Nattie's Big Day

Yesterday was a party day for our six year old girl. I thought it would be a day of excitement and fun, but it ended up to be a day of melt downs and tears. I was cooking all day trying to get ready for the party and Natalie kept whining and crying (actually sobbing) at my feet. I was trying to be nice seeing as it was her birthday, but at one point after all my patience had been exhausted, I finally put her to bed. I had two glorious hours without her telling me every injustice that has ever happened to her. I was almost in a good mood when she woke up for round number two in the crying game; instantly my mood went from semi-good to wretched. An hour before party time and I decided to take a break and give my two very dirty children a bath (clean hair looks better in pictures). While I was washing Nattie’s hair I asked her to tell me what the problem was. She looked at me and said, “I thought my birthday was going to be fun, but instead I woke up missing everyone”. At that moment I’m pretty sure an arrow went straight through my heart, I felt sad that I never saw her tears for what they were, I was just annoyed by them. Her attitude got in the way of my plans and I never once thought to take the time and find out the root of the problem. I was excited that she was able to verbalize her home sickness; I am an adult and sometimes I can’t put my finger on what’s wrong, I just know that I’m mad at the world.

Everyone arrived and Nattie’s tears turned to laughter as we celebrated her special day. She was so excited to find out that our family at home had sent presents with us. It was fun to read the cards, I think she liked them as much as the presents. I am so thankful that we were able to take those presents with us because it helped Nattie to feel like our family was celebrating right along with her. Nattie went to bed a happy girl and was so excited to finally have toys. Everyone who came to the party brought a present, so in one day Nattie went from playing with her brother’s toys to having a full basket of her own. I finally feel like I have my Nattie Grace back, she has been playing pretend all morning, AHHH, the wonderful sound of imagination, it beats whining every time.

At four o’clock a.m. Zach woke me up saying his stomach hurt. Another night of sickness, will we ever be able to figure out what’s wrong with him? I’m thinking that it has to be an amoeba or parasite because he has extreme abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea. We almost took him to the hospital this morning because he was doubled over in pain screaming, I thought for sure it was appendicitis. I got down on my knees asking the Lord to heal him, praying that if he needed to have his appendix out that it could wait until December when we are at home. I don’t want to be in Africa for any kind of sur-gery, I don’t want to have to put my children in the care of a third world hospital. The Lord is showing me I need to open my hand, release my tight grip of control on my children, He is convicting me to TRUST HIM. The Lord is our physician, I need to go to him before I go to the doctor, that has been hard for me to get used to. I know that I should have more faith, I serve the God of creation, the God who spoke and it was done, yet it is so hard for me to put my kids in His hands. The Lord is helping me to see that He is not only faithful He is amazingly POWERFUL and I need to trust him. Zach fell asleep around 6:30 a.m., he woke up feeling great; as if nothing ever happened. In a few minutes he is going to be very upset when he realizes that we are going to go down to the lab to get some more blood work done. So if you think about Zach please pray for him. Pray that we will be able to figure out what this thing is and pray for me to trust that the Lord is faithful.

Sorry that it took me so long to blog our Internet has not been working, as my friends say TIA (this is Africa). I wrote this a few days ago , but wasn't able to post until now. Zach's blood counts are now normal (Praise the Lord), so we will go to the doctor on Monday and see what she thinks we should do.