Saturday, October 13, 2007

I hope this post finds all of you doing well. Everyone is great at the Cooper house. God continues to be good and faithful to our family and we are incredibly blessed by His love and care for us. We continue on a good schedule, doing well in school so far this year. For a home school mom, that is such a tremendous blessing! Everyone is on schedule and everyone seems to be understanding and grasping the concepts they are learning. Jonathan continues to do well. I wish you could see him each day during his schooling. He is very diligent. He gets up to his alarm better than anyone else in the house. He gets himself ready for school and sits down at the desk in his room to listen to his Bible on the CD. After he finishes his Bible, he studies his memory work for the week. I can’t even begin to tell you how incredibly improved he is in this area. We have made such huge strides this year. Each week, he studies 8-10 verses on his own and later with me. I am amazed and realize how well he is doing when I sit down to go over his verses with him and he recites them almost perfectly after having gone over them more on his own than with me. This is the very first time in his life that he has gotten to this point. It is a joy to see him progress like this. He is also going to Awana, Sunday school and choir all on his own and doing it all by himself. I knew he could do it, but he had to find out that he could do it, and I think he has. What a confidence builder for him. Anyway, back to school; after he finishes studying his verses, he begins to work on his school work and doesn’t stop until he is finished. He never complains about what he has to do, he just does it until he is finished. His determination and steady diligence will be a great asset to him in the future. This week, because the weather has finally gotten cooler in the mornings, we have been taking a bike ride when we finish school work. He is greatly improved in his bike riding, even though it has been several months since we have ridden. After riding for 30 minutes, he may begin to get slower and more tired, but he starts and stops with little effort and handles the bike very well. For that I am grateful. His legs are definitely stronger as a result of our working out. The only negative thing about our bike rides this week was that he took a pretty good tumble on our first day out. He clipped a pole with his handlebar, which threw him off the sidewalk, and when he tried to stop, he just happened to be in an incline, which caused him to tumble right down it and land on his head in the street. All I could do was watch it happen. Thankfully, he had his helmet on which saved a serious head injury. He didn’t hurt himself too much, but it did upset him. He managed to make it home without any problem. And it obviously didn’t bother him too much because he has asked to ride again every day. We are enjoying the cooler weather and the chance to get out and exercise again during the day. We had great fun last weekend as we had the chance to go camping at Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose. We spent the week getting ready to go and left on Thursday evening. We all get so excited when we get to go camping. We love the time together and just getting away from life’s routine to just hang out together. We loved this campground. It was beautiful, relaxing, and had lots of places to explore. The only negative was that it was much too warm for an October camping trip. Friday was Sarah’s 14th birthday, so we tried to make it as special for her as we could. We went hiking and looking for the dinosaur tracks which were mostly covered by the water in the river that runs through the park. We helped Jonathan up and down the paths and made our way to the little river. After exploring some, we drove into Glen Rose, had lunch on the town square and did a little exploring in the historical downtown square. After that, we came back to the campsite, grilled some steaks and had a mini birthday party for Sarah. During the evening, the rest of our camping group showed up. It was a great beginning to a great weekend of camping. We spent some time in the afternoon on Saturday playing in the river because it was so hot. Jonathan did well walking through all the rocks in the river and seemed to have a great time hanging out learning how to skip rocks with his Daddy. We left Sunday afternoon and made our way home so we could celebrate Sarah’s birthday with our families after church. On Monday, we received an addition to our family – a sweet, little, solid white kitten whom we named Lacee. Our good cat Allie, that we had for about 9 years, disappeared a couple of months ago. So now we have Lacee and we all love her. Jonathan loves to hold her, pet her and play with her and has told me many times this week that he wants a cat of his own. While all of our pets technically belong to everyone, we got our dog on Elizabeth’s birthday, Sarah got the rabbit for Christmas and we got Lacee for Sarah’s birthday. So I think Jonathan’s feeling a little left out. He, however, is able to claim his horse, Ella, as his own. He is doing very with his riding. He gets stronger and stronger every time he rides and he is handling his horse better and better each week. He loves Ella and loves to ride. Jonathan also continues to do well with his sleeping and with his diet and exercise. He is still hovering around the same weight, but he is doing well with his exercise and continues to diligently work at it each time we go. His blood sugar has been okay since we lowered his lantus. It has been a little higher this week that we would like. I am praying that the Lord will touch his body and allow it to control this insulin and use it to the best of its ability so that we do not have to go up again. Jonathan has his endocrine appointment this Tuesday at 10:00. I hope you will be in prayer for that. We will discuss the pump again I’m sure, as we are no closer to getting it now than we were in July. Pray that he will get a good report and that we will continue to see God’s hand in Jonathan’s physical life.
Jonathan and I have been reading a book about the life of George Muller. I have heard so many stories about him and the miraculous answers to prayer that he experienced in his life. Not only did I want to learn about him, but I wanted Jonathan to learn about him as well because I wanted him to be encouraged by the life of someone who experienced miracles as he has. Did you know that George Muller dealt with some physical ailments as well? Once he became a Christian, he was so ready to serve the Lord as a missionary. But because of some government issues that stood in the way, it seemed that he would be hindered from doing that. God allowed George Muller to get sick for a period of time to remove the plans of the government in Muller’s life. But God did not have plans for Muller to be a missionary. So he allowed Muller to suffer from these stomach problems at other times in his life in order to prepare him for the ministry He had for him and to get him going on the path that He had planned for him. Amazing! Did you also know that George Muller learned to trust God for EVERY need he had? He never took a salary and he never told a single human being of any needs that he had. He only told the Lord and waited for Him to provide for those needs. I am in awe of this man’s faith. And God proved Himself faithful to answer and supply every need of this man’s entire Christian life. Jonathan faces some impossible needs in his life that only God is able to provide…his complete healing to be the biggest one. I pray that he will learn to put his faith and trust in God and Believe God for this miraculous provision in his life. What a day of rejoicing that will be! I pray that I will learn to trust God and Believe in faith for God’s faithfulness in every area of our lives, just like George Muller.
Thank you so much for your love and faithfulness to pray for Jonathan and for our family. You are precious to us far beyond our ability to express it. We love each of you and pray that God will be faithful to you and bless you with His most awesome blessings this week.

Lamentations 3:21-25 - This I recall to my mind, Therefore I have hope. The LORD's lovingkindnesses indeed never cease, For His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I have hope in Him.” The LORD is good to those who wait for Him, To the person who seeks Him.