Grace Upon Grace

John 1:16 (Amplified Version): For out of His fullness (abundance) we have all received one grace after another and spiritual blessing upon spiritual blessing and even favor upon favor and gift [heaped] upon gift.

Though I wrote this weekend that things had gotten harder, I write today with a healthy body and a happy heart.  I am so thankful.  Nothing makes you appreciate your good health like a day or two without it.

Thanks for all the care and love and texts and emails I’ve experienced from so many of you.  Again, we are blown away by how easy this road is given the friends to help bear our burdens in PRAYER and in love and in laundry.  As I type, it’s the second week  that a laundry fairy named Kathy has come to my house and disappeared with our dirty laundry.  And it all comes back perfectly folded (even to my quirky requests) and clean.  Have I mentioned how thankful I am for so many friends who love and care for us?!  Wow.  I could fill an entry with name upon name of creative servants and friends who have loved us “not in word or in tongue but in action and in truth” (1 John 3:18).  When we met with Blake and Rebecca at the beginning of this journey to learn some practical survival tips from their journey, one of the things they said was “your friends will teach you how to love.”  They were right.  Scott and I have said repeatedly that we are learning how to love and serve from watching y’all love and serve us.  Indeed, y’all are gift upon gift, blessing upon blessing, and grace upon grace.

Interestingly, though y’all are more evidence of the abundance of gifts, y’all aren’t even the main reason I set out to write with this subject line.  I’ve been wanting to share the pictures my friends gave me for my 40th birthday.  And, as we continue on this journey, the people in the pictures become sweeter reminders of the Lord’s love for me.  With each week of Scott by my side at chemo or cleaning the toilet (that is “for better or for worse” FO SHO!) or being a single dad with Lincoln, I’m even more thankful for him.  We all say “in sickness and in health” on our wedding day without really thinking through that reality or having a clue what that could mean – and Scott is living up to his vows with kindness and grace and not even an expectation of props.  [His only expectation surfaced yesterday afternoon when he burped pretty close to my head while I was brushing my teeth and I expressed my disapproval.  He then reminded me that he’s endured much worse from me and thought that should be overlooked:)]  He’s been pretty darn impressive.  And sweet.  And a gift.  One upon another.

And then there’s Lincoln. As most of you know, he’s our surprise child.  When you’re 38 and 47 and on birth control (see also: under the allusion that we/doctors/medicine actually control birth …), you don’t really expect to have a baby within months of your first anniversary.  But, we did.  And, I don’t think there’s a sweeter daily reminder of God’s sovereignty in our lives.  He gave us beyond what we wanted at the time to what we needed – according to His kindness and goodness.  And, as we sat in the doctor’s office again last week and were told that more biological children are highly improbable, we are all the more grateful.  After chemo and surgery, I’ll be on anti-hormone therapy for at least 5 years and it was clear that it would be very risky for me to be pregnant – and that’s assuming my ovaries aren’t already completely fried from chemotherapy.  As we hear more details of this reality, Scott and I just look at each other with mixed emotions … sadness over that reality but incredible gratitude for God’s unexpected gift.  [And thankful that we love adoption though, apparently, even that won’t be easy because of cancer.  The hits keep coming.]  And, to think that God knew all along that we’d have about 22 months of marriage before our world turned PINK and, in those 22 months, He perfectly timed the birth of a healthy baby boy and allow us to enjoy him and not be distracted for the first 9 months of his life.  Again, blessings … one upon another.

So, I thank the Lord today for the gift of Scott as my husband and friend and, for this season, as my nurse and baby-daddy and toilet-scrubber and chemo-companion.  And, I thank the Lord for a sweet boy to multiply our joys and divide our sorrows.  And, since I now have really sweet pictures of all of them (plus our beloved 4-legged boys, Willie and Gunner), I thought this was a perfect time to share them.

LOVE!