Long before I ever birthed a child, I used to imagine I’d have about five or six of them someday. And I can’t remember exactly, but I don’t think there were many (if any) little girls in my imaginary future brood. I’ve always been a tomboy, not a girly girl, and before I started hanging out exclusively with my hub-a-dubs, I had way more guy friends than girl ones.

It seemed only fitting that God would give me boys. But what the heck do I know about what’s fitting for my life? (my prophetic track record is dismal)

I am pleased to announce that he made the absolute most perfect choice by giving me three beautiful (but not-too-girly–thank you, Jesus!) GIRLS. I couldn’t imagine life without them. And I couldn’t imagine them as anything but girls.

But I’ve still got a special place in my heart for little boys, even if there aren’t any in my home on a daily basis. And hanging out at the Boys’ Center while we were in Cambodia? Super-tiring and absolutely awesome.

I can’t show you their gorgeous faces, because sadly, nauseatingly, horrifically, there are pedophiles on the internet prowling around this very minute looking for some precious little boys to devour. There are men who’ve succumbed to the devil’s sickest form of evil perversion, preying on innocent children and using and abusing their sweet little bodies in search of satisfying some unquenchable, unimaginable bloodthirst.

And then there are those who, in their twisted, screwed-up minds, have realized there is money and power to be had just by capitalizing on other people’s ghastly, perverted lusts.

And selling humans–many of them just babies, really–becomes as commonplace as selling fruits and vegetables.

Phnom Penh, Cambodia is just one of the many, many hotbeds of this unspeakable horror.  A place where men from all parts of the globe can come in relative obscurity with relative ease and spend very little money to make their wicked fantasies–and these children’s worst nightmares–come true.

I wish I were exaggerating, friends. I wish I was just playing the drama card and cuing the sad music, so I could massage your vulnerable heartstrings and get you to pull out your credit card and donate hundreds of dollars URGENTLY and IMMEDIATELY to some little pet cause of mine.

But I don’t want your money. Not yet anyway. I just want you to picture these boys’ faces in your mind. (And come on over to my house anytime, and I’ll show you a thousand pictures of their precious smiles.) And I want you to imagine what it would be like if your little boy (or a little boy you love very dearly) was living in poverty and barely scraping by and maybe selling recycled bottles to earn money for his family and then getting sold some night to a foreigner to do whatever he wants with him.

Imagine his physical pain as his little body endures things his Creator never, ever intended for him to endure. Imagine the emotional pain, the shame, the confusion, the devastation. Imagine this happening to him once, or many, many, many times.

Then imagine if there was something we could do to stop this. Imagine if there were glimmers of hope in the midst of this crippling darkness. Imagine if God’s love were big enough to stamp out evil, so that innocence and beauty and justice could thrive.

God’s love IS big enough, friends. And there IS hope. And you can absolutely be a real, vital part of it. And I can’t wait to tell you more.

Thank you so, so much for praying for Ava. If you hadn’t heard, she had a trampoline accident Sunday night. Had a baby tooth knocked out, and two of her front teeth were pushed back and up into the roof of her mouth. Her gums were purple and bloody and mangled and swollen, and oh goodness, it was a hard night. My heart just hurt so badly for her. We were so scared that there would be no fixing her once-beautiful smile.

Long story short, I asked for prayer for a healing miracle, and we’re well on our way. Our amazing dentist, Dr. Larry Devese, who loves God and our family, had us come in right away yesterday morning and spent 90 minutes giving Ava lots of novocaine and moving her teeth back in place as best he could. We have a long way to go, but we’re filled with hope. And gratitude. (Please keep praying for her. She’s in a lot of pain.)

I’ll be honest. When we first got the call about Ava (we weren’t with her, but thankfully the rest of Gabe’s family was there to comfort her), I’ll admit that I wasn’t very happy with God’s timing. First Gabe has a heart attack, and just when we’re finally getting used to our new routine, we up and leave for 5 weeks in Cambodia. And then we’ve got jet lag times five, and just when we’re finally getting over the hump, more trauma, this time for our little girl.

And then the money. We paid off both cars this year and were excited to tackle our last debt besides our house (Gabe’s school bill), and then the heart attack bills start flooding in (our homecoming mail on January 13 was a delightful mixture of 4-week-old Christmas cards and 2nd and 3rd notices from the hospital). And now, hello orthodontist.

And then God gently reminded me that, “Hey, you know I’m with you, right? Your husband shouldn’t have survived his Widow Maker artery being 100% blocked. I saved his life. And made him whole. And you remember when Cambodia was just a dream? Remember when you had $340 in the Cambodia Fund and wondered when on earth you’d ever get there? And your baby girl? She could’ve had a brain injury or paralysis, but instead she just has a couple teeth we need to fix, and I created little mouths to heal so quickly.”

And I just cried. Because I did remember. I do remember. And I remember something that happened on December 21, something we never shared because, after seeing how Gabe’s heart attack affected his poor mama in Africa, we didn’t want to scare any of our family while we were all the way on the other side of the world.

But I can tell you now. Because there’s some glory in it for our God.

It was the morning of December 21, 2011. We were so excited (especially me), because we were heading to the Phnom Penh International Airport to meet my friend, Keri, her husband, Scot, and their boys, Garrett and Nathan. We had only ever met online (+ 1 phone chat & 1 skype chat), and now they were flying in from Singapore to spend eight days with our family in Cambodia.

We got to the airport early, and their flight was late, so we were standing up for a long, long time. We were a little restless but having fun people-watching, until Gabe told me he wasn’t feeling well. “Are you sweaty?” he asked me. “No,” I said. The weather was a gorgeous 80 degrees, and we were in the shade with a breeze.

“I’m sweaty.” And he was. Very. His head was sweaty, his feet were sweaty, his whole body was sweaty. And it was a cold, clammy sweat. Exactly the same kind of sweat he’d been sweating on the night of October 29. While he was having a heart attack.

I tried not to panic. I could tell he was worried. He put his hand on his heart (my least favorite thing that he does these days).

“I think it’s my heart.”

And mine sank.

“This is how I felt when I was having a heart attack.”

And then a fog. Scot and Keri got off the plane. We hugged. Gabe hung back. We were going to split up into guys and girls tuk-tuks, so Keri and I could get to know each other on the 30-minute ride back to the guesthouse. But Gabe wouldn’t let me leave him. I don’t blame him. A 30-minute tuk-tuk ride with complete strangers while you’re about to pass out and afraid you’re having a heart attack?

I briefly explained to Keri. She understood. It was a long, long ride. I prayed hard.

We got back, dumped Keri and her family and their luggage and our children, and pulled away in our pastor friend Narin’s van (he owns the guesthouse and was, thankfully, home when we got there). He asked us if we wanted Western care or Khmer. He told us that Western doctors could cost us hundreds, possibly thousands, of dollars but with Khmer care there was no guarantee that anything would be clean or safe or fill-in-the-blank-with-comforting-adjectives. Gabe said Western.

Then Narin said, “Or I have a Khmer friend I could call. He’s a believer, and he’s very good at what he does. Do you want me to go back and get his number?”

We said yes. While he was getting the number, Gabe said. “It’s definitely my heart. And we need to hurry. Like we need to get there NOW.”

All I could do was beg God for mercy. Visions of taking my husband’s corpse back to the States while I comforted our daughters filled my head. Cambodia has no real Western hospitals, no way at all of helping someone who is having a heart attack. We had been told he’d need to be care-flighted to Bangkok if anything happened with his heart. We did have the name of one Christian doctor who we could go to. His name was in an e-mail on Gabe’s laptop back at the guesthouse.

The storyteller in me would love to drag out the drama, but I’m going to cut to the chase. We got to the clinic, there was no wait, they took us back for Gabe to get an EKG on very antiquated equipment (that did the job). It was all so surreal. I just took deep breaths and tried to rest in knowing that God was in control, that he was with us even in Cambodia.

The EKG came back normal. His heart rate was low. The blood sugar test showed that he needed food. We had missed lunch, standing and waiting at the airport. He wasn’t having a heart attack. He just needed to eat.

I wanted to kiss the doctor’s feet. Dr. Modich. The same doctor, as we discovered a few days later, that friends had recommended to us in that e-mail.

I went up to the counter to pay the bill, still shaking from everything that had happened. When the receptionist handed me the bill, I gasped. She looked at me, concerned.

Thirty-six dollars.

THIRTY-SIX DOLLARS.

Seeing the doctor = $30. EKG = $10. Blood sugar test = $1. Missionary discount = -$5.

Thirty-six freaking dollars.

Gabe ate lunch on time the rest of our trip, threw in some regular morning exercise for good measure, and that was that.

God has our backs, friends. On these dreary Ohio winter days when I’m tired of blending milkshakes and making chicken noodle soup for my hurting little girl, and piles of stuff are glaring at me, and I have writer’s block out the ying-yang, and God is whispering, “Wait,” when I ask him for hints about our future, I’m going to remember.

To God be the glory. Great things he has done.

Ava had a trampoline accident tonight and messed up her mouth and front teeth really badly. She’s in pain physically but also really hurting emotionally. It’s painful to look at, and she’s afraid we won’t be able to get it fixed. It looks so awful. My mama heart is a mess, and I want so badly to reassure her that everything will be okay. Please pray for good news from the x-ray tomorrow and miraculous healing and perfect restoration of her beautiful smile.

Thank you so much, friends.

It probably goes without saying that I have a LOT to write about our trip to Cambodia. And like most things that go without saying, I go ahead and say things about them anyway.

Here’s the deal. (one of my mom’s favorite phrases of mine) I have many, many posts to write. And I think I’m getting really close to being emotionally ready to write them. But they need pictures to go with them. And all of our pictures from our trip are on an external hard drive. And I’ll be darned if I know how to get them off of there an onto this laptop without accidentally deleting all of them.

So.

Until my darling husband is at a place where he can help me without wanting to kill me, we (and by we, I mean you and me) will wait patiently. Because, while I’ve spent my last few days bouncing back and forth between wandering around my house feeling lost and actually accomplishing things like laundry and grocery shopping and buying cute winter coats for my freezing daughters at the thrift store, Gabe has had to go back to work.

And it’s been rough on him.

The poor guy. We’ve kind of just gone from HEART ATTACK! to CAMBODIA AND THAILAND! to GET BACK IN THE GROOVE OF EARNING MONEY FOR MY FAMILY!

Okay, so maybe only the heart attack needed the caps, but heck, they’re free. Might as well use ‘em.

Here’s a post from my dear friend Keri though while you wait. The funny thing is that while she was busy putting the finishing touches on this post, I was actually dreaming in blog posts. About the Boys’ Center, the very thing she wrote about. She and I both have a burning in our hearts to help raise funds for the amazing people that run this amazing place. Seriously, when you hear some of these stories, your heart will break. And when you realize just how little money it will take to make a huge difference in the lives of some incredible people, you’ll just want to shake your head with your eyes wide and your mouth open.

Or maybe that’s just me.

And I’m dying to tell you about the little girl who said we made her feel valuable.

And I’m dying to tell you about a gal who has overcome all odds to serve God in a foreign land.

And I’m dying to tell you about some things God has whispered in our ears about our future.

And I will.

But for now I’ll work on getting back in the groove of homeschooling. Yesterday? Hideous. Today? Redemption. And I’ll work on drying my oldest daughter’s tears, talking her through her angst and sadness, and convincing her to go back to school tomorrow even though it was really, really hard yesterday and I let her skip today. And I’ll work on organizing my home and my life and getting my newest e-book (about the zoo trip) into the hands of anyone who cares to read it. And I’ll take one day at a time, no, one minute at a time, and do my best to be still and listen for God’s voice.

And I’ll pray. A lot a lot a lot. About our future, for people in Cambodia, for all the wonderful people who commented/e-mailed after yesterday’s post, for my sweet family.

And I’ll try to spend at least as much time thanking as I do asking.

Because I’m so blessed.

I’m on the living room floor on my shins and forearms, pounding out some words on Gabe’s laptop because even though I finally figured out where I hid mine, I’m too lazy to actually make room for it at my desk, counting the seconds until my feet fall asleep and my 36-year-old back starts to protest.

If I sound like a hot mess to you, well then.

I have something to say, and rather than wait until it’s all processed and I know how to say it neatly and sweetly, I’m just going to air it out now and get it off my chest.

Some things have got to change around here. And by “around here,” I mean this blog. And my life. And my heart.

Yesterday at church Pastor Rich mentioned 9 of the most common sins, and I’m delighted to tell you that 3 of them are not really a struggle at all for me, 3 probably are, but I haven’t really realized it yet, and 3 are pretty glaring.

Pride, anger, and self-centeredness.

God has been gently hammering away at me for awhile about all three of these. And while the anger thing is something best dealt with in the privacy of my home and family (for one, because that’s where it shows up pretty exclusively), the pride and self-centeredness need to be dealt with here, because the internet is where I struggle most with both of those things.

It’s amazing how quickly I can make everything all about ME.

I don’t have the time/energy to re-hash all that’s happened in the past couple years on the “career” front for me, but here’s the scoop in a nutshell: I’m an author with real published books under my belt. And so that’s kind of a big part of my identity (whether it should be or not). But it’s been three years now since I’ve had a book published, and there’s a lot of hard work ahead of me if I ever want to get to the place where I can publish another one (through a publisher, not on my own). And that means a lot of platform-building and getting lots of people to notice me and know who I am and all that.

And I sense God telling me that I need to be done with that. For good.

Now, I have a ton of author friends who I love to pieces, and I’m not saying that building your platform and gaining followers is all prideful and self-centered and whatever. I’m just passing on what God is saying to ME.

And I’ve been thinking the past couple days (a dangerous activity when you’re suffering from jet lag) about the things I do (and am) online and wondering which of those things are a part of my life because God wants them to be and they bring him glory and which are things I’m just doing to get people to notice me.

I’m aware of the fact that I’m not making any sense, so I’ll just start explaining some small changes I’ve made.

Pinterest. Why did I join Pinterest a few months ago and then never look at it again? Why was I getting a ton of notifications in my e-mail that such-and-such had started following my boards?

Pinterest is cute. And swell. And helpful. But for me, it’s too overwhelming. I have too many things to do already, and there’s no space for it. I don’t really need to know about all the amazing, creative, adorable people out there that are way more awesome than me. And I don’t have to live in fear that if I’m not a part of it, I’ll be missing out and that people won’t know who I am and yadda yadda blah-blah.

So I canceled my account.

And I unsubscribed from The Writer’s View (a Yahoo group for authors) and a Facebook page for writers that I was a part of. And I unsubscribed from a bunch of blogs that I don’t have time to read but read anyway just so that I can feel like I’m “in the loop.”

And Twitter might be the next thing to go, because I haven’t even been on it in 2 months.

And I’m evaluating everything I say and do online to see what purpose it’s serving. Whose purpose it’s serving. God’s? Or mine truly?

The internet is amazing. I love the connection. I have seen God use it in a million different fabulous ways to make his name glorious. But I also know that if he calls me to just live a faithful life without telling the world about it, I need to be willing to do that.

If he calls me to move to Cambodia without blogging about it every day I’m there, I need to be willing to be his hands and feet and not his mouth.

I need to do this online thing on his terms, not mine. So I’m going to spend some time (as much time as it takes) asking him what that means practically speaking.

And I’m anticipating that I will screw up A LOT over the next few days, weeks, months. Your grace and patience would be a balm to my soul.

I’ve had a rough 24 hours. And I know from experience that getting my mind off myself means I need to take some other people to God in prayer. So I’d love it if you’d share a prayer need with me (either in the comments or e-mail).

And wouldn’t you know it, my back is aching, and my feet are asleep. That’s my cue.