so you know i am still here...

My heart and mind have been swirling with words... and when I sit to write, those words drift off into never-neverland. I call them back, but... nothing. It seems once a story is complete in my mind, and I have struggled through the solving, I am done with it. And I wonder if that is as much grace as it is a frustration to me? I know He doesn't want us to dwell in our struggles...

Since my last "catch-up" it seems like summer has settled around us... we are nearly finished with driver's ed (Camden!) and Laura has finished a week of camp counselling (horse therapy camp) and is beginning another. But we have taken a few afternoons to swim & float in the pool... and took a day to enjoy the beach.  We spent a fair amount of time watching the clouds... wondering if the rain was coming our way or not. And once it did come, we huddled, seven under an umbrella, wondering if it was just passing through, or there to stay.  We did catch a few more minutes of sunshine before the next storm hit...

Like life, the storms just keep coming.
And last week, the dark clouds hovered.  My friend Ann continues to receive discouraging news about her cancer... and I keep praying for that miracle. And Monday morning we heard the news that a beautiful friend from church lost her battle with cancer.  The storms moved into my heart as I watched her husband wrap his arms around countless friends and family as they came to comfort him, and as I saw the empty in the eyes of her teen sons and young daughter. Yesterday they came to church, and for a moment I wondered how they propelled themselves across the threshold... and then I remembered whose house this was, and that He surely carried them in. A fresh set of tears rolled as I watched daughter cling to Daddy... and him cling right on back.

Oh beautiful Kathy, I picture you in the arms of Jesus... your smile as bright as it ever was (because I cannot imagine one brighter) and your long blonde hair dancing in the breeze, finally back where it belongs.