my wifey Larissa asked me what someone needs to know about Christ who comes to our site and what I want them to leave with.
i want them to know Christ, and His love for them. i would be doing a disservice if i didn’t share that. His love means He has eternity waiting for us, if we pray to Him and believe that Jesus died on the cross.
knowing this makes a daily impact on me and my brain injury. Christ died and experienced the greatest pain. my pain pales in comparison to the pain He experienced on the cross. He knows my pain. And the greatest pain, and the pain of rejection from the people that He loved, was felt by Him. i know that my pain is already taken up in the cross and someday i’ll be with Him. and see Steve Murphy again, my dad.
Jesus paid it all. my sin is forgotten. thank you, Jesus.
We waited for five weeks after clearance from the surgeon. We waited for his brace to be approved by insurance so that he could safely start to rehab.
we were praying, and the 828 board was praying, that the brace would come before vacation.
because there are two weddings this week, very special people joining their lives, and he needed to be able to walk and dance.
and the day before leaving, it came. And this morning, after an incredible book release party with some of our dearest friends, he walked out the front steps of our new bungalow for the first time.
“amazing. It feels normal,” he says. “The old Ian.”
and we can’t help but be grateful for our dear surgeon who God used to make it possible. Who took the chance on a rare surgery because he believed that Ian was strong enough and courageous enough to learn to walk again.
and we can’t help but be grateful for our therapist who got him to this point.
and our caregiver. Who every single day does more and loves more than his job description requires.
this morning we leave our bungalow with more hope for our future. And more hope for #walkbythirty.
thank you for helping us to get here through prayers, love, and faith.
our new bungalow needed work, to make it into our home. and to make it a place of rest.
“yes, this isn’t really our skill set,” I told him.
laughing, my brother responded, “Ummm yea we know that.”
that’s why he took three days off of work. And that’s why Ian’s in-laws took a week off of work.
that’s why our friend was here every day, working alongside my family.
it’s why my brother-in-law loaded his trailer with all of our belongings that sat in his barn for two years, and brought them to the bungalow. and then spent the next two days laying new floor, and sleeping on a makeshift bed, while Ian and I sat at the lake and his wifey wrangled the two boys at home.
their hours here made our life possible.
and much of what they did, could not be done by us.
at times, we could do nothing.
at all times, ian could do nothing, nothing that they needed.
and so what do you do with yourself, when you can’t do anything? when you have nothing to offer?
what do you do when your nearly 60-year-old dad spends the day on his knees, shooting nails through the thick oak boards that frame our doorways and their future stories? and the one able bodied of us is tired from work and decisions and life-changing events?
we found our giving, our addition, in the gratefulness.
and it felt a bit like God. because we have nothing to give that He does not already have Himself. yet He gives more grace, more provision, more joy. He gives that freely. and there is nothing we can do, there was nothing we did do, but we may receive it. and we may return it in gratefulness, letting our hearts pour over with those words that make gifts much sweeter.
and in the gratefulness, as we sat at the table each night, checking the list and progress and time left, we found fellowship. together.
we had spent three magical days together at the lake, but that didn’t ensure that i would be kind.
and so i was saying those unkind things to him on our trip home, those unkind things that well up in my heart and feel as though they have to be uttered. even though when they are, he is torn down. and He is dishonored.
in the midst of it, as his straight leg sat propped up in the passenger seat, in his failed catheter mess, he reached for my hand.
i told him i didn’t want to hold it. because i didn’t feel that i deserved it with so much anger shooting into the air of our car. and i didn’t like him in that moment.
“why would you want to hold my hand when i’m being so mean?”
“because you need it.”
“why?”
“you need to know that someone loves you.”
silence.
the air pulled out of me.
there he was again, those few words. those few words that weren’t angry back. that weren’t judging me. that weren’t yelling at me.
he was tender.
while i sent forth words that cut, he offered words that bind.
and he did not treat me as i deserved.
there it was again, that picture, painted in front of me of what Christ’s love looks like.
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
Psalm 103
God met me in that car, my hand humbly reaching for my husband’s. my husband who was not treating me as i deserved. who was showing me love, instead. who was showing me a taste of the infinite love my Father has for me, always.
it wasn’t there permanently, the words in my head and heart that would tell me over and over that God loved and valued us. eight years of brains that don’t work right and of wants called to wait hadn’t taught me yet to always believe.
and so that week, the lies and doubts and disbelief were loud, too loud, bouncing in my thoughts enough to bring me to tears in bed before my husband. tears because i didn’t believe He valued us, because sometimes watching the good that we want for our lives happen to others digs deeply into the places of our hearts that were mangled on September 30.
he gently encouraged me, that He had a perfect plan, that there was not room to doubt a God as big as ours.
and through that week of tears, a gift appeared.
a gift appeared that in itself, is just a small plot covered in brick but when God is involved, became the world to us. because it told me this:
“yes, Larissa, God does exist.”
in that week, God led a friend who had a house to sell to one of our friends. because their sister had died too young.
“John, that’s Ian and Larissa’s house!”
His wife knew, and so they called, and two days before his surgery, we were looking into the future that meant a place to call our own.
a place that had all that we had been praying for.
a place built for ian.
a place built for our income.
a place built for me.
those three big prayers, that were hard to see how they would be answered, were. those big prayers that started when we met our realtor a year ago, were fulfilled.
and the ball set into motion was faster than most had ever seen, a three week closing process and no stress.
and the family, the family that lost their beautiful daughter, was praying for God to drop someone out of the air. someone who needed the ramp. the lowered counter tops. the chair lift.
someone who needed what they had built for their daughter who spent her life in a wheelchair too.
and when we came, a little bit of their hearts healed.
a little bit of redemption.
and we talk on the phone, long talks, Evelyn and I. And we have a tea date, as soon as those walls and floors are finished.
yes, Larissa, God does exist. and God loves you.
now we work to make a home, where we will grow to love God more. where friends and family and those soon to be will sit and eat and talk. and we’ll watch as God uses our home to bring comfort, rest, and renewed understanding of each of our great purposes.
we work to make a home where marriage is valued, brain injuries are understood and laughter is required.
our blog has been quiet, not because He is not at work, but because brains are full and eye lids are tired. from a healing femur to a wifey with work days filled to the brim, buying our first home and finding a new car that he will fit into with a straight leg and planning a book release arriving in two months, the space in our brains for creating these words is sparse, because it is filled with gifts.
and even though our evenings are quieter, less running while the bones heal, the gaps in our thoughts are filled with planning and processing and wondering how in the world He led 10 million people to view our videos in three years. all the while wondering, yet knowing, how in the world He will make it even bigger.
and there are moments like this, where we are forced to be stuck in the now, in this exact moment, because it’s the only place these little people know where to live.
and before rara runs off to a board meeting while uncle ian joins our little murphy three for an evening, we receive another reminder that He has created so very much for us to enjoy.
Happy father’s day to two great dads. We were raised by two men who have their lives for their kids and wives.
From Ian “my dad is the greatest man who ever lived. He lived for only one thing: to make God more in himself. It gives me much hope that he’s in heaven before me.”
From Larissa “my dad makes me laugh even when the only other option is to cry. He’s taught me endurance in suffering and how to live and work hard for your family. I’m so glad he listened to my mom when after having two babies, she said that someone was missing”
We love you both dearly, whether here or with the Lord.
In case any of you are wondering, I’m feeling well. Four out of 10 is my pain level right now.
It will greatly behoove me to have a straighter leg – there’s only so much I can do with it bent. I will be able to walk much better now. Thank you, Dr T, for enabling me to walk.
