I’m afraid I don’t have enough Venom or Angst to be a good blogger.  I am afraid I am too content.  Is my life perfect? NOT.  Am I always happy? Not Quite.  I am medicated. YAY! My husband has serious ADD. BOO!!!!  My son has sensory processing disorder and wackoness.  Love it.  But no Angst there.

Given, my mom and I have an unstable relationship at best, her narcissism and my resentment for how that effected my ability to realize my dreams create a veritable house of cards when we are together.  She describes me as the brooding child, argh, I do not brood, I am shy and thinking.  (Yeah, that’s me, brooding on the sofa with my perpetually happy sister) Add, that my dad died a horribly painful death from Colon Cancer two days before my 18th birthday.  It was sad, I gave up birthdays for a while.  But I’m OK now, just feeling blessed to have had him in my life for those 17.9 years.

I guess that’s it.  I don’t feel Angst and Venom, I feel blessed.  I can pretend with the best of them. And sometimes I wish I could pretend seriously.  But I can’t.  I can’t bring my self to use curse words, or even semi-curse words.  I am one of those totally wacko chicks that believe that life is a gift.  That life is a gift whether you are here for 5 years or 99.  Life is a gift when you want to tear your hair out, life is a gift when you have to walk away from your child before you say something you shouldn’t, life is a gift when your child is being so loud you cannot escape, life is a gift when for a fleeting moment you want to throttle said child.  Because when those moments pass, we realize, life is a gift.

We are given all of these amazing opportunities to let our light shine for others.  I get rough times, I get heartache and loss.  I do.  But you know what??   I fear not.  I do my best to worry not.  Really, don’t think I don’t get it.  The bank wants to steal my house, my husband went from having a lucrative job to being the public servant of a small park district, we live off a teeny checking account, we have no credit, my son’s medical bills are so sky-high I don’t know when I will reach the summit, I owe the vet $1400 buckos because my cat had to have emergency surgery,  our dryer broke and we had to ask my mother-in-law for help (not on my list of favorite things to do) oh yeah, I don’t have health insurance, and although I am assured it’s nothing, my son has tics that I find concerning from time to time.  None of that even includes my very shady past.

Ahh….but I see the glory.  I do.  My son Isaiah came to us through the miracle of adoption, and oh what a miracle that was.  I know that God always knew that Isaiah would be ours.  I also knew in my heart I would have a son one day.  I had two names ready to go, Myles or Zelig (My dad’s first and middle).  Shortly after we began the adoption process I was driving down the street, I remember EXACTLY where I was, when in my head I heard, heard is not really right…..I had a thought that was unbidden, “you will have a son and his name will be Isaiah”.  Isaiah?  That was not on my list.  That was not on my list, but, it was on my reading list.  If you’ve been to my about me, you will know that I was raised Jewish, but am now a Jewish believer.  Meaning, I believe the Messiah has been and gone (and will be back again :-)).  That’s right folks, my kinsman Jesus, he was a Jew just like me.  As a Jew I had only read the Torah (Bible) in Hebrew.  Quite common if you ask around.  When I began to question my very relative belief system, I decided to finally read that book in English, boy was I surprised.  I literally wondered if everyone else who had read it was either blind or in such serious denial that they missed every single reference to Jesus in the Old Testament. (But that’s a story for another day) Suffice it to say that the book of Isaiah was very significant to me.  I hadn’t thought about it in a while, but that was it.  I would have a son, and his name would be Isaiah.  And you know what?  God wouldn’t leave it at that.  We had a match, we were going to have a son.  However, I knew there was something wrong, the birth-mother was completely disinterested in us, wanting to talk about nothing on the phone,  completely laissez-fair.  Sure enough, 5 months later, and $2000 richer, she fell off of the face of the earth.  Heartbroken, I still had faith, and I knew it wasn’t over.  Then, a short two weeks later, God’s gift was revealed in the form of a spunky, God-fearing southern girl, who would become a part of our lives forever.  Although we came from different universi we seemed to walk the same path.  She had a beautiful biological daughter when Isaiah was conceived, she wanted her to have the world, but feared she could not give the world to two children.  (Her circumstances supported this) Trusting God, she choose us.  Or should I say through her God choose us.  Either way, our son was born.  We were both blessed.  She knew we would give Isaiah the world, and she could now give that to her daughter as well.

As the years have rolled on we have discovered that both children have serious health problems.  Isaiah’s became more apparent at a young age. Yet while her daughter’s troubling symptoms showed at a young age, the underlying, very serious genetic disorder was not discovered until last year.  Once again we counted our blessings.  Why would we count our blessings when both children had life long health issues to deal with?  Why? Because God made sure that each child had the one parent they needed.  Each child had the ability to be the center of the universe as needed, because each parent could probably not have cared for two children with these issues, and because each of these parents had each other.  We had fellowship, we had our mutual beliefs to keep us strong for each other, to lean on and encourage each other with.  And although we have each had low moments, questions, whys, we have remembered to look up and be who our child needed us to be.

We are truly blessed, Isaiah’s birth-sister is more and more a part of our lives.  She herself is a miracle, children with her specific genetic disorder rarely make it through gestation.  Her light shines so bright, that I know why she’s on this earth, and she blesses us every day.  Isaiah is a miracle child because at his young age when his symptoms first appeared his birth-mother probably would not have known how to respond and what she was responding to, and he may not have survived.  His light shines equally as bright as his beautiful sister’s.  When the two of them are skyping it is like watching mirror images, they could carry a room with their quick wit and electric personalities!

So what, if injections, doctors visits, blood draws, counselors, medications and other invasive tests will be part of their lives, maybe forever.  SO WHAT!!!  God is good!  Life is good!  We have each other, we will always have each other.  I am always reminded of this passage of Matthew 6:27 “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?”  Can you?  Don’t waste your time worrying, find a way to pull yourself out.  Find a friend, find a stranger, look deep into your children’s eyes. I don’t care if the answer is medication.  Heck, I always believed, but I can’t say I didn’t worry.  Medication helped relieve me of the constant anxiety that seemed to plague me starting in my late 30’s.  It also gave me the clarity I needed to find the strength inside of me that has always been there.  Find your strength, Angst and Venom can be pretty entertaining.  Kind of. But it’s no way to live.  Meanwhile, my washing machine just jumped across the room 5 feet during the spin cycle, I’m guessing it’s days are numbered.  Probably down to 1. And remember, I don’t know you, I don’t judge you, this has been just my opinion.