God is in This Story

“It’s been a long year, it almost took me down, I swear…”

It has been around a year since I made a blog post. I never intended to go that long between posts, but…life. We’ve been busy doing the good things, the hard things, the everyday things. That line from the Toby Mac song “Faithfully” is a pretty accurate description of 2024 for me and my family – and a lot of people I know. Here’s a recap of the year so far:

The year started with a lot of promise. I was hired to work for an organization that was run by one of my best friends. The first few months of the year were spent planning and dreaming and preparing. But somewhere along the way, that train derailed. There was a lot of betrayal and hurt and misunderstanding and downright evil at times. The beginning of April brought about a painful turn of events. No details needed here, but it was a difficult time for a lot of people I care about.

“But when my world broke into pieces, You were there faithfully”

Even though the turn of events was hard (and still is), I firmly believe that God was in it and He remains in it all. Although the job changed a bit, it was still filled with promise, and I was excited to see what would become of it. I had a lot to learn in a short amount of time, but I felt up to the task.

“I’ve had a hard time finding the blue in the skies above me”

As things at work seemed like they were settling down a bit, things at home were getting harder. My husband, Les, had been dealing with a sore throat and ear pain for more than a year. Honestly, he had gotten a bit of a run-around from medical providers, but never a solid answer. Finally, in May and at the urging of me and our daughter, he was scheduled for an endoscopy to see if the issues were caused by acid reflux. The endoscopy showed a lesion on his throat, and he was very quickly diagnosed with stage 2 throat cancer. This set into motion a summer like we could never have expected.

“It’s been a hard year, it almost took me down”

At the end of July, Les began seven weeks of treatment at Siteman Cancer Center in St. Louis. He and I actually relocated to the Hope Lodge, a wonderful facility of the American Cancer Society. We were able to stay there free of charge for the entirety of his treatments. This meant leaving our 3 younger boys at home, where they were cared for by our amazing daughter. I will always struggle to find the words to express how much her loving care for the boys, as well as Les and me, has meant. Additionally, the care and concern of our friends, neighbors, and church family, has helped carry us through. Les finished his treatments in September and he got to ring the bell. We headed home as people who had been changed in a lot of ways.

“I may look like the same man (woman), but I’m half the man (woman) I was”

Honestly, the cancer, treatments, time away from home and family, and so many other things took a lot of wind out of our sails. As you can read all throughout this blog, God has done amazing, miraculous things in our lives, including healing me of cancer and mental illness. We have found ourselves reeling that we have had to deal with so much so soon after all of that. In addition to the things I already mentioned, Les had 2 hospital stays while we were in St. Louis, one of which was pretty traumatic for both of us. I took a fall in the of the lobby at Siteman and cracked some ribs as well as injured my knee and hand. These things caused us to miss some weekend trips home, which meant more time away from our family. It was all just very, very hard.

“It’s been a hard year, it almost took me down”

Since we’ve been home from St. Louis, the struggles have continued. Les has a feeding tube and is struggling to find enough appetite to eat anything. He still battles a sore throat almost constantly and it appears that the chemotherapy has damaged his hearing. Just as we were sort of settling into our “new normal”, I tripped on a curb and broke my ankle. I quickly went from being the caregiver to being the recipient of the care. There are also a multitude of other, smaller things that seem to be fighting against us. I don’t need to mention them here, but if you are a praying person, I humbly ask you to use this paragraph as a suggestion for ways you can pray for us.

“In my darkest hour, You met me so quietly, so gently; You said You’d never leave and you stood by Your word. So quietly, so gently in all my pain You met me; You said You’d never leave and You stood by Your word”

I have declared 2024 the year of the dumpster fire and it is still going strong (the year and the dumpster fire). But I don’t want to give the impression that only bad things have happened since my last blog post from last October. Since then, we have been blessed with some fun trips and good family time. We met our new soon-to-be-adopted grandson and found out that we will have another grandson early next year. Our younger boys have thrived in the new school year and all their activities. Our daughter started a new job and is enjoying it. It has been a joy watching her handle hard things with grace while leaning on the Lord. We moved to a new-to-us house in July and we are enjoying making it into home.

As I write this, we are on our way home from Michigan on a beautiful fall day. We spent the weekend with our kids and grandkids, some of us went to a concert that was too awesome for words, and we generally had a wonderful time. But there were some hard moments too.

I share that (and all of this) not to elicit sympathy. Life is hard for so many people and God is still good and He is still on His throne. I pray that the hard times cause all of us to lean closer in to God and rely on Him and to take our eyes off our earthly problems as He continues to write our stories!

“When I cried out to you Jesus, you were there faithfully”