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