This is My Story

Once upon a time I had a blog.  I named it iamstilltheprincess. You can still find it here http://iamstilltheprincess.blogspot.com/2010/11/alright.html. I was a stay-at-home mom of two little boys with a love for reading and writing, and in need of a creative outlet. The title, "I am still the princess", referred to the fact that I was the only girl in a house of boys and also the knowledge that no matter what happened I would always be God's princess.  My plan was to theme posts around books I read to myself and the boys. Nothing prepared me for the multitude of directions it would ultimately take.
Somewhere in the midst of that first year, blogging about our favorite library-trip finds, we discovered that our baby, Moses, had a multitude of life-threatening food allergies.  Peanuts, tree-nuts, egg, dairy, soy, wheat, PEAS, kiwi, strawberries and seeds. He seriously ate applesauce and potatoes for weeks as our family learned how to re-think food. I wondered if God had entrusted me with this platform as a way of helping others who found themselves crying in the Sprouts aisles or waking up in a cold sweat after a horrifying nightmare about peanut shells in a church nursery.
But, life wasn't done re-shaping me.  Or my blog.
In 2012 a dear friend died of heart failure, leaving behind a newborn baby and young daughter, who had herself received a heart transplant at age 3.  Not long after I was surprised to find out I was expecting a third child. But at our sixteen week check-up we listened to the ugly sounds of an ultra sound Doppler desperately searching for a heart beat that had gone silent. I continued processing these things with the help of my blog and it's readers.
In 2013 our youngest son, Moses, had a mole removed from his face.  Six weeks later we got the "Are you sitting down?" phone call in which his dermatologist told me about a cancer that I didn't know kids could possibly have. Stage 3 melanoma rocked our world as he went through a series of surgeries and a twelves months of interferon treatment. In the middle of all of this we discovered, days after Christmas, that our dish washer had been slowly, and quietly killing our kitchen, with a slow leak that had rotted out and molded our cabinets and linoleum.  Because everyone who's paying for a year of cancer treatment has money lying around to completely gut and replace their entire downstairs, right?
During this particularly challenging stage of life I sometimes took comfort and pride in believing that if God truly doesn't give us more than we can handle, he must think I'm super woman.
However, almost immediately following the kitchen remodel and the end of cancer treatment, the angry monster of anxiety that I'd tried to keep hidden in a cave my whole life woke up angry and breathing fire.  It. Knocked. Me. Down. Flat. I have never felt so unwell in all my life, to the point that I couldn't walk my child across the street to the bus stop.  I wasn't just terrified of the things that I could work around anymore like driving the freeway or standing too close to a ledge.  I was afraid of the feeling of my heart beating in my chest.  Or that headache?  Cancer.  But it was the most significant thing that's ever happened.  Because it forced me to finally find my way out of that lonely pit and emerge a very different person.  The person God had always created me to be.
Life hasn't been perfect since that time.  In fact, my blog recorded a week spent in the hospital when our oldest, Daniel, was deathly ill with encephalitis.  But, I have a clarity and ability to deal with stress that I had been missing most of my life.
In this new life I've learned a lot about myself and others.  One change in particular is that I feel confident I know what I want to be when I grow up.  Our church went through a staff change several years ago that left an extended gap in our children's ministry leadership.  With two kids there in a church I loved I spent much time praying that God would send "someone" to help.  Out of the blue our pastor called and offered me the position of children's director at our church.  I laughed. I knew the answer, even if it had never occurred to me until then. This job has extreme highs and extreme lows at times but it makes me feel alive.  And so, I've registered for ordination classes through Nazarene Bible College.  Online classes start next week.
With this, a chapter of my life closes.  The chapter of iamstilltheprincess, a blog about a million things that helped me become who I'm becoming.  And a new chapter opens.  One of the journey I'm on, where I'm momming in ministry.  I hope you'll be along for the ride!