Uptate 2/7/10 12 weeks since crash

Dear friends,

Blogging a little late tonite. I had to wait for the "Saints to go marching in" before I could write. Our annual Super Bowl party was scaled back quite a bit, but it's always been so much fun for Mr. Steve, so in the spirit of "go for it", so we did that American thing. The dear friends who shared the evening (and the food) with us have been coming to our Super Bowl fiestas for many years. Friends are a great joy in life. Especially these kind of friends. We are humbled to be loved by people so great! I mean it. I think of our church family at Delmar Full Gospel Church. This morning they all clapped when the man walked in to the sanctuary for the first time, and all the while I wanted to make them sit down so we could clap for them! I think of our friends from many other places, including this blog community, who have been the Wheaties that have kept us strong through the strenuous climb we're on. I think of our immediate and extended family who have prayed and written and driven and encouraged selflessly. Uncle Tom and Aunt Marilyn, we can't wait to see you! Friends, pray for these dear folks. Their son Brian has cancer, and they are going to visit us while they're up here to help him. As they have cried out to the Great One for us, can we do the same for them? I know you, so that's a dumb question. You all are the best!

Trouble is a magnifying glass. It shows what we're made of up close, the lovely and the unsightly. I will admit, I have seen in myself a great many weaknesses and foibles that I might have missed during "peace time". My tendency to grumble has loomed much larger with the heat turned up. But here's the great news: "Where sin did abound, grace did more abound..." . Seems the Great One has already accounted for the mess we would make by employing the loveliest of kindnesses, amazing grace! Unmerited favor. We can't earn it, and we can't escape it. It rains down in torrents wherever trouble finds the child of God. It can wear a disguise, but be sure it is there. I have seen it in many ways, but mostly in the glorious hiding place of the human heart. It showed up when my brother in law Richard picked me up off the floor of the SICU. When Pastor Greg sang songs to my unconscious daughter in the ER. When Connie the kind walked into the hospital with a bucket of soup for Steve's family. When Sweet Laureen emailed me and shared the sorrow of her son's brain injury. The list is endless. So is the grace.

Tomorrow it will be exactly 3 months since our lives turned a corner we never could have anticipated. Sometimes at night I think I can hear the actual impact of our car with that big pick up truck. It fills me with dread. And then I come back to reality and see that despite the terrible moment all this happened, and even the terrible moments afterward, there was never a moment, not a single one, when the Great One was absent. He was an "ever present help in trouble". He still is. There is no corner around which He doesn't see what's coming. In His providence He takes the thing designed to curse, and turns it in to an opportunity for grace to abound. Abound it has. Through the fire and the flood. We've still got lots of ground to take, and I am confident in the Grace Giver to make us strong and courageous for the fight.

The Beach Boys just sang "California Girls" on the Jack Benny show, circa 1965. It's got me "California dreamin', on such a winter's day..." Different song I know, but the sunshine sounds great. I'm looking forward to Hercules helping me lay down some mulch this year when I put in my red impatiens in the front yard. I didn't know 3 months ago if he would ever see springtime.
"With God, all things are possible." Beyond all my expectations, grace is shovelled out to me. I tell you true, I didn't earn a bit of it. It's simply the character of the Great One. He truly is the Lover of our souls!

Talk to all of you tomorrow. Let's go out and spread some of that abounding grace around town. God knows there are plenty of folks who need it.

Your friend on the pilgrim road,

Loriann