You are.  Even today.  Even in what you’ve done and are currently doing.  In your anger, despair, ugliness.  You are pursued.  Just say okay.  Just give up.  Just be embraced.  Today.

You.

Even you.

Especially you.

I went to check on Baby at naptime and I found Daisy Doodle the cat sleeping contentedly on top of him.  Knowing Baby’s fear of her, I snapped a quick pic with my phone.  It was too good.

When he got up I showed him the picture and he kept looking at it and me like he couldn’t believe it.  It was a sweet moment in an off kind of day.

A few hours after that I was getting ready to do the dishes, Matt and his friend had just run to town to get a few things to try to make our new heater work, and the kids were playing with a friend over.  Then I heard a thump from the front room and the kids, sounding distraught said the Baby had fallen on his head.  From a box about 4 feet high onto our thinly carpeted concrete floor.  When I got to him he was conscious, but not crying, he looked kind of like he was in a frozen scream with his mouth agape and looking beyond upset.  I scooped him up off the floor in time to see his eyes roll back in his head, his color go very ashen, and then he went limp, unconscious in my arms.

I lost my mind.

I ran out the door, barking to all the other 5 kids I had in my care to get shoes, shirts, and get in the van.  Simultaneously holding Baby close and yelling to God to please save him.  Begging God loudly.  The other children were scrambling to get shoes, crying, and standing a distance off.  As I ran outside (hysterical, with an unconscious 2 year old in my arms) I saw that the van was gone and then remembered that Matt had taken it to town with him just a few minutes before.  I panicked further.  Not knowing what to do and drawing the attention of every neighbor within hearing distance.  Baby, in this time, came to and began screaming crazily.  I was already on the phone with 911 by then and his screams were drowning out my attempts to give the dispatcher my address.  I handed the phone to my oldest asking him to give them our address and in the exchange hung up on them.  They immediately called back, got the address, dispatched the fire fighters and medics, and insisted on staying on the phone with me even as I begged to hang up so that I could call my husband.  Neighbors I don’t know had gathered by now and my children were huddled crying on the porch a few feet away as the fire fighters arrived in record time.  One of the neighbors said she was a nurse (was wearing her scrubs at the time even) and reassured me that she was also a mom of 4 grown children, that my child’s color was now good, his breathing was steady, but that I was right in my instinct to call EMTs.  They asked lots of questions, talked to my sweet boy, and assessed him.  They watched him closely for a while, talking and attempting to reassure me all the while.  As I retold the story again and again, it occurred to me that he was conscious when I got to him, and that he has always been a breath holder, though he’s never passed out doing it.  There was that one time when he was a tiny infant that he turned blue and I sent the kids out of the room afraid he would pass out then, but he didn’t and I was calm then because he was just angry, not hurt.  So, the loss of consciousness was his breath holding and not the impact.  I couldn’t stop shaking and the medics threatened with a smile to get the oxygen for me if I didn’t calm down.  Matt had called me back in the middle of it all to say that he was stuck in traffic and couldn’t get to me.  I begged him not to panic and to just drive carefully to me.  He finally made it home when the EMTs finished up and were getting ready to leave.  His hugs brought more tears and weak knees.  By then, I had reassured the kids profusely that it wasn’t their fault and that he was going to be okay.  Baby was shaken, but okay and clinging like crazy to me.  I was thankful for it, I needed his cuddles.

I reassured Matt that we would be okay and sent him back off to the store for the parts we needed.  I asked him if he was taking the van this time and he said, “Never again.”  But I was thankful he had it when he did.  It kept me from trying to drive 6 small children to the hospital through traffic in a hysterical condition.

I was deeply crazy the rest of the night as were the kids.  It was hard to move past it all.  My oldest later told me that he wasn’t too worried about the Baby until his eyes rolled back and that when that happened he felt like he was going to throw up.  My heart broke for all the other kids too.

That night as I sat cuddling Baby to sleep I snapped a picture of him.  Because it was too close.  I wanted to capture him.  Keep him.

And today, days after the near event, I snapped another picture of him.  One I love.

His footy jammies.  He and his brother with stamp “tattoos” all over them, giggling over silly monkey pictures in a book, holding that furry alligator.

Today I am not oblivious to what I have.  Even in the chaos and frustration, I know it’s special.  I know it’s a blessing.

I saw this short video this morning.  I love it.  I love that it captures my beautiful city.  I love that it gets across the real message of this season.  I love that it’s gritty.  And real.  I love that it reminds me for whom He came.  May you enjoy it and rejoice in Jesus Christ as much as I do.  Feel free to share, post, like, tweet, and pin.  For unto us.. all of us… we should all hear of the good news.  That the crushing guilt you live in… it has an end.  You can be free.  You.  For unto you was He born.

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Then 10 days later my girl got so very sick that I took her into the ER for what I feared was meningitis.  Which turned out to be strep.

Then 7 days into her treatment of strep BigMan began throwing up.  Nonstop.  For 12 hours.  And The Oldest threw up.  Both with severe body aches and a very low grade fever.  Then it spread to The Baby and then to Matt and onto me.  Missing My Girl and The Middlest.  I had people on fb praying for us, giving suggestions, offering help, and asking what on earth were we doing wrong that our children (and us) would be getting so sick so often.  I went to the doctor to see if the latest round was an extension of My Girl’s strep, I was swabbed.  (side note: I haven’t been to a doctor since giving birth, I just don’t go, but I thought if I had it, then I would swab each and every one of my children and get our whole family of 7 on antibiotics at once).  I was negative.  I discussed my concerns with the doctor.  I told her I keep a decently clean house, I homeschool 5 small children under 10, I recently moved to the city from the middle of nowhere and joined every social club available when before we were basically our own social club, I asked if our tonsils should be looked at, if we should be on vitamins and certain supplements, I told her we getting weary and worried with all the sickness.  She was not concerned, said it sounded normal for our circumstances, encouraged and reassured.

In the midst of all this our children were in their first ever Christmas Children’s Choir and our Cates’ family Christmas get together were the same weekend.  I prayed and prayed that we would be well by the weekend.  We got well by Friday in time for me cook and shop for the weekend and we had a blast Saturday with my family and thought we were in the clear for the Christmas program at church.  And then late Saturday night My Middlest started throwing up.  Nonstop.  So MyMiddlest and my husband missed all our family coming for the first Christmas program.  Heart breaking.  I cried all morning.  Part of me missing, my poor sickly baby and sweet husband.  Ugh.  And I cried over how sweet and wonderful the other 2 big kids were on the stage.  And I cried over friends and family coming to see them.  And I cried over the amount of cleaning I had to do when I got home.

At the same time my husband and BigMan began having lower stomach disturbances.  And my youngest now has the same lower stomach issues.  And my youngest and BigMan have runny noses.

So what’s going on?

That’s what we’ve asked ourselves for weeks now.  I have analyzed my every parenting and housekeeping and cooking move.  I have considered the water, the carrier monkeys that are our new friends, lowered immune systems, and my failure to be a good mom by not pumping everyone full of Vitamin D and C.  I have become downhearted by it.  I have doubted my every move.  Matt and I have gotten short with one another.  That will happen you know, when you do all you can, everyone’s tired, and the housework (read: laundry and added cleaning) is piling up.

All of these are the answers.  And yet, I feel like none of them are.

I feel like the real issue at hand is that we submitted to God a few months back and moved into a dark place.  Our good story began there.  And we have prayed for our neighbors, looked for opportunities to minister in our community and asked God to use us the way He wants.  We came excited and with determined hearts.  So the one sure fire way to knock us out of the game of reaching those around us, the way to extinguish our lights is to keep us home, focused on us, bickering amongst ourselves.

I believe the real reason for all the random constant sicknesses is attack.  I do.  From the enemy.  From Satan.  I know I sound as crazy as a betsy bug to you, and I assure you I am the same goofy Suzanne from The Joyful Chaos that you have always read, but I feel like this is an issue bigger than teaching my kids to wash their hands.

So I come to you asking for prayer.  That we would be well.  That we would be encouraged and fall on our knees before our God.  That we would accept that He loves us, that He doesn’t want us miserable.  That we would seek Him in all this.  That we would be strong in Him.  That we would be knit together as a family and that our hearts would be one.  That we would not listen to the whisperings of the enemy when he says we aren’t doing what’s right, that we are inadequate in all ways.  I come, again, asking for prayer.

For where 2 or 3 are gathered in my name there am I with them.   ~Matthew 18:20

As I was thinking about the upcoming holidays and the crazy family get togethers (oh, c’mon, settle yerself down and admit that every single family is crazy, right?) I was kinda saddened.  Just a little bit.  Because I realized that a good bit of my family doesn’t really know me.  I mean, they think they know me because they saw me grow up, they came to my school plays, they got the Christmas letters each year about me, and even saw me in diapers once upon a time, but in reality they don’t know who I am now.  This also came to mind when I first got on Facebook and I started getting all those high school friend requests.  Because I’m a different person than I used to be.  I’m not the baby in diapers, I’m not that skinny nobbykneed kid, I’m not that abhorrent teenager any more.  God has done some kind of work in me and most of the time I forget who He started out with.  I mean, I have begged Him for years to take the details of the old me from my memory.  If He can take those memories and put them as far as the east is from the west then He can wipe them from my mind.  And He has been faithful.  But the downside to that is though I’ve become a new person in Christ, I live on in the memories of friends and family as that old person.

But I then I remember that I blog.  I have written about the intimate details of my life for 6 years now.  And I have a Facebook page where I write the up to the minute laughs, cries, and goofiness that is my life.  I am knowable.  Anyone who desires can click online and see what’s going on inside my head, they can be a part of my life.  They can interact with me.  And hopefully, after a while they can also come to forget the being I once was and begin to see me for who I am.  I take comfort in that.

I get from my readers all the time that one of the reasons they keep coming back is that I’m so transparent.  It’s true.  Granted there are a few things I don’t tell you, but for the most part you’re livin’ this life with me.  You know when I have cycles, mastitis,and  hemorrhoids.  You know when I’m losing weight and how.  You know minute by minute when I’m delivering a baby and when I’m going through post traumatic stress syndrome from swallowed pennies.  You know the sheriff has been called on me and that I love me some cookin’ even if it’s just fried bolony.  (and yes, you know to me it is bolony.  not bologna.)  You know when I’m on the top of the world, when homeschooling’s going great, and when I’m pleased with myself.  You know I’m a cusser and a yeller and a regretter.  You know me.

But that knowledge is sad to me.  That you, people I have never met, but love so, know me better than a lot of the people I will be hanging out with in the weeks to come.  The stranger in Wal-Mart who is struggling with her 3 little ones, that I hand my blog card to and offer encouragement, who tries out my The Joyful Chaos Facebook community knows me better than the people I will bow my head with over Christmas dinners.  It makes me sad.  But I know that I have done what I can do.  I put myself out there.  I make myself transparent.  I write about me, my kids, and my goofy husband.  I write about my hopes, dreams, failures, successes, and mundanities.  I am knowable.  If there are walls and fences, it has not been my doing.  I reach out.  I try.  I hope.  And I pray… that my family will log on, and read my words.  Not to increase my readership but so that they may know me.  That we can laugh together, know each other, share life together instead of awkward silence over punkin pie.  Yet, there is distance.  So is life.

But as I was contemplating all of this and the sadness of it all, it occurred to me how much greater must God’s sadness be.  He displays His Glory every morning in the rising sun, every evening in the setting of the same.  He blooms flowers out of concrete cracks.  He breathes life into us and returns us to dust.  He hangs the stars above us.  He sends His people out to spread His love, His hope.  He gives us His Truth and Word that tells of His unending Love for us.  He tells us that the crushing guilt we live with daily of all our stupid actions can be taken away.  Removed.  Forgotten.  He tells us we can become new people, different people from who we used to be, from whom we are ashamed of.  He tells of His people’s successes and failures and hopes and dreams and mundanities through the centuries.  All so that we may know Him, talk with Him, and laugh over pie from the pumpkins He grew for us.  He wants to be known.  Yet, so many don’t come to Him.  They know about Him, they know what they’ve heard, but they don’t know Him.  If I know my forlornness and sadness at not being known, though I’m so knowable, how much more must His brokenheartedness be?

And further, how knowable are you?  How transparent?  How much are you living in His image of availability?  I know that some convictions and attributes of likeness come easily for some but are torture for others.  Transparency, knowableness is as easy as pie to me.  But being slow to anger, well… you know.  And you do know, don’t you?  Because you stop by often.  And I love you for that.