I had a particularly frustrating day today, where everything from adjusting to full-time work, to finding a back-up wedding site, to paying my first round of bills was mounting up. And it was mounting up on only me because Ian can’t do those things. When Ian and I first got to the new house tonight for dinner, I kept finding myself angry or annoyed at him because of his brain injury. I had a million things to do and was bitter at him that he wasn’t able to help me with any of it.

But then we took a walk (my only way of keeping Ian around after he said he was bored and wanted to go home), and even as we were walking away from the house I really felt like God was going to teach me something on that walk..

I was convicted about 1,000 times on our walk because of things Ian shared with me but also was freshly encouraged by the idea of mercy.

I remember when one of my greatest prayers was that Ian would be able to speak to me about his feelings for me. I didn’t question whether or not he still loved me, but I just wanted to hear it. I wanted to hear him thank me for giving him his medicine or give me a reason of why he likes being with me.

Ian shared so much with me tonight and encouraged me immensely in our decision to get married. As he was sharing his thoughts, I was freshly reminded of how I was witnessing an answered prayer. A prayer that, in that moment, I had forgotten I had ever prayed. It seems as though as soon as Ian regained his speech and started being able to do things like sharing his feelings with me, I all of a sudden moved on to the next thing that I wanted to see happen in him. But God brought me back to mercy tonight. I will forget again and again and again all of the answered prayers. I will continue to forget the gospel when I should be applying it. I will give in again and again to anger with Ian because of his disabilities. But there is mercy. God is rich in mercy. I know that He will bring moments, even brief, of refreshment and encouragement. I know God will give Ian and I great peaks together, even while we are in a very deep valley.

We are so grateful for mercy.

Larissa

So, since I have to guess, I would ask prayer for Ian’s initiation and that he would have a breakthrough here at therapy. We don’t have a date of when he will be discharged- he’s allowed to stay as long as he’s making progress.

Thank you for your prayers

Larissa (and not really Ian)