Do you pray big?

I know I don't.

You know, when I actually find the time in this crazy life to pray. That is a very sad thing to write.

This past Sunday at our church, the guy who spoke (not our regular pastor), talked about praying big. He pointed out that most of us don't pray big prayers, even though we serve a big God. Then he asked us what we had going on in our lives that is big, but we had given up praying about.

And you know what came to my mind... Elise. And diabetes.

Because when she was first diagnosed, I prayed almost every minute for God to cure her. Every time I even looked at her, I asked God to take it from her and give it to me. I pleaded with Him for somebody out there to find the cure for this terrible disease.

And of course it didn't happen.

And after a while, I kind of forgot. Okay, I didn't forget, I gave up. Because I got caught up in the day-to-day-ness of diabetes. Because it seemed hopeless. I knew God could cure her, but I was positive He wasn't going to. And it kinda broke my heart.

But I was reminded on Sunday that God doesn't want us to give up. He wants us to keep knocking, keep asking, be bold, & be persistent in our prayer life.

So I'm going to. Because this prayer is important. To all of us. And I would ask if you are the praying type, would you join me? Let's pound on God's door loud and long enough that He can't help but to hear us.

And to end things on a funny note, they played this video before the sermon. It made me laugh. And laughing is good.

Coffee with Jesus from cedarcreek.tv production on Vimeo.

Et tu, Tuesday?

You know those infomercials where the announcer says, "but wait... there's more?" That's what I feel like my life has been like the last four days. Just when I think it can't get any worse, it goes ahead and does. But at least I can laugh about it.

It started this morning when Elise woke up with a BG of 252 and ketones at 1.6. Grrrrr. This is after we put her to bed at 186, she dropped to 81 about 2 hours later and hovered around there until 3:00 am when she finally went above 150 (our "safe" night time number). She had no carbs in her bedtime snack, so I can't figure out what the deal is there.

Anyway, I was still feeling horrible and we had to stay home from story time at the library, which Elise LOVES. Boo. I noticed her rash had come back, so I finally decided to call her pedi and make an appointment.

After the poor nurse listened to me prattle on for about 5 minutes (and I'm surprised she could actually understand me since I have almost no voice left), she let me know that Elise's pedi is away for two weeks in Africa doing mission work. WHAT? How dare she feel God's calling to a third world nation to serve others while I NEED HER HERE???

Okay, I'm totally joking. I did not know Elise's pedi did mission work, but it makes me love her even more... if that's at all possible.

Anyway, I made an appointment for the afternoon and the rest of our day was pretty uneventful save for the semi-low BG number of 71 that Elise woke up from her nap with (unfortunately, another 45 minute nap).

The fun all began when I went to leave the doctor's office. It was about 4:15, and as I was headed towards the freeway, my car started acting up. I was freaked out because we had just taken it in for service and the guy had some issues with it.

What you need to know for this story is that our gas gauge doesn't work. It always reads empty. Our car is 10 years old and paid for, and we will drive it until it goes to car heaven. We've never fixed the problem because they wanted $300 for the repair. As long as we know how many kilometers (we brought the car from Canada) we've driven since our last fill-up, we know when we need to fill up again.

I barely managed to drive it into a grocery store parking lot before it stalled out entirely. I didn't think we were out of gas because I still had about 75 kilometers to go before I needed to fill up. I checked my clock and started to panic. It was almost 4:30 and I needed to get Elise home for her insulin and dinner. I was also sitting in a black car in 105 degree Texas heat.

About 100 feet away I saw an answer to my prayer. A fire truck was sitting there with one of the firemen still in it (the rest were grocery shopping - am I the only one that gets tickled watching firemen grocery shop?). I took Elise out of the car and walked over. The very sweet guy said he'd help push the car into the gas station (that I missed getting to by about 75 feet), but he had to wait for his other firemen buddies to help. I explained my situation and that Elise had diabetes and he said that if she was going low, he had glucose tabs in the truck. He then invited us to sit in the nice air conditioned fire truck... Elise loved it!

Another answered prayer was that my husband was driving back from a meeting and was only 5 minutes away. He was going to switch cars with me, so I could get Elise home. I was worried about her dropping low again, so when my husband arrived we tried to check her BG, only the meter was acting all funky. And of course I had taken the back-up meter out to replenish the test strips and forgot to put it back in Elise's diaper bag. After messing with it for about 5 minutes we got it to work and she came in at 112.

The other firemen arrived and helped my husband get the car to the gas station, and at this point I book it home with Elise screaming most of the way home because we are in Poppa's car, but Poppa isn't with us. The only way I can convince her to stop is by singing "Wheels on the Bus" over and over and over. It was a 20 minute drive home. And did I mention that I have no voice?

The good news is, I'm laughing about it. Just another crazy adventure that I get to bore my blog readers with. It could have turned out a lot worse, but I really feel like God was watching out for me. My car made it into a parking lot and didn't stall out in the middle of the busy road. The wonderful, WONDERFUL guys from the Irving Fire Department that helped get the car to the gas station and kept Elise and I cool in the meantime. My husband being so close by just when I needed him. These are all signs that God knows what I'm going through and He's right there with me. Pretty cool, eh?

Oh by the way... I was out of gas. Apparently super hot weather make gas evaporate faster. Who knew?

Why I'm not Joanne Almighty

Lately my perfectionist personality has taken up residence once again. Crazy numbers and ketones are causing me to grind my teeth at night and I'm starting to worry that one morning I'm going to wake up toothless!

But lunch with a good friend the other day helped me to see things in a whole new perspective. It was really a "DUH" moment for me. My wonderful and very wise friend Gabi was asking me about Elise and how diabetes has taken it's toll on me. As I was telling her the difficulty in managing Elise's blood sugar and how the perfectionist in me takes it so personally when I get a wonky number, she leaned over and told me something that I had never thought of.

"Joanne, God created our amazing bodies in such a way that scientists are still learning new things about it. How can you expect to control or even understand something that the Creator of the universe designed with His own hands?"

Hmm, I have to tell you, that realization hit me like a tonne of bricks. How silly of me to think that I had the power to control what I don't even understand. It would like me expecting to be able to control the weather. All I can really do is pay attention to the weather reports, dress accordingly, and be prepared for when the weather person gets it wrong. If you live here in North Texas, then you know that happens on an almost daily basis.

I know I've talked about being able to let go before, but old habits die hard, and I'm sure this is something I will struggle with every day. But it's nice to know I have an "out" when I need one.

Fuzzy Logic

I am a very logical person. It's how I've always lived my life. I really like it that when I add 2 + 2, the outcome is always four. Not 4.5, or 7, or even 355. It's 4 and it always will be 4. Forever and ever, Amen.

Early on in our marriage, Fred and I had racked up over $75,000 in debt. In 2001, we finally decided that we'd had enough of being stressed out by money and were going get out of debt. So, what did we do? The logical thing of course, we made a budget, stuck to it, and stopped spending any money except what was necessary to live. Strangely enough, four years later, we were debt free and still are! Well, except for our house. But that $75,000, which was all pretty much credit card debt, is gone!

I like things that make sense. I like it when a + b = c. But it's just not that way with diabetes. You can do everything right, and still get wonky blood sugar numbers. And it makes me CRAZY. Somedays I wish diabetes would manifest itself as a person, just so I could kick it in the groin.

If I give Elise x amount of carbs, plus y amount of insulin, in my perfect little world I would get z... a BG of about 100. But because so many things can come into play, it just never works out that way. She could be going through a growth spurt, or teething, or perhaps she's getting sick. There's hormones that come into play, the fact that the wind is blowing out of the east at 15 mph, the dew point is 38 and the barometer is falling. Or maybe it's because she's wearing red.

I made some of those up, see if you can guess which ones.

Diabetes has come into my logical little world and turned it upside down. But I am slowly learning to not sweat it so much anymore. I think what it all boils down to is my lack of control over this disease. And I think that's what is really tearing me up.

But I believe God is trying to tell me that sometimes I need to take my hands of the wheel, trust Him, and let Him do the driving. I won't always be able to control where the car is going, but it's okay. Because as long as I'm paying attention, He'll help me get to where I need to go. And I'm slowly learning to be okay with that... as long as I get to pick what radio station we're listening to along the way.