in the quiet...

One of my favorite parts of the day is the very end of it.  When I get the living room and kitchen picked up and cleaned up, I get Arabella tucked in and snoozing soundly (and sometimes Hunter is too), and I get to sit down on my couch...in the quiet...

I don't usually keep my house quiet because I don't enjoy it.  The TV or some sort of music is always playing.  But for those few seconds when my day is closing, the quiet is beautiful.

Tonight I'm using it to meditate on a few things.  Our absolute best and dearest friends had their second sweet boy last week.  However, he has faced many complications since coming into this world and is having to fight for his life.  In turn, our sweet friends' world has been completely changed--it always is when you welcome a new life, but this is completely different.  Their days and nights both now consist of constant trips back and forth between the hospital with son #2 and home with son #1; reading and researching information about what the doctors are telling them; praying with every ounce of their being for their tiny son to come out on the other side completely healthy...their routine, their priorities, their lives are completely different.

Their names haven't left my heart or my lips these past few days.  I'm reminded of the scripture that discusses the Holy Spirit's intervention for us through prayer when we can no longer find words for our emotions.  I've been in that place this week.

However, they are handling this situation with so much dignity, so much grace, and so much faith.  They are all fighters, trudging through this crazy world relying solely on the hope that our Jesus provides.

As my heart turns over them tonight, my personal struggles seem minute.  These past few weeks have been hard for me--not because of anything I can specifically point out, but for the state my spirit has found itself.  And now my perspective is coming back into focus.  You are always aware of the fact that someone (many someones actually) out there has it worse than you do.  But when the struggle comes this close, but is still so distant (both physically and metaphorically...I will never know the battles and struggles they are facing even if the Lord chooses to write a similar story for me)...when the struggle hits you hard but not directly...you are forced to remember how good you've got it.

So although my spirit still struggles to find its peace, I'm able to search for hope.  Because my heart is focusing so much on my sweet friends and their precious baby, my defeat and my failures are losing the priority that Satan has allowed them to have in me these past weeks.

Tonight in the quiet, I rest in my blessings--in my beautiful and healthy angel sleeping gently in the next room; in my hard-working and nurturing husband who helps keep me going; in my Jesus, whose name alone holds power beyond our reasoning and whose grace catches us softly when we think we've hit the bottom.

I sit and I offer thanksgiving...for friends, for Miracle Maddox, and for hope...

love, angie