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Sign Language

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I absolutely love Sign Language. I fell in love with the language at age 8, seeing a beauty padgent contestant Sign a song as her tallent.  I learned ASL (American Sign Language, an actual language with unique sentance structures) in high school, bartering with a public school deaf educator for an hour of private toutoring each week in exchange for an hour of babysitting her kids!  I then took SEE (Signing Exact English, basically using ASL signs in educational settings, as applied to teaching English language mechanics like parts of speech, prefixes, and suffixes) in college. My second semester I was moved into the elite, invitation-only class, spending 3-6 hours per week in a 5-to-1 ratio with our professor who interpreted for a large church. My kids learned their ABCs manually, via fingerspelling, before they learned to read. They each had 20-50 word Sign vocabularies before they could say a single word verbally. We memorized Bible verses and sang songs with Sign. (I've pr...
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A quarter of my life

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I was 39 (13, 3 times over). That was 13 years ago.  I don't understand God's grace in allowing me to survive that day , or each of the days since. I was sure angry then that I was stuck in such a broken mind and body. But now I am so thankful. I'm thankful for these years to get right with God . I'm thankful for my husband who, after 19 years of marriage and 3 living children together, had to instantly become the "single father of 4, with his physically biggest and emotionally most immature, requiring exceeding high special needs care" for many years. Now 32 in, Rick is still fighting for us and our marriage. I'm thankful that Rick encourages my dreams and joys, while knowing me well enough to see when I've taken on more than I can actually handle, keeping me grounded by challenging me to realistically accept the goals that remain beyond my reach. I'm thankful to have been allowed to walk each of our babies into adulthood. If I even start unpackin...
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Another Re-birthday

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Tomorrow will be the anniversary, my "re-birthday" when life stated over from square one. Thirteen years ago I heard the word "hypermobile" for the first time. I was 39 years old and a chiropractor had just rotated my neck and commented on my extreme flexibility. That first side of my neck adjusted upon first attempt, but the other side just wouldn't realign. After multiple attempts , my vertebral artery was ruptured in the back of my neck and I instantly experience two catastrophic (either should have been fatal) brain bleeds (strokes) there on the treatment table, initially triggering a seizure, blindness, slurred speech, and a rapid progression to loss of consciousness. I was in the hospital for nearly 2 months, shocking doctors that I even survived the first night. I had to relearn how to breathe without a machine, swallow, see, hear (we eventually discovered I had lost 70-90% of my hearing), sit up without two adults holding me, bladder control, and everyt...
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Reset

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I, Jennifer Saake , stumbled into the online world in my mid-early 20s, around 1995 or '96. As you may have noticed, I've been fairly quiet this past couple of years. Here's why. After processing my own journey online for so long, last year I sort of ran out of words and went into public hibernation. As I prepare to once again start fresh in an attempt to plunge back into the blogosphere, here's my backstory, divided into about 10 sub-headings so than you can skim topics. (Many of the headings are linked to more detailed pages.): Infertility, Miscarriages, Adoption Losses Three years in, our infertility and loss journeys became lived out in the public eye, as God allowed me the incredible privilege of interacting with tens of thousands of other grieving women, both through  Hannah's Prayer Ministries  and then, a decade later, with the publication of  my first book , Hannah's Hope: Seeking God's Heart in the Midst of Infertility, Miscarriage, & Adoptio...
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It Stands Written

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 Last week, Rick and I had the joy of sharing our story about my stroke recovery journey  as episode #60 of the It Stands Written podcast. We invite you to listen along! It Stands Written is a ministry of our home church, Desert Bible Church , in Scottsdale, Arizona, with Pastor Justin Erickson. I would love to meet you through social media: author  page -  facebook.com/HarvestingHope Specialty pages:      infertility / loss  - fb.com/ HannahsHopeBook      stroke  - fb.com/ StrokieGal      current book project on church deception  - fb.com /DeceptionUnmasked Instagram  @InfertilityMom YouTube  @InfertilityMom Twitter  @InfertilityMom Pinterest  @InfertilityMom My books: Read about my current book project  about deceptions women face from within the church , at  JenniferSaake.blogspot.com/2021/04/DeceptionUnmasked.html Read more  about infertility, miscarriage, adoptio...
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Beautiful GIVEAWAY

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 Visibly STUNNING! Holman Reference  did an amazing job in the sensory design of their new " The Old Testament Handbook "! From the luxurious look and feel of the deep grey linen-like cloth-over-board cover that beautifully coordinates with the Christian Standard Bible I already owned (I'm reviewing "Charcoal" and The Old Testament Handbook is also available in "Sand")... ...to the satiny bookmarker ribbon and quality design of the full-color glossy page-layout, this reference guide exploring each of the 39 books of earliest books of Scripture is indeed worthy of gift-giving! Each Old Testament book is explored in a section of 6-20 pages of content such as maps, charts, pictures, and word studies, with each page edged in artwork unique to that book, so it is easy to flip through and find exactly the section I want. Generously sized at more than ten inches tall and over eight inches wide, I'm also looking forward to the next book in this series, The...
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Christmas

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-  Remembering the miracle of God taking on flesh and dwelling among us ( Zechariah 2:10 ; John 1:14 )... - For the purpose of paying the full cost of sin ( Isaiah 53 ; 1 Timothy 1:15-17 ).... - For ALL who call upon His name in repentance ( Psalms 145:18-20 ; John 1:9-12 ; Acts 3:18-19 ; Romans 2:5 ; 2 Corinthians 7:10 ).  May you have a beautiful Christmas focused on Him . Zechariah 2:10 Sing for joy and be glad, O daughter of Zion; for behold, I am coming and I will dwell in your midst,” declares Yahweh. John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. 1 Timothy 1: 15 -17 15 It is a trustworthy saying and deserving full acceptance: that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost. 16 Yet for this reason I was shown mercy, so that in me as the foremost, Christ Jesus mig...
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