The Begining...

First let me say, thank you so much for visiting my blog. I am excited to share what the Lord has done in my life with you, so thank you for being here. I decided to start this blog because God has been so good to me through out my 42 years and I want to share what He has done through my life with all of you... thank you for listening.

Second, I just have to say that the birth of the blog is a total, 100% God thing - if you know me (and maybe you do!) you know that I am pretty introverted and not comfortable sharing. But God has spoken to my heart and lead me here! So, we will take this journey together!!

Let me start at the beginning, My name is Roxanne and it is so nice to meet you! I have been married for 20 years to the most amazing, gift from my Heavenly Father, Stephen. We have one precious miracle, our son Joshua - he will be 13 next May, we can't believe it! I was born with a rare brain condition called septo-optic displasia - really big words to say this: I have no septum in my brain, my optic nerve is not formed all the way and I have fluid on my brain. As a result of this I am legally blind and have Epilepsy.

I have seizures most every day and it can be overwhelming to say the least. The kind of seizures I have are partial complex seizures. This means I most likely lose conscienncness and become very disoriented, if I am standing and the seizure is long enough I will fall. I have had to go to the ER more times than I can count and had quite a few stitches in my face. I began using a wheelchair at home a while back but, in March of this year I had to make the decision to go full time with it. Due to the types and volumes of seizures I have it was just time... this blog will focus mostly on how my mighty God has worked through me in dealing with suffering and hardship.

When you see the words suffer and hardship, it is hard to believe that anything good could come from them but I want to say right now that God has so used suffering in my life to show me more of Himself that I can hardly contain my heart! Let me just encourage you today that no matter what you are going through, no matter where you are - the Lord Jesus is right there with you, holding you in untold ways.

The year 2006 was bar none, the hardest time of my life. God had been dealing with me for some time about using my wheelchair. But my heart was hard and I just insisted that I could do it on my own - I did not want to give up walking and my heart was just broken into pieces at the thought of doing so. I don't have that much Independence as it is, can't drive, can't be alone too much due to the seizures so, I just could not see giving up one more thing. My head was spinning over this and I could not wrap my thinking around it - one more loss.

But God knew... and He was working.

Every day of that year I cried. I would tell Stephen it felt like every morning I should put on fatigues because I was surely fighting a war - the only difference was the battle was inside me. The thought of losing my mobility was killing my heart. But God very gently reminded me by saying over and over "My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness." 1Cor. 12:9 This verse kept running through my mind so much that I would wake myself up in the night saying it.

Day by day I would surrender to that wheelchair - not wanting to and hating every minute of it, but I did it. I can remember looking at it thinking how I would love to pick it up and throw it in the backyard! But God kept saying, "Roxanne, I am all you need, I am enough." So, time after time, I would sit in it and praise God for helping me to embrace it. This is something I think will take me the rest of my life to do - totally embrace it.

That year the Lord began to speak to me through the book of Psalms as never before. Let me just take a minute to say if you are in the midst of a storm, read the Psalms. God will soothe your broken heart as never before. I would read and weep and praise the Lord for His power, comfort and grace. But I still continued to just go through the motions with the wheelchair, thinking I would just tolerate it and that would be enough.

Until the day God spoke... and I listened.

I was reading in the book of Romans one morning and ran across this little verse that said, "Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation, continuing steadfast in prayer." (Romans 12:12) God shot a bolt of lightening through my soul and said to my overwhelmed heart - "Roxanne, this is just what you need to do, rejoice in hope because I am your hope." I know the words are simple but they have changed my life - just think, the God of the Universe spoke to me and said, "Remember I am to be your only hope, nothing else - and you can have joy through all of this if your focus is on ME alone, I will bring you to the other side."

I was completely blown away! I began to see that walking on my own was NOT trusting my God who could carry me through all of this. By refusing to use me wheelchair I was putting more trust in myself and not the Lord. I want to be totally dependant on Him in all things so, my eyes were opened to the fact that I can trust Him with a trust that I had never known - and I could do it with hopeful joy, not just going through the motions.

My life has never been the same since that day and I am so thankful. My days are still hard and sometimes they overwhelm me so much it almost takes my breath away but, through it all there is God. My sweet Jesus that I will rejoice in every day.

Nothing compares to the greatness of knowing Him!

I covet your prayers for my health and thank you in advance for bringing me before the Father - it means everything. My prayer for this blog is to encourage and bless those who read it and to draw them to the Living God of the Universe who loves you so much. Little by little I will share more of my story but until then let me leave you with a portion of a song that has blessed my life.

"Bring my joy, bring me peace
Bring the chance to be free
Bring me anything that brings you glory
And I know there'll be days
When this life brings me pain
But if that's what it takes to praise You
Jesus, bring the rain"

Mercy Me, "Bring the Rain"

Rejoicing in Hope,
Roxanne