"Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it."
Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV
Matthew 7:13-14 (NIV
What's your distraction? What's the one way you can start to break away from the everybody crowd?
The everybody crowd says, "if it feels good it is good." The everybody crowd says, "don't deny yourself... that's so old school." The everybody crowd says, "everybody's living it up – so should you." Conformed or transformed? The choice is ours. If we want to be a sold out somebody for God, we have to break away from the everybody crowd.
Dear Lord, I want and need to live apart from the everybody crowd. Free me of my distractions. Remove my insecurities. Help me to follow You with my whole heart. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
Hello our faithful family and friends of Ashley’s blog page. Thank you for your continued prayers. I am so happy to say that our God has filled our lives with so much to live for and do every day. I have been so busy that I have been slowly working on Ashley’s updates. I will now take you thru February and you can enjoy our numerous pictures as well. We are so blessed to able to have a home to go to everyday. I can remember back when my husband had to resign to stay home to care for Ashley and I had gone back to work, we had already decided if we had to sell the house we would. This was very hard for me after so many years of planning, saving and designing our dream home where we could finally enjoy our family grow and David and I could grow old together in a peaceful neighborhood. At times, it seemed that we were on our last dollar but the Lord opened up doors for us and has been providing for us every day. You see David and I fell in love back in junior high and got married in high school. I can say we have grown up together and have gone through many challenges in life. Somehow we overcame each one and kept moving forward and have been married now for 25 years. Moving from house to house was tiring and I had a goal that someday we would build our dream home for our family and that was going to be the last move for us. When you walk into our home, you can see and feel our Lord everywhere especially when you look at Ashley and her smile tells us everything is going to be okay. On the second picture you can see Ashley hanging around at the kitchen breakfast bar. She had been watching TV in the living room and stood up on her own and walked over to the kitchen and stood there looking at me run back and forth (as I usually do until I finally go to bed). I stopped to look at her with a big smile and went to grab my camera because she had put her hand under her chin to hold her head up while she continued to look at me and this was new for me and awesome!! LITTLE STEPS. Breathe one day at a time, is what I tell myself every day! She then started going to the refrigerator and I let her open the doors, showed her where everything was at, and asked what she would like to have. Immediately she pointed to her Capri sun juices and I told her go ahead, reach and grab it with both hands. As I walked her through the process I got flash backs of when she was lying in bed motionless and doctors prepared us for very little ability to do anything. Thank you my Lord for your love and healing and never leaving our side. As a lot of family and friends know me, I am always on the run. Everything in my life is fast, fast, fast and keeping everything in order. Now life for me is very different. I stop, look, have slowed down some what and appreciate everything I mean everything! Adrian continues to take Ashley to therapy everyday and stays with her until we get home from work. She enjoys going with Adrian everyday to pick up Alyssa at Trevino Elementary and seeing the staff wave and call out to her. Ashley attended Trevino elementary from the 2nd grade to 5th grade while I worked in the front office. Here she was a part of the student council, track and field, chess team, and choir. While watching a home video she was able to identify by name her elementary principal Mrs. Cynthia A. Saenz and counselor Ms. Dorina Caceres. For many months, Ashley could not remember her birthday or how old she was. Ashley can now remember her birthday August 16th and we are working on her remembering that she is 18 years old. Ashley was an awesome runner since elementary and always participated in the Edinburg 10k or 2-mile walk, so we asked her if she wanted to participate this year. She said that she wanted to do the 10k run. I told her “let us do the 2 mile walk this year”. I mentioned it to some family members and they wanted to join us so we decided to invite more family and friends to join us in the “Walk in Faith with Ashley”. Well we got a great response for the short notice that I had sent out to a few people. We ordered white Ashley’s shirts and each one of our group members registered through the Edinburg Parks and Rec. and received their 2-mile walk shirt and number. Ashley’s friend Stephanie Valencia bought Ashley pink balloons and pink Hawaiian lei for the great event. We had over 60-combined family and friends join us that special day. Ashley started off by walking and then after a short distance we took off running while she was pushed in her wheel chair by her dad and friend Vanessa Garza. I had a very hard time keeping up once they started running because Vanessa used to run with Ashley at Edinburg North so u can imagine how fun this was for Ashley. Once we got to the track at the Cats Stadium Ashley wanted to walk again and her friends set her up on the track as if to start a race the way she did before and once we said “GO!” we all took off walking all the way to the finish line. We started hearing Ashley’s faithful members of the group who were done with the walk yell and clap for Ashley from the stands. She was so happy and her smile said it all. Once we got to the finish line, we were embraced by her awesome first high school cross country and track coach Yvonne Salinas who continues to run today in FAITH that Ashley will soon be running by her side. Many people were not sure on attending because we had just had freezing wet weather days before but it turned out to be such a beautiful day for a walk/run. Thank you GOD!! After the 2-mile walk, we went to visit David’s Grandma. It was good to see and spend time with her and Ashley told her “I love you great grandma!!”. On Super Bowl Sunday, we spent it at my brother in laws house. Ashley and I enjoyed the half time show watching the Black Eye Peas and Usher perform. It was a very great weekend!! Then came my birthday! I was so happy to come home to be surprised to a chocolate cake, flowers, dinner and my kids singing happy birthday to me. All the little things were the biggest for me. Just to hold and hear my Ashley sing Happy Birthday to me was a blessing that brought tears to my eyes. Little by little, we take Ashley out more. It has been hard making re-adjustments on our day-to-day living and getting out. She likes to wave and smile at people she sees and when she recognizes someone, you can tell because she has the biggest smile ever. She is full of love, peace and funny in many ways. On Valentine’s weekend, she received a big surprise from her friends Carlos and Wendy Hurtado. She had been asking repeatedly about Carlos who was her ex-boyfriend so after several previous contacts with Carlos we invited him to come and visit with Ashley. This was a very good visit for Carlos, his sister Wendy and Ashley. Ashley had been ordered to have a CT head scan at Edinburg Hospital so after we were done with the scan David and I decided to take Ashley to visit the Edinburg Children’s ICU where we spent our first month with her. As we walked over to the wall phone to call the nurses’ station to request the doors to be opened so we can go in, a nurse approached us and asked us if she could help us. She could not recognize Ashley but I told her “you were one of my daughter’s nurses”. This is Ashley Olivarez. She was so surprised and excited to see her walking and immediately opened the doors. As we walked in, she went to look for Dr. Camacho and it just so happened that many of Ashley’s medical staff were there at the nurses’ station. Dr. Camacho turned around and saw us and was so happy to see Ashley and said look at you you’re walking!! That is all we kept hearing from everyone. I said, “You haven’t seen her dance!” Ashley was so happy and showed it with her big smile. Everyone gathered around her to hug and praise her and they were amazed to see her so beautiful and strong. Mary Lopez who gave Ashley her respiratory treatments would always play her techno/rave music from her cell phone while Ashley received her treatments. Mary played her music and told Ashley “you remember you loved hearing my music while you got your treatment” and Ashley started shaking her hips side to side and wrapped her arm around Mary. Mary was just so happy to see her responding so well. Dr. Camacho looked at me and said, “Continue doing whatever it is that you all are doing”. “She is doing great and she is going to be fine”. I thanked her so much for all their special love and care they gave our Ashley when we were so scared, confused, tired, everything!! Dr. Camacho always spoke to us in a gentle, truthful but yet hopeful manner. She was very protective of Ashley and very patient with us. Many times, we were desperate, scared, tired, angry, confused and constantly praying. She was always very good to us when we would have our large group prayer meetings in the waiting area. I remember the nurses’ station full of flowers and arrangements for Ashley. Unfortunately, Ashley never got to see them because flowers were not allowed in the patient’s room. We eventually had to take them home. I wanted to keep them there as long as possible because I wanted Ashley to come out of her room and see all her arrangements. By the time, Ashley came home all the arrangements had dried up and we were left with only empty vases but it didn’t matter because Ashley was home. I was able to take pictures of them as they were delivered. We were overwhelmed to have been invited to attend the McAllen Mayor’s Breakfast Prayer Meeting at the Convention Center where the special guest speaker was John Keller. Mr. James Keller, John’s dad, during his speech of the Lord’s Miracles and beautiful work took the time to recognize Ashley and us. We stood Ashley up and everyone applauded for her. We had such a great time. It is always so uplifting to see and hear John and his parents. They motivate us so much and take the time to re-direct us when we feel so lost. Alyssa had a field trip to Laguna Atascosa and after that, we went to the beach. Oh my goodness what challenges we faced! We were so hungry so we went to eat at a restaurant on the beach called Wanna Wanna. We had to unload Ashley’s feeding machine plus her supplies and walk over to the restaurant. After we placed our orders I took Ashley to the bathroom and thank goodness me and Ashley are small because the space in the bathrooms were very very limited (NOT HANDICAP ACCESSABLE). While we were all eating Ashley was receiving her feeding from her machine that was running on a charged battery. There were no outlets so we had hoped it would stay on until her feeding was complete. Well it didn’t! So we had to rapidly finish eating and pick up everything and walk and look for an outlet under some shade. There we went walking down the street to the hotel next door while Alyssa pushed the feeding machine on wheels. We finally get to the swimming pool gate where we see several senior citizens relaxing and enjoying the pool area. Well when David pulled to open the gate, it was locked and I noticed it had a key pad lock on it. I looked at David, Ashley & Alyssa and said well we have to walk over to the next hotel. As we started to walk away, one of the women in the pool kindly yelled out to David the key pad number and he quickly entered it and opened the gate. Thank you my Lord for always taking care of us!! As we walked by all of them I told her thank you and that we were just looking for an outlet to continue her feeding. We went into the lobby area and found an outlet and two chairs where we all waited for about 30 minutes until Ashley’s feeding was complete. We then packed up everything and went back walking to the beach. We finally got Ashley to the beach and she was so excited once she started walking on the sand and got closer to the water. I asked her if she wanted for me to take off her top shirt and put her hair down and she nodded yes. She enjoyed the fresh beach air and I was amazed to be experiencing this moment. I mean it’s like everything is a “first time” all over again with Ashley but yet she remembers certain things. We enjoyed the afternoon and we were there for about three hours until we noticed that more young college students started arriving. Ashley was very attracted to the young boys without shirts walking by. I would look at Ashley and pick up my eyebrows and tell her, “you like?” and she would give me a big smile. We would always play around when we would see young teenage guys her age. I now tell her, “you gotta start talking so you can ask them for their phone number because I am not going to get it for you” and she says ok mom. Ashley enjoyed stepping into the cold water. We took long walks on the beach and looked at everything the birds, the people, the buildings, the clouds, the kids playing, and let’s not forget the cute guys! As you can see in the pictures we had such a great time and we are so thankful to our Lord for these simple but yet very valuable and blessed moments. Sorry for the long update but I cannot help myself in holding back and not expressing all the great everyday moments we have been blessed with. I mean I just wish you all could be there to see the great work our Mighty Lord Jesus Christ is doing with our daughter. Yes it is a very heavy cross to carry but he gives us our strength everyday to keep going even when we are at a point that we cannot do this anymore. Thank you all for your continued prayers. They are never enough. You need you to keep praying. That is what the Lord wants for us to praise him and help his people the ill, the poor, the hungry, the weak and the needy. Please look forward to the updates for March. Please share this blog page with your loved ones. We want for Ashley’s story to be the strength for other young students and parents. Please feel free to send us any comments. We would love to hear from you all.
MAY GOD BLESS YOU.
THE OLIVAREZ FAMILY
