Monday, February 28, 2011

The Post I've Been Waiting For....

This is the post I've been waiting for. For NINE LONG MONTHS. Nine months of praying, hoping, crying, believing, growing.....

and HE'S BACK!!

My son-in-law, Aaron, finally returned to us on Friday night! It was quite an amazing reunion at the airport.
Can't you just see the enthusiasm in Scarlett's face? I think she was ready to go to sleep. But look how Ellie is clinging to her daddy. She was so excited! And she and Ezekiel held hands all the way through the airport.

We had a welcome home party Saturday night at the church and it was GLORIOUS! We thanked God, we thanked the people who have stood with us through all of this, and we CELEBRATED!

Someday I'll share all the wonderful things God taught us all through this trial. But right now I'm going to just bask in the happiness of knowing the trial is behind us.

My family is together again. 

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

A lot has happened.....

I have never had a problem expressing myself with the written word......

Until the last few months.

A lot has been going on, both outwardly and inwardly. Usually when I am having intense feelings I immediately start writing, but this year has been different. I've been doing a lot of thinking, often lamenting. In many areas I've been adjusting my thinking. But I haven't done much writing, because for some reason that I can't begin to understand (because it's so totally not like me) it all feels stuck on the inside.

This has been a year when the tragedy of death seemed like it was going to incapacitate us, only to be followed by the elation of one wonderful birth after another. It's been a year of cancer, separation of family, pain, struggling. And at the very same time that a family was grieving so deeply over the death of their young daughter/wife/mother who collapsed on her treadmill only to die a few days later, we got the very best news we could possibly hope to get. Our family would soon be reunited.

We were celebrating our greatest joy....something we had been eagerly waiting months to hear.... at the very same time they were grieving the biggest loss they had ever had. And I think that's when it really hit me. This world will never make sense. We will continue taking turns celebrating and mourning and celebrating again. Terrible, terrible things will happen. But really wonderful things will happen, too. Over and over and over again. People in one part of the world are struggling with how to find something to feed their children so they don't die of starvation. Others are struggling with how to fit a flat-screen tv into their budget. It doesn't make sense.

And I find myself in unfamiliar territory. I don't know what to say. I feel this strong urge to live for something more meaningful. Leonard and I continue to feel it's getting harder and harder to live our comfortable little lives knowing there are so many people out there who are really suffering. I feel like there is some sort of awakening going on in the inside of me, and yet I don't know what I'm waking up to.

I like being able to end my writing with the point. The reason I wrote it.

But I don't know what to say.