fingerprint Friday

Beki, from "The Rusted Chain," provides a wonderful opportunity for anyone to stop and think about how God's fingerprints have imprinted upon our lives...

sometimes it's in nature...or in random objects... frankly, every week, i could post a picture of a child...because they are such an incredible gift and and obvious fingerprint from our God...

if my mom knew i was posting this picture of her, she'd probably not be happy... but it's ok... i have a few reasons why it doesn't matter...

you see, in august of 2007, on the first day of school (i used to be a teacher), my mom was diagnosed with mid-stage 2 cancer in her tonsils...

it was an incredibly emotional time for us... but i saw my life with my mom possibly ending... and that just made me so sad and almost physically ill...

my mom is the strongest person i know, but she's also stubborn... i feared that she'd look at her quality of life in her possible fight and turn down options for treatment...

she had just seen her father, some 6 years earlier, fight almost the same exact cancer... and he left his Earthly life a mere 6 weeks after his diagnosis... he chose no treatment because it was so advanced...

but she didn't turn down treatment...

instead, from October until February, she went through the most awful fight of her life... intense radiation and simultaneous chemo...and then surgery to remove lymph nodes...

i spent many hours in the car going back and forth between home and HOME...and helping my dad care for her...and sitting in her hospital room and watching her sleep...or holding the trashcan and rubbing her back when she was sick...or helped her to the bathroom because she was so weak...or spending the night in the ER with her...
it was a very hard time...
i learned many things that i'm glad i learned...
and in February of 2008, as i stayed by her side all night after her surgery, i knew that something was happening in me...
my daughter was beginning to form inside of me...
our little surprise...
i spent a lot of time very scared that i'd be a momma without my own mom... but i wasn't ready to have a baby....
but my plans are not my own...

K was born in October - 6 days after my mom's birthday (my due date was my mom's birthday, though - another "goosebumps" experience when i heard this and knew about God's hand in this...)
and this picture...

...it was taken 3 days after K was born... less than a year after my mom's treatments and surgery.... she still looks so grey and pale... and tired... but i love the way my mom looks in this picture with her new granddaughter...

instant love...

God's fingerprint is on this relationship between my mom and K... it's so incredibly special...

in the last year or so, i've watched my mom regain strength to eat...and walk the dog...drive...and work... i've heard her laugh...and smile...and i had missed those sounds and sights so very much. she struggled in the months after her treatments and surgery... but K's arrival...it was just what my sweet mom needed to nudge her along...

God knew what He was doing with my little surprise... :) i think He may have saved my mom by bringing her into our lives when we least expected...

quite a fingerprint...