Who Do You Turn To?

I want to introduce you to Baby Lily.   Lily and her feeding tube, oh and her head garnish! This is the newest member of the Weeks family.  Lily was born about two weeks ago with a birth defect.  Her parents were told part way through the pregnancy that Lily had "D transposition of the great arteries".  In layman's terms, this means the two major blood vessels in her heart had not developed properly.  Without surgery shortly after birth, Lily would not survive. Lily's parents, James and Tobi, are devoted Christians.  After a few days of adjustment, they began telling key people about the situation and the prayers went up to the Lord.  As more people were made aware, more prayers went up.  As the pregnancy progressed and they made trips to UVA to meet the teams, more prayers went up.  When Tobi went into labor, more prayers went up. About a week after her birth, Lily underwent open heart surgery.  She did very well, b...

Currently, I am sitting in the recliner chair with the laptop and my husband is watching the season premier of "Person of Interest" - ON THE TV.  Yes, you read it right, we have cable TV in the RV.  The conference center is in the process of providing cable to all the existing RV sites on the campus. We were the first to receive it, today.  The television I got home from work today with two gentlemen here wiring things up.  As I watched on, I had very mixed emotions about having television back in our "home".  I know that in the past, we have had a terrible tendency to watch a lot of TV.  Over the past three months, we have only seen what we chose on Netflix.  Honestly, it has been good.  We picked something we really wanted to see, watched it together and then turned it off.  There has been no wasting of time, randomly scanning channels and settling on something that really was of no interest. There are four TV shows that we re...

Time is quickly stolen away as I realize it has been ten days since I last put my thoughts into a posting.  My weekdays are consumed with work and I am so mentally exhausted at the end of the 10-12 hours, I cannot think of anything except doing nothing.  The weekends are a dash of running errands, church activities and trying to cram time in with family and friends.  When I woke this morning, I could not believe Saturday and Sunday had already come to a close.  This morning actually consisted of my husband waking me at eight minutes after seven.  For a point of reference, I usually leave the house at 7:05 am each day.  That should give you a quick understanding of how my Monday started with a bang.  Before I could get to the car, one of my employees was calling to tell me she would be out sick today.  I tried to force my brain into action as I reviewed what else was going on today.  It had already escaped my memory that I had one employee c...

My parents were a part of the Diplomatic Service for many years.  We were stationed at the American Embassies in Zambia, Liberia, Ghana, Tanzania and Iraq.  During this time, we became a part of a small community, a mini-America if you will, within these countries.  When I think back on this time, I fondly remember the men and women we served with, including the Ambassadors who led these posts. On Tuesday, when one of my patients mentioned in passing about the attack on the American Embassy in Libya, my heart sank as she told me four Americans had lost their lives.  As we do not have TV or read the newspapers, we see very little news unless we specifically go looking of it.  I asked, "It wasn't the Ambassador that was killed was it?"  To which my patient quickly responded, "Yes it was!"  Memories and experiences quickly flooded my mind and my heart began to hurt. Ambassador Chris Stevens When I arrived home that evening, my husband had his Fac...

Recently I was sent a "chain letter" of sorts.  I do not typically ever forward these, but this one was from my very close friend.  When I looked at the topic, I thought to myself, "I could us this myself" so I decided to take part.  It was entitled "an encouraging word".  You had to copy the letter into a new message and send to 10 of your friends with the instructions to send an encouraging verse to the person who had sent you the letter.  I knew my friend who sent it could really use some uplifting and positive scripture so I did as it asked.  Before long, I was getting responses from the people I had forwarded the email to.  Even one friend said, "I don't participate in chain letters, but here is an encouraging word for you." I wanted to share some the scripture verses I have received.  My hope is that they might encourage you in some way as well.  I have chosen to keep them in my email for those times when I may be struggling and nee...

We are all familiar with the childhood fairy tale of the the Three Little Pigs.  One built a house of straw which was quickly destroyed by a wolf.  The second built a house of wood as he saw how easily his brother's house was destroyed and yet, the wolf was able to tear down this house as well.  The third built his house of brick which was able to withstand the powers of the wolf.  What is your "house" made of? This concept of building upon a solid foundation is in my thoughts.  Recently, a tropical storm threatened Florida and we wondered if our camper would stand up again the winds and rain.  So, we made plans to be somewhere else in case the weather was too severe.  At my job, changes are being made to give us an effective base on which to build the practice.  Today, I talked to my boss about building not on sand, but on stone.  As I was trying to get my point across, she wrote on the dry erase board "foundation"...

So, Sunday, Steve and I went to my mom's to gather some belongings we had left behind due to space issues in the little camper.  As we were preparing to go, my mom and I heard a "bark" from the back yard.  It was oddly similar to the Raptor call in Jurassic Park.  I went around the back of the house and my mom went onto the screen porch.  We found three sandhill cranes in her back yard.  It appeared to be a father, mother and a baby. Florida sandhill cranes! We called Steve and my Dad to come take a look.  My Dad is very fond of the sandhill cranes and immediately took up a perch on the wicher sofa to watch.  My mom grabbed a handful of bird seed and tossed it out.  As they came closer, she filled her hand again and the "father" began to eat right out it.  The three of them danced around the yard pecking at the seed on the ground.  We weren't sure if they were teaching the little one or fighting over it, but they would jump u...

We moved into the "big"RV on Saturday.  It took us all day, but we did it.  The place is huge in comparison to the other.  We cannot tell you how grateful we are for the generosity of the Florida Diaster Relief group who has supplied us with housing. Outside porch! This morning I went outside and straightened up all around the porch.  I swept everything off, gathered a small trash pile, arrranged our furniture, hung the patio lights and the wind chime all the while, Ike was looking on from his tent.  There is already some really beautiful plants surrounding the area.  There is a small hanging garden under the tree with multiple things growing, an enormous potted fern and my little pink flowers all dressing up the place.    On the inside, the kitchen is awesome.  I have enough counter space to prep, cook and clean.  There is a double sink, microwave, stove, oven and even a side by side refridgerator.  I think I need to go...