Tears or Laughter?

I know weird title huh! What do I mean? Well, there is this song that keeps coming on the radio lately and it's one of those songs that come out just when you need it too. You know those songs that make you believe that God is speaking just to you through the song. The song is by the artist Mandisa and it is called Stronger.

For those of you who know our family you know what a year we have had and it's only March! We ended 2010 with Billy hurting his back, and my Mom making a very tough decision to end her dialysis treatments. January 2011 began with all our family together for the first time in a very long time, but it was a bitter sweet get together. We had all come together to see our Mom off as she made her journey to heaven.  This was the hardest thing I have ever been faced with and living without her is a daily struggle. With everything that was happening in January, February was another month of trials. Our youngest Katherine has delays developmentally across the board, and we are trying to make the best decision for her education. We have so many different opinions from doctors, therapists, evaluations, school districts...it is hard to try and decide what is really best for her. The time is coming for her to begin Kindergarten so we will be making our finally decision for her very soon. On Feb. 20, we found the lump on our 8 year old daughters arm that left the doctors puzzled. We were facing financial hardships due to my husbands back injury as well as car trouble. 

March started out with Billy having the back surgery and he is now in the process of healing. Also in March we learned that the lump on her arm was a tumor and that she would be needing to have surgery to remove it and testing of it to determine just what type of tumor it is. we were also going to many different evaluations for Katherine through the school district to determine what type of classroom setting would be best for her, should we choose to send her to public school. During all of these tough family things happening, I was again dealing with my ex-husband and his wife. I will never understand how you can abandon your children. Dealing with the child support agency is time consuming and never easy, but we know that it is just another thing that will work out in the end.

March has been very hard for us, and in some ways it seems to have flown by and at other times it seems like time had stopped. Waiting for information on Margaret's arm. Waiting to see if Billy's surgery was a success. Waiting on a evaluations to make a decision for Katie. Waiting for a finances to come together. Waiting for news from Child Support. Waiting...Waiting...Waiting...and the biggest wait of them all...Waiting for the pain of loosing my Mom to easy even just a little.

My baby girl goes in for surgery 3 months to the day of my Mom passing. To say that this day is going to be hard would be a gross understatement. Just when I think I am ready to break into a million pieces, I am reminded that God is right here with me and he has not left us. He knows the pain I am in, when others can't possibly relate God can. He is doing something in our lives right now. It is painful and at times I feel like I can't take one more thing. 

Just the other day when I found out some more bad news and I felt like I was going to cry in the middle of church, I took a deep breath and then smiled! I know weird huh! Then I did something I have never done during hard times. I laughed out loud! In my heart and in my mind I saying to myself, "I would like to say what more could possibly go wrong right now!" In that moment I believe God took over and changed my heart the instant I was about to be overcome with fear and grief. He made me laugh! It startled me and I looked myself in the mirror and I was smiling and felt gleeful that something else bad was happening. I mean really...what else could go wrong? LOTS! God was right there with me though and filled my heart to overflowing with happiness until I laughed.

I know that if God wants he could bring even more trials into our lives to perfect us and make us stronger in Him. When I think about that it makes me hold my breath for a second in fear, but then I let it out and say OK. I do not have an attitude of BRING IT ON, but I can say that if more is in the works I am OK with that, because I know that God is there and he is not doing it to harm us. He is bringing us through each and every trial. He is strengthening us and he is able to bring us up out of it even when we are on the edge of despair. Just as I was ready to give in to fear and loose hope, He sent me smiles and laughter!