It's been a hot minute since I wrote one of these! With my 5-year old shipped off to VBS (thank you, Sonrise Church!), and the 2 in diapers napping, I thought I would steal a moment with you all.
A TON has gone down with our family in the last 90 days. I have to preface this by saying that I'm a huge proponent of change, but my gosh - this has been a whirlwind of a season. This is coming from a woman who got engaged after 6 weeks (OK, 5 weeks and 5 days) and married 4 1/2 months after that. Few things are a "whirlwind" to me, but this season we are in has just about sent me to a remote island with my eyes closed and fingers in my ears! SO - I'm sorry it's been a while since I've been able to connect with you.
I got a call at 9:30 in the morning on April 2nd from my husband. (It was the day after we celebrated our 7-year wedding anniversary.) Prepared to throw him on speakerphone, because I was certain he was calling to say hi to his babies too, he instead told me he was headed home for the day - that he'd lost his job after 10 1/2 years. It was maybe 60 days after that, we were faced with more changes and made the super difficult decision to leave the family we've known for 5 1/2 years and change churches. We were told in the midst of all that, a dear friend of ours was diagnosed simultaneously with stage 4 lung cancer and emphysema (as his wife continues to battle pancreatic cancer), and that Jonathan's mother would be undergoing chemo after her surgery to remove breast cancer for a 3rd time in just under a decade.
The HAPPY ending to all of this is that we put food on the table for those 90 days (hallelujah!), Jonathan started his new job July 1st, and we have found a comfy spot in our new home church... and it's local! No more driving 60 miles round-trip on Sunday mornings. My Mother-in-law continues to struggle hard with the decision to undergo this "treatment" that makes her feel so sick 24/7, but at the end of it her hair and energy will come back, and she's more than halfway through treatment. Still very difficult, but the light can at least bee seen at the end of the tunnel. Paul and Leigh Ann continue to have the best attitude ever; watching them in their battle has been one of the most humbling experiences of my life. My 5-year old reminds me nightly to pray for "Paul, Leigh Ann and Grandma" by name and for the cancer to go away. Talk about "a light!!"
I would be willing to bet 80% of you know someone in the cancer fight, and that 100% of you have known someone in the fight. I bet many of you have battled yourself.
Being in the waiting room of uncertainty is one of the hardest aspects of life - maybe THE hardest, especially when our finances and/or our health is threatened. I just felt strongly today to encourage you. Although our family is exiting the waiting room of financial provision after a long and uncertain 90 days, we are still feeling the weight of these cancer diagnoses.
Stay the course. Did you know that it takes 5 years of watering a bamboo tree with NO VISIBLE SIGNS OF GROWTH before, in the 5th year, the Chinese Bamboo Tree will sprout 80 feet in just 6 weeks?
Things will work out for you. Haven't they always worked out in the past, in one way or another? Maybe not always in the way we would expect, but they do work out, and inevitably we learn a ton.
Keep watering... you are almost there.
XO,
Linds
