reality model of my brain. He can navigate the inside of my brain, tumor, blood vessels to get a better picture of what he will work with. After seeing this He has decided he is only going for the new tumor. 25% of the total volume. Also he might have to go back in through the old incision. Also he might have to redo the mesh to get the loose screw out. Yep. Loose screw. You can’t make this up people.
While I wasn’t prepared to hear this, I am thankful for his truthfulness and conservative hand. Please pray for the surgeon, my babies, parents and husband. It should take 5-6-? Hours. (He was all noncommittal).
7:30 am and get a new haircut and a donate a few brain cells. Love to you all. Hug your babies and mine please. God is good. All the time.

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

Psalm 20:7