I have an awesome God who healed me, restored me, and set me on fire! I am so excited to share all that he has delivered me from, and I am full of joy to celebrate Claire’s beautiful life with you. I pray the Lord blesses you today as only HE can!!
Happy Thanksgiving!! Today I come to you with a confession that in this busy season I have not spent time with the one I love the most. I have let wonderful responsibilities and joyful obligations fill my days. This is a busy season in my life, but I want to do better at spending good quality time with God.
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God knows us so intimately that when he formed us in our mother’s womb he took into account all that we would face in our life to come. He prepared us for every moment as he intricately wove together each aspect of our person. God equipped us for our entire life before we took our first breath. That is love.
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My daughter was fighting for her life, we were living in a hospital, unable to work, overwhelmed with facts, uncomfortable with treatment protocols, and our future was unknown. Nothing in that situation seems peaceful, but our God took the chaos of that dark situation and used it to focus my attention on Him.
Read MoreGod has gifted us with life. We are to stand with them, defend them, and value them. Our call as parents is to lay down our own life: our dreams, our future, our freedom, to raise up a child of God.
Read MoreAs I was reading I came across Psalm 73, and it spoke to my heart. I brought clarity to the difficult situation that we have all faced, pediatric cancer, and it brought me peace. It gave me a glimpse into how God redeems the suffering that we’ve all encountered. We are not forgotten, we are not being punished...we are blessed.
Read MoreMotherhood is beautifully blessed, but not for the faint of heart. Motherhood is like living with your heart and soul outside of yourself in another person. It is the ultimate lesson of selflessness and servitude.
Read MoreDid you know that God did not choose the Father-Child relationship,
but CREATED it to represent the intimate connection he desires with us as his children?
The pure love we have for our kids is a constant reminder of the inescapable love our Father in Heaven has for us.
LOVE
“And now I will show you the most excellent way”
Love is Powerful.
“If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.”
Read MoreI want to share with you a lesson the Lord taught me during my last Christmas Season with my daughter Claire. We were scheduled for an intense inpatient chemo mid December, and the hospital stay would last through January. Our family had already spent a majority of our time at Duke since July upon her diagnosis. Birthdays, Thanksgiving, now Christmas and the New Year would be celebrated in a sterile room the size of a generous closet. As you can tell by my tone, it was too much, I was broken and in need of restoration.
Read MoreWars are not won in an instant, but one battle, one move at a time. When my daughter was receiving treatment I found myself laying all requests at his feet and praising God for every victory. Each moment that composed each day held a different need. Healing, a fever, a desire to eat, a quick admission, a quiet clinic neighbor… By literally pouring out my heart to God, I was giving Him control, and allowing him to fight for me.
Read MoreMay is such a beautiful month. The birds are chirping, the flowers blooming, trees are sprouting, and little creatures are coming out to warm themselves in the sun. God’s beauty is on full display around us, and I am thankful for the reminder of his goodness.
Read Morewish that today was just the third day of February, but for Jordan and I it is much more. Today marks 20 months and 17 days since Claire departed from us. Today we have lived the same amount of time with her as we have without her. Tomorrow, I will have spent more seconds, minutes, hours, and days of my life grieving Claire than I did holding her. My mind struggles to comprehend the fact that I spend a much greater portion of my life remembering her than I did creating memories with her.
Read MoreLast year was not easy, and I do not believe I fully got a handle on it. Therefore, I am not sure that I am ready for 2016 or if I ever would be. To be honest, control is something I struggle with. I know it belongs solely to God, but I try to hang on to it.
Read MoreHow could something as small, light, and unnoticeable as a drinking straw become overwhelming; breaking your last ounce of strength? I never fully understood this saying until recently. Grief seems to occupy so much of my heart and my mind that at times I find myself greatly affected by the small things in life.
Read MoreThe following post was written by Amanda Slocum. A dear friend and director of our new Drew's Cruiser Program. Her post mirrors the same grief of loss, joy in Christ, and new love for her child. We are blessed by and thankful for her.
Read MoreCurrently we are studying the book of Nehemiah at church, and I find myself relating to this piece of scripture at this point in my life. The book begins reflecting upon the state of despair that Jerusalem is in; the people had been exiled, the city walls torn down, gates burned, and the Jerusalem was completely vulnerable to all that surrounded it.
Read MoreSunday would have been Claire’s 3rd Birthday, but how do you celebrate someone’s birthday when they are not here? Birthdays are filled with joy, but honestly that is not the emotion I find myself filled with. We could get together with family, share stories of Claire, and reminisce about her lively spirit; but I am just not ready for that. I miss her so much that it is hard to remember her without a sharp pain in my soul. So what do we do?
Read MoreThe following blog is written by a dear friend of mine, Amanda Slocum, who is now partnering with the Claire Parker Foundation!
Read MoreMany people are still unsure about exactly what our foundation does. I am writing this blog in attempts to answer that question. We strive to be there for our families from the first day of diagnosis to the end of their treatment. Most people only know about our boxes, but that is only the very beginning.
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