All that I can say...

If the Lord had not been my help,
my soul would soon have lived
in the land of silence.

When I thought, "My foot slips,"
your steadfast love, O Lord,
held me up.
When the cares of my heart
are many,
your consolations cheer my soul.

Psalm 94:17-19

This beautiful necklace was handmade for me, by my dear friend Cathy. For more information check out her website for Refining Pot Jewelry here.

I am overwhelmed by you all.

When I spoke in my last post regarding the net of love the Lord has placed around our family, I had no idea just how large the net would get. I am amazed. Your comments, prayers, emails, phone calls, cards, letters... all have been like a soothing balm on an open wound.

I am thankful.

And blessed.

We are being held--no doubt.

I wish there was something positive to report. If you had told me three months ago I would be preparing for an upcoming court date regarding the state of my marriage, I would have said you must be talking about someone else.

But that someone else is me. This is the reality of my life right now.

There is very little communication, so there is nothing to discuss. It takes two people for reconciliation to happen and in our case, there was only one willing partner and it wasn't my husband. And no one has seen him since before Christmas. He left everything and everybody...and put most of his old life behind him.

What about those of us who were part of that old life? It's sort of like mourning a death (which I've had plenty of experience with). It feels like the person we knew--died. And in a lot of ways, he did. We cry, we pray, we hold each other up. We remind each other of what is true, since so much of what we called "our life" is now in question. We ask God, why? how? what now?

As a mom, one of the most difficult aspects of this whole thing is watching my children suffer so deeply. I wish I could take the pain, fix everything and make it all good. But I can't. I can't.

As a wife, the pain runs very, very deep. Twenty-three years is a long time to be married to someone. Someone that you believed and felt secure with....someone that you trusted completely.

And through it all the Lord has indeed shown Himself to be faithful to His promises--He has met our every need. He has been our comfort, our source of strength for each day. I cannot imagine for a second, what it would be like going through something like this without Jesus. Glad I don't have to know.

So we keep moving forward each day...putting one foot in front of the other. Some days are just plain hard, but the Lord has brought joy to our lives as well. Zach got his drivers license and his braces off...I took snowboarding lessons...we have two babies getting ready to be born into our family...Merritt is walking and Troy just keeps getting cuter each day. And because this happened during the holidays and thanks to my blog--I've been able to reconnect with old friends I'd been out of contact with for a while. There is a lot of good in the midst of the sadness.

See? God is good. All the time. : )


Thank you all so much for your continued concern, love and prayers for our family. We are so appreciative and blessed. Ashleigh, Zach and I read over your comments and come away amazed that God would use people we don't even know (and some we do), in such a profound way. Thank you. And if you've sent me an email and I have not responded...I'm sorry. It's a little slow going around here these days. Thank you for your patience.

To read Ashleigh's beautifully written words from a daughter's perspective, go here.