steve and i always wanted to write a book. we just didn’t know what the ending would be. and we didn’t know what the ending of our blog would be, either.

that was ten years ago, nearly to the day from when we started. we wrote to keep the updates that fueled the prayers and begging for Jesus to not let him die.

then our words became a means of sharing what his broken body was showing us about Jesus’ broken body. updates on healing and surgeries and what we needed to believe in order to keep going.

and then steve left us and our words became mine and i didn’t know God like he did. and the gaps in our hearts that started with ian grew deeper and so did our need for heaven, and prayer, and the strange connectedness that words written online created.

then we were married under the big tree next to 14 people that would carry us and in front of 150 that would remind us of why we said yes. my words turned back into our words as we figured out how the heck to do marriage and grief and watch other lives move so much faster than ours ever could.

then videos started and publishers found us and soon work i had wanted to do since i was a little girl was sitting on our lap. we put our words to a book and believed enough about God to believe it would be worth it. we shared our words at events and churches and small groups and somehow ended up in a film that allowed us to share Jesus to the world and put us on national talk shows and cable channels.

and it was worth it. and it always will be.

but then the words started coming less easily and the requests to share our words out loud weren’t coming but my career was and talk of babies was.

and then the cost of the words started to seem like a little too much after giving ten years of our hearts to strangers. the vulnerability and the comments we’d hear and the risks weren’t being outweighed by confirmation from Him anymore.

and that became ok.

because the new beginning of raising our son that we’ll bring into the world  in a few short months isn’t something we want to share in our words. and for now, that local church and family is where we want to be.

the 14 that stood with us, as many as they could, met us in the mountains on 9/30, ten years since the 9/30 we wish hadn’t happened. and that’s where we will keep being. living out the rest of our story, for now, not online but in rooms filled with the faces we get to live life with.

we’ve made it this far because of prayer and the local church and the church at large and because of every single plea made on our behalf. until we can hug each of you around the neck in heaven, the three of us give our love and gratitude, always.

love

L

  Filed under: "a disabled life", "community", "marriage", "our writing", Uncategorized
  Comments: None

“I feel like the third wheel, not being in a wheelchair,” our sister in law said. it was probably the first time she’d felt that and that we’d heard those words. we were making our way up, couple by couple, in the tiny restaurant elevator that was probably only there by law, not preference.

we had only known them then for a few hours, maybe not even 24, but they already felt comfortable. and not because their life was in a wheelchair too. we’ve certainly met others who shared that life circumstance with us.

it wasn’t just because they have a traumatic life story, either. if that were the case, we would all four of us just only ever be searching for friendships with people who are just as bad off as we are.

we like to think it was because of the laughter, that a conference in Austin gave us people who we want to now know forever. the laughter that started immediately in the hotel lobby and continued on stage and kept going with the sad tears too.

it was the laughter of two women arguing over who’s life sucks more, who has more courage to get out of bed, and who is more dependent on a glass of wine at the end of the day.

thank you, jay and catherine, for being in our lives. we hope to visit your sunny state soon.

love

i&l

  Filed under: "a disabled life", "community"
  Comments: None

we hear her yelling from her crib and making her dinosaur sounds from the johnny jump up and giggling when her mom tickles her.

her little stuffed friends are strewn on the floor and her bottles line the dishwasher and her cloth diapers fill the washing machine tub.

and her little smiles greet her uncle every morning because in this season, she’s sharing a home with her mommy, daddy, nuncle ian and aunt rara. she brings more happiness into our little bungalow than we had before and opening our home to share with family means building the best community love could ask for.

  Filed under: "community"
  Comments: 1

they start on thursday afternoons at our table. heather comes with her inspiration and still life arrangements and well-worn brushes. they sit together and paint, talking their way through the layers of sky and making bodies on the beach and sunsets and flowers. she helps him find the places on the watercolor pages, talking him through what his vision can’t find on it’s own.

she gives her time and lets his paintings fill her heart, prouldy sharing photos of them with her family.

then i take their work to the printer, who still says, “i don’t know how many copies we made, just take them,” refusing to accept our dollars in exchange for prints. maybe he refuses because he knows what they’re doing in our life.

then they go to plum avenue, where a dear friend offers time to watch sales, package paintings, visit post offices and write notes to each sweet buyer. her plate is full but she wants our minds to be free from the process, and so she freely gives her time.

and then they arrive at the homes of people that we’ve never met, never known, and never will. they’ve seen our story online and have seen ian’s life from a distance and want to be part of his goal to walk by thirty because in it they see God.

for years, they’ve arrived in small brown envelopes to africa, germany, spain, and autralia, because people around the world see something about God in his work, and in his courage.

they show up in barcelona, when a man proposes to his girlfriend and on the restaurant table before he gives the ring, he gives one of them. a painting. he tells her that all he wants for them is to share the same love as the painter and his wifey.

and their deliveries mean that he has more days of therapy, more days of learning to walk again, more days with his personal trainer.

but God does not stop there. God never stops where we expect Him to.

God never lets it be about us. because it never has been about us.

it is so much bigger.

a video of his first independent steps, a 15 second video that is seen by more than twenty thousand people.

twenty thousand people.

it’s a video, it’s steps, that aren’t just steps. they’re living proof that God is real, and God is alive, and God has all of us captured in this story because He wants us to see Him.

He wants to give us faith. through the weakness of Ian’s thigh that is filled with metal and his hips that don’t work as they should and his back that so often hurts that God gives Himself to us.

because we hear this, when they watch the video:

“i had given up faith that you would walk by thirty. but this shows me that God is real.”

“look what the Lord has done”

“i’m crying. God is so very good”

“my heart is smiling and my hands are lifted up to praise our great God”

inside the weakness of his tired bones, God lets all of us move together inside the rhythm of His grand designs. he pulls us together, the community it takes to paint, to buy, to ship, to pay, to work, to share, to see Him more fully.

He builds us into each other, that our light may pierce the darkness.

“but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into the marvelous light. once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” 1 peter 2:9-10

thank you, for being God’s people with us.

i&l

  Filed under: "community", "God Himself"
  Comments: 5

  Filed under: "community", gratefulness
  Comments: 17

We’re speaking at a conference this fall in western PA for caregivers and family members with disabled loved ones. If you’re local and the topic is fitting to you, we’d love to see/meet you!

Click here for more details!

  Filed under: "community"
  Comments: None

  Filed under: "community", "work/life"
  Comments: None