Breathe In. Breathe Out. Move On. 9-24

So, now what? I feel at odds trying to figure out just what I'm supposed to be feeling now. A person just CANNOT sit around and cry forever--at least this person can't. But I don't want to minimize how terrible the recent events have been by just moving on and laughing and joking.

Luke is my first thought in the morning and my last thought at bed. He wasn't that when he was living here! I try and think of those thoughts as reminders to pray for him.

I could make myself crazy trying to imaging "What is he doing now? Is he OK? Is he sleeping good? Who will notice when his little face gets "that look" that means he's sad?" Yep. I could make myself crazy.

Church yesterday was tough. After the service I asked the music pastor if he was trying to kill me. We decided that when you're going through something, almost every song appears to be written straight for you. I could croak out some of the songs...I wanted to proclaim that, even now I know that God is faithful. Thank you, Adeana, for coming up to stand by me! I will forever remember that kindness.

Moving on, I am a Grammy again. Alexis and Corey have taken in an 18-year-old boy, Enock, from Ghana. He's been in the US for three years but needed a new place to live, so they are assuming responsibility of him. Corey knew him when he worked in a Ghanan orphanage about three years ago. They have hosted him for two days but, so far, so good.

I called this blog "Remembering to Fly." I had a reason...really.

Loy and I were married when we were 20 and 21. Then, three years later we began our wonderful family. Four kids in five years. (And, yes, they were all planned. We wanted them close.) (And, no, Grant, Paul was NOT an accident.)  Anyhow, we had all these kids and their activities and were fully immersed in parenting mode. We purposely had them all by 30 so that we would be 48 when they were all gone and we could have our empty nest.

Then in 2008, four months before this empty nest I was diagnosed and treated for breast cancer. It put quite a shadow on Paul's senior year. After graduation we arranged for Paul to live at NWU with his brothers since our house was not exactly a happening place at the time. We were going to bed by 9:00 p.m. and I layed (laid?) on the couch...alot.

That fall we hosted a wonderful family of eight, the Zach's, at our house for six weeks while they waited to buy a house. It convinced me that I could easily live a communal life! After they left, we had approximately two months, then we got Luke.

So we haven't really had an extended "Empty Nest." I have concentrated on getting the baby birds fed and bathed. I have rearranged the twigs in our next again and again. Now that it's just us, I need to remember that there even is such a thing as flying. Time to stretch out and be me.

I know, I know. I'm being terribly hokey. But, it makes sense to me.

If I just wasn't so sad right now...

God, watch over my Luke. Keep him close, oh so close, to You always. Protect him. Give him a sense of the love that You (and I) have for him.

Thank you for friends who care for us and pray for us and sit with us at church and pick us up to take us places. Thank you that we know You love us.

Heal our broken hearts. Give us a sense of joy again. Draw Loy and I closer over this loss.

And, help us remember what it means to fly.