89 Baby Guppies!

Remember all those feeder guppies we got 4ish months ago? One survived, a male. Feeder guppies are tiny. That's Twit.

We put him in the tank with our one remaining female guppy. She's a typical guppy, instead of a feeder. Much larger. That's Teenager. (One of Anti-Yoda's 3 daughters.)

The idea behind putting them together was to breed them. But Twit was so aggressive, we put him in his own little fish bowl weeks ago. We thought the project had failed.

Yesterday, I thought something was wrong with Mr. Snail and looked closer - a baby fish was hiding behind him.

At first, I thought our herd of neons, who we bought 48 hours before, had had babies. But they're egg-layers, and that teeny fish was decidedly a guppy.

We currently have 89 baby guppies in the baby net, hanging on the side of the tank. Each is the size of a mosquito larvae. That's half the size of any baby guppy I've had before. Must take after their father.

They actually look like mosquito larvae too. Not to worry. The picture above is of a feeder guppy. They'll likely look similar once grown.

When we tried to breed these 2, we were thinking of a normal guppy litter of 6-10. But I guess when the female's 10 times larger than the male, more fit.

We're both having a blast counting. David's as enthralled as I am.

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Teenager is healthy and of good stock. But feeders are notorious for genetic problems and short life spans. I hope a lot survive. Their father, after all, is fine.

I can safely have 40 of them in the tank as adults, though it'll take extra up-keep. If all else fails, we kept a 10 gallon tank with a crack in the top, which we could use as a 5 gallon fish bowl. Besides, there's a plethora of kids at church. Parents beware.

First Time at our Friday Night Group

The following is a pivotal story for both of us in knowing God's love and power. The night spoken of rocked both our lives.

This is the night we realized God takes action.

You've heard about our Friday night church group. Mike, the leader, asked me to write out the story of the first time we went. This is it.
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One night in February of 2008, my husband and I went to our Friday night group for the first time. We came straight from the funeral home, where we'd dropped off our son's body to be cremated. He was our second child - and the second we'd lost.

We came in after the meeting had started, both my arms around my husband's teddy bear, and his arm around me. We sat down and half-listened to the speaker, a woman who, of all things, was telling the story of holding her son while he died.

I don't remember much from the meeting, or even from the surrounding months. I came in shattered, not only having just lost our baby, but in the worst part of Lyme Disease. It'd been 3 months since I'd had a moment without pain. Even before we knew something was wrong with the baby, I was out of my head from hurting.

I remember Mike kneeling in front of me, talking to me quietly. He was asking what was going on. I couldn't speak, and my husband answered for us.

I've remarked a few times since that neither of us ever told the group that we thought I'd die. Though each time I've mentioned that, I've heard, "Oh I know! We could tell."

Mike asked something about whether it was ok for the group to pray for us, and put their hands on us.

Then I remember having about 6 hands on me. One was my husband's. Their hands made my body hurt, but I didn't care. I hurt worse than my body did.

I heard things in that prayer that I never had before. They said they believed Jesus could heal me. They demanded bad things to get off me. I remember so little, but I know it brought comfort. I remember thinking that if I did die, maybe these people would help my husband.

When they were done praying, and a few were left kneeling, talking to me, something made me laugh. I remember Mike turning from near-by and saying, "You're laughing!" I was rather surprised myself.

The next afternoon, I realized that my pain level had dropped enough to notice. That would gradually continue until, about 4 months later, I felt good 23 hours a day. The prayer had been a turning point.

One year later, I'm healthy and hopeful, closer to God than I knew was possible, the group is our family, and they're teaching us how to pray.

God over Kids

Last Friday, something clicked with me:

The thoughts in my head get a lot sweeter when I think I might be pregnant. I am SUPER sensitive to the thought of stressing out my baby.

However, they don't get a lot sweeter when I think of God being in the room with me. I am not super sensitive to the thought of stressing HIM out.

That says more about my heart than I ever wanted to know.
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Apology made and accepted. Then I went about my day very conscious that I need to 1) love God more than I love my children, and 2) be sensitive to him.
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Hours later, I dropped into the recliner with my Bible. I started reading where I'd left off, and came across Jesus saying this; "He who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me."

Anyone else think that was NOT a coincidence?

I took it as, "You were right! Don't forget! This is important to me."
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That night we had our Friday Night Group. At the end, we had worship time via CD. Our leader, Mike, came over to tell me that a certain line in the song that was playing was for ME. (Kind of God pointing out the line if you will.)

The line was "Strength will rise as we wait upon the Lord." Thinking on it led to all the following pouring into my head:

- Strength will rise as I wait upon the Lord. Not as I wait upon the Lord to bring me children.
- The effect on my niceness that God has needs to be even stronger than the effect my children have.
- If I don't value God more than my children, how could I value that they came from him? So, how could I value them (to the extent I should)?
- If I don't love God more than I love them, how could I give/dedicate them to God?

The next song was about the Father-child love we get from God. Yet another not-a-coincidence. During it, this part came:

- The love that's to be found between parent and child with my children is available in my parent-child relationship with God. (It's not like putting him first is depriving me of anything.)
- His parent-child love is even more intense than my own. He loves me more than I love them. (And, he loves them like that.)
- God is the only source of happiness and satisfaction. Not children.
- Similarly, living children is not what would bring me peace and joy.
- How could I have peace during pregnancy if I'm not more in love with him than with my baby?
- How could I have joy once they're born without God?

So I came home after Group and wrote it all down. Pretty hefty, huh?

Would you believe I even prayed for God to have that sweetness-effect on me in a dream last night?

Truth's truths

I've been thinking lately: How do we know if something pertaining to God is true?

When I was a kid, I was taught that experience is not valid. I was taught that we read the Bible, take it very literally, and don't look for experiences with God.

But then, aren't all the Bible stories accounts of people's experiences with God? If you don't have experience, what do you have?

Experience it is!
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So then I think about the idea of basing truth off of experience. That can be done. As mentioned, that's precisely how the Bible works.

Like in the "Love" post, I experienced God's interactive love for me, I therefore can't question that it's real. Or that He's real for that matter.

But it's also true that a painful emotion can twist our ability to see reality.

A painful emotion could have made me rail against the totally true love I experienced last week. (Especially during the back-to-blah time following the experience.)

Too, emotion can convince us that God said something because we'd LOVE it if he would. Been there done that.

Even with these dangers, experience seems to be the method by which to arrive at truth, whether that experience is our own or someone else's.

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But you see, my head has been warped. I have over 2 decades of people telling me that truth MUST be verified in order to BE truth.

It must be written, in order that it's tangible. It must be analyzed and scrutinized in order to be sure it's solid. It must be able to be proved - for truth and fact are the same... usually...

Unless it's not possible to write/analyze/scrutinize/prove MY truth.

How reliable.

Maybe, truth doesn't need proven at all. Maybe truth is truth. Maybe truth is so confident in it's true-ness, that it doesn't need us to validate it.

And if that's *ahem* true, then we're back to being able to rely on experience.
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One thing I know:

God is the source of all truth. God has me. Therefore I am wrapped in truth. And Truth will help me to identify the details of Himself.

And how do I know this? Well, experience! Naturally!

And faith. Let's not forget faith. Faith matters.

(Sidenote: Is either faith or experience a sub-category of the other? ... Does it matter? ... Will I end up writing a blog post explaining why faith's more important than experience? ... Will you read it? ... Do I need a cookie? ... Yes I do.)

Random

My head is all over the place. Fair warning.
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May I amuse you? I crack myself up:

Sally chucked a peck of pickled woodchucks. If Sally chucked a peck of pickled woodchucks, how many pickled seashores would a woodchuck pepper?
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Our Sunday night House Group has been moved to Wednesday night. Info for those of you that make phone calls to us.
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Friday, over a week ago, we had a trip to MI. We knew it'd be snowing. We didn't know it'd be thick enough to look like fog. Snow plows were only able to keep one lane on the highway open in each direction. It's usually a 3 1/2 hour trip one way. It took about 5 1/2 to get there. We saw at least 10 wrecks, involving at least 5 jack-knifed 18-wheelers.

We shouldn't have gone. But we figured it out about the same time we got out of the city, and by then, there's no turning back.

My appointment was bumped to the one empty time slot of the day. We were too late for me to get an IV, and I only made it to the last 45 minutes of a 3 hour meeting at church that night.

Oh, and nothing much medically to say. Lots of mineral deficiencies. Working on that.

Love

God was busy in worship on Sunday...

(I wrote this story out on Monday morning. But I seem to have packed it so full of squealing that my mother could hardly read it. I've re-written it. But do tell me if there's something you don't understand.)

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Sunday morning, during worship, I was at the front on my knees. It wasn't out of reverance. Rather, I was overcome with God's LOVE for me.

While there, I put 2 pictures together in my head.

1) From Revelations 5 and 8: "'You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain'... and heaven was silent for half an hour"

2) THIS is who kneels in front of me, washing my feet!

The tenderness of Jesus blows me away. The humility, the mercy, the sweetness. I dropped from my knees to my face - laughing! I laughed off and on the rest of worship.

By the way, a line in one of the songs, "you have taken my diseases," brought on one of the rounds of laughing. Most of you will see why.

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Later, back on my knees again, I was singing with my eyes closed. I was imagining a scene in heaven. Angels (and other creatures) were around Father and Jesus, singing praise to them.

While seeing this in my head, I was (literally) on my knees yelling to them, "Heaven, sing louder! Heaven! Sing LOUDER!" I don't think I've ever addressed the angels/creatures before in my life.

A few songs later, near the end, someone came to the front and said, "Did anyone else hear the angels singing?"

There were instantly 20+ "Yes" noises - rather enthusiastic ones!

It was hours later that I put that together with what I'd been yelling at the time. (Not that I think I caused it.)

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It was immediately following this worship that I found a friend and eagerly blurted out, "Can I pray for you?" (I don't think I've ever offered to pray for anyone period.)

While praying for her, she asked me to pray for a friend of hers, who I've never met. Clueless as to what to say about this person, I paused mid-prayer, and had a piece of info about her friend pop into my head.

I asked her if this info was right.

Her eyes were wide as she said it was.

May I admit I screamed? She, having just been told by yours truly, that I don't get words from God, was laughing.

(Screaming IS what you're supposed to do when God speaks to you, right?)

Now I'm curious to see to what extent God will continue giving me specifics to pray for.

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One of my friends, who'd never gotten sparkles before, had gold on her cheek.

One of our friends thought he perceived an angel, and mentioned it to his wife. Her response was basically, "Duh. He's been moving all over the room." She'd been seeing him for a while.

I overheard others saying they'd seen angels up above us.

I know of atleast 2 others that were laughing through worship like I was - though I didn't know at the time. Apparently I wasn't the only person God was shaking up.

Get it? "Shaking up?" :)

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I truly wish it were possible to describe God himself - to paint a picture of what he's doing *inside* us. I hate having to resort to angels to do the painting. They are amazing, but they don't compare.

An even BETTER Lyme Story

I've just put "Bill's Blog" under "Sites We Frequent."

It's a new blog. Find the December 30, 2008 post. It seems it might be the first one posted.

It's the brief story of a woman who was healed, overnight, of Lyme Disease. She was apparently right in the middle of the worst part of it. Be sure to watch the video. It's the main part of the story.

It's my story with the following changes: No dream. Legally blind off and on instead of light sensitive. And the overnight difference I got was a major pain drop-off that started a multi-month healing (rather than full healing overnight.) This woman, too, was even pregnant with Lyme.

Oh, and hey, from the blog, click on "Home." There's excellent info to be found. And it's fun!

Same link as "Bill's Blog."

Bethany, Cookies, and B-Day

Ok, I'm getting caught up. Starting with the trip to David's family in Colorado:

Stayed for 5 days with David's parents and youngest sister. Got to see the whole fam though.

Got to go to David's old church twice - Sunday morning, but Christmas Eve too. Complete with candlelight singing. I'm diggin'. Celebrating Jesus' birth on Christmas is a recent-years thing for me, and I really love it. Good to now have some familiar faces in their church too!

Got to see what Christmas looks like to David. (Family reunion plus presents.)

He and I pulled out the Muppets' Christmas Carol the day after Christmas. Neither of us thought ahead though about Tiny Tim. Both of us ended up sitting on the couch crying. Great. Not really what we were goin' for.

We flew home. Zzzzoooom!
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December 31st, David got off work. (We'd saved a vacation day till the end, figuring we could easily need it for a doc appt.) We drove 45 minutes to get our 3rd Musketeer, Bethany, from her parents' house. Panera, Trader Joe's for junk food, our apartment, David spends 2 hours at church while Bethany and I talk, Monopoly (I give you one guess who won), bubbly apple juice, "Auld Lang Syne" at 903 decibels, sleeping in, Clue Mysteries, Ikea, Bethany back home.
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Saturday night, we got crackalackin' on a Christmas tradition I want to get in place. Christmas cut-out cookies! (Having been very sick our first 2 Christmases, the only tradition we've had going so far was the tree.)

We made 33 cookies. One broke and had to get et - shucks. Of the other 32, David decorated about 10 and I got the rest. Once the 5 colors of icing were ready, it took 2 solid hours. David pointed out at 11 that I hadn't had dinner yet. I.had.FUN.

The bottom pic is David and I. We made them for each other. Theoretically, that's a skirt I'm wearing. And do notice David's beard and wedding ring.

David explained to me how he decided to decorate one of the cookies:
"I thought to myself, 'If I was going to eat this cookie, how would I want it decorated?'"...
*He picks up green icing.*...
*SMEARRRRRR.*
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Sunday morning, we picked up Bethany for church. It's extremely fun to have your bff see what your world looks like. And Vineyard is of uber importance in our world. It was good to have her there.

One of our favorite sandwich places for lunch. Ice cream afterward per David's brilliant suggestion. And planning to go to Ikea after dropping off Bethany, she helped us disassemble and measure our car. On the 1st, we'd found shelving appropriate to replace my cardboard "shelves" in the kitchen, but wanted to think on it first.

Then David and I went to Ikea. We put down the passenger seat and the half of the back seat directly behind it. The shelves went through the trunk, into the passenger seat area. I rode home behind David. Totally worked.
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Around this time was my birthday. (The date ain't goin' on the blog.) It has to have been the most depressed I've ever been on a birthday. We didn't even remember it was happening until the day before. Not even a chance to get excited. All day, I couldn't think what the world I like to do for my birthday. Then someone mentioned a cake. I was excited for 3 seconds then realized I shouldn't be eating cake. (Lyme junk.) No chance for anything. Although, our uncle called and sang Happy Birthday. It was the highlight of my day - likely the only time I laughed.

The next day, we tried to have the excitement we'd missed. We went to a big JCPenney's with the gift card David's mom gave me. I've never been to Penney's and not found something I *had* to have. Though naturally, when I actually go with money in my pocket, everything would be picked over post-Christmas. A long time into looking, and immensely frustrated, we stepped back and scoured the store for *anything* not on sale and picked over. Nothing. The whole store is currently on sale - good, if you're not wanting to get something you truly like.

On the one hand, I can not depend on birthday cake and new clothes for my happiness. On the other hand, I freely admit I tripped over my bottom lip on the way out the Penney's door.
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Sunday night, I fell asleep at 6:45. Due to this, we bailed on our house group. I woke up at 8 Monday, only to box some of the cut-out cookies for my little bro. (The 2nd pic from the top is basically what I sent him.) I slept 2 more hours and have scarcely done a thing today that required standing. Probably doing it again tomorrow.

Whew. You're pretty caught-up. If I can't get back here before then, this coming Friday is another MI run.