I miss you

I miss hearing you "play" your trombone.

I miss seeing you squish peanut butter and jelly up in milk and eat it with a spoon.

I miss playing Quiddler and waiting FOREVER while you chose just the right word :)

I miss hearing you call grandma "honey-pot"

I miss hearing you play your guitar all of the time.

I miss hearing you try to teach the boys how to sing "When it's Sleepy-Time down south."

I miss looking at your garden with you, and discussing all of the different plants and what your future plans were with the garden.

I miss sharing my favorite peppermints that you always had handy with you.

I miss the trip I took with you, Grandma, Aunt Gee, and Allison, in which you and I were in the back seat laughing and annoying Grandma with asking if we could stop every 30 minutes :)

I miss your Santa hat at Christmas.

I miss your barbershop songs that we would always sing together at the piano.

I miss you giving us a personal tour ~every year~  of your unbelievable Dickens Village that you collected and set up every year.

I miss hearing you pray.

I miss hearing you preach.

I miss sitting in the kitchen with you while you cooked me eggs and toast in the morning - and they had to be perfect ;)

I miss meeting you and Grandma for coffee and toast in the morning.

I miss the celebration dinner you and Grandma had for me when I got my license.

I miss the way that although you had many grandchildren, you always knew how to make all of us individually
feel so special and loved.

I thank you for your sacrifice for our country.

I thank you for leaving such a great heritage for your grandchildren and great grandchildren and so on...

I thank you for loving your wife, and being such an example to us.

I thank you for your love for the Lord.

I thank you for your advice, correction, and investment in us.

I thank you for your love to us.

How is that time has so mindlessly sped to where I am now? When did I stop being the little girl that would climb up on your lap and want to strum on your guitar while you played the correct chords to make me think that I was actually the one making those good tones on the guitar? When did I grow to be a wife and a mom and leave childhood behind me? How is it possible that time has gone this fast and I look now and realize you're gone?

It's still hard to believe, especially when I walk into your house, that you're gone.
You were so young at heart and such a fun and loving person to be around.

But then it seemed that time caught up with us all. I realized for the first time ever that you were actually getting older and things were changing. I realized that I had better get in as many hugs and conversations, and songs I could now, and I did. I really did. And then you were gone.

I miss you, Grandpa. Sometimes it's extremely painful and one of those nights is tonight. I'm watching basketball in Kansas and remember various conversations about Bill Self and what a good team KU is but how your first pick to win would be Illinois. I remember a few days before you died, you telling me to tell Chris to still cheer for KU and talking yet again about Bill Self being your favorite coach.

Time goes too fast, that's for sure.

I'm so thankful I will see you again, Grandpa .... until then I have a pretty big supply of memories that I borrow from everyday and save the special stash for nights like this when I miss you so very very much.

Our part in His perfect plan

Cancer: An abnormal growth of cells which tend to proliferate in an uncontrolled way and, in some cases, to metastasize (spread)

This word- this condition- this disease- THIS is what stunned, dumbfounded, and devastated us at about 4:00 Friday afternoon. I had called Christopher earlier on Friday morning to find out if the doctor had called. After hearing that he hadn't and worried that the doctor would've left early because of the holiday weekend, I called the doctor myself which resulted in speaking to his machine. 

I forced myself to wait. I cleaned. I did dishes. I read to Connor. I swept the bathroom. I did a load of laundry. And somewhere in the hustle and bustle of keeping busy, I found time to sit on the couch for just a minute after laying the baby down, and woke up 30 minutes later to my phone vibrating with a call from my husband. 

His voice being a bit raspy from what I knew then to be a sinus infection came on the line, and said "Hey, honey" 

"Hello! Did you hear yet from the doctor?"

"Um..yes."

"...."

"Well... He told me I have cancer. Thyroid Cancer."

*silence* 

"Are you there?" 

"Yes, I'm here..I'm sorry, did you say cancer? Are you serious?"

"Yes"

Chris then went on to explain a few different things that the doctor had told him, which wasn't much because he had been too shocked to write anything down.  I'm not sure how you're supposed to grab a pen and a notepad after being told you've got cancer. At that point, at least from what Chris explained the body feels a bit numb. 

I. was. stunned.

 Chris told me that he was going to call his mom, and I muttered something to the effect of an okay and I'll see you when you get home. It's shameful to say that all of the replies that you'd suppose you have, if you've ever imagined this situation all fly out the door when the statement becomes a reality. I hung up and sat on the couch staring at my phone, snuggled up in our white afghan, with a blank stare. 

I didn't know who to call or what to do first. The next number I dialed (which I guess is an automatic one for me) was my mom. By the time she answered the tears had begun to flow. 

"Chris has cancer, mom" "Thyroid cancer" - a statement that I never imagined saying in my entire life.

After I hung up with her, the day buzzed by. Chris came home, we started hearing from friends, all the while the whole situation feeling a bit surreal. 

How do you react when you find out cancer has invaded your life? How do you act normal, trying to separate yesterday when all was normal from today when you're battling cancer? How do you carry the burden of what you carry now and what you'll have to carry in the future? How do you deal with this terrible word that has unexpectedly jolted our world as we know it.

YOU don't. GOD does. 

This small little bump on Chris thyroid that has proved to be a very real and dangerous enemy was NOT a surprise to God. He was NOT surprised that this 25 year old man with a wife and a son, and plans to leave for the mission field had the biopsy come to him positive for cancer. He is NOT worried, He is NOT shocked by this trial. He IS feeling what we're going through right this very moment. He IS going through this trial with us, and He IS bearing our burden for us. You see, THIS is why God became a man so many years ago.

 This is why He sent His Son to live on this earth. It was not because He was just a good man. It was because our God had to become a man to die for our sins. So Jesus, the Son of God, was born. He lived a sinless life, but yet endured human sorrows and afflictions. After all what was the purpose of God sending His son to this earth to suffer and die if there was another way we (as sinners) could reach Heaven?

No, my friends. There is no other reason. His reason was us. A people that had chosen to reject God from the beginning of time. We were the reason that God sent His only begotten Son to die. 

But that is not the end of the story. The Bible tells us that on the third day, Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and lives for EVER more. He tasted and defeated death. FOR you and me! He loves us that much.

This is why Chris and I are not fretting. Of course we feel anxious about what the future holds, and uneasy at times. But the Lord is with us. He is bigger than this cancer.  We do not feel alone. We're not putting our trust in the doctor's hands, we are not leaning on people to get us through this. We are putting our faith and trust in the ONE who formed our lives in the beginning. The ONE who has a divine plan for our lives as His children, and the ONE who is already at the end of this trial. 

God loves Christopher more than anyone else in this world loves him. The Bible tells us that Jesus "ever liveth to make intercession for us" He is praying for him. He tastes what we're going through. He feels our pain, and He is the ONE that will be praised through this trial.

We're not sure why God allowed this to happen. But, His way is perfect. His plan for our lives is perfect. We don't always have to understand everything that happens. But, we do know that since He does know and cares for us more than any other, that there must be some greater reason for this trial that our minds can't conceive right now. The wonderful thing is that we can trust Him with this. We can trust Him with our lives. He has proven Himself over and over again to us.  He endured the pain of this world, so He could carry His children through the hardships of life. He cried, He felt pain, He felt rejection, He passed through the valley of the shadow of death. He KNOWS  and FEELS what we're going through.

Do you know this Great Physician? He loves you so much that He died for you to forgive your sins. If you could get to Heaven any other way then why did a Holy God have to send His perfect Son to the earth to be crucified? He has paid your way to Heaven. Have you prayed and asked Him to forgive your sin and come into your heart? Have you received His free gift? 

O, how He wants you to. How He loves you. The sweet peace that fills your life, when you let the Lord enter your life is unexplainable. He will change you. He has me. 

Isa 53:4-7 

" Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. 

  But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. 

 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. "

Heb 4:15 

 "For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." 

2 Cor. 12:9  

"And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me."

This cancer - for now - is our part in His perfect plan