A Spring of Joy

Ahhhh, yes, down at the County Fair. My kids talk all year long about when they can go to the Fair, so when that time comes, their excitement is bubbling over. Asher was about to pop and Micah kept telling everyone there was going to be a whale there (an inflatable slide, which unfortunately, he was too small to slide down–darn height restrictions!). Once there, Asher was afraid to get his hand stamped, Micah whined for a while about how tired his feet were going to be, and Audrey’s diaper eventually leaked on Grandpa’s lap… it’s never going to be a perfect night, is it? Once those hurdles were jumped, it was a truly wonderful night, and like any other time I spend with my kids, one I’ll treasure… a little more now than I would have a week ago.

We’ll probably write more later– but I thought I’d post the upshot of our appointment today. Angie has surgery scheduled on August 27th. It sounds like the operation itself will be about 2 hours, but we’ll be at the hospital all day (and more than likely overnight) for prep and recovery. It sounds like we will probably start chemo then around the end of September when she’s had some time to heal and recover.

Thanks again for all of your support!

If you are reading this, you probably have heard by now about Angie’s diagnosis. Thank you so much to everyone who has called, emailed, spoken to us… and especially to all of you who have been praying for us this weekend. I’ll be posting updates here as we progress, and hopefully, as she’s feeling up to it, Angie will keep posting her thoughts as we go. If you want to keep up, there is an RSS feed of this site (for those who know what that is) or you can subscribe to get an email whenever we post new entries. Look on the bottom of the right-hand column on this page.

Last night I held my kids a whole lot tighter before they went to bed. As I snuggled with Bear, I thought about how he climbs into bed with us every so often afraid of the monster in the shadows of his room. He’s had a lot of fear for a 3-year old… recurring nightmares about a mean girl dressed in white who comes up from the floor in his room. I’ve held him so many times and told him there’s no such thing as monsters and that even if there were, his Daddy is big and strong and he’d take care of that mean ol’ monster. Then he smiles contentedly and goes off to his room feeling safe for a while.

“In my South, you don’t have to be rich to live a rich life. In my South, you don’t need much to have it all. My South is My Heart.”

I read these words by Charlie Geer today, and it made me stop and think about how rich I really am–about how much I have with my family, my friends, my home, my Lord. I watch my kids and fall in love with them even more every day. I sit in companionable silence with my Brian, and realize just how deeply I need his love and how my love grows for him every day. I hold the hand of my best friend and cry with her in her pain, and I love her deeper than ever. I breathe in the thick, honeysuckled air of our backyard and fall in love with my South more every day. And as I fall in love with each of these, I fall in love with my Jesus even more as I thank Him for these blessings.