my thoughts today....

So here goes my second go at blogging......
It been a pretty surreal last few days....actually it's been a pretty surreal last couple of months. Tragedy is a funny thing. In the world we live in these days there's sorrow and suffering and loss and all that's other not so fun stuff all around us. I see it every day on TV...I read it every day in the paper. And the same thoughts go through my head....those poor people....God have mercy.....It's quite a different thing when that circle of tragedy start's inching closer around you......Not that anything has happened directly to us or our family....but when you start to see those around you being hit from all sides....It just kinda makes me ask "what in the world is going on Lord!?!?!"
Last year a very good friend of Kenny's, (his best man actually, Steven Host), a wonderful friend and father and husband was diagnosed with ALS. This hit everyone that knows Steve completely upside the head. If you would have seen Steve a year and a half ago, you would have seen this giant of a man (he's super tall:), wrestling with his kids, with the biggest smile on his face that would seriously light up a room, and cracking jokes left right and center...that you wouldn't be able to not find joy in that moment no matter what you day had been like. he's just one of those kind of people ya know? And now to see him having to be in a wheel chair, unable to hardly talk even, or lift a spoon....and to see his wife and two kids standing by his side.....I don't know.....It kinda makes me just scream out..."ENOUGH ALREADY!! HAVE MERCY GOD!!!!" Yet even in watching the transformation of our friend over the last year, and the grief that has stricken him and his family, I know (and so do they I might add) that God is so completely sovereign. I don't know how He works.....I don't know His ways...but they're higher than mine that's for sure. I know that He's Good, I know that He's faithful. I guess I need to just keep standing on the things that I know. If it ever randomly crosses your mind, pray for Steve, and his wife Jaclyn, and his kids Angela and Ian....they're really an astounding family.
So we see all this happening to our friends on the left....then we look to our right, and it starts again....see Ruby has a little buddy...he's only 2 months older than her, and they've pretty much grown up together (if you're on my ringo, then you've seen pics of them together). His name is Caleb Fornwald, but Ruby likes to call him Bucky (it must be a term of endearment:). Caleb has two great parents, who since having moved down to abbotsford a year and a half ago to youth pastor, have become great great friends of ours who we are so blessed to have in our lives, Mike and Jocelyn. Now to look at Mike, you would pretty much think of him as the indestructible man.....he's another giant of a man (seriously....if you saw him in a crowd, you couldn't miss him), he's this big strong athletic guy, with just as big a heart who handles a group of 20 teenage boys like no one you've ever seen. Lat month mike found out that he has cancer. WHAT!?!?! Come on...he's not even 30 ?!?! How could he have cancer??? But he does....on top of that Jocelyn is expecting twin this summer...so you can imagine what an emotional roller coaster this family has been on.....we're talking the highest of the highs, to the lowest of the lows. He's been given a good prognosis, with a high percentage of a complete recovery, and has started kemo already...but still....it makes me ask "WHAT IN THE FLIPPING WORLD?!?!?" And yet again...I need to just stand on what I know is true.....what God says in His word...I don't doubt His words for a second....thought at times like this I just don't understand how it all fits together.....It is true that we fight not against flesh and blood.....ALS or cancer. So also, if you think of Mike and Joce, pray for them. That'd be cool.
So then this week, we get back from an awesome family vacation. We are so blessed...seriously. Well, I start getting phone calls from friends asking if I had heard what happened to Chris. No I grew up up Chris and his family....I still think of him as little CJ....His sister Debbie is one of my dearest friends.....so I hear that he's been in an extremely bad car accident...and when I say extremely bad, we're talking a head of collision with a semi, and that he's in critical condition. WHAT?!?!?! seriously..what is going on...all I can think about is his wife Nina....I think they've been married for just about two years...they're young in their early 20's....and I think, I do not know what I would do if something happened to Kenny. Lord be with her...so so close. I'm mad at the enemy for trying to steal this young mans life...a guy who's barely started living, and who has so much of life ahead of him. I'm seriously steaming. So this only happened a couple days ago, and from reading a blog update on him, it seems that he's surpassing allot of the doctors predictions for him. Praise God. Go Jesus, Go Chris...keep surprising them.
So seeing all this around me lately...it just...man, I don't know.....I don't even know how to put it into words....it makes me think...I makes me thankful for what we have, our health, our life....that might sound awful in light of what those around me are going through, but how am I supposed to feel? Jesus come and heal...Jesus come and restore...Jesus come and do miracles..I know you can...I know you will. Come do everything.
We sang a song in church this morning.....it's gotta be one of my favorite worship tunes this past year since I first heard it last may. "everything" by Tim Hughes. As we were singing it, all these people were just rotating through my mind....I was so overcome, and just wept....I need to figure out how to put a link up to listen to this song....you need to hear it...especially if you're going through a tough time...no matter how "big" tough or "little" tough it is. God be my everything. that's all we can pray I guess....when there's just no words to pray, or console, or speak....God just be everything. To everyone involved in these stories above. Come and be their everything.
That's our Hope. That's my hope.