Road Trip

We have known for almost 3 years now that God's plan for our family's future was going to be different than the nice neat plan that Chad and I had worked out in our own minds.  There were also some hints along the way before Sophie Kate was born that ours was not going to be a typical family.  Take for example our accident prone middle son who about 4 days before a Disney trip (circa 2005) fell with a hot wheels car in his mouth subsequently fracturing one of his sinuses.  It's little tidbits like this and believe me I have plenty more that I could share that should have alerted Chad and I to the fact that things were going to be a little bit different for our family.  Anytime we set out on an adventure you can rest assured that things will NOT go as planned, which brings me to our latest outing.  

Fall break...seasons changing, school's out for a couple of days, sounds like a perfect time for a road trip, right?  Yeah, that's what I thought too, so off I went with all my children by myself to my parent's house.  

Y'all I really thought I could do this, SK has been traveling so well lately I really never dreamed it would take us almost 6 hours to make what is usually a 4 hour trip.  Believe me I've learned my lesson but good this time.

It all started off so well, there were no warning signs of what was to come, but when we were about 20 miles from the Mississippi state line SK started having seizures.  We pulled off the interstate at the Mississippi welcome center, I gave Sophie Kate her meds and got her calmed down.  Once we were back on the interstate the seizures started again and I ended up pulling off two more times.  

I have to say that common decency and courtesy is not dead folks, 3 non-scary men stopped to check on me and my kids when they saw us on the side of the road.  The thing is that one of the men ended up half way freaking out when he saw my little girl and the seizures that were taking hold of her body and against my wishes called the paramedics. 

Oh yes he did, I had already been asked if I wanted them to call 911 and I told them no and tried my best to explain the situation to them.  You see we deal with this stuff on a fairly regular basis and I just needed to get her out of her car seat for a little bit and hold her.  She has CP and well, I thought I could make this trip on my own but obviously I can't and I know I am crying and all but really we're ok, we don't need the paramedics.

No she's not going to stop breathing, yes I do have a husband, he's at work earning a living for our family so that I can do crazy things like this and I just wanted my boys to have fun fall break.  Then I heard the sirens and I knew that I had not convinced this gentleman that we did not need the paramedics. 

I was determined to stand my ground we were not going to a Tueplo, MS hospital (not that there's anything wrong with that) on our Fall break.  They weren't going to do anything for her anyway, believe me I know.  I've been there too many times before, doctors that don't know her don't want to treat her.  The paramedics themselves even told me that they would not have given her anything.  They were very nice, I apologized and told them I had asked him not to call. 

At this point all I wanted to do was to turn around and head home, but how could I?  Someone please tell me how I could have done that.  Yes I'm the mama and what I say goes and I could have just told them we were going back home and that was the end of it.  With every mile I continued to drive I knew that I was getting further and further away from home and that each mile I drove was another mile that I would have to drive back with them by myself...but if we would have turned around, we would have been driving back b/c of Sophie Kate. 

In their eyes we would have been driving back b/c SK was having seizures.  They would not be getting to see their PawPaw and Mimi b/c of their sister.  They would not be getting to play with their cousins b/c of their sister.  I can take their blame but this time, in their eyes the blame wouldn't be placed on me, it would be squarely placed on the shoulders of their baby sister and I just couldn't allow that...so we journeyed on.  We even ended up stopping again and meeting up with my sister so that she could take the boys with her and they could be spared from watching their little sister's body seizing. 

Words cannot describe how excruciating and conflicted that trip was for me.  I can honestly say that SK has never done anything like that on any road trip that we have ever taken.  I have never seen anything like it, b/c believe me I would have never attempted such a thing if this were a common occurrence for us.  This has never happened before.

In contrast, here's what I observed over the course of our journey...I heard Grey singing "This Little Light of Mine, " I heard Jacob singing "Your the God of this City" and towards the end of our trip, when there was a small break in SK's seizures, Cooper told me that he had typed out a prayer to God on his ipod touch...pretty cool, huh?

I asked him if I could read it and he allowed me to...in it he asked God to take the seizures away from his little sister.  He also typed a note to Sophie Kate as well where he told her he had prayed for her and added at the end "P.S. I love you."

On this trip, brothers were asked to "man up" if you will and to step outside of themselves for a moment, to step outside of a world that they think revolves around them 24/7, to take on the burden of one in need and to take that need to God.  God did not take away Sophie Kate's seizures on our trip, but He's still God and those boys know that.  I'm not the one that got us to PawPaw and Mimi's house that day, b/c mama was a bit hysterical herself from time to time, but they know who did. 

He's changing us all through this little girl and it has never been so real and tangible to me than it was on Friday.  It's not fun, it's not easy and it's real world grown up kind of stuff that I hate that they have to go through, but He works it out and He works it out for good...always for good.

Romans 3:28 "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose."

Ephesians 3:20-21 "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen."