Wow, where do I start. I see that August 2012 was my last post. A lot has happened in my life since then! When I started this blog I wanted to be an honest writer who writes about real life which includes the not so pretty and not so easy times. I think this is why I have avoided writing. The last year + has been all of the above and more.
Not much happened (please apply sarcasm), I started a new part-time job working two days a week, my dear hubby went back to his job at the fire department, I found out I was pregnant (yes, baby boy #3) and we moved! Yeah, nothing big at all, haha.
Yes, it has been crazy and just plain hard. But I can still say I am RUNNING OVER BLESSED.
We love the neighborhood we moved to. It is in our hometown, close to church and the elementary school, across the street from my in-laws (yes, that is good) and it just feels like home. It is a very small development with about a dozen houses and has a cul-de-sac with no thru traffic. It is nothing fancy there is no feel of keeping up with the Jones's, which I love! I grew up in the country and wasn't sure if I would like having neighbors so close, but I found out I do. My two boys now a grown-up preschooler of 4 and a half and a very strong-willed, not yet potty-trained, not quite 3 year old are enjoying it too. They love to play in the cul-de-sac at the end of the street with all of the neighborhood kids.
Every afternoon and or evening the boys ask to ride their bikes down the street to play with the "neighbor kids". The kids congregate and ride bikes, shoot hoops, kick a soccer ball, make rubber-band bracelets, make mudpies and whatever other activity they come up with. They range in age from 1 and 1/2 to 12 years old and the older ones are kind and interactive with the younger ones. I have already learned to know several of my neighbors better than I knew previous neighbors that we shared walls with in a townhouse for six years.
In the past month's time I have learned to know the one family very well. And I watch her in awe and admire her incredible strength. She is only two years older than me and her 38 year-old husband is dying of brain cancer which he has been fighting for the past two years. She is a mother of 4 children and a devoted wife who has lovingly been caring for her husband.
Over this past month as my heart breaks for her, I have also been encouraged. This is what it looks like for the church to be the hands and feet of Jesus. The family was not connected with a church but I have seen my own pastor and church come alongside this family and help in very practical ways. I have seen neighbors do the same and she has shared with me stories of other friends and family who have stepped in and been meeting their needs. God has been providing for them through this very difficult time.
This is real life; difficult, unfair and painful. Yet as I sat beside her on the grass last night, swatting the gnats away, watching the kids play and listening to her struggles and joys of the day. We could still laugh at the kids' antics and the fact that we got splattered in mud when the soccer ball landed in the mud beside us. Real life in this world is hard and sometimes just plain sucks! But when you have a heavenly hope it makes all the difference and makes persevering through each day worth it.
My own struggles as real and hard as they are fade in comparison to the real life nightmare she is living. It forces me to take my eyes off myself, stop having a pity party and look to my heavenly father for strength.
"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we can not see." Hebrews 11:1
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