November and December ....

It has been a while since I have updated our blog. As my favorite character Anne of Green Gables would say, "I am in the depths of despair." As Myrilla would remind her to despair is to be without God. Therefore Psalm 23 would best explain the road I feel I have been on, and I would assume that Josh may feel the same to some extent. On October 29th 2008 my dear aunt Gracie lost her battle with cancer.
The lost of my aunt Gracie was very difficult for me. Questions lingered in my head, was she a believer? Had I done enough to be an example to her, to tell her about a personal relationship with Jesus??
It was a Wednesday morning. My mom called and told me that Uncle Dave said that if we wanted to see aunt Grace we needed to get over to the hospital. They had put her on life support and had hoped that they could give her antibiotics to help fight the fungal pneumonia and give her body a chance to fight the infection on her own. I had no idea of what I was going to happen. Our friends Amy and Eric watched Jacob and Benjamin while Josh, my brother Andy and I went to the hospital.
When I walked into the bone marrow transplant unit there were some of my cousins and aunts. I walked into Grace's room and things did not look good. I was praying all morning for wisdom and guidance. Gracie could not communicate. I am not even sure if she was able to open her eyes at all. All that God laid on my heart to do was to read scripture. So I read John 3 and other various passages. I felt so helpless, it was all in God's hands and I had to trust his will for Gracie's life. Josh was out in the waiting room with some of my relatives, I have a large family and a hospital room is only so big. I was able to be there with my mom. The rest of the events of the day are too painful to account, but they will be etched in my heart forever.
The last past six weeks at the church we have been attending, the pastor has been preaching on "Six weeks to Live", how would we live our lives if we were given 6 weeks to live. I guess the last couple of months since my aunts passing have been difficult on me. Having been there as my aunt went thru the treatments and hoping that it would cure her of the leukemia, but not knowing for sure, give me a perspective that others do not have. Have I been using that perspective to the best of my advantage? That I am not sure about. But I want to change that.
Shortly after my aunt passed away, Josh began his coaching season. Josh loves basketball and I know he was looking forward to the opportunity to coach at a high school level. I was excited for him at first, but then when practices and games started, I started to lose my enthusiasm. I was home with the boys by myself for long days. Josh would get up early and go to work and then head to practice or come home for a bit and go to games. My cousin Ali thankfully came with me to a couple of games to help me with the boys. I started to resent basketball. The girls were not winning, Jacob kept asking for daddy, it was very trying to keep up my work projects with Josh being gone so much.