Please SHARE!!!

I am a chiropractic stroke survivor. They tell me I should not be alive today. My doctor knew what happened. He didn't carry any insurance (common in the industry) and left the country, leaving us and our personal medical insurance (thankful for that!) to deal with my $1.5 million in anticipated medical expenses.

Medicine will tell you chiropractic stroke is a "rare" event. I submit to you that it is only considered rare because there are no accurate statistical reporting mechanisms in place! I think if anyone realized how often this happens, they would be shocked. Instead, individual records get buried under privacy laws and no one has access to the real numbers. 

Please help us pass a mandatory reporting law, where individual information stays private but a hospital is simply asked to report if they see a stroke patient who has recently received a cervical neck manipulation. That's it, just raw numbers! Chiropractic stroke - not rare, just dreadfully UNDER-REPORTED! Please help us prove that! 

Please sign the petition at https://www.change.org/p/jim-davis-bill-proposal-mandatory-reporting-of-chiropractic-stroke-vad-cad and share this with 5 friends!

December 10,2014

Our first daughter (now in Heaven) was conceived exactly 20 years ago. (When you are facing infertility, with all the cycle charting and medical invasion into your private life, you tend to know these things!) December 10 cannot pass without me thinking of this date as a "Noel Day". (Her name is Noel Alexis, our "Christmas Minister of Needs," who finally blessed us to become parents.)

We have also lived in this house exactly 10 years today!

My husband and I went and had our wills drawn up today. Hopefully it will be another 10 or 20 (or more) years before they are ever put into action, but it seemed fitting that the lawyer offered us this date to take our next big "grown up" step in life.

Just feeling reflective tonight...

To Parents With Genetic Special Needs

I found this article today. Knowing that I have MANY special needs Mommy friends, I wanted to pass it along. A Letter to The "Before Me" (for those new to diagnosis or still in the investigation stage).

"I know about the day when you open your computer and first Google a condition you’ve never heard of. I know that you’ll sit there for hours upon hours, reading, making notes, crying, watching videos, not believing that those moments are really happening.

Not yet realizing that the before is no longer. This is the nether-time. Time suspended. Over the next few days, you will live through the most trying days of your life – days that will forever split your life into two parts.

So before you enter the after, I’d like to offer some advice..."

The Song GIVE-A-WAY!

I was recently asked to review a couple's devotional book. I'll be honest and say I wasn't too enthused about the prospect, seeing as the title, Awaken Love, and focus passage, Song of Solomon, left me to figure the book would basically just be focusing on how to "spice up your sex life". When the book got here and I saw chapter titles like, "Deepening Desire" and "Increasing Intimacy," I literally rolled my eyes and thought "here we go."

I was pleasantly surprised that 86-page, softcover book is truly a Christ-centered activity guide to drawing closer and learning to more closely cherish AND EXPRESS this, to your spouse, in so many different ways. Much of the interaction between Solomon and his bride-to-be are used to expound upon the love Jesus has for us His Bride, that in turn should lead us to desire to communicate deeper care to the person we share our lives with. As the subtitle indicates, this book is about the "journey to Awaken Love in marriage" and I so appreciate how the entire relationship is considered and focused on, rather than many marriage books that seem to focus primarily on the physical (and the emotional in order to better set up the physical).

Daily readings are really only a couple minutes long and suggested activities could often be accomplished in 5 minutes or less, but could help re-set thought patterns for a very long time to come. Not a bad time investment in the one you love! They are often the kinds of activities that could have much more time and thought poured into them over the course of the day, or week, or month, if you so desire. 

For example one suggestion is to take your spouse's name and create an acrostic of character traits about this person that are meaningful to you. Yes, there is great value if you fill in the blanks during a sliver of time, then share it with your husband/wife on your way out the door. And taking a few days to really contemplate and ask the Lord to help you remember and recognize meaningful characteristics in the one you married is great too. Maybe even do both, 2 different list with both the immediate thoughts and long-term meditations? (That "do both" idea is mine, not from the book, but you can see how the simple thoughts and suggestions there can feed your own creativity!)

I am pleased to share that I will be able to request a free copy of Awaken Love to be sent to one of my blog readers (US & Canada only). If you would like to be entered for a chance to win your own copy of Awaken Love, please leave your name and email address (so I may contact you if you win, to request your mailing address) in the comments here. For a second entry, please visit another one of my blogs, StrokeOfGrace.blogspot, and join that page through the Google Friend Connect (right hand sidebar) then come back to this post and leave a second comment, telling me that you did. Oh, and for every place (Twitter, Facebook, your own blog) you share this post, you can earn additional entries for each of those as well, just leave separate comments linking to where you did!

Drawing open until noon (Pacific) on Friday, December 5, 2014. Winner notified on Saturday, December 6. Winner must respond by noon on Monday, December 8, or alternate winner will be selected. 

Disclosure (in accordance with the FTC’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising”): Many thanks to Propeller Consulting, LLC for providing this prize for the giveaway. Choice of winners and opinions are 100% my own and NOT influenced by monetary compensation. I did receive a sample of the product in exchange for this review and post.

If you have won the same prize on another blog, you are not eligible to win it again. Winner is subject to eligibility verification.

The Song Couple’s Devotional is a 6-week book for couples that can help awaken love in their marriage. With daily relationship insights and prayer points drawn from the Song of Solomon, this devotional will help couples grow in their relationship with God and one another. 

Inspired by the Song of Solomon, The Song is both a full-length movie and resource for churches to explore God’s plan for relationships, love and marriage.

About the author:

Kyle Idleman is the Teaching Pastor at Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky, the fourth-largest church in America. Author of the award-winning and bestselling book, not a fan., and presenter of eight of City on a Hill’s curriculum series, he regularly speaks at conferences and events around the world. Kyle and his wife DesiRae have four children.

Scrambled

A little snippet from my rough draft of Harvesting Hope from Heartache: 

I've always struggled with how what the devil intends for our harm, God not only USES, but the Bible says, in Joseph's story, God actually INTENDS for our good. Then yesterday my 8-year-old was recounting when we had taken him out to a fancy, grill-at-your-table Japanese place earlier in the year. The chef asked him to "juggle" raw eggs, knowing full well what would happen. Had he tried to juggle them over my floor, he would have gotten in trouble. But when the chef instructed him to juggle them over his grill, the inevitable crash of scrambled eggs was clearly part of his skillful recipe for our meal. Yes, it is easy to question when all we can see is the midst of the mess! So glad God not only sees, but designs, the bigger picture! - (c) Jennifer Saake, 2014

Give Away!

I would like to share one of the most exciting ways to discover the evidence for the Biblical Account of Creation – the Jonathan Park Creation Adventure Audio Series! My family and I have not only enjoyed this entertaining and educational resource, we have been equipped to defend the truth of creation! If you haven’t heard Jonathan Park, let me encourage you to experience one of these exciting audio adventures firsthand! Go to http://jonathanpark.com/try-it-free/ to listen to a free episode. Most importantly, the creators of Jonathan Park are giving away three sets of the entire Master Collection of ten (4-CD) albums – over 3,000 minutes of creation adventure! Good news – if you simply sign up using the link below, you will automatically be entered into this giveaway.

Use my special link to enter the giveaway - http://jonathanpark.com/giveaways/christmas-giveaway/?lucky=1836

I hope Jonathan Park Creation Adventures is as much of a blessing to your family as it has been to ours!

Blessings,

Update

I actually started this post yesterday with the intent to share memories of my Heaven children. Then the school called about one of my blessings still on earth...

So what's been happening in my world? Well our living kid have all been in and out of school, taken turns with viruses and assorted bacterial infections. Our 6th grader was sent home twice within a week and has a virus AND Step right now!

If only that were the worst of it, but my mom was recently hospitalized with some sort of stroke-like event. She was just moved to a rehabilitation hospital last night so I'm heading out to spend a few hours with her this morning and coming home before our 3rd grader gets home so his sick sister doesn't have to be in charge!

Interestingly enough, my mom is now admitted to the very facility where I am hosting an open house on Saturday, in celebration that this month marks 3 years of my own stroke survival. (I was ready to cancel my part on Monday, but my parents encouraged me to keep it in the plans and a few friends are now stepping in for Mom to help me pull it off.) She will be able to attend as an in-house resident now.

I know I had two amazing products to tell you about last month, both the (in)Courage line of new letter blocks and a Bible storybook by David C. Cook. My apologies to both of these companies for telling them I would tell you how much I love their products (And I do! I won't endorse any product I don't personally love!) by certain deadlines, but failing to do so. I've decided that, other than the product reviews I do for stroke recovery and adaptation, my life is just too crazy for me to follow through on other commitments of this kind right now. (Received free review copy in exchange for my honest opinion.)

http://www.christianbook.com/treasury-of-bible-stories/kelly-pulley/9780781409179/pd/409174

Treasury of Bible Stories is, as it's name indicates, a true treasure. When I first saw the book I though it was just another colorful read-aloud for toddlers and preschoolers. Then my action-packed 3rd grader picked it up and is using as his after school reading practice. (He's half way through the 350+ pages for his second time already.) He loves the humor, rhyming patterns of words, and creative expression of the stories and bright pictures. It is so exciting to see him engaging with Bible stories and asking thought-provoking questions like I have never witnessed with any other of our many Bible story books. Maybe it was just a timing thing, that he discovered this collection of Bible stories at just the right time for his mind to embrace them in a new way, but the telling is quite clever and inviting, even to a nearly-9-year-old who has been in Sunday School nearly every week of his life. No, Kelly Pulley hasn't changed anything about the Story, just presented the details quite cleverly. I highly recommend this one to add to your collection!



With the LetterPress block I have a second opportunity to tell you about, since I really want to do my best to honor my commitment (and it is a really cool system): DaySpring and (in)courage are thrilled with the response to our new Letterpress Blocks Collection! You can “build your word” by dragging letters of different sizes to create the word or phrase of your choice. Then, easily add your word to cart and checkout at DaySpring.com. Pre-packaged kit words are also available for sale at DaySpring. Words Matter Letterpress Blocks- Build your Word! (affiliate link)