I cry out to you o God!

Tomorrow morning will be a very emotional time as it always is. I am taking Luana to Dallas and Southwestern Medical School where the Memory Research Center is. This is the time for her yearly appointment. This is her third time as she had a baseline and now has finished her second year of dealing with Alzheimer's Disease. The first year she had a pretty good response to the medication and did well and we felt truly blessed. This past year has been a little more difficult and who knows what the ensuing years hold for us. It is so hard for Luana as it is a yearly reminder of what she cannot do and what lies in store. It is hard for me to watch her go through this.
Week in and week out I pray for her for healing and I will continue to do so until God says for me to stop. I know He is able and yet I am aware that the vast majority of people do not get healed from this, even those who are strong believers. Yes it does get discouraging at times, but I press on in prayer for the miraculous. My motto has been "the Lord gives, the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord".
What has really helped me has been how courageous Luana has been throughout this ordeal. She has a peace about her that can only come from God, and she does not try to hide it from people. She is open to talk about it with people, though she may shed a tear or two. Not only that but she has not been afraid to take on new things. She continues to serve people around her and the women in our lifegroup. She is doing a Precepts Bible study which requires a lot of study and preparation, is involved in a book club, does Meals On Wheels and well, you get the idea.
The hard part for me is to watch the person you love more than any other in the world to slowly lose her abilities to think and function. And then to realize that there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. My fear is that I would not treat her with the love and respect and dignity she deserves. So far God has given me the grace to do that and it is a constant prayer for me, and I would ask any of you who read this to join with me in that. I have a new appreciation for suffering and feel that God is going to be teaching me a lot over the next few years and hope that I learn well.
So tomorrow we go and there will be no answers, but I will be by her side. We will fight it kicking and screaming but we will walk through it together and in the end we will still give glory to God affirming that He is all powerful and He is Good.

Grandparenting

These past 10 days have been pretty full as we have been babysitting two of Christy's kids, Jayden (3 1/2) and Duncan (1 1/2) and also have Mary Beth here for a few weeks before she goes to Uganda. The boys have been great but they are busy and really wear us out. Fortunatelt their other grandparents also live in town and we have been sharing them every 2-3 days. I'm not sure we could ahve made it otherwise. God sure knew what He was doing when He gave kids to young parents. Nevertheless it has been a blast and we are so thankful for them.

Duncan loves ice cream. Grandparents can spoil them with the stuff.

Sweet kiss from Jayden to MB

Amy and her girls also came into town for a day and "hung" out.

Here is sweet little Mollie just one month old.

My three blonde haired, blue eyed girls.

Jayden at the park. He is getting braver to climb higher. I hope that is a good thing.

Little Duncan!!!

Duncan on a wooden horse that I made for Christy almost 30 years ago!

For some reason Jayden felt safer or more secure sleeping with his little brother in his crib rather than on his bed, but we did not hinder him since he was gone from his parents for so long.

We took a trip to the zoo and rode around on this wagon.

More

Mr Snowman - notice the Russian hat.
Jason gave that to me.

Doesn't Lu look cute?

We saw this hawk in the tree asross the street.

It was huge - 2 feet long and 10 inches wide.

Here are some more photos from yesterday that I thought you might like to see.

Snow in Waco

It was really beautiful to wake up and see this. A little artistic flair for Mary B.

Two roads diverged in the woods (snow) that day, And I took the one less travelled.

We can now join in with the rest of the country being under a layer of snow. While it has been bitterly cold here for 4 days we had for the most part been spared the white stuff - until last night. One more front pushed through and some moisture from the gulf came up to join forces and drop 3 inches of very dry fluffy snow. In fact we actually closed our office - the first time in over 25 years since I have been in practice. It is really beautiful and has covered everything and is so pure looking that it got me to thinking about the spiritual analogies.

First of all it is so pure and spotless when it first falls that it reminds us of the purity of God. Secondly, it is how we are cleansed from our sin by the blood of Jesus. Do you remember the song "Nothing But the Blood of Jesus" where the line goes "How precious is the flow, That washes white as snow"? In that same vein the snow covers over every bad place and bump so that it looks perfectly smooth, much like Jesus' death covers over all of our sin.

Enough of that. Enjoy the pics and maybe later I will add a snowman!!!!!