Ian and I have been talking about how we can change the blog to better serve our readers and those faithfully praying for us. Over the past five years, the blog has morphed significantly – initially set up as a way to update our friends and family on the constant changes to Ian’s immediate health right after the accident, we now don’t have many medical updates or big progress posts. We’ve entered into a new style of life, one that without a miracle, will become and has become the new normal. With that, we feel that the messaging of our blog has changed and will continue to change, hopefully without losing sight of the gospel or the reason that most of you visit the blog – to simply pray for ian.
Where we see the blog taking us for the next few months and if the lord allows, the next few years, is to really be able to share with our readers what it looks like to live in the midst of a significant disability at a young age and what it means as a christian to live that every day. and, more importantly, to not just live it, but to share the battle to see the beauty and grace that encompasses a life (and marriage ) disabled. we know that our blog already has expressed this in some ways, but we want to be more intentional in what we share and how we share it.
The first addition is a new daily gratefulness list, which is a right-link as a flickr photo stream. We know that daily thanking God for all of his blessings is critical in fighting against bitterness in the face of suffering. colossians 3:15 says it best – “and be thankful.”
We also have some exciting ideas and really great things coming up the first of the year to share with everyone.
More importantly, we want each of you, our readers, to know that you have played a role in our lives that we won’t fully understand until we reach heaven. in ian’s words, “thank you.”
We are grateful and continue to pray for grace to humbly share our lives/struggles/joys with you.
Thank you for healing me; I was dying beneath my shame But You brought me to life again, and I will sing: Thank you for freeing me I was dead to the truth of You, But my healing was in Your wounds, and now I sing: Thank you for healing me.
Though outwardly I may waste away, On the inside I´ll be more alive every day. As I walk through times of pain and grief There´s a deeper truth inside of me… You have placed Your life inside of me.
both ian and i have been feeling unwell over the past few days/weeks. god has been teaching us much but at times have grown weary and discouraged. tonight was a night that i would be alone with ian, without his brother here working and helping with transfers and the like. i didn’t work all day, not feeling well enough, and i found myself feeling anxious about being alone to care for ian – evenings that i typically look forward to with much anticipation.
but god has met us, and met this very tiny request of meeting our needs just on this night, which is a speck of our lifetime. ian has made me laugh, made our roommate jen laugh, forgotten her name which made us laugh really hard, and he has cared for me. we took a walk. we watched a movie. and just after i had hung up the phone, he told me he wanted to dance with me. and on pandora was a song that i had been searching for all week, and it was a perfect moment. a perfect moment because ian was showing god to me, loving me, asking me to dance with him, caring for me. and we were dancing to words of healing, and mercy, and life. this is my husband who, two years ago, could not sit up in bed by himself. his dad, and i, and his caregiver had to hold him for strength. and now, even though his arms and legs are tired, he’s pursuing a dance with his wife.
i am so grateful to the lord for my husband, and for these moments of sweetness and fellowship with the lord. i’m reminded each day that we are most clearly met when we are most weak.
On Friday after work, it was warm in the 70s, the end of the day was on my mind followed by two more work-less days. Driving home with the windows down, I watched as people were jogging, playing tennis, sliding down the homemade slip-n-slide outside their college apartments. My desires to “do something” were growing. And I was so glad to not be at work.
But then I got home and saw Ian sleeping, so tired from his cold, and not able to go for a run with me. Or even a walk. And his disability again freshly became mine. And I had to try to fight to let my desires to go out and enjoy something die.
This is what it’s like to be married to someone with a tbi. I imagine it’s the same for someone who is chronically sick, or has special needs, or who is dying. Their sickness becomes their spouses sickness. I have a brain injury, just like Ian. Because when we became one flesh, I gained his sorrows. Just as Jesus was a man of sorrows and has shared in them with us, I share them with Ian. And while it is a gift of marriage, it is painful and sad.
We could probably write a whole book on this topic alone. Because it changes everything about our life, even mine. But Jesus knows it more deeply than us, and if we can just rest there, we will be filled.
the below post is from our brother, caleb murphy. caleb spends forty hours each week helping ian, and so he has gained a pretty up-close view of ian as a husband:
As a husband, I want to be strong for my wife. I want her to see me as a man in the same vein as Maximus Aurelius from Gladiator; a persistent and strong leader with good intent. In reality, I’m more like a child in middle school who’s trying to impress a girl but continually cracks under pressure.
But how can Ian, a crippled man who’s been stripped of many physical and mental capabilities, be this type of man for his wife?
Well, the most important aspect of service to your wife is soul-protector. How did Jesus best serve the church? By redeeming and caring for the church. He gave himself up for the church so that “he might sanctify her” (Eph. 5:25-26). He gave himself up “so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish” (Eph. 5:27). Husbands are supposed to love their wives “as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her” (Eph. 5:25).
We cannot save people from damnation, but we can care for them. So, the best way a husband can serve his wife is by caring for her spiritual condition and seeking her sanctification. This is the most obvious way Ian serves Larissa, and he does it well.
Ian’s joyfulness and complete reliance on God seem to bring encouragement to Larissa, not to mention his quickness to bring God back to the center of things. Ian portrays faith like it should be portrayed: as common sense. God is good and that’s the truth, even to a man in Ian’s condition.
This should reposition my focus in marriage. The most important aspect of protecting, caring and providing for my wife is spiritual. Even if I were handicapped, unable to walk by myself, and relying on her for everything, the weight of her soul on my heart should be heavier than any other burdens I might have.
I should be more like Ian, because Ian serves his wife like Jesus serves his church.
over the past 12 hours, our story has been watched more than 86,000 times. this is astounding. and to ian in particular, it is worth it: “i would do this (disability) all over again if i knew it would affect this many people. god is glorious.”
and so here we are, knowing that literally thousands of people just today have hopefully somehow seen god through our marriage. that in itself is mind-blowing. because it is so not of us. we are so very ordinary. tonight is so very ordinary. ian is napping. the rain is pouring outside and the washer downstairs is spinning. the poor clothes in the washer probably won’t get switched until I get home from work tomorrow. and by that time, they’ll need to be re-washed. i can’t see the floor of our bedroom, our laundry completely taking over. i’m putting off making dinner, even though all it requires is putting leftovers on a plate and into the microwave.
and yet, in the midst of this ordinary, the weight of what has happened today through this video and what will continue to happen pummels me. it pummels me because what god is accomplishing through our afflictions is happening at the same time that we are sinning. What a great divide that crosses. What wretched sinners Ian and I are, and yet somehow, He uses us to magnify himself. Our sin does not prevent god’s glory on display.
on days like this, we get just a glimpse of this promised eternal weight of glory, as undeserved as it is, and it is enough to bring us to our knees. how great this weight will be in heaven!
one thing that we love and hold so close on days like this is that our dad, steve, now feels and knows that weight of glory. he prepared us so well and we can’t wait to see him again. one of the biggest impressions on my heart the few days after he died was that he was seeing fully. and that he would encourage us to press on, because it is beyond worth it.
thank you, all. in the words of my dear husband, god is awesome.
“blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trail, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him.” james 1:12
to ian, he said that it’s hard for him to see now that ‘blessed is the man.’ it’s hard to see that blessedness in his life. how clearly the scripture leads us to ian’s eternal reward – ‘he will receive the crown of life.’ nothing more is needed.
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Ian and I have been talking about how we can change the blog to better serve our readers and those faithfully praying for us. Over the past five years, the blog has morphed significantly – initially set up as a way to update our friends and family on the constant changes to Ian’s immediate health right after the accident, we now don’t have many medical updates or big progress posts. We’ve entered into a new style of life, one that without a miracle, will become and has become the new normal. With that, we feel that the messaging of our blog has changed and will continue to change, hopefully without losing sight of the gospel or the reason that most of you visit the blog – to simply pray for ian. 
