Forever Beloved

Faith, Love & Truth

Summer List ’16

Oh yes, summer is nearly here and we can’t wait!! We have big plans for this to be the best. summer. ever. Here is a list of everything we want to do this summer:

* spend lots of time with family
* day at Delgrosso’s new water park
* buy a camper
* 4-wheeler rides
* tube down the river…multiple times
* buy kayaks
* have a picnic in the middle of the woods (without getting a tick please and thank you)
* car shows
* go to Erie for the day
* make homemade pizza
* watch fireworks
* county fair
* late night campfires
* read on a blanket at the beach
* get ice cream

* swim a LOT
* horseback riding
* fish…and fish…and fish…and fish…
* time with friends
* spend a week at the beach + boardwalk
* parades
* movie nights
* camping with friends
* walk every.single.day.
* have a girls weekend
* make homemade popsicles

Parenting A Child With Anxiety

Just get over it.

Stop worrying then.

Learn how to deal with life.

It’s time to grow up.
I’ve heard every one of those statements when speaking to someone about my daughters anxiety disorder.  I truly believe these comments come from a heartfelt place, I have to believe that.  And though those statements are hard to hear, and send a pang of sadness to my heart, I know it’s simply because they are uneducated about anxiety disorders.  
So with this blog post, I want to give you a glimpse into parenting a child that has been diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, slight OCD and Dyslexia.

With an anxiety disorder, the anxiety is daily, if not multiple times a day. It can happen during the day, or it can wake you out of a sound sleep. The symptoms are countless; heavy breathing, weakness, dizziness, vomiting, racing heart, migraines, mental exhaustion and a list of symptoms that can go on for pages. Once the attack is over, exhaustion sets in.

I’m in these trenches daily, and I can assure you that just getting over it isn’t a possibility.  If it was, don’t you think she would have chose that option a long time ago?  The debilitating problem with anxiety and panic disorders is that you simply can’t calm down.  There’s this stigma about anxiety that it’s just fear and being nervous. That doesn’t even come close.
Many times with her anxiety attacks, she has no idea what the trigger even was.  Waking in the middle of the night in the middle of an attack.  Lying in bed at night reading a book, and an attack comes on.  How do you prepare yourself for those?
Do you know how many teens are in crisis? In the throes of mental illness or depression? MILLIONS. So do the math: that means millions of parents are suffering alongside teens that are suffering.

An easy target for judgment or shame, so many families in crisis struggle alone, afraid or embarrassed or just too exhausted to reach out. Society expects three-year-olds to act like raging lunatics, but yet we don’t know what to do with a teen that has debilitating anxiety attacks.

Because we live in a society where blame has to be placed, so often parents get the side eye: What did you do wrong? What didn’t you do right? What could you have done differently?  Why do you baby them? There is no parenting formula that ensures any child’s path. Families in crisis don’t need a jury of their peers; they need a community of support.

Then there is the very real reality of mental illness and emotional disorders that many teens are battling. If a child had liver failure, we would support those parents wanting to go to the ends of the earth for medical care.  We would be the greatest support network, and all the earth would rally to fight for their health. Yet, so many of our teens are physically broken in their minds and hearts.   But instead of a chorus of support, their families receive silence or judgment or disappointment which compounds grief and lays a heavy yoke on those who are already suffering.


I want you to know what it’s like to be a Mama to a child with severe anxiety.  I want you to read my words.  To feel, if even for a moment, how I feel.  And to try your best to understand.

It is sitting in the bathroom with your 5-year-old daughter during a thunderstorm.  Reassuring her that it will be over soon.  And sitting patiently with her while she vomits for hours.
It is climbing to the very top of an inside playground, because my 6-year-old is frozen in fear and afraid to come down herself.

It is your 7-year-old enduring two months of bedtime vomiting because she thinks she may have ate something that would cause her to die.

It is taking your third-grader to therapy for an eating disorder.  Telling her that even though they had an assembly on “healthy eating”, that doesn’t mean she should just choose not to eat for fear of every food choice being unhealthy.
It is countless trips to the school to sit through meetings.  Listening to her be called lazy, inattentive and compared to her older brother.  Begging for years for them to listen to my mother instinct, and test her for dyslexia.  And endlessly being my daughters advocate.
It is always ordering her food for her and speaking for her because of her fear of saying the wrong thing.
It is always accompanying her to the buffet because of her fear of going alone.
It is avoiding stressors will cause an instant trip to the bathroom to vomit.  It is always having a plan and a way out.
It is taking your 14-year-old into a funeral home.  And when you walk in, she freezes and is unable to speak or walk.  It is helping her through the funeral home until you can get her to the car.
It is scurrying to shut the TV or radio off as soon as a storm or tornado warning comes on, and hoping she didn’t hear it.
It is watching her suffer through a flair-up that lasts weeks on end.  Daily vomiting and losing nearly 20 pounds.  
It is your Mama heart breaking over and over again because you feel so helpless, but wish you could take it for her.  And crying silent tears into your pillow.  I can reassure her. I can encourage her and prepare her for change, but I can not take her anxiety away.
It is having a front seat to her life, watching her grow into a kind, tenderhearted Jesus loving girl.  A girl who has such a heart for kids with special needs because of her own struggles.
It is listening to her quote verses and telling you the night before she prayed during her anxiety attack.
It is so much more than just needing to grow up and learn to deal with life.  This is our life.  This is our normal.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

One of the hardest, saddest valleys I’ve ever walked through was a breakup with my best friend.  The pain was real, and deep.  The tears would come without warning.  The waves of anger and confusion would crash daily.  My heart was shattered, and I felt so alone.

Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the LORD, saying, ‘The LORD is witness between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants forever.
1 Samuel 20:42

How beautiful is that? I mean, that’s Hallmark movie stuff right there. We have sworn friendship to each other in the name of the Lord. Doesn’t that just make you smile and make your heart happy? Yeah, me too.  How many of us crave a friendship like that? Those true, genuine friendships are one of life’s real blessings.

I thought true friendships were supposed to last forever?  Surely I’m not the only woman that makes that assumption when entering a friendship.

So when a friendship ends virtually without notice, I’m left standing, mouth agape, wondering where it went wrong…where I went wrong…what did I do wrong?

How is it possible that in the blink of an eye, someone can turn around and walk away without even looking back?

No breakup hurts quite as badly as a breakup with your best friend.  It’s a feeling I never knew existed until it happened.  It’s a punched-in-the-gut, breathtaking feeling in a horrible way.

It’s not my story to tell, so I can’t even share any incite on how to keep a friendship from ending. But I can tell you that breakups hurt, whether you were in love with someone or just loved by them.

And tell me sweet girls, aren’t we all afraid to talk of the breakup to others?  Don’t we fear being labeled as a gossip?  Or that others will think we are wacky, needy, clingy and overly invested?  I didn’t want to be judged for being brokenhearted over an ended friendship.

I simply needed to know how to heal from a breakup that no one else would label a breakup.

The most frustrating, and absolutely sad part was is in my heart I honestly felt as if I was a good friend. I put so much effort into that friendship. I was devoted. I was faithful. I did all the right things in hopes of finding a heart-friend.

The only place I knew to run to without being judged for my feelings, and my heartbreak, was to God. I ran to Him quickly, and daily. And in that gap between my heartbreak and His healing, I chose to trust His timing.

And I will tell you this, years later, I realize wholeheartedly it was what was best for me. While I hate that the friendship ended, I don’t regret what came of it. What it revealed in me when that friendship was stripped away was not healthy and Jesus needed a wide path in to heal some things in me. To make beauty from those ashes.

But girls, listen to me closely, don’t be afraid to share!  You have no idea how many of us have been heartbroken by a breakup with a friend.  And when you speak of it, with an honest heart, you will see other teary-eyed women nodding their heads and agreeing.  So many of us have walked through friendships that have ended.  You aren’t alone!

And while I can’t fix it for you, and I can’t take away your heartache, I can tell you this.

Don’t be afraid to call it a breakup.

Don’t be afraid to talk about it.

Run directly to Him.  He wants to hold your broken heart in His hands and with His loving grace, piece it back together.

And somehow He will make beauty from your ashes.