date night
life is very filled and hours in the day feel very short. amidst it all, we find a perfectly placed date night that allows rest.
Easter
The sun is out. My work day is over. Our deadline #2 manuscript is sent. Our second speaking engagement has passed. now we celebrate that death has been swallowed up in life as we join our family in Philadelphia.
so thankful to Jesus
we're still alive
we’re still alive, focusing on a week meant for a book deadline and speaking to a campus ministry.
please pray for ian’s energy and initiation. he’s been very tired recently and we’re trying to get to the bottom of it.
thank you, always.
larissa
snippet
today is a writing day, a coffee shop and itunes my company. i came across this portion that i’ve written and thought about how truly quickly ian’s definition to the world changed. where i end though is on hope – hope that this is not all that Ian will know.
“With my eyes closed and the song ending, I felt a hand on my shoulder and a whisper in my left ear.
‘Steve just called,’ Mary said. ‘Ian’s been in an accident. He’s in a Pittsburgh hospital. We need to leave.’
With those words, life shifted. With those words, my role in Mary’s life, in Ian’s life, in my family, warped. With those words, Ian was removed from a body that the world would call normal and was given a new label, a label what would change everything.
I would give anything to take those words back, those breaths back, to shove them up into a tight ball, seal them with tape and glue and cement to make sure that they never opened back up. Those words Mary told me and that moment and that millisecond in his car that he was distracted meant that for the rest of our lives, we would grieve. They meant that Ian would be lost.”
birthdays, babies and back aches
this was a birthday weekend in the mountains, celebrating my Grammy, my dad and my special days.
we brought home a stomach bug and body aches but we’re grateful for anytime with our nieces and nephews. and Ian is the best husband for sick days, who just holds my hand while we sleep the day away.
Ian gets back to therapies tomorrow and then another weekend of birthday-ness.
Ian asked prayer that he would be able to stand.
Thank you, always
Larissa
whirlwind
it’s times like this that i wish i had a whole stockpile of pre-written blog posts that i could choose at random. but, fortunately or unfortunately, i am too normal for that and so we have days without posts.
ian is still working so hard at walking. his therapist likes him to stand one hour each night in addition to walking and all of the therapies he has throughout the day.
if you think of us, please pray for wisdom and discretion for decisions that we have coming our way about taking our story more public and more secular. (To clarify, we are not making our story secular but rather are considering a few secular mediums/outlets to deliver our story.)
thank you, always
i&l
it’s not pity
i struggle sometimes with the focus of our blog, our book, our encouragement from others. sometimes the encouragement, unintentionally, makes ian into an object of pity.
sometimes ian’s value is sacrificed with a well-intended encouragement to me.
sometimes all i hear is that i’ve made a sacrifice. that i’ve made a hard choice. that i’m the focus.
sometimes we forget that the one who is disabled has made a sacrifice.
as we sat this weekend at a film festival, i looked at ian sitting next to me. i listened to the screen, to the documentary voices telling me about the gift of stepping into the darkness of loss and disability and grief.
i looked at ian who i came into this darkness with and who is a pure gift to me.
i didn’t know how to love until ian. i didn’t know how to love until God led us into darkness, together.
ian has fought for seven years. ian has entered into marriage knowing that he would have infinite losses. he knew that he would be marrying someone who wouldn’t always feel in love with him and who wouldn’t always be kind. he knew that he would live an entire life of giving up his preferences and thinking of someone else first and making hard decisions for the sake of Christ, all with a disability. he could have given up or chosen despair or been afraid that God couldn’t keep our love.
i asked ian last night why he married me.
laughing, “because I love you.”
ian is not to be pitied. i am not to be pitied. God is to be rejoiced.
the foundation of all that we are is love. love saved us. love moves us. love molds us.
this, for us, was not learned in health.
3801
Honored to be part of this and part of defending the defenseless. the judges chose well.
he’s still working
he’s still working on walking. this time with a walker. we’re very grateful for strength.
he knew
Steve wrote this on our blog in 2007, just two years before he passed away. i’m glad he knew where he was headed.
“I long for heaven. There the good that I’ll experience is not temporary or fleeting or fading or tainted by trials. Here on earth, any good is temporary. Car wrecks taint life. Things are taken away from us. We don’t always experience things we would prefer. My emotional investment and the focus of my faith can’t be the things of this life, but my hope has to be in that imperishable inheritance that’s kept in heaven for me. So many dreams and things and relationships throw me off and distract my longing for heaven. I need to hold out for what’s best; I need to hold out for heaven.”