{"id":416,"date":"2009-03-24T10:00:54","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T10:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/10.131.168.108\/wordpress\/?p=416"},"modified":"2009-03-24T10:00:54","modified_gmt":"2009-03-24T10:00:54","slug":"praises","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/2009\/03\/24\/praises\/","title":{"rendered":"Praises"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I was thinking, yesterday, about my new niece, Abigail Grace, who was born last Friday.&nbsp; And it struck me how strange it is that she is really here.&nbsp; I mean, last fall, when we all started praying for her because of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.xanga.com\/shannahhogue\/674641516\/update-on-debbie\/\">Deb&#8217;s aneurysm<\/a>, it seemed impossible that she&#8217;d ever really be born, safe and healthy.&nbsp; And yet she was.&nbsp; She&#8217;s teeny-tiny, but she&#8217;s strong and healthy and here.&nbsp; What a blessing!&nbsp; And her name, which Chris &amp; Deb had picked out before they even knew she was a girl, is exactly perfect.&nbsp; Abigail <span style=\"font-weight: bold;\">Grace<\/span>.&nbsp; After all, we&#8217;ve received so much this past year, much more than we deserve (but I guess that&#8217;s what makes it grace, huh?). <\/p>\n<p>So here&#8217;s some things I have to praise God for this morning:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Debbie (my SIL) is alive, well, and totally recovered from her aneurysm.&nbsp; That was six months ago&#8230;crazy!&nbsp; I still remember my deep concern after my mom&#8217;s 6 a.m. phone call, asking me to pray.&nbsp; And I still remember how, after I began to add thanksgiving to my prayers (Philippians 4:6-7), I felt God&#8217;s peace like I had never felt before.&nbsp; And all through that day, and the following days, as we got updates, waited, and prayed, we watched God do something miraculous.&nbsp; He preserved her life, yes.&nbsp; But he also brought her through without mental or physical handicaps.&nbsp; He returned her to us just as she had been, and we are so grateful for that grace.<\/li>\n<li>Of course, we praise God that Abby was born, strong and healthy.&nbsp; It&#8217;s amazing that none of what Deb went through 6 months ago seems to have affected her negatively at all.&nbsp; She has two very-excited older sisters, and we&#8217;re very thankful that they got to learn about life, not death, about God&#8217;s grace, and about miracles, because of their sister.&nbsp; That, too, is simply an act of mercy, and we are so grateful that God chose to act in that way in this instance. <\/li>\n<li>My own two little miracles are sleeping (in their cribs!) in the next room down the hall from me.&nbsp; Who would have ever guessed that I&#8217;d be able to carry twins to 38 weeks, to see them born full-term and healthy, and to avoid bed rest completely while pregnant!&nbsp; And even more, now that their 3+ months old, they are so amazing.&nbsp; No, they aren&#8217;t sleeping so well these days, and yes, it would appear that a growth spurt is causing them to eat every 2-2.5 hours instead of 3 or more, but they are bright-eyed and growing. They stare at their hands in wonder, and they reach for my face and hair when I talk to them.&nbsp; They laugh and smile and coo when we blow raspberries at them.&nbsp; And they are just adorable (if I do say so myself!).&nbsp; Yep, God is a wonderful God, and I&#8217;m so thankful that he blessed our lives this way. <\/li>\n<li>My dad finally has new knees!&nbsp; He&#8217;s still recovering from his surgery in many ways, but he&#8217;s doing phenomenally well these days.&nbsp; He can walk without a cane (most of the time), he drives, his need for medication is slowly decreasing, and he&#8217;s made it back to work (at least for half-days).&nbsp; And his surgery was just over 10 weeks ago.&nbsp; We are praising God for his quick and (relatively) problem-free recovery!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>That&#8217;s certainly not all, but I need to go.&nbsp; So I will simply end with this truth: God is so good!&nbsp; Happy Tuesday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I was thinking, yesterday, about my new niece, Abigail Grace, who was born last Friday.&nbsp; And it struck me how strange it is that she is really here.&nbsp; I mean, last fall, when we all started praying for her because &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/2009\/03\/24\/praises\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elhogue.com\/shannah\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}