Everyday Miracles
Lora Armendariz
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Miracles Happen Everyday

God daily shows us how special we are and how much He loves us.  Join me as I write about how my life and the lives of other people who have been touched by God's grace.

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Living in the Now

12/9/2013

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Okay, it is THAT time of the year.  Yes, we are all wonderfully excited to celebrate the birth of Jesus and His wonderful gift to us.  But, from Thanksgiving to New Year's day, life piles on the stress.  Hold on, breathe, and remember... God never means for us to live with constant planning and worry in our heads. He wants us to trust Him and to live in the moment. 

My holiday season was jump-started with my little girl having surgery, preparing an early Thanksgiving dinner for our Australian
friends, and then packing to go back to the States. 

I got on that
plane and had to remind myself to breathe and let God have it all.  It was a hard trip.

Oh, how I dearly wanted someone else to take her off my hands.  When it was all said and done, getting from our friend's house in Tumbarumba, Australia to my sister's house in the States meant that I was on Mommy duty 24 hours straight with almost no sleep.  Yes, my husband was there to hold her and do all those amazing things that got us through security and on the right airplane, but she was still very scared and stressed from her surgery and mostly only wanted her mom's arms. 

For days, no, weeks, before this, I had gotten not even a single night of complete sleep.  I had reached that ultimate depth of sleep-deprivation that I hadn't felt since Adela was a newborn.  However, if I wasn't thinking about how tired I was or worrying about how I was going to get Adela used to a new time zone, life seemed so much more manageable.  I made my mind focus on things like:  I love the feeling of her sleeping on my shoulder.  or  I'm so happy that she is ok simply playing between our legs.  or  How blessed we are that we are getting to go home to our families for the holidays.
 
But, it was definitely a battle.  Several times I started to get angry and frustrated.  I would angrily scream inside my head that I just wanted to be alone for 15 minutes so I could feel sane again.  But those thoughts did absolutely nothing for me.  I knew that having the right mindset was more important than anything else in the world.

It was truly a miracle that I arrived with a smile on my face and still had a heart full of kind feeling and a mind full of warm thoughts. 

But that was God.  That was all Him.  That was all Him working through me as He trained me to live where He placed me...to live in the now. 


Lets let Him have our every moment this Holiday season.  Let us embrace this time that is usually packed to the brim with whatever life throws at us and have a heart that lives in the now and enjoys the beauty of every moment.

God Bless you all.  Happy Holidays!


Photo by epSos.de



Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart
Be acceptable in Your sight,
O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer

Psalm 19:14
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When Fear Threatens Faith

12/6/2013

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I was doing her hair that morning. Putting all that baby hair into it's little top-knot when the fear rolled over me and I could think and feel nothing else.  Somewhere, deep inside me, I knew God waited with a well of peace, but right then my thoughts raced.  Who would take down her hair?  What will she be like in a few hours after surgery?  What will happen to my little girl? 

An over-active imagination at this point only gives the devil amazing amounts of fuel for torment.  And, I couldn't fight it. 

I had to almost gag down my breakfast.  But I had to eat.  When would we get a chance to eat again?  My husband and I knew that frustration and low-energy brought on by hunger would do nobody any favors on this day.  The doctor had told us to meet him at the children's ward so that he and the surgeon could make a decision about what to do with my little Adela--remove her swollen lymph node or drain an abscess that they suspected was deep within the mass of tissue.

God, oh God, why can't I feel your peace?  Is there any way to feel you, hear you right now?

I was drowning in the fear.  And then I remembered someone telling me to read Psalms on that day. 

So I did.  And peace fought its way back into my heart. 

I needed something exterior of my own pain to force an idea of God's grace into my head.

But it didn't end there.  The whole day was a fight for calm.  A fight for patience.  A fight to retain faith that in every way God was reigning over our lives and His will would be done.

The pediatrician and surgeon looked Adela over and decided to go in first and try to drain what they though was an abscess.  I dressed up in the gown and cap so I could be with her when she fell asleep and them my husband and I sat out in the waiting area.  Waiting.  Trying not to drown in the fear.

I knew in my head that God was there.  I kept praying, thanking him for being part of my life, but the fear for my little girl threatened the strength of my faith.  The faith in His promises.

Yet He was truly with us the entire time.  The surgery went well and when I held her in my arms again, felt the deep breaths of her body and heard her childish babble, fear gave way to thankfulness.

Oh, God, I am such a child still, needing so many reminders of how carefully you watch over us.  Forgive my doubts.  Train me to forget my worries.  Help me to always feel your grace deep in my soul.
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    Lora is a Christian writer, wife, and mother who travels the world with her husband, living and working on ranches.

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