Summer Fun

As fall is creeping through our windows...I reflect back to some great Summer memories that didn't make it up here yet. These are the moments that make me love life so much.

Cousins
Photos with my kids are hard enough...add three more, and it spells chaos! But, we tried!

Aquatic Center
Aunt Rian and Cousin Lucy invited Joan, Stef, and the kids for a day in the sun! Jayden even went down the big kid tube slide and the medium kid's slide!

Triathalon

What an honor it was to be a part of Kat and Kate's accomplishment of finishing a triathalon...in the rain! Way to go girls....and Justin and Jason, too! Man-I love our friends!














Backyard fun
Sarah, Joan, Cole and Elle Bea came over to play some baseball in the backyard. I loved that day!

Racine Zoo

Sarah and I ventured out to the Racine Zoo with the kids and had a great time!

Missouri

The last time we went to Missouri, we came home to Jayden's hospital stay. To say the least, we had to go back (flying this time) and have a true Missouri visit. We went at the beginning of the month with Ama and Bubba, and our dear friend Angie Devore. We had a great time and dare I say, relaxing! Jayden and Brooklyn went on the boat and Jet ski, the ladies went to the Shanghai Circus, and we spent lots of time at the Wal-Mart playground...I know, it IS Missouri! The ladies also went shopping, one day with the guys and kids in the pouring rain! I even tried tubing for the first time with Ang! Jut tried paddleborading and Brooklyn tried watermelon.

We had a great visit with Justin's wonderful Aunt Sue! Laughter is so good for the soul and many hands make the load a little less heavy. Thank you-for all your love and help, family!

Rockford Benefit and more

Thank you to all of you who worked so hard planning, organizing, and executing a wonderful event. It was great seeing so many people who love us and our children at the event. Many faces I haven't seen in years. The entire event was amazing. The event raised our largest amount yet...over $17,000! This even includes a $1,050 donation towards research! We are so overwhelmed that people would work so hard and take time out of their life to come be a part of ours.

Thank you.

I wrote a lot on here in the beginning. I needed to to keep my mind focused. Now, I don't know if it is life escaping me or sheer avoidance of dealing with my feelings. When I write, I am forced to see inside my soul and address the junk in it. Many days I feel like I go backwards and not forwards, and that is not what I want to admit.

October marks the one year anniversary of our diagnosis. I still wake up many days and it feels like I just got the news yesterday. In the same moment. I feel like Sanfilippo has been here forever. Make sense?

Anyway, lately as I struggle to thrive....I feel like I take steps back and find myself clinging to the lives of my children. I want so much to let go....in every moment. I can't control the destiny for my life or my children's. God is the only one that can and I have to trust, once and for all, that His plan is better than mine. I want to get to a point where I can fully and deeply grieve and hurt, and be honest with the personal pain of loosing, and in the same breath, live fully alive in Christ. It is hard to do, and maybe even harder to understand.

I want to be authentic but not defeated, I want my pain to become my strength. I want more than anything, to accept Sanfilippo, and see all the blessing and beauty in it, while still hoping God is who He says He is. I still can't wrap my mind around the fact that God is Healer, yet is choosing not to heal my children. Why can't He show His glory through healing? He says to ask and it shall be given, to have faith that moves mountains....yet this mountain is not moving. I am asking and it is not happening. All the while, I desperately cling to all the promises that just don't seem true in my life. Does that make my faith void? God not true? Not at all. It means my selfish wants are not the same as what God wants and that is hard to accept.

The more I think about it, the more I believe this is God's way of securing my children's salvation. Sure, maybe no weddings, proms, sleepovers, drivers ed, in our future, but it also means, no divorce, no heartbreak, no crazy discipline, our kids hating me and rebelling, drugs, alcohol, or car accidents. I don't have to worry about my kids falling away from the Lord. THAT is a blessing! He will restore Jayden and Brooklyn fully in heaven.....added selfish bonus if He does it here on earth.

What hurts the most, is knowing that my children are not part of this world. I selfishly want them to be "normal". I want Jayden to not need a chew toy...I want him to have friends....I want him to be able to say "I love you" or any sentence for that matter. I want him to be a 4 year old. I have to let go of this to fully enjoy who his is and all his strengths....but I still grieve that his life will not be what I dreamed for him. And for Brooklyn. God's dream HAS to be better. It is staying connect to that truth.

I don't think I have ever wanted to die more than now. Heaven is so good, so real.....that I can't see this life fulfilling my longings. That is what He wants from us all. I have a book entitled, everyone wants to go to heaven but no one wants to die. Now, I want to avoid the actual death part like the plague, but everything I want...to be known, accepted, healing, restoration, being forever free from death and sickness, to never be striving to be perfect, and being in the presence of my Creator....living forever fulfilling the purpose he designed in a world that is free from hurt and pain....sign me up! Heaven is what we all want for this earth. Problem is this earth will never give it to us and we live under the assumption it will because it is all we know.

And, time after time our heart breaks because we get so attached to people and things here we forget that God is a God that restores....just not yet. Just not today....So, how do I realize that I can do this? Navigate this lifetime and live like I am visiting here....longing for my home? How can I thrive...to flourish...to grow.

I think in a weird way, maybe that is exactly what I am doing.

Flowers that Grow in the Shade

Our dear friend, Ruth Karner, gave us this wonderful daily devotional book, Streams in the Desert back in November. We keep it on our dining room table and have been encouraged by it many times. Today's entry did just that and I thought I would share.





August 24


I have received full payment and even more (Phil 4:18)





In one of my garden books there is a chapter with a very intereswting title: "Flowers that grow in the shade." It deals with those areas of ta garden that never catch direct sunlight, and it lists the kinds of flowers that not only grow in the dark corners but actually seem to like them and flourish in them.


There are similarities here to the spiritual world. There are Christians who seem to blossom when their material circumstances become the most harsh and severe. They grow in the darkness and shade. If this were not true, how could we otherwise explain some of the experiences of the apostle Paul?


When he wrote the above verse, he was a prisoner in Rome. THe primary mission of his life appeared to have been broken. But it was in this persistent darkness that flowers began to show their faces in bright and facinating glory. Paul may have seen them before, growing along the open road, but certainly never in the incomparable strength and beauty in which they now appeared. And words of promise opened their treasures to him in ways he had never before experienced.


Among those treasures were such wonderful things as Christ's grace, love, joy, and peace, and it seemed as though they had needed the circumstance of darkness to draw out their secret and inner glory. The dark and dingy prison had become the home of the revealed truth of God, and Paul began to realize as never before the width and the welth of his spirituall inheritance.


Haven't we all known men and women who begin to wear strength and hopefulness llike a regal robe as soon as they must endure a season of darkness and solitude? People like that may be put in prison by the world, but their treasure will be locked away with them, for true treasure cannot be locked out of their lives. Their material condition may look like adesert, but "the desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom" (Isa.35:1)
John Henry Jowett

When there is much light, there is also much shade.

Rockford Benefit-September 12

My wonderful family and friends in Rockford, IL (where i was born and raised) have been working really hard planning a benefit in honor of the kids. It sounds like it is going to be our biggest fundraising to date.

If you are in or near the Rockford Area, we would love to see you there. It is our first fundraising event in Rockford and we are really excited.

Here are the details:

Boyce Family Benefit
Sunday, September 12
2-6 PM

Franchesco's

Ristorante

7128 Spring Creak Rd

Rockford, IL 61107

815.229.0800

http://www.franchescos.com/

Adults: $10

Children 10 and Under: $5

Music By: Prime Time Live Band

Silent Auction

Food

Join theBoyce's and dance, eat, and bid on many silent auction items (a weeks vacation, spa items, resturant gift cards, and much much more!). It will be a blast!

All proceeds will assist the Boyce's in building a handicapped accessible home near family to meet there current and future needs in Beach Park, IL.

Hope to see you there!

all went well

just waiting for the go ahead to see him in recovery but the Dr said that everything went well! He will need 4 hours at least of monitoring after he comes out of anesthesia.

All went well and his tonsils were removed and ear tube replaced....the adnoids didn't grow back from last time so they didn't have to remove them.

If he can drink and recovers well, we will go home after rush hour tonight!

Thank you for your prayers!

Tonsils and more...

As I type, Jayden is in surgery. They are removing his adnoids, tonsils, and replacing his tube that fell out of his left ear that was placed in Jan. This was scheduled prior to his last children's visit.

I will keep you updated on the progress of his surgery and recovery. It is an outpatient procedure, with a slight chance we will be spending the night.