In Christ Alone our Hope is Found

For me, summertime is the time that I try to pull the house together. De-cluttering and organizing don't get done during the school year. I try to keep things tidy and to a minimum. Stuff makes me miserable. We live in small quarters, so no matter how much I try to purge we always have too much stuff for my comfort. (: Today I was helping Micah tidy his room and go through some stuff. It was time for us to go through his hospital stuff. His art therapy memories have already been pared down. We have kept his special stuffed animals, his ports, his bravery beads, his oxygen mask and many other things. They are things that remind us of the journey. They tell a story.  Micah's stuff animals remind him of surgeries and procedures. His oxygen mask makes me ache at the remembrance of the utter pain he suffered in March 2010 in the week following his lung surgery. I am thankful that he can't remember.  His ports bring joy because they are out and not needed....

When I look around I see: Families and marriages that are broken. People who have hopes dashed without an answer in sight.  A husband who will lose a wife and little girls who will grow up without their mummy. People who battle with the same wretched sin for years. A man who fought for years and the Lord has taken him home leaving a wife and boys to grieve. An old man who has stopped thinking clearly and who has started to lose himself. Parents who grieve the loss of children and children who grieve the loss of parents. Circumstances may not change and the pain may only fade a little over time, but God's goodness, mercy, grace, and faithfulness are woven into Who He is and those things will never change. He is good in joy and in grief. He is good when He gives life and when He takes it. Because of Who he is and His promises, He is enough. Enough to heal marriages. Enough to carry us through all sorts of grief. Enough to give us the strength to fight our deepest sins....

The kids and I have been done school for a few weeks and are getting ready to start a bit of our next year's work. Micah finished last week and his report card came in the mail today!  Ken is done this year's work and has started into next year's stuff. The end is here! (:  I am so excited for unscheduled days and for Ken to be home. I just love to have everyone home for a while . I am laughing at that last sentence. I adore the quieter pace and the family time. Like everyone else, our school year is crazy busy. Truth be told though, by mid-July I will be pining for routine and fewer people in my house all the time! I am laughing because I know myself so well! (: Grace turned 8 a few weeks ago. She wanted a basket and a bell for her bike and some goggles for her birthday. Here is a picture on her birthday with her fabulous basket. It took me a bit to find, but it's screaming - GRAAAACE!! ( : Micah had his yearly appointment at the hospital this past week. He we...

A few weeks ago I posted some pictures that the kids took from the top of the railway bridge. I love looking at them. They are so beautiful to me. But it's not just the beauty that keeps me coming back, it's the big picture view.  It has made me think of my view and of God's view. This first picture is the view I want and the second is the view I have. Sunset Rd., St Thomas Normally when I drive, I can see a couple hundred feet in front of me and it's enough to get me to where I need to go. I don't need to see further up the road. It's a safe way to drive. From the beginning, the Lord has had the big picture view. He sees miles down the road. He sees years down the road. He saw the beginning of my life and He sees the end of my life. He knows what I need to get where I need to go and He knows which way is best for me. I had a very hard week at the end of May. There were lots of tears. I felt impatient and frustrated that I couldn't see a mile do...

Our Grace girl turns 8 tomorrow. She is such a special girl. The Lord gave her to us at exactly the right time, even though at the time I thought it was all wrong. It seems like this whole post should only be about Grace, but the beginning of her life was woven into Micah's story. Her name gives testament to that. Grace Micaiah. Grace, because of the Lord's tender care for us during her pregnancy and in the darkness that we walked. Micaiah, because I thought they might not ever meet in person and if they did, it would have been short. I wanted her to have a piece of her brother that she would never know. Her pregnancy was one of the most beautiful, but one of the toughest. Micah relapsed when I was about 10 weeks pregnant. Truthfully, to me, it was the worse case scenario. I had watched a mom lose her 2 year old to cancer while she was very pregnant, the first time Micah went through treatment and I just didn't think I could survive that. I  grieved deeply for that famil...

As teenagers, we spent a lot of time at John E. Pearce. Back then you could stand at the fence and look over the water and even walk down a trail and go down to the beach. Beautiful. Now erosion is happening and the fence is so far back that you can't even see the water. Last Saturday, Ken and I climbed a low part of the fence so we could stand at the water. We are rule breakers! (wink). It's still so beautiful and it brings back so many memories. My favorite memory happened on Saturday, June 1st, 1996. Ken proposed to me on the beach. We got married the next year on that same Saturday. May 31st was our 21st-anniversary and this summer marks 25 years as a couple. It's hard to believe.  This picture was taken two weeks after Micah relapsed. I was about 14 weeks pregnant with Grace here. We were doing our 'last' complete family picture session. The sorrow is palpable in this picture. Here Micah had been healthy for about a year and a hal...

This weekend has been a beaut. It's been so nice to have everyone home and I don't want it to end. I feel like we are just getting started. A few of the kids went for a walk on the elevated bridge on Sunday afternoon. I love these pictures. They are roads we travel every single day. This perspective is so big picture! (: (photo cred Nat and Micah) A messy Sunday night supper on the fire. I am not a fan of our fire pit so close to the field. When the field is planted, I am paranoid that we are going to start the field on fire because that is something that would happen to us. (winky face) Leaves on our trees thrill me... But the expanse of grass we have to cut - not so much. We have lots of sections:  by the road, down the side of the laneway, a chunk in front of the house, a chunk, behind the house and the backfield. We have two push mowers and the kids and I cut every day last week. We got it done and now we have to start over again. It's kind of like...