It was a good week, full of good times with people, from my kids to my friends to my church family. We enjoyed watching our beloved Pats play football, our Vivace play soccer, we went to school open houses, we heard (and enjoyed) compliments about our kids (yes, all of them) in various places, and all in all had some great conversations. I took Vivace out of school on Tuesday to go on a field trip - just him and I - to the Lake Champlain Maritime Museum; it was a gorgeous day and a fabulous place to visit. On Wednesday I picked raspberries with a friend and we had a great time of interacting. The kids and I enjoyed blessed warm weather with a last "hurrah" of ice cream after school one day, the weather was amazing all week, Papa Bear redid the roof on the shed (amazing! and it's done! success!), and I went away for three days (two nights) on our church's annual women's retreat. Very sweet time, and a break from cooking and the routine as well.
But ... Vivace had a couple headaches (we're working on that one...) and it was "one of those weeks" with diabetes - a really hard week on that account. What does that mean? The short and sweet of it is that four of the last six nights, Patience has had low blood sugars in the middle of the night (that means one of us parents was up every one of those nights for at least 15 minutes - and often longer, and more than once). We were up monitoring her the other nights too, and yes, we were trying to avoid the issue every. single. time. And the daytimes had some low points - and some high points - as well. Yes, I was part of this even three hours away in NY on the retreat. Fun. We have several weeks like this every year, usually we have no idea why, and this would be no exception.
The Lord is gracious to us and the retreat helped me continue to grow to depend on Him. A lot of the focus of the retreat was to encourage me to relate intentionally with Him, with my family, and with others (why, how etc). It was a great week and retreat for that. And it was no less helpful in remembering that I can trust Him in all things - even the hard weeks. I was encouraged in many ways as we try to teach Patience to work through these things herself and to be part of the solution (not just us making all the decisions and then telling her what to do). She is doing really well at that; but it is not just w/her and w/diabetes. It's a critical skill for all of us as we "grow up" and mature - in our faith, in our wisdom, and in our service and responsibilities and work and relationships.... I hope to explain more what I'm thinking and how this works out in my thoughts as well as my life, but that's a lot of what I took away. But, for this evening, upon my return, I spent an hour or two analyzing data to try to "change pump (insulin) settings" to address the multitude of issues that seem to be collaborating to create this particular smattering of low blood sugars. No unpacking (except for the toothbrush and the pillow in just a few minutes). Oh well. But time to catch up conversationally to some degree, some snuggling with those who missed me most (Constance in particular) and number crunching and a stab at solving the riddle they call diabetes - at least for a couple days (so we can get some sleep!)
Lamentations 3:22-24
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
His mercies never come to an end;
They are new every morning;
Great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
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