she came to visit us, our life photographer, on a warm summer day to take photos to be on the inside flap of a book that was being scripted each evening after dinner.
that day was the first time he could do this,
stand next to me, with just my hand helping him, not with my arm around him, like we needed to in all of the photos from this day
where my arm was hidden around his back, helping him, balancing him, and we couldn’t stand and simply hold hands.
this summer came to ian in strength, upgrading to a walker, and then a cane and committing to walking by year 30. he left the house without a wheelchair for the first time and he walked out the front doors of his mom’s house for the first time.
2013 was a big year.
yet, on a day that becomes reflective for so many of us, that’s not what i most see.
what i most see is a hard-fought year, with fears and exposure and costs and crying and days sitting in front of a blank computer screen wondering why we signed a contract- that were all swallowed up by what was following us. by what was behind us and before us.
it was a year swallowed up in God.
it was a year that He swallowed us up, taking our inadequacies that were asked to put our story into 75,000 words, our legs that were asked to learn to walk again, our hearts that at times wanted out.
He followed us with mercy, and made our hopeless mornings and our sweet, quiet date nights and our laughter at his inappropriate jokes into beautiful life canvases.
He followed us with His goodness, keeping us, with his white-knuckle grip.
He blessed us, with two new nieces and nephews, bring number seven and eight into our hearts that four years ago didn’t know that type of love.
He kept us, in each other, faithful and honorable to our covenant.
And all that we were given in Him will continue to be, so that this coming year that looms with exposure as our feebly written pages will be carried home in shopping bags and delivered with the mailman won’t be faced apart from mercy. Or Himself. Or joy, in the most unexpected places.
He will follow us, and someday, someday hopefully soon, we will dwell in His house, forever.
Ian said to write whatever I wanted tonight and said he wanted prayer for whatever I think he needs prayer for. I caught on quickly and realized he was brushing it off on me because he’s totally distracted by Oprah’s soothing voice on the Discovery Channel’s premiere of “Life.” He’s such a loser..
So, since I have to guess, I would ask prayer for Ian’s initiation and that he would have a breakthrough here at therapy. We don’t have a date of when he will be discharged- he’s allowed to stay as long as he’s making progress.
Ian had an appointment today with his neurosurgeon who did his original emergency surgery. On the same floor, just down the hall from the ICU that both Ian and Steve had brain surgery in. Hated to be there. And making me cry on so many levels, the doctor told Ian that he is the sickest patient he has ever had who has survived.
again i need to apologize for not keeping the blog up very well. there is nothing too new to report. ian had some testing done in pittsburgh today that went well. this weekend i’ll start moving into our new house, plus we’re running a 5k for brain cancer research in DC on Sunday.
Almost exactly four months until we get married. it’s going fast, but at the same time i feel like we’ve been engaged forever. still praying that ian will be walking and standing at our wedding, but trying not to put my hope in that.
thank you for praying. please continue to pray for ian’s memory and that he would initiate conversation.
Thank you to everyone who supported us in the Race for Hope DC, which raised more than $2 million for brain cancer awareness and brain tumor research. We ran and walked with more than 11,000 people. It was quite an experience. Hopefully Team 828 will make more appearances around the area:)
This post is titled Part 2 because I know that very recently I had a similar one titled “Ungratefulness.” Shocking- I’m still ungrateful.
I had a particularly frustrating day today, where everything from adjusting to full-time work, to finding a back-up wedding site, to paying my first round of bills was mounting up. And it was mounting up on only me because Ian can’t do those things. When Ian and I first got to the new house tonight for dinner, I kept finding myself angry or annoyed at him because of his brain injury. I had a million things to do and was bitter at him that he wasn’t able to help me with any of it.
But then we took a walk (my only way of keeping Ian around after he said he was bored and wanted to go home), and even as we were walking away from the house I really felt like God was going to teach me something on that walk..
I was convicted about 1,000 times on our walk because of things Ian shared with me but also was freshly encouraged by the idea of mercy.
I remember when one of my greatest prayers was that Ian would be able to speak to me about his feelings for me. I didn’t question whether or not he still loved me, but I just wanted to hear it. I wanted to hear him thank me for giving him his medicine or give me a reason of why he likes being with me.
Ian shared so much with me tonight and encouraged me immensely in our decision to get married. As he was sharing his thoughts, I was freshly reminded of how I was witnessing an answered prayer. A prayer that, in that moment, I had forgotten I had ever prayed. It seems as though as soon as Ian regained his speech and started being able to do things like sharing his feelings with me, I all of a sudden moved on to the next thing that I wanted to see happen in him. But God brought me back to mercy tonight. I will forget again and again and again all of the answered prayers. I will continue to forget the gospel when I should be applying it. I will give in again and again to anger with Ian because of his disabilities. But there is mercy. God is rich in mercy. I know that He will bring moments, even brief, of refreshment and encouragement. I know God will give Ian and I great peaks together, even while we are in a very deep valley.
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