2011: The Year We Did Hard

I have been trying to think of a way to sum up 2011 in a blog post and there are so many different things I could say.  Perhaps the best way to phrase it is to say this was the year we did hard.  2011 brought things I wasn't prepared for, things that I never believed I could have walked through.  Truthfully, I couldn't have if it wasn't for God and His unending patience with my confusion, complaining, and occasional rants.  Most of all, it was His love and grace that brought us through the year and saw us into 2012 with great hope.  Let's look back...

January 

January began with a snowstorm.  There was sledding, snowmen, hot chocolate, and memories that will last a lifetime.  The kids had a nice break from school and we enjoyed our wintry wonderland together.

February

When February rolled around, I was completely immersed in our adoption process.  We spent most of February doing fundraisers, assembling legal documents, and sending it all to Belize while we hoped and prayed for a quick referral of twins.

March

March brought lots of busyness with ministry.  I think this was the month when something started shifting for us.  God was calling us towards something new and we struggled to discern where we were headed while we balanced a full plate of meetings, activities, and outreach events.  We also had both of our dads in the hospital with heart problems during this time.

April

April brought Easter, the school concert for Ally and Walker, and some more big decisions for us as we were seeking each day what God wanted us to do.  April also saw Josh struggling with some tiredness.  He was wearing down quickly from what we thought was purely stress.  Of course, the next month told a different story.

May

May was a game changer.  Josh's dad was diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.  The pieces started colliding into one big horrible picture of why Josh might have been feeling so bad, having high blood pressure, and struggling every time he climbed the steps.  After a local diagnosis confirming that Josh had HCM, we were send to the Cleveland Clinic to find out what exactly this meant for the future.  

May was terrifying.  We made the best of it, even taking in a baseball game in Cleveland (seen above), but we were struggling.  HCM meant two things: 1) Josh had a high risk of sudden cardiac death and 2) It was time to stop putting off all those things that we assumed we could do later in life.  On our way home from Cleveland, Josh declared that it was time to do what God had been urging him to do.  We would plant a church.  Josh felt sure God was sending us to Wilmington.  They loaded him up on heart medication and we hoped that would be enough.

June

During June, we embraced summer.  We plowed through ministry obstacles with me silently screaming that the stress had to end NOW as I worried about Josh's heart.  We also enjoyed seeing God do some miracles as a few believers we loved started sprouting up in their faith and boldness like our little garden.  Even a small harvest is worth all the toil! God continued to prompt Josh about planting and we started talking about concrete plans.  And that's when we came full circle to Belize, where our babies were waiting.

July

Through a variety of circumstances, we were presented with an opportunity to open a Christian retreat center and plant a church in Belize.  In July, we flew down and spent a few days combing the island that is the human trafficking entry way for Central America.  Things started getting a little confusing... maybe it wasn't Wilmington after all since God had put this right in our laps.  

August

When August arrived, we were still weighing our decisions for the future.  Everything was so confusing and all we knew was that Josh was supposed to plant a church... but where?  Our adoption was at a halt due to circumstances in Belize that we had no control over.  Suddenly everything was a mess.  We took it day by day, anguishing in prayer, spending every spare moment making memories with the kids, and always living with the "just in case" mentality of heart disease as Josh's heart medications had to be increased higher and higher.

September

Oh September.  Josh resigned from the church and we announced our decision to move to the foreign mission field.  We basically detonated a whole series of land mines as everyone went crazy telling us that we were crazy.  Then Josh's heart decided to show off, medications were increased AGAIN, and God basically shut the door completely on our Belize plan.  Now what?  

Just when things seemed like they couldn't get much worse, Josh's dad landed in the hospital for almost two weeks with some kind of unknown illness.  He was rapidly losing weight, couldn't eat, and we really thought he might die.

In the midst of all of this, Josh and I were standing in the kitchen one morning just staring at each other. There were lots of tears, and we were pretty shell shocked.  What on earth was God doing?

Within three days, He showed us the next step.  Josh's dad started getting better and was sent home from the hospital. The calling became clear. It was still Wilmington, or more specifically Brunswick County.  We would go, we would plant, and we would serve.  Belize, our adoption that was still caught up in a broken system, and every unknown would have to simply be surrendered.

So we took a deep breath, had a couple of big yard sales, sold everything we owned except clothes and some toys for the kids, and started packing what was left of our lives in boxes.  There were days when I was ecstatic over what God was about to do and other days when I felt like just crying and giving up.  Brokenness doesn't even begin to describe September.  It was a month of literally having to lay down every plan, dream, idea, and aspiration.  From our home to Josh's health to our families... we had to let go and trust God with every bit of it.  And let me tell you, it was HARD.

October

On October 1, we drove away from everything that was familiar and ended up in a rented house by the ocean.  We unpacked within a few hours and settled in to a new life in a new place.  On the same day, I started a new job working from home with the company I had done freelance work with for two years.  God was meeting needs before we ever knew they existed.  From the second we stepped foot in Brunswick County, God began to show us where He had been at work all along, preparing us and preparing this place.  We were home.  Things were finally good except for one little problem.  Josh's heart medication had to be increased again and this time, he had reached the maximum dosage that it was safe to prescribe.

November

November brought lots of fun with homeschooling, learning more about our new community, and landing in a great church where God very strategically placed us.  We started making friends, meeting people, and fell in love with Oak Island and the surrounding area.  Church planting was constantly on our minds and Josh spent hours reading, planning, and talking to people who could teach him from their experiences.  

Of course, there was some trouble in November too.  Josh's health began to rapidly decline.  And when I say rapidly, I mean that one day he was fishing on the beach and a few days later, he was struggling to even get up and walk around.  I began to get scared for him.  Some days were good and others were terrible.  He got winded walking to the bathroom.  When he stood up, he would stumble and have to sit down to keep from passing out.  He was pale and his fingertips and mouth looked blue.  He seemed swelled.  We called the specialists in Cleveland and they scheduled open heart surgery for January 19, 2012.

December

On December 1, something felt wrong.  Josh looked worse and I had this uneasy feeling that I couldn't shake.  Josh started having chest pain that wouldn't go away.  On December 2, he woke up at 8:00 and called his doctor in Cleveland.  We were afraid he might not be able to wait another 6 weeks on surgery because he was declining so quickly.  I was terrified to let him drive, worrying he would pass out and end up dead on the side of the road.  The doctor was in New York at a conference, but after we hung up I started praying.  "God, if he needs help now, please intervene for him.  Please do something to help the doctors feel urgent about this.  Please get him to Cleveland this weekend if his life is in danger."

Thirty seconds later, my phone rang.  His doctor was calling from the airport in New York and he wanted us on an airplane by sunset.  Josh was admitted at the Cleveland Clinic 24 hours later.  The rest... well, you know what a miracle God did!  After open heart surgery, God gave Josh a second chance at life when he otherwise might not have lived to see his surgery date that is still a few weeks away.

What a Year!!!

No one can dispute that this has been a hard year for us.  As we entered 2012, I didn't even want to venture a guess at what is ahead during the next 12 months.  I only know this: God has been faithful.  All of the trials of our previous years - infertility, miscarriages, Ally's fight with asthma, Walker's time in the hospital, and more - it prepared us for 2011.  It was like God trained us specifically through each previous battle to prepare us for the field we would enter in 2011.  And we were equipped.  

No, we didn't have what it took to get through it on our own.  But we had the only thing that counted - the knowledge that the ONLY way to survive was to curl up tight and lean hard into Jesus while He calmed the storm that was raging around us.  And calm it He did.

So 2011?  Yes, it was hard.  But I have to tell you... it was the year when I learned that above all, God is faithful.  He is worthy of our full trust.  And He is big enough, strong enough, and wise enough to accept our tears, our weakness, and our tantrums.  Because more than anything, He loves us.  That is what 2011 was all about.