Strength and courage:
It takes strength to be firm,It takes courage to be gentle. *It takes strength to stand guard,It takes courage to let down your guard. *It takes strength to conquer,It takes courage to surrender. *It takes strength to be certain,It takes courage to have doubt. *It takes strength to fit in,It takes courage to stand out. *It takes strength to feel a friend's pain,It takes courage to feel your own pain. *It takes strength to hide your own pains,It takes courage to show them. *It takes strength to endure abuse,It takes courage to stop it. *It takes strength to stand alone,It takes courage to lean on another. *It takes strength to love,It takes courage to be loved.*
It takes strength to survive,It takes courage to live

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Serenitiy Prayer
meadowrose- God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time,enjoying one moment at a time,accepting hardship as a pathway to peace; taking, as Jesus did, this sinful world as it is,not as I would have it; Trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will, so that I may be reasonably happy in this life,and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen. ~Reinhold Niebuhr

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Wishing I had all the answers,but knowing that I don't. There are so many times I think it was easier when the kids were little...I know it was tough , with the diapers ,the mess, the hurry and hustle bustle of life, the lack of money ect... but it was easier to make things better. A hug or a kiss on the boo-boo and the magic of a band-aid could make everything better. But now that they are adults with their own families it's not that easy to take the pain away.
Hard to watch the choices that some of them have made. Harder still to watch the consequenses play out because of some of those choices, Wish I could take the loneliness away from my daughter when she is feeling so far away at times , Wish we could be there more often to help her and my sweet son-in-law. ( to just give them an hour off once in a while.)wish we could finacially make everything better , but we know that it is through the stuggles that we learn and grow. As a parent it is hard to watch your kids hurt . That feeling never stops, no matter how old they are.

This has been an emotional week. Our youngest son and his sweetheart are expecting twins. It has been fun and exciting to watch them , and share this with them. Tuesday they found out that they are having one of each . A little girl :Alexis Ann-Marie, and a little boy: Jayden William. They came over and showed us their pictures, both the regular ultrasounds and the new 3-D images. What a neat new experience. However the Dr.'s wanted them to come back in cause they wanted more pictures of Jayden. they had a little concern but didn't go into any detail.
They went in for further tests today and found out that Jayden has some problems . Somehow he has suffered some kind of a trauma which has effected his head. Part of his brain tissue is gone and is filling with fluid. They do not know how long he will be able to make it.He may or maynot make it to term. If he survives until he born they said he won't live more then a few weeks. If the fluid increases it could make his head bigger which could put sister in danger, which means they may have to take the babies sooner than they want to ...if they try to take a needle to remove some fluid from his head they could put Lori in danger by causing her to go into premature labor and possible lose both of them. They are both having a hard time with this. they came over tonight and told us and we all cryed and talked...I was able to share with Lori some of the things from our faith that gets us through things like this. Dale is having an especially hard time. He won't talk about it at all and is keeping this all in. this is partly normal (for him) I just hope after the shock wears off a little that he can open up a little and work out some of his emotions.
We will keep you updated as we know more. Keep them in your prayers.