Rough Day; Rockin' God

Our day started in the Helton house around 2:30 am to the sound of crashing thunder and lightening that lit up our entire house.
This storm lasted for quite some time. Caroline woke up and that woke Ava up and then we were up.

Our power went out shortly after that.

I tried to drift back off to sleep but my efforts were fruitless. Ava and Shep were able to doze a little bit but Caroline never really went back to sleep after that point.

Now this was the day that Shep and I had to get up early and be at the surgical center by 7:00 am for Zeke's tonsils and adenoid procedure. As I lay there (mad to not be asleep and mad that the power had not come back on) I began to think about how all of this was not going according to my plan.


Ms. Linda was supposed to come over early and let us leave with Zeke. Then she was going to get the girls dressed and take them to school.

There was still no power at 5 am. So~ we opted for Plan B. Shep stayed here to get the girls dressed and off to school and Linda rode with me to the surgical center.

I was exhausted. Zeke was irritable because he could not have anything to eat or drink. We made it through heavy Atlanta traffic to the hour long ride and when we finally arrived I spilled my coke inside my bag.

Well.........good.

As we made our way upstairs and began the process of checking in I finally felt myself begin to receive the mercies that God had waiting on me.

I began to choose thankfulness and tried to pray for others that I knew of that had hard things going on today.

The next 3 hours went really well. Other than trying to keep Ms. Linda from crying over poor Zeke in recovery, we held it together pretty well.

Once we got home I took some pictures to show how well Zeke was managing. The first pictures are of him playing in his holding room before surgery. The last two are shortly after coming home.

He is doing great! He is eating and drinking.....and crying and whining but that is to be expected!

Now....that is the ROUGH part of my day (oh yea, and I ripped a huge chunk out of my big toenail.)

But now for the ROCKIN GOD part.

Today we learned of a dear brother in Christ who was declared cancer-free!
Today we learned that we had already met our deductible and didn't have to come out of pocket thousands of dollars for Zeke's surgery.
Today we received awesome news on an issue that we have been praying about for over a year! It was an "against all odds" situation and God hugely blessed!!!!

Today (with its power outage; ripped toe-nail, sleep loss, spilled coke, and surgery) was a day that God had given us and we had to live it out. He knew that I would end this day with rejoicing even though I began the day with agitation. He is patient with us. He is so good.

My toe-nail hurts, my bag is sticky from coke, my eyes and body ache from lack of sleep, Caroline is ill from being up most of the night, and Zeke is kind of pitiful but I want to thank God for giving me this day. The ups and downs reveal who we really are....and He still surprises us just for the fun of it!

"Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer." Romans 12:12