Head Fogs, Hard Questions, and Hitting the Road

This land of blogging has a very interesting way of entwining lives. I'm glad Jim and Jaena roped me into it, despite my vehement insistence that I would never do it. In the year or so that I've been on here - I've met new friends and I've become friends with people that were just faces in my world before. And I love that.

Christina and I were talking on the phone one night earlier this week - and we discussed the newest heartbreak in our world of blogging friends. She said it seems so weird to know that the hard stuff has hit our own generation. (This is where we bordered on sounding like little old ladies hunkered down in rocking chairs.) We've been used to hearing our parents talk about all their friends (mostly the old ones) who were sick or hurting. And it's not that the old people deserve to be sick or hurt at all...it's just that those were the people we were used to hearing about.

Now it's not them.

It's us...or at least people our age.

And it's not that we're old (thankyouverymuch) but just that...well...I just don't know what it is. Hence the head fog. And the hard questions of why.

Because my blogging circle is pretty much made up of the same people that all of you already know, I don't usually point you in any direction, because chances are, you've already seen it, heard it, know it. But I know there's a couple of you out there that might not know a few of these amazing people, so I'm passing them on.

Josh and Shelly don't even know who I am - but I remember them from college, and even before that, I remember Josh from high school. He went to the same school as my best friend, and she was a cheerleader...he was a basketball player...so I used to see him play when I watched her cheer. He's just a year older than I am, and yet he's recovering from an accident that his left him paralyzed for...well...we don't know if it's forever or not. Maybe. And I read their blog and am blown away by their faith and their vulnerability and their honesty and their strength...and I still don't understand why one wave in Cancun had to find his neck and break it. And even in not understanding, I can see this whole family allowing God to work through them and my own faith has grown while praying for Josh and reading the words Shelly writes.

And the one that Christina and I talked about this week was Bryson Hummel - a little boy who just a week ago today lost his leg in an accident. He's four. That's a hard thing to wrap my mind around. Bryson's parents went to college with me too - and they are the sweetest people. And to read this blog and see that same mix of faith and hope and strength and fear and honesty - it's so hard. But Beau (Bryson's dad) said something on that blog about times like this being the times when faith hits the road...and suddenly I felt a bit convicted. The things God asks of me in this very minute are really not very hard, especially when stacked up next to the Bucks and the Hummels. But Beau and Nicole are saying things...even in just talking (or rather typing) out loud that are profoundly moving my own faith. You know that has to be God doing His work.

And Bryson has an aunt and uncle - Burke and JoEllen - who have been through a whole lot in the past year. They had triplets and one of the babies died shortly after the premature birth. I'd sit and read (and of course cry) as they talked about the pain of losing Breckin and the joy found in the miracles of the other babies who are growing and defying expectation every day.

It seems weird - Christina and I agreed - to know that people our own age are paralyzed and working through the death of a child and facing a future of a different sort of normal for a child that last week was just like anybody else. This sort of stuff doesn't happen to people we know - and yet all of the sudden it happens a lot to people we know.

But these three families are three of the most amazing families I've ever known. And while I know them mostly through this world of blogging, I'm grateful that they're here to share their stories. God is using them to grow so many other people - and I'm one of them. And God is teaching me to put down the landing gear of my own faith and let it hit the road right alongside them.

So thanks Josh and Shelly...and Burke and JoEllen...and Beau and Nicole...for sharing your paths and for encouraging others.