What a year we've had! It's been the most difficult and most wonderful year of our lives! It has been packed with drama, near death experiences, suffering, healing, triumphs, heartbreaks, celebrations and a bucket load of God's grace and goodness to us.
Last November, after being diagnosed with a rare auto immune disease, I landed in the ER with stage 5 kidney failure...as they worked feverishly to stabalize me for a kidney biopsy, my lungs started filling up with blood and I needed to be intubated in order to breathe. I was placed in a drug induced coma and for nine days I was unconsious and on a respirator, feeding tube and other life saving machines. My family waited by my bedside for days, not knowing if i would live or die.
My family practically lived in the ICU with me, sitting with me, reading scripture to me, singing to me, praying for me and talking to me- while my friends and church family called out to God for my healing. After nine days, I turned a corner and woke up ready to breathe on my own. Mercifully, I had no memory of the trauma I had just been through. I thought I had only been asleep for a couple hours!
We celebrated Thanksgiving in the hospital- complete with a turkey and all the trimmings- right there in ICU! It was the first time I was allowed to sit up- as they strapped me securely to a "cardio chair". What a glorious celebration to see -and BE with-Ron, Zach and Andrea, the girls, Tiffany and her new fiance and my mom all there with me!! I'm alive! And I get to experience all this!
The next few months were spent recovering, sleeping alot, doing daily chemo, experiencing constant nausea, unable to walk, very weak and in a wheel chair, then a walker, doing physical therapy, gradually gaining my strength back. I also went to dialysis for 4 months- hooking up to that life saving machine every other day for 4-5 hours each day.
In February we celebrated as my kidney function improved to such a degree that I was taken off dialysis and given medication to help my kidneys function sufficiently at the 12% mark. At the end of this month, we moved from convelescing at Courtney's apt and into our newly renovated home!
By March I was walking and driving our car short distances. I think Courtney had her first date with Chris. :)
May found us celebrating Paige's engagement.
June 7- God allowed me to be present at our first grandchild's birth and I spent several days holding this precious bundle in all his newborn freshness!
July- we celebrated my sister's beautiful wedding in ABQ. Yet another evidence of God's goodness and faithfulness to us!
August- getting ready for Paige's wedding
September- Paige and Jordan are married in a simply elegant and beautiful ceremony!
October- we spent a few fun filled days with Ron's family on Catalina Island and also in Michigan. Got to see beautiful autumn colors AND a snow fall!
November- Courtney and Chris are engaged! Had a blessed Thanksgiving / engagement celebration with his parents and brother.
December- Best.Christmas.Ever! Our family is all together- celebrating in a meaninful way, relishing all our family traditions, ever cognizent of the fact that one seat at the table could've been empty...and grateful it wasn't!
Surprise announcement: Paige is pregnant!! "A man makes his plans...but the purposes of the Lord prevail." Trusting in God's providence and timing in their lives.
And all of this during the hardest ministry year of our lives, being pushed to almost breaking, living and working through turmoil, factions, hurt and disappointment, and disillusionment and what one pastor's wife/ author and mentor calls "overcoming the hurt inflicted by others". Practicing loving those who do you harm and trying to walk in forgiveness.
At the end of this year, this is what we know: God is always good and he is wildly generous to us! He has blessed us beyond measure. He is faithful to those who put their trust in him.
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