7 Different Kinds of Crazy

When my two older children were little they would tease each other with a game that goes something like this:
"That is my momma." 
"No, she is my momma."
"She was my momma first!"

Now they play that with our youngest child too even though they are both over 20 years older than she is. I usually smile at their game until it gets to the point of, "She was my momma first." It is then that I point out the error in their thinking. I always tell them, God had a plan for all of us to be in this family long before He ever created the earth or space or time. 
So reality is that I became your mommy all at the same time. God has just allowed for it to be revealed to us at different times. That always seems to put the teasing and even arguing to rest.

Thinking about that has reminded me of the way some adults think. I have had people ask me questions like this: How do your real children feel about your adopted child?
Is it hard to love your adopted child as you do your real children?

When things like this are said to me, I would like to tell you that I respond with love and grace, but the truth is that I have to wait for my head to stop spinning on my shoulders, calm down my inner Momma Grizzly Bear, breathe deeply and then do my best not to commit a felony. 

I sometimes wonder about the faith of a person that would ask such a question. I want to ask them: "How big do you believe God to be? Is He confined to time or space or a womb that no longer exists? Is He confined by miles or oceans? Is He confined by nationalities or cultures or the color of our skin?"

Obviously the answer to all of these questions is "No!" God is not limited! There is nothing that He cannot accomplish!

Wow! That sounds like a great blog post until reality hits. That my faith is also limited, just in different areas.
Do I believe that God can: 
Feed the world's hungry
Provide homes for the millions of orphans 
Heal our nation
Bring lost and hurting people to life
Grow my church
Heal my sister-in-law

Suddenly I find that I am the one in need of Jesus refining my faith.
So I pray, "Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief." And give me the grace to help others in their unbelief as well.

I Am Alone

As I look at the world around me, more and more I see people who are alone. Our culture has become so secluded. We wake up, go about our days with little to no live human interaction. Many, if not most of our relationships occur via the Internet. For those who have no relationship with Jesus Christ the loneliness presses down with a weight so heavy that it becomes unbearable. I wonder how many people in your social network have gone weeks or more without one touch, one genuine smile, one honest face-to-face conversation? I am hoping to have my eyes open to the world around me, to see people at the heart level as Jesus sees.

I Am Alone

I am alone
I am in a crowd
No one sees me
I am alone

I am alone
One in a sea of students
They are laughing
They think they know me
I let them believe
But I am alone

I am alone
People around me
I see thier faces
Feel their pity
I have no home
I am alone

I am alone
I choose the masses
They are yelling
I sense their anger
My pain is hidden
I am alone

I am alone
Though married for decades
Children around me
Envied by many
Known by no one
I am alone

I am alone
Screaming around me
Spitting and hitting
Thorns and nails
Living, dying, living
You are not alone


Jesus said..., “I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die. Do you believe this?” John 11:25-26

Beautiful and Horrible, Heart-breaking and Precious Love

My brother, Sam is a big man. I am guessing that he is around 6 feet tall and pushing the top off of 220 pounds. Being the second from the youngest in a family of eleven he learned early to defend himself both physically and verbally. Some might look at Sam and see a big guy that can be abrupt and sarcastic, but those people would have never seen Sam through Yana's eyes.
Yana is Sam's wife and Yana knew more about Sam as a freshman in high school than most will ever know or dare to look deep enough to see.
Sam was a senior and Yana a freshman when they first met. Sam was a teacher's aide in a class that Yana was in. I ask Sam how long it took him to notice her, "immediately" was his answer. He said he fell in love with her the first time he saw her.

Yana says, "I thought he was funny and sweet and had a gorgeous smile and eyes." At that time Sam was dating someone else but it wasn't long until he knew that he was in the wrong relationship.
Though Sam was not a Christ-follower, Yana prayed and ask God about dating him. She said she felt at peace continuing their relationship.
He and Yana started talking and writing letters to each other. Yana still has those letters.

They dated for six years before, as Sam says, he was mature enough to ask her to be his wife. On September 24, 1994, they were married.

This week it will be 19 years since the day we celebrated Sam and Yana's wedding. Many things have happened since that joy-full day. Sam gave to his life to Christ and has become a totally sold out follower of Jesus. They have four boys. They have worked, played, laughed, cried, and everything in between. They have coached, gone on mission trips, and given to family, friends, and anyone they have known that had a need. They give, love, and serve.

Sam and Yana are both hard workers. At times working 4 jobs between them just to keep their family going. Sam once fell asleep in a restaurant drive-thru waiting to order because he had been working too long without sleep. He is determined to provide for his family. (Although he got severely reprimanded about that one, not only by Yana but also by his sister.)

Yana and Sam have not had easy lives, however they have a great life together loving and serving Jesus, each other, family, and people around them.

Almost three years ago Yana started having some medical problems. As time has passed the symptoms have progressed. They have been to doctors and specialists. They have been to hospitals where they live and also in other states.

Yana has symptoms of seizures, although they have been told that they are not seizures. When they happen, Yana shakes violently(so much that she has to be held to get through them), cannot walk, and has recently started to temporarily lose the ability to talk after an attack. These attacks happen frequently with no apparent cause. For over two years there has been no doctor able to tell them what might be the cause of the attacks.

A few months ago Yana was diagnosed with Wilson's Disease and put on medication. While the medicine for this disease has serious side effects it is what is needed to treat the disease. Still the attacks have continued and worsened.

Last week Yana was able to talk with a doctor at Vanderbilt who specializes in movement disorders. After hours of pouring over her MRI's, her medical records and every other bit information that she could send, he is convinced that she does not have Wilson's Disease, but cannot see her until she has been off the medication that she is now on for at least a month.

While in some respects this is good news, in other respects they are left again with having no ability to treat or help her at all. Once again they have no answers.

I decided to write this blog about Sam and Yana for three reasons.

The first reason is that when I was with Sam and Yana a little over a month ago I was astounded at the gentleness and love of my brother as he held and quietly talked Yana through one of these attacks. While my heart was breaking watching her have to endure it, he was tenderly holding, whispering, and even joking with her. I saw love. Love that says I am committed to you. Love that says no matter what this life throws at us, I am here and will be here for you. Love that says you are my treasure, given to me by God Himself and I will treat you as such for all of our days. And I saw Yana's eyes. I saw in her the struggle of dealing with not only the attacks but seeing the man she loves so much as he fights the pain of watching his wife go through this but staying strong for her. It was horrible and beautiful, heart-breaking and precious. It is what real love looks like. 

The second reason is my hope that every person who reads this will put it on their social media. Maybe, somehow, someone will see it and know a doctor that would recognize Yana's symptoms and be able to offer help.

The third reason is in hopes that many people will read this and commit to praying for Sam, Yana, and their boys. God is still at work among us. Let us pray for each other as we experience things that we may never understand, and should not have to go through alone.

I want you all to know that I love this family so very much and I'm convinced that given the opportunity, you would too.

1 John 4:7
"Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God."

Confessions of an Unholy Writer

There are many ways that I have grown in my faith.
I believe that walking by faith in Christ Jesus is a continuous, life-long process. I have not arrived at perfect holiness, no where near it. But I long for, I hope for, I pray for, and I strain toward becoming "holy as God is holy."
Even as I see progress in my life, I have recently become aware of an area that is sorely lacking in holiness.
As many, hundreds, even thousands of believers across the world have taken up a figurative pen and begun to write words of encouragement to send to the world through blogs, I too, am scripting words to a webpage. But, of late I have been evaluating my own writing and the motivation behind the words that I publish on this blog.
Why do I write?
Is it to encourage? Is it to let my heart be seen? Is it to "out loud" process life as it happens?
Or are there unholy things at work as I put words to the page?
"I wonder how many people will read my writing?" "Will this person or that person read my thoughts?" "What do people think of what I write?"...etc.
I am not saying that those questions are wrong in and of themselves, it is just that I am wondering why does it matter to me?
Am I honest in my words? Do I write for selfish reasons? Do I write for attention?
I am struggling through these thoughts. I so long to be a person of integrity in all that I do and say. I am struggling through my humanity. I know that as long as I walk this earth there will be times when I fail miserably, but in the deepest part of my heart and soul I long for holiness.
I never want to lean on the "well I'm only human" because I know that God has made me to desire so much more.
I pray, dear Jesus keep me moving closer to You and farther away from the sinful me that wants to be seen and heard.
I will continue to write, but I will be checking my motivation more often before I push the publish key.

Getting To Know You

The Cornett Family
We have 4 official children, One Texan, one from New York, one Virginian, and one from China. Gene is from Kentucky and I usually hail from the Mother Ship.

Our combined cultural heritage is: Native American, Scotch-Irish, German, Italian, Chinese, and Redneck.

Brown eyes dominate the Cornett family, but we have one set of green eyes that can strike fear in some of the brown ones.

We have three with dark brown hair, one light brown, one that we only guess at when purchasing the next box of Clairol and one gray turning loose.

There are three members with dark skin, two with light colored skin and one with a fairly severe farmer's tan.

Our personalities range from two mild introverts, two extroverts, one who would prefer a planet without people and one who is wild and loud enough to communicate with every person or rock on every planet in this galaxy.

All of us love to sing, though some members choose to never hold a microphone in their hands. Two of us don't need a microphone.

The whole family likes to watch movies. One of the family thoroughly enjoys the first five minutes of every movie we watch, then dreams their way through the story... beginning, middle and ending.

We all enjoy going on trips. One of us likes embarking on adventures so much they don't turn the engine off or put the car in park before getting out of it.

Our family is a family that loves to laugh. Some members are genuinely funny. Some are getting more humorous. One declares that they are pretty sure they are getting funnier all the time. The rest of the family agrees, though perhaps not for the same reason.

Most of us love to read. One of us loves to collect books in the event of ever having the chance to read them.

All of us like sports. Two of us have realized that our minds want to write checks that our bodies are just not able to cash.

Of all the differences and all the similarities, there are two common denominators that are the most important: one is that we love each other very much. We like each other. We look forward to the times we get to spend together.
The second is by far the most important: we all love Jesus Christ. We are choosing every day to be disciples (learners) and apostles (teachers) out of our love for our Lord. It is this bond that we hope to pass on for generations to come.

"Choose you this day who you will serve. As for me and my house we will serve The Lord." Joshua 24: 15

Paper Cuts and Perspective

I love to laugh.
It is one of my favorite activities. Laughing and seeing other people laugh is such a contagious thing. I don't even mind when people laugh at me. I think many things that I do are pretty funny too. I am not a comedian in any way but I recognize that due to my ADD tendencies, I find myself in some fairly odd situations. 
I once had to keep a tissue on the end of my nose during a drama scene of a musical because my nose was bleeding. Just before that scene I was backstage and our drama director came past me with a script just at "nose level." I turned my head to look at her and, believe it or not, I got a fairly significant paper cut on the end of my nose.
I also love to laugh and joke with my family. We are all very unique in some ways and yet incredibly similar in other respects so when we are all in the same place for any length of time there are always some very funny things said or done.
Lately I haven't laughed very much and I miss it. There are some seasons of life that just don't produce many things to laugh about, and that is okay. But to be honest, every time I enter a season like this, it terrifies me. 
I have known too many people who have forgotten how to laugh. I have watched as friends let life defeat them. I have observed people who left behind the gift of laughter and became bitter. I have seen age, pain, grief and loss be allowed to steal laughter and joy.
I want to be the kind of person that is fun to be around because laughter could break out at any moment. I want the joy of my salvation in Christ Jesus to so permeate every facet of my life that even in difficult times I will still have the light of gratitude shining through me. I want gratitude to so outweigh anything else that may come into my life. I want there always to be  joy in my eyes and laughter close to my lips.  
And knowing myself as I do, a paper cut could be just around the corner.

"Then our mouth was filled with laughter,
and our tongues with shouts of joy;
then they said among the nations,
 "The Lord has done great things for them."
The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad."
Psalms 126:2-3

Contemplating My Funeral

I Wonder

I wonder what will be said about me at my funeral service

I wonder if my children will know how much I have loved them

I wonder if my husband has any idea of the deep respect and unending love that I have for him

I wonder if I have adequately been able to convey my love for my friends 

I wonder if my church family knows how grateful that I am for their acceptance and love

I wonder if walking the fine line of keeping confidences had made me seem closed 

I wonder if the pain of walking through tragedy has etched scars on my face

I wonder if being fiercely protective of my family has given the appearance of being cold

I wonder if friends or family walked a day feeling what I feel, experiencing what I live, would bring surprise

Would anyone believe my grief over my sin

Would there be embarrassment at the desperation I feel to live a life of worship

Would there be pity for the things that I have yet to overcome

I wonder if I have laughed, cried, celebrated, seen, heard, grieved, or loved as I should

I wonder if I have honored God 

I wonder if I have advanced the kingdom of God