Crazy how much can change in a mere four weeks! This is now the middle of week twelve on the book field...where on earth does the time go?!

Two of the memorable moments from the past four weeks:

I sat down with a man who had lost his wife to leukemia…she had died two weeks before I knocked on his door that morning. When he showed me her picture, and started to cry, I lost it…sometimes all you can do is put your arms around somebody and cry with them. He’d lost two of his three children within the recent past…a daughter to cancer, and five months later, his other daughter had been murdered in her home…and then leukemia took his wife. He was one of the most broken-hearted men I’ve ever met, but in the midst of the tears, of the suffering, of his anguish, there was a quiet gentleness about his grief that bore testimony to the fact that our God is a comforter of the broken-hearted. We talked for a long time...he let me read the eulogy that his surviving daughter had written for her mother’s funeral…and then we talked about his wife, who she was, how much he missed her…and as we talked, we cried. He told me I reminded him of his wife, that I looked like she had when they’d first met. He insisted upon giving me a jacket that his wife had loved…and made me promise that when I wore it, I’d think of her and pray for him. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to wear the coat, in all honesty, because I can’t even look at it without tearing up…

On a completely different note, my baby sister, who also happens to be my best friend, my hero, and one of the most amazingly Godly young women I’ve ever met, became rather suddenly engaged to one of the coolest young men I’ve ever known…which I’m pretty excited about, although her cute little text message (“Just wanted to let you know that I’m engaged!”) rather shocked me in the beginning (just being honest, sis!).



My hearty congratulations to Joel Flage, one of the few guys to whom I’d be willing to relinquish someone as amazing as my little sister. If he wasn’t a pretty awesome guy in his own right, he never would have had a shot, so all I can really do is tell him well done. *laugh* And Michelle, just wanted to let you know that I love you, and I’ll miss you like crazy, but I’m awfully happy for you, and I’m really, really blessed to have been given such an incredible little sister. Not lying when I say you’re my hero. *grin*