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
  Comments: 1

we hadn’t seen this doctor in awhile, nearly three years, and back then ian wasn’t walking yet.

back then we had shown the surgeon a video of ian trying to walk, but we were moving his legs for him, and he didn’t have much strength to do it on his own.

this time, though, ian walked for the surgeon. the surgeon that had seem him hours after his accident.

‘it’s a minor miracle,” he said, that he was doing what we’d all been praying for, that he was getting his leg to move that has a jumbled up mess of bone and metal screws and scars instead of a knee. that that crazy excuse for a knee was holding up 170 pounds, balancing it as he turned and letting him move forward.

“ian, you made my year.”

he made ours, too, because those doctors that saw him those first few hours are the only ones that knew what he looked like, knew what his body had been wrung through. they were the doctors that were inside his flesh and skull and really, actually know how bad it was.

and each time we see those two doctors, every few years, they see God. they might not know it, but they see God in the legs that move and the voice that now speaks words.

he made our year. because it’s easy to forget all that has been done.

the surgery may come into our lives, or it may not. those are questions to be turned into and through God’s hands and our hearts. 

but for now, we acknowledge that God is God, and we are not. 

thankful for what He’s done,

l

  Filed under: gratefulness, hope
  Comments: 3

this winter has been long, the coldness of the east and the clouds of what often feels like the second-rainiest town in the country making some days feel longer than 24 hours. my heart has been stretched, and not everything i’ve prayed for has happened. so how does a heart that often feels weary keep building faith, and courage? how does a heart guard against the lies that unanswered prayers bring shame?

sitting by the fireplace sparks last night, i unknowingly stumbled into these words, which were perfectly timed:

“knowing the truth always sets us free (john 8:32). knowing the truth about God, his unceasing ability to perform miracles and the truth about the undeniable role of suffering under the new covenant only frees me up to believe Him more. Why? because i’m freed from what scares me, and many of you, most about getting out there and believing God. we’re scared half to death that He won’t come through for us, dignify us with a yes, and prove faithful. or that we’ll prove to be failures at having enough belief for Him to bless with a miracle. if i’m convinced that God really loves me and has certain priorities for me that may take precedence at times, then i am “safe” to walk by faith. i am freed to know that my God is huge and my God is able and that if i’ll cooperate, i’ll get something bigger. i’m going to believe Him to do anything His Word says He can do, then if he chooses not to, i don’t have to assume he doesn’t like me, he doesn’t answer my prayers like He does others, he hardly knows i’m alive, he can’t do it, he’s never willing to do it, i didn’t have enough faith, i wavered for a split second, i have that sin in my past, i’m a failure, i’ve made a fool of myself.

instead, i get to know that a greater yes is in progress, and i can count on the bigger miracle.

beloved, we are safe in God. we are safe to believe Him for miracles……we are safe with God because we are his priority.”

beth moore, believing god.

  Filed under: hope
  Comments: 10