When I listen to culture Christmas, I think that I need to be happy – the glitter wrapping on packages tied with bows kind of happy.

The culture happy that sends Christmas cards with photos that make it look like the past year was really easy.

The culture happy that gets dressed up and has energy to be at parties. The culture happy that ties a lasso to the moon and warms itself by the fireplace.

This year for my Ian and I, well, mostly me, can’t be a culture Christmas. Because that version is one that tells us our life should be a certain way, a way that it probably won’t ever be.

The culture version of Christmas sends us pictures of warm things, easy things, that life with a disability just doesn’t fit. And unless we just stop listening to that version, this “season” will be even sadder than what normal life feels like. A refusal of culture Christmas, things that are plenty fine for others but are stark reminders for us, means there won’t be any lights on our roof line. Our tree is up only because the one year old niece that lives with us needed it and her dad was willing to put it up. There isn’t the self- inflicted tug to “experience Christmas” and make memories and make every single gift handmade because the memories from Christmas’s before and the memories I had expected to be living in by now have created hollows in my heart.

Which has left me in the time of advent wondering how to live inside of Christmas when my heart is broken. How to live inside and among and beside the happy people whose hearts haven’t been broken yet and whose waiting has been lifted. How to grieve without guilt and hide in the safety of my home because everywhere else requests the impossible of me.

“It’s just like when you cup your child’s chin into your hands and lift their eyes to yours,” Joy said to me. She told me she used to do that when her boys were young so that she knew they were listening. She reminded me that I just needed to look up at Jesus, to know that he was cupping my chin in His own hands, asking me to look up at him. Asking me to never lose sight of his face.

She was intersecting me when the wounds in my heart were growing wider. I needed to look up.

But inside Christmas, inside Jesus Christmas, I don’t even have to do that. Inside this advent season that hurts, I just need to look down and see a tiny baby in a field and the woman who brought Him to us.

I don’t even have to lift my head – it can droop and still see; see the reason I have breath and the hope for my heart holes. My tired gaze just needs to drift down and yet my eyes will find the savior of the world.

When I see this Jesus Christmas, and when I see this labored-for life swaddled into his mama, I see that the Culture Christmas doesn’t have to be inside our little bungalow this year. We can be fine without it and instead just live within Jesus.

  Filed under: "a disabled life", "God Himself", "marriage"
  Comments: 3

thank you, dear ones, for still praying for us. for still believing that God has much good in store for us. we depend on your faith to carry our own and to keep us on our feet.

ian still is working hard at therapy – in-home occupational, outpatient speech, and hours at the Y with his caregiver.

please join with me in praying for my husband – that he would continue to receive healing, that he would know his worth to God and the world, and that joy would be ever in his heart.

we’re fighting this year for Christmas to be more about Christ than our culture than it has ever been before.

much love

larissa

  Filed under: "God Himself", hope
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grandpa raised a good man in ian’s dad. his minnesota upbringing taught him to work hard and to be faithful to God, his local church, his wife and his family.

grandpa and steve taught ian how to be a man that knows the necessity of grace.

grandpa and steve knew that because of Jesus there was no fear in death.

on the six year anniversary of when steve died, his dad went too. the same day. the same season of red and orange leaves, cold air moving in, and darkness in early evening.

“ian, this anniversary makes me so sad and now your garndpa is gone too.”

“Jesus didn’t focus on anniversaries. there won’t be anniversaries in heaven to be sad about.”

steve taught ian to long for heaven, and his death buried that longing more deeply in us than any of his words could have.

grandpa and steve loved Jesus, a love that erased the fear of death, a love and confidence that is rooted deeply in ian. confidence that Jesus is real, His death defeated sin, and there is nothing left to fear.

/ mert and steve murphy /

10.8.15  /   10.8.09

  Filed under: "family", "God Himself"
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we talk about these a lot, the littles, the little big moments that give, something.

because sometimes (most of the time) the big things don’t make sense. but the little glimpses allow us to keep breathing.

like the way for that moment the light hit just right and causes you to stop and watch.

or the way her hair flutters in the stroller, as her blue green eyes search the sky to understand the colors.

or the crackling of a morning fire on the patio.

they’re little things that, much more on hard days, mean someone knows how much we need to see Him.

Love

L

  Filed under: "God Himself"
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“pray that we would know God sees us,” i told my sister. i needed it because it doesn’t always seem that He does.

and then i came home from work to find a small pot of pansies, and found out that his hands had filled the pot with dirt, and had placed the flowers, and have covered them back in with soil.

“ian what do you want to do to help larissa?” his occupational therapist asked.

“plant her flowers. and a garden”

he didn’t know what i had been thinking the week before, while i was looking at the empty beds. they were filled with wood chips but i knew that had potenial. i also knew i just didn’t have time and just didn’t know how to do it right. i didn’t understand plants that much and didn’t know how to get the soil right or figure out the amount of sun that cilantro and basil would need.

and then ian told the therapist about the garden. and he didn’t know i had been thinking that i wanted one. he wasn’t outside watching me while i looked at the beds.

but God saw it.

and God put it on Ian’s heart.

and through the person that means the most to me, God showed me that He sees me.

and i believe nothing but that it’s because He heard those weak prayers, prayers that i would believe that He sees me.

someday soon the flowers that he potted will continue to grow and the plants that will fill the beds will shoot to reach the sun and i will know that i am seen.

  Filed under: "a disabled life", "God Himself", "marriage"
  Comments: 14

ten things our disabled marriage has taught us about God

2. God always wins. If what we just said is true, that God created marriage to reflect Jesus and the church, then we have every reason from scripture to believe that God will protect our marriage.

But that is a battle to believe. I especially have felt this battle in my heart too many times. Sometimes it seems as though every part of my brain is telling me that our marriage won’t last, or that Ian won’t be able to care for me in the way he wants, or that it was a mistake to get married in the first place. And those days are so hard because what’s in my mind seems like truth. Sometimes it’s so hard to distinguish between the thoughts in my head and the truths in scripture that God calls me to live by. It’s not always easy to believe that God will be faithful to our marriage because it doesn’t always feel that way.

From Ian – I’ve seen that to be true, that God always wins. God has been faithful in helping me overcome my brain injury. He’s faithful, and everyone can see that.

We are not theologians by any stretch of the imagination. Recently we were at a dinner party and our friends began laughing about some of the bizarre stories in the old testament. I quickly said “Does anyone else feel like they really don’t know anything about the Old Testament?” And Ian quickly said “Me!”

So we tread lightly when talking about things that we don’t completely understand ourselves, but over the past few months, I do believe that I specifically have been given a deeper understanding of how much Satan hates marriage.

As we wrote our book, the very truths I was proclaiming about God in my writing were the very same truths that were impossible to believe in the current day. As I would write about God’s faithfulness in allowing me to keep enjoying Ian through a coma, in present day I would become so ungrateful for Ian and mad at him for his brain injury. The truths I was writing about became direct areas of battle in my heart.

The same holds true for speaking at events or after sharing our story with someone. We do know from the Bible that Satan exists. BUT, what I tell myself over and over and over again is simply, “God always wins.” God always wins. I do not need to fear Satan or myself or my feelings and what they’ll do to my marriage because God always wins.

From Ian – He’s been faithful to us.

  Filed under: "a disabled life", "God Himself", "marriage"
  Comments: 2

Last year we had the honor of sharing our story with Lifehouse Church in Hagerstown. We’re preparing to speak there again, and as we’ve been preparing, were reflecting on whatwe shared last year – 10 things our disabled marriage is teaching us about God.

we’d like to share them here too, beginning with number one:

1. God is the author of marriage God created man. Genesis 1:26-28 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on earth.So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and every other living thing that moves on the earth”

Then God created woman. And marriage. Genesis 2:23 “This at last is bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh. she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.”

But He didn’t just create marriage to exist without purpose or glory. He created it to reflect Christ and the church.

Ephesians 5:28 In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as CHrist does the church, because we are members of his body. THerefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church.

Because of that, He will be true to it. He will value and protect it. He’ll treat it with tender compassion. He will not let your marriage story be undone and He will not leave you to keep it healthy on your own.

From Ian – He’s the author of this marriage, which means that we are living with His story. That means I’m leading my life like a screenplay. That idea of living through a screenplay shows me that my words matter. My words matter in marriage because Larissa, my wife, hears every word I say. He’s the author, so I have confidence in my marriage because He’s faithful.

God created this covenant, this promise, for us to enjoy. Why would we ever doubt the value or worth of fighting hard for something that in scripture is so clearly valued and worth fighting for? We couldn’t have made our lives come together like they did. I love thinking about how separate our lives were for 20 years, existing entirely without each other. And then our lives merge and we know we have a God that does not make mistakes and from that, we can deduce that he authored this. And since God authored this purpose for my life and for Ian’s life, I don’t have to fear during the days that I don’t think I like my husband any more – because God has ordained this relationship and God will sustain it. He has made this gift for me.

  Filed under: "a disabled life", "God Himself", "marriage"
  Comments: 2

we love having chances to tell our story, because even though sitting on a stage is scary because brain injury’s are unpredictable, it’s also life-giving. God still moves in our story, eight years past, and when our voices drift into a microphone, we never know what God is going to do. we don’t know which of our words are the words that God ordained for someone to hear that day because maybe their sould was tired and weak. we don’t know who we will meet after, like the young mom with a diagnosis that meant a future life in a wheelchair, and knowing that we’re doing that now gives her hope.

in february we shared a stage with a dear friend, a church just miles down the road from where ian grew up. re-listening to it now, God teaches me through our own story.

please enjoy the first of two videos here.

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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

last night our room and home were filled with tiny little hearts that had their first sleepover at uncle ian and aunt rara/lala’s house.

the refinished wood floors in our room were covered with little beds made of sleeping bags and blankies and the stuffed pig and bunny, and the youngest slept in his crib.

we fed them sugar and disney movies and didn’t say no to any requests.

“e, did you have more fun at uncle ian’s the night we slept there with you or the night we were at the hotel,” his mom asked.

“the night you were at the hotel.”

two littles from my side and two littles from the murphy side, a murphy little sister and her friend, and a dear friend of the aunt and uncle all sat around a small dining room table for breakfast, wearing pjs and happiness.

our home was packed tight and it was good. because loving hard makes us so full.

  Filed under: "family", "God Himself"
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