Thanksgiving

I am just overwhelmed by the way our friends, family, acquaintances, and complete strangers have surrounded us with love and support. Your words of encouragement, phone calls, visits, dropping everything and immediately driving five hours to my house to be with me, showing up at my door with hot chocolate, coming over and playing with my children, emails, texts, offers to help, gifts of homegrown tomatoes, hugs, tears, and most importantly prayers...they are overwhelming. People are so, so good. Even though it seems so inadequate...we sincerely thank you.

 We are loved. We are blessed. And we are going to be able to do this with help.

We are headed to Dallas today to celebrate Thanksgiving with my family. I want to just lose myself in family and laughter and games and my sweet babies and football and delicious food. I'm sure that I'll continue to find myself sneaking away for moments by myself to just cry and pray, but that is part of the new "normal" that I am adjusting to.

In the midst of this turmoil, there is a peace within me that keeps me going.  The peace in knowing that God is near. The peace in knowing that God is in control. The peace in knowing that I am most certainly not alone. The peace in knowing that God causes all things to work together for good to those that love God. (Romans 8:28)

 "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted, and saves the crushed in spirit." (Psalms 34:18)

This Thanksgiving, I'm counting my abundant blessings. I have the most supportive family that I can even imagine existing. As my sweet cousin and friend put it, "if you need extra love...this is certainly the family to be born into." She's right. There is no shortage of love around here. Dustin and I are blessed to be a part of the most loving, selfless, and generous body of God's people that I have ever known. I have two perfect little boys that are compassionate and loving and fun. Their smiles and their laughs have a unique healing power that makes my heart glad. I have a precious little life growing inside of me and while her physical body might not be perfect, her soul is and I ache for the day when I can hold her in my arms.

And I worship a God who is merciful and mighty.  This is our greatest blessing.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. May you have a blessed week.