Searching for Joy

This fall seems very blue and I know it is because of a number of different situations in our life right now...

The young man that I mentioned in a previous blog post, has been told by his doctors that they are out of definitive treatment options. His cancer is back and now it is in his lungs. I can concentrate on the life cut short or I can rejoice that he is a Christian. I can watch him seize the moment and rejoice that he can be included in the singing events that he missed last year because of his hospital stays. We still pray for a miracle.
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My brother and his wife are expecting their 11th child. She normally has unremarkable pregnancies and deliveries and rarely, if ever, has had an ultrasound. This time, it was God I think, she decided to get an ultrasound and there are two things that bear closer inspection. They will be going to a nearby children's hospital to get a complete round of testing to see what they may possibly be facing. I rejoice that no matter what the results, they choose life and no matter what, this child will be loved unreservedly. I rejoice that they are at least forewarned.  But if you think of them pray that the doctors could witness a miracle. Also for God's peace to be with my sister-in-law, this testing and close scrutiny is such unfamiliar territory.

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A few years ago we started going to a new church, it was smaller than our original church and though we knew about a third of the members, there were new faces to recognize and names to remember. But I was learning to pull a name out of my dusty file for most of the children as well as the adults, and if that failed I could ask Hope after church.  "Who was the lady with the beautiful peach colored dress?" and without fail, she would know. (example bears no resemblance to actual person)
As I said it is a small church-building that is- and we have outgrown the benches. There is a reluctance to build 'great houses' and so an outreach committee was started and a new location was designated. Then the families who lived in that area and were willing to leave the comforts of the known for the unknown gave their names. When all the numbers were crunched and tabulated, about half of the families were moving on to the new location. I tell my children, "It will be OK in the end." and I paste on a smile.

I didn't know it hurts so much to divide so we can multiply.

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Then there is a foster/adoptive family that will possibly loose their attempt to adopt their foster daughter  because (according to powers that be) they have sought help for their attachment challenged son. They   placed him in a therapeutic attachment home as a bid to help him heal. I worry that the county is not thinking of the damage they will do to the little girl and the children who are now her siblings if they pull her from the only home she has known for two years. The whole community is praying for the "powers that be" to regain their common sense and do what is best for the child.


There is much to be thankful for, and if pressed I can see Joy in all of these situations, but

sometimes I just need to cry.