Tag Archives: God

“I Wish I Never Got Diabetes”

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Says my son. I hear this statement most days of the week. Sometimes multiple times a day. It breaks my momma heart, even though I do agree with him. I also wish he had never gotten diabetes, however I refuse to let any of us walk around with a victim mentality. So I turn it around with positivity and an extra low carb snack to ease his pain. He is beginning to be burned out with this season of life, and I don’t blame him. It’s just plain hard.

One day Wyatt asked me why he had gotten diabetes and why God hasn’t healed him yet. Talk about a hit in an already sore spot in my heart. I had asked God these exact questions already. Sometimes in frustration, sometimes just with a sheer curiosity that is common with us humans. But God had never given me an answer…..so i sighed, took a deep breath, said a silent prayer for God to speak through me to my sensitive child then spoke what came to my heart. It was in that instant that God answered my prayer through me. He spoke to my son’s tender heart and it warmed mine right up. Its reminded me that God never leaves us or forsakes us. This disease wasn’t a form of punishment or proof that God wasn’t paying attention to my family. It’s my son’s testimony. Whether God miraculously heals him or it is His will that Wyatt walk out his life with Type one, we dont know. But we do know that God is still good and He still loves us. He has been here with us comforting us the entire time.

So if you find yourself walking through a battle that seems endless, just know that God is with you. He will never forsake you. He loves you and He will walk through the fire beside you. The anchor holds, in spite of the storm!

With All of God’s Blessings,

Stephanie Smith

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Day 4

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Today is a special day of prayer for me personally. Maybe it’ll be special for you to! On day 4 of this prayer journey, we are going to be praying about marriage. Mainly about over coming struggles in marriage! My husband and I did not know the Lord when we got married, so the first four years of our relationship were incredibly unstable. Our life was littered with selfishness, infidelity, anger, lust, frustration, and the constant threat of divorce. Once Holy Spirit pulled us into the Lord’s embrace, I wish I could say things calmed down immediately; but we all know that wasn’t true. It took time, persistence, prayer, and lots of time spent gleaning from God’s Word. So, here we go, giving God all the glory for His never ending love of us!

What God Has Joined Together

Dear Heavenly Daddy,

Thank You for this day spent with many children. It has been enlightening to watch them as I learn to have faith as a child. Thank You for the help-mate you have gifted me. He is an amazing man and we are blessed to have him as the leader of our home. Thank You for the obstacles we had to overcome that shaped us and our marriage into a living testimony of Your love and grace. Lord, and thank you for sending us Holy Spirit to comfort us and guide us. His presence in my life has shaped many bad situations into spiritual transformations.

Lord, there has been many attacks from the enemy lately in our marriage. I pray that you would protect my husband and my children from any assaults. You are the greatest protector and I have full faith that You will use these attacks to shape our faith and bring us to a new level of intimacy with You. I pray for peace in the storm and I thank You for these unsteady times so I can prove my faith to You. Your Word says Your grace is sufficient for each day, so I will stand firm against all forms of negativity with full assurance that You have supplied my arsenal with plenty of ammunition. I can block all attacks with my shield of faith.

Lord, I do know sometimes negativity in my marriage isn’t an attack from the enemy, but just plain old sinful selfishness from either I or my partner. So I pray for us to be emptied of self and fully filled with Holy Spirit. Pour out the fruits of the Spirit on us and into our lives. Teach us to be more like you and less like the world. Let my marriage be a true and holy representation of Your relationship with me. I fully submit to You and Your Will for my life and for my family. You are holy and righteous Lord and You are worthy of all our praise and admiration!

In Jesus name I pray, Amen

With All of God’s Blessings,

Stephanie Smith

Day 3

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Welcome to day 3 of our 30 Day Prayer journey! This has truly already blessed my life in more ways than I can count. God sure is good to us! So since today is Sunday, and I just finished prepping for homeschool tomorrow, let say a prayer about school!

CO-PARENTING WITH GOD

Dear Heavenly Daddy,

Thank You for this day. Thank You for sending the shepherd to take care of your flocks. Thank You for leaving the ninety-nine to come and find me. Thank You for these children You have put under my care to train up for Your Kingdom. Without Your wisdom and guidance, I would be lost daily. Your presence in my house is what keeps me sane. Lord, I know that my children are truly Yours and that You have just entrusted their care to me. Thank you for co-parenting them with me. Your love and Your example is what teaches me how to love them. Thank You for showing me the way.

TRAIN UP A CHILD

Lord, tomorrow is a new day of me trying to put more of You into our children. Your word says to train up a child in the way that they should go, and when they are older they will not depart from it. Jesus, I am standing on that word and proclaiming it over my children. This world is a very scary place and schools are no longer safe for children. So we are entrusting them into your care. Protect and nurture them when they are away from us. Thank you for giving me the means to teach my children from the safety of my home. Your generosity is overwhelming! Give me the wisdom and patience to teach them in a language they are capable of understanding. Speak through me into their lives. Speak life into them. Fill in all the gaps I miss in their education. Fill them with Your Holy Spirit and the fruits of Your Spirit. Help me to equip them to be kind and gentle and loving while the world is cold, cruel and scary. Lets raise up a generation of believers that are not afraid to stand on Your Word!

In Jesus name I pray, Amen

With All of God’s Blessings,

Stephanie Smith

Day 2

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Yesterdays prayer was so refreshing that I absolutely cannot wait to put up todays! This time we are going to be praying about health, mainly because my son’s sugar has been super high all morning. I need this prayer at this moment and hopefully you’ll find something valuable from it as well.

By His Stripes We Are Healed

Dear Heavenly Daddy,

Thank you for this beautiful but slightly flooded day in Louisiana. We appreciate Your kindness and love so much! Your grace and mercy far exceeds our limited way of thinking. Lord, I pray for divine healing today. We have been struggling to be a makeshift pancreas for my son lately. His blood sugar continues to be untamable and its frustrating to say the least. I pray that you step in and take control. I proclaim healing in his body and for all of his organs. I proclaim healing over every family that comes across this post. I pray for peace during sickness and for comfort. Relieve pain in joints and nerves. I rebuke cancer and all diseases that attack your children.

I pray for peace for the families that have sick children. Wrap these people in your loving embrace. Lord, for people that are hearing diagnosis’s for the first time, relieve their stress and fear. Your perfect love cast out all fear and we are standing on that promise right now. Send them people to support them and help hold their arms up like Aaron and Hur did for Moses. Teach them how to praise you in the storms of life. Don’t allow the enemy to use these devastating diseases to draw them away from Your love and comfort. I am standing in the gap today for families that are so overwhelmed that they cannot reach out to You. Lord protect them and wrap them in Your love.

Thank You Lord. Thank You for doctors with Your wisdom and for counselors that are willing to hear us out when we feel buried under our emotions. Thank You for supplying all of our needs before we even realize we are lacking. You are Jehovah Jireh! We love you so much!

In Jesus Name I pray, Amen.

With All of God’s Blessings,

Stephanie Smith

The Highs and the Lows

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For the last few weeks, we have really been struggling to keep my sons sugar in a “good” zone. First we struggled at night. He would drop 6-7 times a night, every night. Talk about me being a zombie for days on end. I was EXHAUSTED! Now that we have it almost under control at night, it is unsteady during the day! Meals that he has ate the entire time he has been diagnosed now send him to a shockingly high number. When just last week that exact same meal to insulin ratio sent him plummeting to an all time low. Let me just say that type 1 diabetes is frustrating and exhausting and just defeating sometimes.

#HONEYMOON PHASE

My son is currently in the honeymoon phase of T1D. Now, don’t get confused here, there is nothing fun about this honeymoon. It means that his pancreas still sometimes produces insulin. So he eats, we dose his insulin for the food, and BAM his pancreas works right and also gives him insulin. So we find him plummeting very quickly and having him shot gun apple juice…..insane right?! Then there are times that his pancreas doesn’t work at all, like today. So he ate the same breakfast that he has ate all week, but today, his insulin does nothing for him. He skyrockets to a very scary number and all we can do is dose him again and wait the two hour window for his medicine to take affect. Type one diabetes is stupid.

ITS ALL A WAITING GAME TO THE COMPLETE DEATH…

of his pancreas, that is. So, we sit and wait on his pancreas to fully die out. Hoping the day comes sooner rather than later. Living in this Russian roulette of insulin or not is really hard for his little 8 year old body to take. And it breaks my momma heart to pieces to watch him suffer like he does. Plus living with the stress of unknown long term effects of his sugar roller coasters. I’m not saying it will get better once that day comes, but I can hope that maybe, just maybe, it’ll be a little smoother.

If you know someone with T1D or have any tips or tricks of the trade, please send some my way! I’ll take all the help God brings to me!

With All of God’s Blessings,

Stephanie Smith

Day 1

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Today is the first day of our 30 days of prayer series! I am so excited to start this prayer journey with you! So to start this month long conversation with Jesus, we will be praying for God’s favor.

God’s Favor

Dear Heavenly Daddy,

Thank you for placing the dream of this blog into my heart. Thank you for all that you have done to bring me to this place in my life. Thank you for each and every person you bring to this blog to follow along with me. I pray for your Devine favor on each person that reads these words. I pray for blessings and peace that surpasses all understanding to surround them. Pour out Your Holy Spirit on them and their family and friends. Lord, establish the work of our hands and let your favor rest on us. Your Word says that out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, so we proclaim your favor into our lives. We have faith that You will see us through and bless us. As we actively seek and live by Your wisdom; we will be highly favored and esteemed in the sight of You and men. Our enemies cannot overpower us because Your favor surrounds us. We love you Lord and we lift Your Name forever in gratitude and worship.

In Jesus Name we pray, Amen.

I hope these words bring you peace! With all of God’s Blessings,

Stephanie Smith

30 Days of Prayer

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So to kickstart my own prayer life, I’ve decided to do a 30 days of prayer series for anything and everything going on in life. This series will cover health, children, marriage, homeschool, work, finances, spirituality, and deepening our relationship with Jesus.

What is prayer? Prayer is acknowledging and experiencing the presence of God AND inviting His presence into our lives and circumstances. It’s seeking the presence of God and releasing the power of God which gives us the means to overcome ANY problem. Prayer is our greatest gift from God himself. He desires communication with us, He wants to be included in our everyday life and struggles. He created us with companionship in mind. To do life with us. We are spiritual beings in a physical world. Most of our fights are in the unseen. Use that in prayer. Remember that in battles. Hold on to that in storms.

SO PRAY

  • Pray, even if you think it’s impossible and will never happen. With God all things are possible.
  • Pray, even if you don’t know what to say. Just say Jesus. God knows your needs but He won’t step into a situation that He isn’t invited into.
  • Pray, even if you’re in a situation where you don’t think there is time to pray. God’s time is different than ours and He can change any situation in less than a second.
  • Just pray. Fervent prayer. Spirit filled prayer. Persistent prayer. Keep praying until you see the change you want to see. Pray with FAITH. Pray believing that God can and will do what you’re asking. Just pray.

Starting tomorrow I’ll put up the first post, so come back then to catch it!

With All of God’s Blessings

Stephanie Smith

Homeschooled or Unschooled

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We recently began homeschooling, just this year actually. God laid it on my heart to begin homeschooling early in 2018, but I was so hesitant to take that on. Just the thought of it overwhelmed my head and heart. However, when God brings us to something, He doesn’t leave us there alone. So He surrounded me with many homeschool families to help support me during this new transition. And still I hesitated, that is until my son Wyatt, was diagnosed with T1D. Then I jumped on this new ministry like my life depended on it!

Homeschooling

We started homeschooling with my heart set on all of these curriculums that I had brought together for one big idea. I had this picture in my head of me reading aloud daily to happy children who never misbehaved or got frustrated. Then God popped that bubble of a very unreal idea of homeschool and set a much smaller plan in my heart. Since this is our first year, we only do the bare minimum with fun stuff thrown in the mix. So basically by homeschool is a mixture of school at home and unschooling.

Unschooling

When I first read about unschooling, I was repulsed! My organized teacher heart did a back flip and landed in slime with a disgusting PLOP! How could any child learn from the unschooling technique? That’s what I would ask as I read all of their ideas. Then when I started homeschooling and God started whispering to my heart to go “At the pace of the children,” I started to love the idea of unconventional teaching. We have stopped curriculums after 3 weeks and tossed them out the door if they tried pushing to hard or overwhelmed either of my older children. We spend a lot of our days letting God lead our school. We focus majorly on biblical principals and biblical history. We learn our math facts with God’s truths thrown in and we learn literature and handwriting from passages of Psalms and christian authors like C. S. Lewis.

At the Pace of the Children

God whispered this to my heart one evening when I was becoming increasingly concerned with the pace my youngest was learning the alphabet. He caught my attention very suddenly and said “Daughter, I never rush you to take steps you are unprepared for, so why are you rushing him? This ministry is for you and your children to grow more in love with Me, not the alphabet. Let him lead this while you lead him to Me. Trust me to fill any void that is left.” And that was it. I was hooked. We would go only as fast as the children were comfortable and the rest was left for God to fill. Trust, faith, and grace are all needed to homeschool, and thankfully God fills me every morning with each of these sufficient for the day.

If you have any homeschooling advice, or curriculums you love, please let me know! I love hearing from other homeschool families!

With All of God’s Blessings

Stephanie Smith

3 Ways to Keep the Faith During Disaster

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If there is something I’ve learned throughout the course of my life, and majorly in the past year, it’s how to keep my eyes on Christ during very serious situations. I’ve had, in my opinion, way to much practice with this. But never the less, God gives us these experiences so that we can help others walk through their own messy situations. This post will be short and sweet and to the point, because I know we all want that straight arrowed path to the cross. However, the cross is always readily available to us, so take this post with a grain of salt.

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Eyes on Christ

Step 1: Prayer, prayer, and more prayer.

This is the single most important aspect of keeping our eyes on Christ. Pray with your emotions, whether those emotions are good or bad. Yell at God if you’re angry, trust me He is big enough to take it. Cry out to God if you’re scared. Just sit in silence and weep with Jesus if you’re overwhelmed. Ask for help from Him. Ask for peace. Ask for Him to send the angels. JUST ASK. Talk to Him, He is the best listener.

Step 2: Write the Word.

There was a time when I had no words for God. I wanted to talk, but I was all talked out. Especially since nothing could bring my daughter back from the dead, so why ask for it?…. So instead of using my own words, I turned to the words of David. I started by writing the Psalms as my own personal prayers. I could really resonate with the passionate feelings of David at that time. I felt what he felt and cried out how he did. Me and David were the same person at that point in time of my life. So his words became my words. Every day I’d find a new Psalm that really touched where I was in life and I’d write that in my prayer journal. That helped me to find my voice again.

Step 3: Remind yourself of God’s goodness.

After Wyatt was diagnosed with T1D, I went through this dark spot of not knowing if God was good….its scary to admit that out loud, but its truth nonetheless. So I started writing it down. Standing on my faith alone to keep me steady. I knew that God was real, I knew that God’s promises were yes and amen, and I knew that God was good. BUT, I didn’t feel that God was good to me…..So I wrote:

“God is good, even when life is not.”

“God is good, even if I cant feel it.”

“God is good to me.”

“God is good.”

Everyday I would write that under my prayers. I’d write it more than once on the days I didn’t particularly believe it. Then eventually, I felt it deep in my heart, that THIS was TRUTH.

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With All of God’s Blessings

Stephanie Smith

Change, change, and more change

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wyatt

My son Wyatt is 8 and he is winning at life with T1D. He conquers every single day like a champion! His math skills are exceptional (better than mine!) thanks to carb counting and correction factors, his faith in God is unshakeable, and his prayer life is out of this world. He knows the power of healing prayer and the power of walking out your personal testimony, no matter the cost, for the glory of God.

When you live with T1D, there is only one thing that is certain, and that is that every single day will be different. What you do one day that worked, will definitely not work the next day. What you ate that day that kept your blood sugar in a good zone, will make you sky rocket tomorrow. Day after day of shots, checks, and corrections lead to burn outs quickly, well for me. He excels in taking every day as a grain of salt. He amazes me! So now, after waiting long enough for his nerves to calm down, he has requested an insulin pump….. (insert anxiety here).

Now don’t get me wrong, I wanted an insulin pump. I’ve researched for the best one for his age, checked all the reviews, asked his diabetic educator her opinions, visited the doctor with questions, and asked my own “diabetic family” their advice. But ultimately, it is his decision. I leave all of these BIG changes up to him because in the long run, he is the one that has to live with and learn to love these devices. However, now that he is ready and his insulin pump has arrived via FedEx, I’m hesitant to schedule the training. Not because of any fixable reason, just because of fear of change. Again. Every time we get adjusted to the new of diabetes, a new ball is thrown into the juggling match that I have to master. It’s overwhelming and stressful and just plain out scary. Right after his diagnosis I left the hospital with the mindset of “Once I get home and do it myself, I’ll be good to go.” And technically that is true; I’m excellent at rolling with the punches.

CONTINUOUS GLUCOSE MONITOR

When we got the new CGM (Continuous glucose monitor) I was all on board for that. It is an amazing device that checks his sugar every 5 minutes 24 hours a day. But let me tell you the shock of seeing how food and drinks mess with a body that has a pancreas that doesn’t produce insulin. It’s insane! I stayed in a panic for at least two weeks. The alarm blared every 5 minutes every night for the first week! It was terrible. What I thought would make diabetes easier, made my life incredibly difficult and I was heart broken. Now a days, its easier, but not by a lot. The alarm haunts my sleep most nights. The roller coaster on the screen of the CGM reader makes me unforgettably aware that I am unfit to replace an organ that God made perfect for a body.

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So now I am at a cross roads of going to finalize this insulin pump set up, or to just keep going with the multiple injections every day. While I know I will eventually get brave and take Wyatt to his training, I think I’ll sit here in the comfort of our “normal” for a little while longer. Until I gather all of my courage and face this newest change, I’ll hold my strong little man a little while longer and pray with him. Pray for strength, courage, and perseverance for me. Pray for painless injections, normal sugar readings, and a steady faith in God for him.

With All of God’s Blessings,

Stephanie Smith