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

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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.

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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.

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six of our ten ways

6. I have to make time for my spouse.

when we were first married, i had no idea what my priorities needed to be as a wife. i still don’t. and i had so many desires that really were good and supporting of ian, like creating a home, learning new recipes, hosting parties, doing volunteer work, seeking out fellowship.

but sometimes i was doing those in a way that meant less time for ian, and less quality time with me when i actually still had some fuel in me.

it took me awhile, and i’m still learning, that i had to make time for my spouse. because sometimes just waking up next to each other, while that’s more time than anyone else has with me, is not enough. we needed quality time.

i’m also still learning that ian’s pace of life is different than mine. he needs to have time for rest. he needs to take his team to eat. he needs more time to get dressed. and big crowds aren’t always good for him.

part of being ian’s spouse is letting myself be disabled, and making room and time for him to be the priority. for a long time, and maybe for the rest of our marriage, that means spending less time hosting social events. less time serving outside of the house after work. not abandoning any of them completely, because ian knows how much i need them, but not putting them in front of ian.

i’m gone enough as it is – full time work means a lot of time away from ian. he needs quality time with me. and because of ian’s disability, i see the practical ways that he needs me, that translate to his emotional needs, too. if he were healthy, maybe it would be harder for us to see that.

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to my husband at thirty,

at twenty you decided to love me, and let you heart be filled with someone young and someone somewhat shy and someone who needed to learn how to love.

to really, actually love.

we both needed to learn it, our young hearts knowing better how to love selfishly then to give. we loved because it was easy and because we thought we somehow fulfilled each other. we loved because we were happy together and because we really actually didn’t need to know how to love any different way. yet.

at twenty one you started shopping for something to put on my hand to show me that this imperfect love was what you wanted forever. i knew you loved me better than i loved you. i could feel it in your confidence. your love was growing and the gut feeling that this love you had wouldn’t change because God was in it grew too and you were fighting for me.

i didn’t know God like that yet. i didn’t know myself like that yet.

by twenty two you had disappeared. you were hidden in yourself, in that secret place that i’ll never be invited into, the secret of your coma. that place that kept you from talking to me but didn’t keep you from loving me.

“his heart rate goes highest when you talk to him”

“he looks at you differently”

“he follows you with his eyes”

by twenty five your voice came back and your love fought hard enough to believe that God would allow you to be the husband you needed to be. and so you asked me.

and now at thirty, my dear lovey at thirty, you still love me better and fight harder than i do for you.

you always want to be with me.

you just want to be with me.

you don’t put expectations on me. you don’t put requirements on me. you don’t care if your party on saturday won’t be decorated because it took all my brains to get thirty people in from out of town. you don’t care that the floors are a mess or that i haven’t scrubbed the shower in a month or that our dirty laundry is stll on our bedroom floor.

you love me like this. in my imperfection. in the inconveniences i cause you. in the harsh words i say and the lunches i forget to prepare for you and the light bulbs that have been burnt out for months but i’m too lazy to change them. in my body that doesn’t feel like it used to and when i wonder out loud what it used to look like you say “always have and will be hot.”

you just enjoy me. in the way i’m made.

and in that, you show me how God loves me. through you, God reminds me that He enjoys and delights in me exactly as He created me to be.

no expectations. no works.

thank you, lovey, for living this out for me. i want your heart of love.

here’s to thirty.

love you always

your wifey

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4. Christ will never leave the church Both Ian and I were raised in incredibly strong marriages. My parents will be celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary this September and I have yet to ever hear an argument that actually felt like an argument.

Ian’s parent’s were untimely separated by death after 28 years of marriage. In our childhoods, because our parents were faithful to each other and they acts out of love for one another, one parent leaving was never an option. It was never a fear that Ian and I had. It simply was not an option.

We stepped into our marriage with the same mindset – that this is for the long haul. This doesn’t just end because one of us feels like they want something else. Christ never left the church. We had to commit, and keep committing, that we will never leave this marriage, physically, emotionally or spiritually.

I think that one way God protects us from leaving, or wanting to leave, is through acts of humility and forgiveness. One night, I found myself particularly tempted to lust after another able-bodied man. I fought that night between giving into my thoughts and turning away from them. I talked to Ian about it that night, confessing what I had been struggling with and how much I didn’t want to.

“What can I do for you?” he asked, not angry that I had the lust in the first place, or jealous, or judging. “Can you help me think through this?” “It’s a holy God you’re up against,” he said. And then he prayed for me, and showed me that he will not leave me or our marriage. His forgiveness tore down what Satan may have been trying to build. Christ will never leave the church.

From Ian – God is faithful. He never leaves us. Satan uses arguments to break up marriages, but God is faithful and just. He’s there when we most need him when we want to argue with each other.

5. Marriage is not about us. – “The husband is bound by love to ensure that his wife finds their marriage a source of rich fulfillment and joyful service to the Lord.” -ESV Study Bible notes

Not rich fulfillment and joyful service to myself.

Ian doesn’t do this by making me feel good about myself. He does this by washing me with the Word and by pointing me to heaven and Christ’s accomplished work and building my identity in Christ. He does this by praying for me when I’m feeling anxious. He does this by asking me what he can do to help when I’m struggling at work. He does this by telling me that it’s a holy God that I’m up against instead of taking it personally when I confess to him my temptations to lust. Loving a spouse is not always an emotional response.

From Ian – I second it all. You have to realize emotions aren’t always truth. When you do, you start at the beginning of this message of applying these truths.

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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"
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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.

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my aunt told me how important they were to her, the days when my uncle was still alive and they chose rest over work.

“you need to do that. we didn’t even do laundry. no cleaning. no cooking. we just did nothing together.”

it was a practice that needed to happen so his body could heal and their marriage could have rest.

it is a practice that we need to do, because sometimes life moves too quickly for a brain injury and a wifey is doing too many things that distract.

sometimes the do nothing days mean reading, listening to audio books, watching movies, and napping. sometimes, like yesterday, they mean sleeping late into the afternoon, letting tired bones rest.

and the guilt of doing nothing can’t be there because the bones are tired from the work. the work that makes the nothing so much sweeter.

his walking that is so hard and takes so much.

her walking to the work that takes focus and energy.

the waking and reminding ourselves that God is not done that takes courage.

it all adds up to work, making the beautiful practice of do nothing that much sweeter.

and really, he loves nothing more than just being with his wifey, doing nothing.

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there are two spoons in our bowl tonight.

normally there is one because we share. and I help him and sometimes just feed him because it’s easier and it’s hard for him to have a steady hand sometimes.

normally I’m too lazy. too impatient.

but tonight there are two, because he’s doing it himself.

im letting him do it by himself.

I’m forcing myself to move at the speed he needs and to be ok with a floor and husband covered with rice. I’m forcing myself to be there and praying that I stay there, because when I’m helping him with everything, I’m not helping him at all.

he needs me to step back so that he can move forward.

he needs me to keep learning how to slow down my pace and ask Him for patience.

he needs me to help us get better together.

and he is so grateful, as he worked on buttoning his shirt for twenty minutes. twenty minutes to button is how hard he works.

“I need a timeout,” he said.

“why?”

“I need a kiss from my beautiful wifey.”

i should know this pace by now, in year eight. I can’t let the guilt in but need to let God shape this in me and make it possible.

would you pray for us?

  Filed under: "a disabled life", "marriage"
  Comments: 23