Saturday, November 7, 2015

#‎30DaysOfThanks‬ 6 and 7

Newest additions to this month's thankfulness list and a sweet (home schooling) story: 


Nov. 6 Thankful Photo: Thankful that my potential breast cancer scare last month was totally benign!
‪#‎30DaysOfThanks‬


Quoting from Facebook, "One day, Thomas Edison came home and gave a paper to his mother. He told her, “My teacher gave this paper to me and told me to only give it to my mother.”
His mother’s eyes were tearful as she read the letter out loud to her child: "Your son is a genius. This school is too small for him and doesn’t have enough good teachers for training him. Please teach him yourself."
After many, many years, Edison’s mother died, and he had become one of the greatest inventors of the century. One day he began looking through old family things. Suddenly he saw a folded paper in the corner of a drawer in a desk. He took it and opened it up. On the paper was written: "Your son is addled [mentally ill]. We won’t let him come to school any more."
Edison cried for hours and then he wrote in his diary: “Thomas Alva Edison was an addled child that, by a hero mother, became the genius of the century.” #ThePowerOfAnExtraodinaryMothe
r "

Nov. 7 Thankful Photo: Short version, I'm ever-so-thankful for the many people, ministries, authors and organizations who have profoundly touched my life and been used of God to mold me into the person I am today!

Longer answer, far from an exclusive list, but a few highlights that especially stand out in my mind at the moment. Cadence International (formerly OCSC or Overseas Christian Servicemen's Centers) is the core of my childhood, along with my parents, Ralph Camp and Betty Camp and my big brother Dan CampJenny Zidel Brooks is one stand out childhood friendships, along with Erika Gieschen Bertling, Stephanie, Beth, and many others. My life has never been the same since Susan Vickery Rikard and her entire family entered my heart back in high school! The Master's College is where I met Rick Saake, the love of my life, and so many dear friends! Debbie Gruelle BridwellSandra Grafe GlahnKathe Homan WunnenbergLeslie Snodgrass and Julie Long Donahue (and each of their books or ministries, that led to personal friendships) saw me through an incredibly tough decade of infertility, miscarriage and adoption losses.
Hannah's Prayer ( www.Hannah.org ) played a daily anchor roll in my life for two decades, my "everything I learned in life I learned in Kindergarten" type go-to resource for understanding about infertility, loss, the adoption journey, then into childbirth and parenting, to world news,
 beauty tips, marriage advise, cooking help and so much more, even challenging my thinking on some wider theological issues. Most of the friendships I now maintain are still somehow linked to HP!!! I am no longer able to keep up with the speed and volume of daily interaction with thousands of women at a time, but am so very blessed to have similar type friendship through a few groups here on FB, especially my Hope House girls and Soul Sisters (Joni and Friends marriage retreat spin off group).
At the same time Hannah's Prayer was just beginning, I was befriended byLisa Copen of her fledgling chronic illness support ministry, Rest Ministries. While we have yet to meet in person (YET!) we have walked nearly every step of life together through personal chronic (and often addition acute, as well) illness, ministry growth, writing, growing our families (we have babies born 1 DAY apart!), learning social media, employment changes, homeschooling and so much more!!! Andrea Whittemore-Goad is my face-to-face, local friend who "gets" my health journey and faith in Jesus Christ, like no other.
My children Noel, Joshua, Joel, Hannah, Princess R. and J Bear are each so dear, my heart!
Jan Frank (author of A Graceful Waiting, and got me in the door with my publisher), NavPress and my editor Rachelle Gardner, Literary Agent, all must make my thankful list, as Hannah's Hope by Jennifer Saake was such a key landmark in my life! (And we never would have gotten there at all if not for Kathe's challenge!)
Jeanette Hanscome and the Reno Christian Writers (RCW) gang!
My many stroke doctors, nurses, therapists such as Rachel Dawson Brown, and support groups and buddies, such as Kendra (from from Hannah's Prayer days, young homeschooling moms together, then stroked, and SURVIVED, less than 6 months apart).
If your name isn't here, it is not meaning you aren't dear to me. Facebook will only let me tag so many AND my memory is bad, so here were ONLY are a few highlights!





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