This houndstooth scarf was one of my big crochet projects last year. I used this free pattern from the ELK Studio blog. I used a much finer yarn, though, so I had to do more stitches per row to make the scarf the right width. It took me several months to make this scarf. Working with a fine yarn, and switching yarn colors often, took a lot of time, but the finished product was worth it!
Adelaide liked the scarf so much that she asked me to make one for her too. Of course, I was happy to do that! I also made a third houndstooth scarf for my sister, and I gave it to her for Christmas. She is an Alabama fan, so houndstooth is perfect for her.
I really like the houndstooth crochet stitch. It is pretty and classic. Making these scarves was the first time I had ever tried this particular crochet stitch. I ended up liking the stitch so much that I made a houndstooth walker bag too.
Adelaide and I love to wear our matching scarves! I made Adelaide's scarf a little on the big side so that she can wear it for several years before she outgrows it.
What have you been doing lately to keep your hands busy? Are you working on any fun projects?
Each Monday in January I have been sharing quotes from Choose Joy by Sara Frankl and Mary Carver. I hope that you have enjoyed Sara's words as much as I have. If you want to purchase the book, it is available at Amazon, Christian Book, and many other places.
Today I am sharing quotes from Sara about healing and prayer. Sara was completely confident that God could heal her, but she knew that sometimes healing was not God's plan. She prayed for a heart that would seek after His desires instead of her own wants, and she trusted God to do what was best in her life, whether it be healing or sickness.
I believe in
a God Who is so much bigger than I can imagine Him to be that anything is
possible. I also believe that sometimes healing must not be what He needs for
us, or it would happen to everyone.
– Sara Frankl, Choose Joy, page 89
I do tell
God what I think would be lovely for my life, but I also tell Him that I am
fully open to whatever He needs from me. I don’t think prayer is just about
changing my circumstances, although sometimes it does. I think it is about
letting God know I’m here, I’m paying attention, I love Him and honor Him with
my whole heart. It’s also about changing my heart, aligning my will with His,
and asking Him to give me a heart that would rather serve Him than serve my own
desires.
I would love
to wake up and never have pain again. I would love to open my windows and sit
on my patio or go for a walk or swim in a lake. But I don’t want those things
if they don’t serve Him…
I don’t think
healing is about who puts their faith on the line better; I think it’s about
fulfilling a mission. Some are healed because that miracle will spur some on to
faith. Some are not healed because that suffering will help others in some way.
I’m not big enough to know which should be true for me. I trust God to make
that decision. I am open to either option and I believe that if healing is
meant for me, He’ll make it happen.
In the
interim I’m not wasting a moment of what is by waiting for what could be.
The Lord did not choose to heal Sara on this earth. He chose to glorify Himself through her sickness and suffering. When her time on earth was coming to an end, Sara was still filled with joy. She was excited that she was going to meet Jesus soon. Her only concern was for her family and friends whom she was leaving behind.
Sara's sister
said:
“Sara’s focus was on making sure those of us left here on earth were
taken care of. That we were okay. She said, ‘I’ll be fine. Isn’t this exciting?
I want to make sure you’re okay…’ She was so courageous. Without shedding a
tear, and filled with joy, she told us how excited she was to meet our Heavenly
Father. Even in those last days, she continued teaching us—how to love, how to
be brave, how to choose joy.”
- Choose Joy, page 158
A final word from Sara:
“Make it about Him, not you. Enjoy
every second. Choose joy.”
Kristen's
family was living the American dream several years ago, but then, through a
Compassion International trip, God broke Kristen's heart and opened her eyes to
the great needs of people in poverty around the world. This led to a huge
change in the way Kristen's family lived and served the Lord. Kristen and her
husband began the hard work of moving from a child-centered, entitled home to a
Christ-centered home.
In the
introduction of Raising Grateful Kids
Kristen says, “This book is my confessional. It’s a record of our journey of
attempting to raise grateful kids instead of entitled ones. It’s the ups and
downs, the defeats and victories of such a difficult task. It’s my unfinished
story. It’s also a history lesson from the past, a cultural lesson for the
present, and a daunting challenge to learn from one and overcome the second.
But mostly, this book is an encouragement to parents swimming upstream in a
society that demands we do what is culturally accepted.”
Raising Grateful Kids is filled with
words of wisdom and practical advice based on Kristen’s personal experience and
research. Kristen is very humble and real in this book. She doesn’t claim to be
an expert or to do everything perfectly. She shares stories of their mistakes
and failures and what works for their family. She comes alongside the reader as
a friend who is in the thick of parenting and making hard choices.
Kristen does
a great job of giving practical advice for raising our children to be grateful
despite the entitled culture we have in America. At the end of each chapter,
she shares specific ideas of ways we can live counter-cultural lives, be
grateful, and serve Christ.
This is a
helpful book for any parent seeking to raise their children to be grateful,
Christ-followers in a world that wants to teach us that it is all about having
more. Whether you are dealing with heart attitudes of wanting more, or are
needing to make big changes in your family to move away from living an entitled
life, this book will be encouraging and helpful.
Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World
releases on January 26! You can read more about it at raisinggratefulkids.com.
I received a
copy of Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World from the
publisher through the Tyndale Blog Network. All opinions are my own.
Each Monday in January I am sharing a few quotes from Choose Joy, by Sara Frankl and Mary Carver. Sara lived with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a disease that was progressive and caused her to be in constant severe pain. She was completely confined to her home, but through the internet her words reached far beyond her own walls. Sara encouraged me through her example of perseverance and joy in the midst of a very difficult life. Today I am sharing a few quotes from Sara in which she talks about embracing the life God gave her.
The truth is that life in my thirties is no better or worse than I wanted; it’s just completely and utterly different. The wisdom comes in knowing that it is exactly as it should be. The joy comes in learning to live it, not despite all I’ve lost, but because of all this life has brought to me.
– Sara Frankl, Choose Joy, page 68
So I’ve changed my thinking—and it changed my heart. Just as much as I would embrace a miracle of healing with open arms, I choose to embrace all that comes into my life the same way. I’ve learned to embrace the pain. Embrace the solitude. Embrace the constantly changing plan of my day as my pain and energy levels fluctuate…
I see every moment of my life now, both the difficult and the joyful, as a moment to be embraced. Because I know that God is in the middle of all of them. He is in the center of my storms and my blessings. He sees it all with eyes that know and understand and foresee the purpose of my situation. And I want what He wants.
So I no longer adapt, compromise, or adjust. I surrender. I simply trust that whatever is in front of me at any given moment, He is in the center of it. And there’s no place I’d rather be.
– Sara Frankl, Choose Joy, pages 96-97
He knows my past, present, and future. He is surprised by nothing. He is with me, never leaves me even when I feel alone, and holds me up even when I think I am standing on my own two feet. He is good. All the time. I am going to ask Him to help me see that, and I will praise Him through all of it.
I will never forget the first time I visited my dear friend, Arlene, a few years ago. Arlene was a godly woman who was homebound and living with a terminal illness. She and I sat in her living room in the comfortable recliners, and our husbands served us lunch. I remember Arlene thanking her husband so sweetly and sincerely as he served her that afternoon. She was mostly confined to her recliner, but her heart was filled with gratitude. She told me, “I can’t imagine not being thankful. When someone does so much for you, you have to be thankful.”
I have been thinking of Arlene and her example often in recent months. My body is still recovering from the summer, and I spend a lot of time confined to bed. As I lie in bed and thank my husband for bringing food and water to me, I remember Arlene lying in her recliner, thanking her husband for serving her. She was a godly example to me of gratitude in the midst of illness.
Chronic illness is not something I would have chosen, but it has been a gift of grace because it teaches me hard lessons of gratitude. It is hard to humble myself and let others serve me. It is hard to see my husband’s workload increase as he has to do more physical tasks to take care of me each day. But I am learning humility and gratitude through it all, and that is a good thing.
I want to raise grateful children, and that starts right here at home, right here in the midst of life with a chronic illness. I need to model a life of gratitude not just on my good days, but on my bad days too.
We live in a society where it is easy to feel that we are entitled to good health, a big house, the latest technology, and a life of ease. But we are not entitled to those things. I want to teach my children to see the many blessings they have and to be grateful for what the Lord has given them. Modeling a grateful life in the midst of chronic illness is one of the ways that I can do that.
I am currently reading a new book by Kristen Welch called Raising Grateful Kids in an Entitled World. It is an excellent book, and it is giving me a lot to think about. I hope to share more about this book with you next week. Stay tuned! :)
How are you currently learning or practicing gratitude? Are there hard things in your life that are helping you learn to be thankful?
I have been reading, and re-reading, Sara Frankl's book, Choose Joy, because it has been so encouraging. It is rare to find a book by someone with a severe chronic illness. Choose Joy resonated with me in so many ways that I didn't know where to begin with my book review last week. Instead of trying to capture how special this book was to me in one post, I have decided to spread out the joy! Each Monday in January I will be sharing a quote from Choose Joy, plus a few thoughts of my own.
Also, I want to let you know that my friend, Kimberly Penix, is starting a book club today, and they are reading through Choose Joy! They will be discussing the introduction and chapter one on her blog. Tomorrow they will be chatting on Periscope about the book. It's not too late to grab a copy and join the book club!
Sara did not take her life for granted. She found blessings all around. In the midst of her pain, she found joy and purpose.
The reason I am happy is that I choose to look at my blessings more than my burdens.
The burdens are persistent; the pain is relentless. I walk with crutches and it takes me longer to get up out of the chair then it takes my friends to get up and walk the length of my condo and back. But I know that if God didn't have a purpose for my illness He would have taken it away from me by now. So I take it humbly and pray that if He has a purpose for me, I am paying attention so I don't miss the opportunity to serve. I'm okay with not knowing why this is happening to me because I know He knows why.
It's not about me; it's about what He can do with me. My job is simply to pay attention and enjoy the rainbows.
- Sara Frankl, Choose Joy, page 11
Sara trusted that God had a plan and purpose for her illness, and she was determined to enjoy the life that she had been given. She found joy in the small things. She savored happy moments. She sure did know how to enjoy the blessings of life!
One of my favorite stories in Choose Joy is the one where Sara tells about enjoying a moment with her parents eating McDonald's French fries. Her parents had taken her to the doctor, and the outing took quite a toll on Sarah's health. She knew it was the last time she would ever leave her condo. But through the pain and the sadness of it all, Sara chose to see the joy. She chose to delight in a small, happy moment on her porch.
I can smile remembering that, for a few fleeting minutes, Mom, Dad, and I sat in those patio chairs I've been longing to relax in and ate McDonald's French fries just because we could. After all, the damage was done and we were determined to take our moments.
A lot of things aren't going right because I left the house on Thursday. But I choose the joy. I choose the conversation, the relationships, the breeze and the sunshine.
And I especially choose the French fries.
- Sara Frankl, Choose Joy, page 27
My health is not nearly as bad as Sara's was, but I can identify with pushing my body beyond its limits to enjoy a fun moment. I am homebound, and sometimes it is nice to have a break from my four walls, so Will takes me for an outing. Sometimes he takes me on a short shopping trip, and I ride a scooter around the store. Other times we go to a hotel for a night or two, just to get me out of the house and looking at four different walls!
Occasionally I go out to eat with my family. It is hard to sit up at a table in a restaurant, but I go to see their smiling faces. I go to enjoy their company. I go to enjoy getting out of the house, even if only for an hour. I come back home exhausted, and it takes me a few days to recover from one hour at a restaurant. But I enjoy the moments, and I savor the memories.
If you have a chronic illness, do you ever push yourself beyond your limits just to enjoy something fun? How do you savor your moments when life is hard? How do you find joy in the midst of pain?
Recently someone in the Cranberry Tea Time
community asked me about IV fluids, how I get them, and how they help me. I
responded to her email, but I thought that some of you might be interested in
this information too. Today I would like to share about how IV fluids help me
and the different ways I have received them. If you have dysautonomia or a chronic illness, this information might be interesting and helpful for you. If you don't, then this might be a very boring post!
Intravenous fluids have been one of the most
helpful treatments for me. In addition to helping me to stay hydrated, IV
fluids help to raise my blood pressure and lower my heart rate. They give me an
overall “boost” that helps me to feel better. It’s hard to explain, but they
help a lot! For two days after receiving a liter of IV fluids I am able to sit
up longer, think more clearly, and have more energy. This enables me to do
more, which enables me to gain more strength and endurance.
I first started getting IV fluids in 2010. A
nurse came to my home three times a week to start a peripheral IV line, and we
did this for about 10 months. There were times that I needed to travel, and of
course I couldn't take my home health nurse with me, so my husband was trained
to start IVs. Will has started numerous IVs for me when travelling or when
nurses weren’t able to make it to my home due to road conditions or illness.
I took a break from regular IVs for a few years. My
veins were starting to get too much scar tissue build up, and it was getting
harder to get a line started in my hands. I was given the option of a port or a
picc, but I declined it. I want to wait on that as long as I can because of the
extra risk of infection. I also think that it would make sleeping harder. I
don't sleep well as it is, and I think that trying to sleep with a port or a
picc would make it even more difficult.
In the past few years I have gone to the hospital
for IVs as needed. We don't have an infusion clinic nearby, so the easiest
option was to go to the hospital and get an IV as an outpatient. Although this
was helpful, the extra physical exertion required to get to the hospital,
especially on very hot or cold days, partially diminished the benefit of the IV
fluids.
In August of 2014 I started having IVs in my
home again. A home health nurse came once a week for many months. My health continued to decline, even with the weekly IVs, so in the winter
of 2015 my home health nurse requested IV fluids twice a week for me, and my doctor approved the request.
IV fluids were crucial in helping me
to make it through The Great Adventure in April of 2015. In June I weaned off
the bi-weekly IV fluids. IVs are helpful, but also time consuming,
painful, and risky long-term, so I wanted to go without them if at all
possible.
I put off the regular IVs for as long as I
could, but last month my doctor put me back on weekly IV fluids. I am
recovering very slowly from last summer, and we are hoping that the IV fluids
will help me to recover more quickly and regain some strength. I don’t know how
long I will be on the IV fluids this time. We will just have to wait and see
how much improvement comes. I hope that I will eventually be able to wean back
off of them, but as my body continues to grow more tired, it is becoming harder
to function without IV fluids.
I recently found these oral rehydration salts, and I try to drink a liter of this every day. It is not as helpful for me as a liter of IV saline, but it seems to help me more than Gatorade does. These Oral Rehydration Salts use the new WHO recommended formula, and some doctors recommend them for their dysautonomia patients.
Recently the World Health Organization (WHO) has recommended reduced osmolarity oral rehydration salts to optimize hydration and minimize potential side effects. This new and improved formula is the result of extensive research sponsored by WHO's Department of Child and Adolescent Health and Development and supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). (Source: Trioral Rehydration Salts FAQs)
In my opinion, the flavor of water with Trioral oral rehydration salts is pretty awful. It is hard to drink! To make it more palatable, I add 1/4 cup of lemon juice and 1/4 cup of stevia to each liter of water with the Trioral.
I wrote about IVs when I was using them regularly in 2011 and 2012. Here are the two posts from back then:
In 2010 I found Sara Frankl through (in)courage. Her monthly posts there were always my favorite, and soon I started reading her personal blog daily. She was kind and welcoming to all. She shared openly about her life with a severe chronic illness and extreme pain, and she shared about how she chose joy in the midst of it all.
Getting to know Sara through her blog made things less scary for me as my health declined, and I became increasingly homebound. Without even knowing it, Sara mentored me through her blog. She showed me how to live a homebound life with joy.
Sara Frankl passed away on September 24, 2011, but her words and her legacy live on.
I am excited to say that some of Sara's best blog posts have recently been made into a book! Choose Joy: Finding Hope and Purpose when Life Hurts releases tomorrow. I have had the privilege of being on the launch team for Choose Joy, and I received an advance copy of the book. Reading Sara's words in her book has been such a gift. I have been encouraged, challenged, and inspired again by Sara's life.
Choose Joy was co-written by Sara Frankl and Mary Carver. This book uses blog posts from Sara that are woven together with Mary's words. Mary introduces each section of Sara's, giving the reader background information, sharing stories from friends, or sharing stories of her own.
One thing that stands out in reading Choose Joy is Sara's absolute trust in God's plan and purpose. She was okay with being completely homebound for the last several years of her life. She was okay with being in severe pain. She gladly submitted to God's plan for her life. She chose to live faithfully and with joy, and she showed others how to do the same.
I believe that God has a purpose for me, and that my job is to be faithful to whatever comes with my life. I will do my daily task and honor Him...
Bottom line, people: I am filled with joy. I am exhausted, I'm in pain, I'm just getting by. But I am so incredibly blessed. I have a lovely home, an adorable pup, family and friends who care and people who love me, not despite my disease but because of who I am. I am blessed because I take nothing for granted. I love what I have instead of yearning for what I lack. I choose to be happy, and I am. It really is that simple.
- Sara Frankl, Choose Joy
This book will be encouraging for anyone, whether you are familiar with Sara's story or not. I especially recommend this book for those who have chronic illnesses, are homebound, or are living with a disability. Sara will help you to keep things in perspective and to choose joy when life is hard.
One thing that I found especially nice about this book is that it is primarily made up of short blog posts. For those who struggle with brain fog, this book will be easier to read than many others since it can be read in very small sections at a time.
This is a video clip of Sara's friend, Alece, talking about Sara's joy in the midst of pain and suffering. (If you are reading this in an email, you will need to click over to the blog to see the video.)
If you enjoy watching this short video, you may also enjoy watching the full video here: Choose Joy - Sara's Story. I am encouraged and challenged every time I watch Sara's Story. Fun fact: at 3:11 in this video, you can see a screen shot of my blog! It is from my old blog design, but it is a screen shot of this blog post. I did not know that (in)courage was going to put that in the video, so it was a fun surprise when I saw Sara's Story for the first time a few years ago.
I read Choose Joy in December, and I am now reading it through a second time! There are so many words of Sara's that have encouraged and challenged me. I have cried a lot while reading it, and I don't typically cry when I read. It is good, but hard, to read a book by someone who was homebound from a severe chronic illness. It's hard because it is hard to see her pain. It is hard because I see some of what I am currently going through in what she went through, and that reminds me of my reality. But it is good because I am encouraged by her perseverance in the midst of loneliness and extreme pain. I am encouraged by her absolute trust in God's plan and purpose.
Choose Joy has encouraged me a lot in the past few weeks, and I want to share some of Sara's words with you. For the next three Mondays in January I will post a small quote from Choose Joy and share a few words of my own. If you haven't already, you might want to subscribe here so that you don't miss a post.
