Off Days, Good Days, Another Milestone

Hello faithful family, friends, and followers and welcome to our latest update. While this past week had its share of good days and one milestone day, we also had some off days which I think took us both a little by surprise.

These off days were characterized by Joy seeming to struggle more cognitively, emotionally, and physically. One of the confusing things was that they weren’t consecutive. If they had been, we would have considered maybe a virus, maybe something in her diet, or whatever. But the pattern was more of an off day, a good day, then an off day. Fortunately, including our milestone day yesterday, the past couple of days have been good days. So good in fact, that Joy began to work on another personal blog post for which I am oh so thankful - you can read it here! While we still don’t really have an idea of what triggered her off days, we would as always appreciate your ongoing prayers for Joy’s physical, emotional, and cognitive health.

Our good days included family time, more frequent walks enjoying the exceptional weather we have been having, and discussing our upcoming trip to San Diego. This will be our first time on a plane since our Learjet Medflight from Panama City, FL, to Minneapolis at the start of April 2024. Fortunately, this time Joy will be sitting up and without IV and stomach tubing! While we traveled frequently before the accident, this feels like a huge step and comes with some understandable anxiety on Joy’s part. We’ll let you know how the trip is going in our post from San Diego next week.

Now to that milestone, yesterday I joined Joy in the 70’s club. We dedicated the day to nostalgia and had a wonderful time reminiscing as we visited several special places full of meaning and memories. God has so richly blessed us in our life as a whole and especially in the time since the accident with Joy’s miraculous recovery. His intervention through real life examples of his overwhelming sufficiency, grace, and mercy in all circumstances has been heartening, humbling, and sobering all at the same time. But while God’s love and affection, faithfulness and mercy can be trusted, I have to admit, especially when reflecting on milestone occasions, that I can feel my own adequacy and sufficiency come into question, especially when I wish I could snap my fingers and heal Joy's continued health, cognitive, and emotional struggles. However, as he often does, once again, God was faithful. This week in re-reading Larry Crabb’s book Shattered Dreams, I came across the following quote which helped put my milestone day of reflection into perspective. Crabb writes:

"Recently I’ve made a truly liberating discovery. I am inadequate. My sense of inadequacy is not the effect of deficient intellect or poor training, nor is it a symptom of emotional disorder. It is the painful admission of what is true. On my own, I can make nothing of importance happen. I can help no one. But if I abide in Christ, if I present myself before God’s Spirit for searching and filling, if I study and ponder the Scriptures and live my life in brokenness before a grace-dispensing community, I can transcend my inadequacy. I can find myself as I worship. I can struggle on behalf of others with the energy of Christ powerfully working in me. This gift I have learned that an awareness of inadequacy is neither a curse to lift nor a disorder to cure. It is a gift to be received, a gift that if properly used can make me powerful and strong and clear and wise."

But, enough about me…

Once again this week we find ourselves in a world and country ever more divided and seemingly ever more hostile. And so, as I conclude this post with one of the passages Joy and I covered in our reading through the Bible this week, I would invite you each to prayerfully consider Paul’s words in Philippians 2:1-4 and how we can best apply them to our lives. I especially appreciate Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase from The Message which reads:

If you’ve gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care—then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don’t push your way to the front; don’t sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.

Truly words for us all to live by…