Walking with Jesus

This morning I woke up before Olivia and I visited a friend's blog that I'd recently gotten the address for. He was one of my groomsmen and though we've kept up by phone since they moved it was nice to see some photos. While I was there, I checked out his links to other blogs. I found new marriages, new babies, first steps, lots of photographers, and a few missionaries: happiness, love, joy, adventure! I don't know how to describe how this collection of lives made me feel. I was happy for all of them, but today I had a hard time connecting. I didn't see anyone like us. I didn't see people who've had a horrible couple of days with chronic illness, people who've been waiting (with painful losses) to start there family for over 3 years, people who work 50 hours a week and then dream about it every night, people with neighbors who turn up the base on their car stereos every time they pass your house because they know you don't like it, people with fant...

Today we're at the hospital and my sweet bride isn't feeling well. It's inconvenient, but at least we're here together. Olivia's been really brave these past 5 hours, but she's ready to go home. The hardest part, she says, is that Gracey isn't here with us. She's at home on the bed feeling sad and alone. This is part of life fighting a chronic illness, and it isn't the funnest part. We woke up this morning and were just getting ready for church. Olivia started taking a shower and suddenly felt like she was going to pass out. She was really hurting all over so, after we got her to bed and talked it over, we decided we needed to get to the ER. Olivia had a busy day yesterday and the doctor says she is suffering from heat exhaustion. Now, she's on IV's and her pain has gone down, but her blood pressure has gone up. Now, I don't want anybody to panic. This isn't an abnormally critical situation. The fact is this is just part of what l...

My site tracker tells me that many of you have continued to check in even though I haven't written for a while. Thank you. It's because of the encouragement that brings me I'm writing today. I have a new job . I've been there 3 months now, and I'm starting to settle in. The kids I now work with are a lot different than the ones I led before . "Rough" would be a good term, but so would "hurting", "angry", "funny" and a dozen others. It's a wonderful opportunity...if I can get into it. I like where we're at in a lot of ways: our adoption is progressing, our bills are getting paid, Olivia and I are getting to hang out, IBG is doing well, we're now able to attend church regularly, I've even been playing my guitar a little. I quit playing two years ago today, when we lost our daughter, Rachel Elizabeth. Today is her 2nd Angel Day . Healing is a long, slow process when the wound is so deep that you hardly dare ...