A Wedding & A Funeral

Today was an incredibly full day. For the last 9 months I have been invested in the life of a couple desiring to be married. After hours of conversations and due diligence, we were able to celebrate their effort, patience, and transparency through a ceremony and reception full of laughter and tears. We were able to recognize that life is to be embraced, lived, and made known. Intention was given to every detail and forced us to slow down to witness. All while so many other things in this broken world continue to move about as if they have authority and right. Isn't it realistic to say that we are all constantly busy and inundated by much to do? Maybe better said, we are all going through something? A season that is between a wedding and a funeral. Life, death. Today, ironically, marks the four year anniversary of my father's passing. On the same day that I am cheer-leading a couple about their first days together, I am grieving the loss of a substantial part of who I am. A day in which I received a horrific phone call that slowed down time with information. At 51 years of age, my father passed away due to a massive heart attack. This day also marks a three week milestone of my brother being admitted to ICU at Brogress Hospital. The same hospital and floor that my father was pronounced dead. However, my brother has much more promise in his prognosis. So let me update you with what I know, as if you were my family!

My brother is currently in the same room battling many of the same trials that have been placed before him since day one. He has been given a tracheotomy to relieve the tubes originally placed in his mouth. At this moment he is being treated with antibiotics for an acute psuedomoanus at the incision site of the tracheotomy. He was taken in this afternoon for a cerebral angiogram to determine if he was possibly having small strokes while in the hospital. Thankfully these tests came back indicating that strokes were not happening. My brother is being cared for by wonderfully amazing people and I can only imagine the best outcome. His quality of life is in question and doctors still have yet to answer the mortality question because of the infections and their limited ability to predict the future. We ask that if you care to visit that it be limited to family visits and not Bradley. We thoroughly expect him to soon be in a place where all those who love him will be able to spend time with him daily. At the moment, this is not that time. But he is healing and doctors hope to have him placed on another floor or possibly at Mary Free Bed Rehabilitation Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

For me, I am unrested. Most likely because this life is full of possibilities and probabilities. Hope and hindrance. Pain and pleasure. Juggling the magnitude of what has been placed before you and determining how you will respond. But may I ask you for a favor? As I continue to give you a glimpse of what our family may be enduring; would you be willing to share with us what may be hurting you? So that we can pray alongside you as you do for us? If this is too much to ask, I understand. I trust that this journey for us is larger than just waiting for Bradley to stand up and tell us he is ready to remove the life-supporting machinery he has attached to his frail body. No, I cling to the thought that the God that I serve is weaving strands together so that they may not be broken. That through tragedy, temptation, affliction, and torment, love can still win. We have friends that lost their beautiful five year old girl to cancer some months ago honoring her in a race tomorrow morning. Because of their story and painful transparency, love wins. We have a family that is suffering through the impact of their 18 year-old girl, about to go to college, and are digesting the news of her being injured in a t-bone car accident that placed her into ICU with brain trauma. We all have stories. We all have been to weddings and funerals. But life doesn't need to be put on a pedestal because of a celebration or desolation. A wedding or funeral does not need to take place for us to reflect on the moments we have been given. But because they do, I give you this.

9 Two are better than one,
because they have a good return for their labor:
10 If either of them falls down,
one can help the other up.
But pity anyone who falls
and has no one to help them up.
11 Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
But how can one keep warm alone?
12 Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

We have each other to hold onto or to be held. But when we haven't the strength, and this will come... we have another player in the mix. You see, we will struggle through both weddings and funerals, but He will not be broken. Tears, laughter, sorrow, and joy. We are not alone. As you continue to pray for my brother, please continue to pray for our family. Many things have surfaced that in which my wildest dreams would not imagine. With that being said, we are so very thankful for all of you that have invested their time and hearts in sharing this journey with us. And especially for enduring my simple writings of hope and healing. Continue to pray for those that have yet to understand the peace and comfort that a God so caring would be willing to give. And maybe more importantly, continue to pray for us to be stretched to show love beyond reason! May life matter... truth matter... and YOU matter!