Saturday, 16 August 2008

• The Winter of Our Discontent

  Okay, we really haven't been all that discontent, but that title just sums up the year we've had so far.  I know I've disappeared off the face of the earth, and I just wanted to give as brief a summary as possible to explain why. 

  My health issues culminated last fall to misery, and I was told I had either cancer or was pre-cancerous, oh, and that I possibly had a brain tumor.  I spent the Christmas holiday thinking this might actually be my last Christmas with my family.  As I put our Christmas decorations away, I wondered if I would be around to take them out again next Christmas.  Well, I did have severe damage to several internal organs, but it was because I had Celiac disease.  I didn't have cancer, but had the Celiac continued on without being diagnosed, that would have ended in cancer.  What a praise report, that my body has healed, and now, 6 months later, I am finally feeling great physically.  Also, without my diagnosis, we wouldn't have found out that Eden had it until who knows when.  A double blessing indeed.

  Our health is great now, but we have suffered multiple deaths in our family, 5 in the last 6 months to be exact.  Dana has had to take so much time off for funerals that he doesn't have any time left for vacation now.  The blessing in this is that we have gotten to see so much family this year that we haven't seen in such a long time.  I have enjoyed reconnecting with cousins and aunts and uncles.  And I always enjoy spending time with my brothers.  But death is death, and so many of them, so close together, has been quite a blow.  The most difficult for me being the loss of my 22 year old sister Mary.  I don't know if I'll ever truly get over that until the day I'm in Jesus' arms.  What helps me the most, is knowing that she'll be there waiting for me.  It's the best place for her, and our dad is there with her, but I miss her more than you could know.

  The other big change this year has been church.  After attending Sovereign Grace for 3 years, we switched to a church here in town.  Sovereign Grace is truly a fantastic church.  Dana and I grew so much while we were there.  Sov Grace has incredible teaching and excellent worship, but since it is almost an hour one way from our house, it was really hard for us to get plugged in, and once I started having health issues, well, it was almost impossible. 

  The Lord's timing is so wonderful though.  A new pastor moved to our town and took over a church here called Grace Church.  Dana and I have attended a LOT of churches over the years as we've moved all over the place.  We were afraid we would never find teaching that equalled that at Sov Grace, but this may very well be the best teaching we have ever had the privilege to sit under.  AND, its only 12 minutes from our house!  We are grateful to Jesus in so many ways!

  Probably one of the biggest changes has been having my nephew Elijah (Mary's son) here with us.  He spent a good part of April here, all of June, and is here right now.  We wish he could just stay with us all the time, but so far, that hasn't been the Lord's will.  This poor little guy has been through soooo much.  He just turned 4 the end of May, and he sure could use your prayers.  Of course, we could too for that matter!

  We started school 2 weeks ago, and have been so very busy, I'm not sure when I'll get to come back to blogging again, but I hope it will be soon.  In the meantime, I've developed an addiction to Facebook.  Because its more condensed, I find it a lot easier to keep up with people there instead of blogs.  I have some wonderful friends with great blogs, but I just can't manage to read them all on a regular basis.  I hope you'll forgive me and not take it personally!!!  But if you have a Facebook page, please add me as a friend, I'd love to see you there.  :)

  Love and blessings, me 

   

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