Gabbie is Home

Gabbie had a cough and the pink eye develop in the last 24 hours before her surgery so the doctors were not able to sedate her. This would normally be impossible to allow the surgery to go on, but since she has no feeling in her legs or feet the doctors were able to do the procedure while she was awake! They did give her some kind of meds to help take the edge off, and hopefully make her sleepy and loopy. She was wide awake and not very happy during the whole procedure though so they had to get done quickly. They didn't end up putting on the hot pink cast since they were in a hurry to finish her up so she could have some peace....I'm sure their ears might have been hurting by this point as well...she does get her lungs from the Curbo side of the family! I was on the phone with Michelle and heard them taking her blood pressure...wow was she was letting them know that she was ready to go home! I didn't end up going down to the hospital since they sent her home by 10:00 this morning! She was only going to have to stay overnight if they had to sedate her, so that was a praise for Michelle to be able to go home and take care of her at home. She was making Michelle laugh at all the silly things she was saying and coming up with from the goofy juice they gave her....so it was good to hear Michelle laughing and at peace with everything. Big sister Maggie brought balloons and a stuffed animal to her so that was the highlight of her day!

Thank you all for your prayers...I believe she is a blessed little girl and God will allow her to bless many in her lifetime!

Pray for our Gabbie girl

Please pray for my precious niece Gabbie Martinez. She will be going into surgery Monday at Scottish Wright in Dallas. She was born April 16, 2002 and when she came into this world the doctors realized that she had several urgent issues to deal with; one being she he was born with spina bifida and is paralyzed from the waist down. She will be 5 this next April and she is the most amazing little all most 5 year old I've ever known! She is a true red head like her momma and a spit-fire one at that! She will melt your heart the second she says hello. We are so thankful for her and her little life because even with all the difficulties my sister and her family had to go through over the last five years they have shown amazing strength amid the chaos and heartbreak. This surgery will be one of several that she will have over the next year. The surgery on Monday is to release her achilles tendons and tendons in her toes so that her feet will be able to bend at a 90 degrees. This will allow her to wear shoes easier and help with the circulation in her feet.
Gabbie has been asking her momma lately when she is gonna get to start walking like her sister, friends, teacher, and parents. She has thought all this time that she was a baby and that's why she couldn't walk yet. When Michelle had to tell her again that she won't ever be able to walk she just sobbed the saddest cry. It tore Michelle's heart out, but I am so amazed at the way Michelle is able to communicate with her girls and how she always finds the good in their situations. Talk about tenacity! Those girls are super lucky to have her for a momma! Michelle finally told her a couple of days later when she asked again why she still could learn to walk yet and when she could starting learning to walk. Michelle told her that when she was born she was a very sick little baby and that they were just so happy that she was alive. Gabbie said, "I'm alive?!" Michelle answered her..."Yes, Gabbie you are alive and that makes me so happy!" Gabbie started smiling and cheering, "I'm alive, I'm alive just like you mommy, and daddy, and Maggie, and my teacher, and my friends....." What a great thing for me to learn that no matter how bad things seem to be for me in this world any given day...I'M ALIVE and so thankful to my Lord for all the blessings this precious angel has taught me!
Gabbie you just keep on smiling and being a little angel that God shared with us in this lifetime. I can't wait until the day we are all in heaven dancing around the campfire and you WILL be able to walk my precious niece! (Michelle and the girls went camping with us over spring break. It was their first time and it was so neat to see them experience a camping adventure with us!)

Coming back to life

Hi y'all! I know my precious blogging star, Kim, has fallen on the floor seeing that I am back from the depths and ready to start talking again! Pick yourself up sister cause I've got ALOT to say and share!
God has had me in the shop for some major tweeking and tuning up....well really a major overhaul. My heart, hope, and home have been revived and I might get a little obnoxious cause I'm so grateful and still a little bit in shock of how deep and wide and far God's love is and can go! I never ever thought that I would truely be able to experience God the way I have seen few truely godly women in my life display the real and rare beauty that comes only from the work that God has done in their hearts and lives. NOT saying that I am that women yet, but after what God has taught me in the last two months I'm closer now than I've ever been and I finally GET IT. Well maybe I should say am daily trying to GET IT...where before I just wouldn't even try so much and for sure have NEVER EVER been hungry for HIS WORD. All my life I've sat in church listening and even taking notes...thinking okay this is good stuff....now if I can just get up Monday morning and study this and dig in more, but never would. Call it lazy, bored, not understanding, feeling confused, and having doubts that I would ever really be able to GET IT kept me from living in His Spirit daily and having HIS Power in my life that comes from meeting with God first thing. I'm a little hard headed and God knew it would take a MAJOR crisis to WAKE THIS GIRL UP Y'ALL. Well Jan. 3rd after I sent the kiddos off to school he sat me up on the kitchen counter and got in my FACE. YIKES and PRAISE THE LORD at the SAME TIME!!!! Have you ever experienced God gettin' in your face? It's scary and got me on my face. Over the next few weeks though I was in an all out spiritual battle to save our family and saw the mighty hand of God come down and teach, rebuke, answer prayers....many prayers from many friends and family (you will never know how much you have all ministered to me and us over those weeks...thank you from the bottom of my heart!! You know who you are and I thank my God everytime I remember you!). I wasn't able to stand some days from what God was teaching me and showing me with each new day. I went several days reading the bible(like it was a magazine), reading books, listening to preachin' on the radio...that all just happen to be talking about what I was going through...not a mistake, or coindence....I couldn't eat anything cause I wasn't hungry for earthly food...NOW THAT RIGHT THERE SHOULD BE CONSIDERED AS AN ALL OUT MIRACLE, but was fed those days on God's word alone. GIRLS true revival has broken out at the JOlly home and praise God is spillin' over into the kiddos.
My prayer is that the mountain top experience we had on January 20th will never ever be forgotten and that God will use our marriage and family to help others move closer to HIM and receive the same restoration and healing that we have gotten. I'm so thankful for the precious Christian men and women in our lives who spoke truth and held us up when we couldn't hardly stand ourselves.

2 Corinthians 2:3-7

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

Thank you Father...amen!