Sunday July 6-peace & blessings

I wrote this on Sunday in my journal after church- I have been waiting to share a lot of what is here until there were more answers, but now feels like the right time.

We came out to Colorado to be together as a family, the Spear family. Parents, Grandparents, brothers, sisters-in-law, cousins.
We were able to receive such sweet time together, service and to experience a break in time.
A certain blessing for the family.

The day we left California from our adventure 2008, we received a call saying Jay's dad was in the hospital. He had been having seizures and nobody was really sure exactly what was wrong.
His condition worsened over a few short days.
Our family was still driving back to OK and we were packing up to leave our hotel.
I was feeling a little overwhelmed for so many reasons.
Overwhelmed at the uncertainty of Jay's dads health.
Overwhelmed at watching Jay deal with his emotions.
Overwhelmed with what to tell the kids.
Overwhelmed with feeling so helpless, not being there to help.

I walked out of our hotel and was talking to my mom on the phone.
I was telling her how worried I was, and how I felt so sad for Jay and the rest of the family.
I hung up the phone and turned away from our car and something caught my eye in the tree.
I walked closer and felt a warm feeling come over me-
A heart.
A beautiful wooden heart.
I was instantly reminded of our Saviors love, and where to turn for peace and comfort.
How Christ heals our hurts and our sadness, not just our wrong doings.

I felt blessed to have this reminder.
Where to turn for peace-
Matthew 11:27-30

Over the last month as tests have been done, and more questions raised the outpouring of love and service to Jay's family has been huge.
They have been carried through- each moment that Carolyn (Jay's mom) feels she can't go on, there is someone there to lighten the load.

We came into town not certain of how Jay's dad would be. And while he seems to be doing ok- there is so much unknown.
We feel certainly blessed to have spent the time that we have.
Time has paused for a moment this weekend.
Love has been shared.
Time well spent.

So many have given of their time to help Carolyn still carry out her normal work, take care of John and still have an open house!
The dentist that she works for cleared his home and family out to change the open house from Jay's parents home to theirs! And then took care of letting everyone know that there had been a change.
Food was prepared and served by so many. (and not just for the open house, but while we were there visiting!)
Setting and cleaning up for the open house.
Even cleaning Carolyn's house to help her get ready for company!
Sleeping arrangements were made for all of us coming in from out of town, and homes were opened up to us.
Not only was every detail taken care of to make this a wonderful open house for Paul and Mary, but for our family to all come together.

While the future seems uncertain for John, as they still are trying to diagnose him we feel so much peace.
Peace given to us from the savior and carried out by the service of others.
This weekend was a blessing.

blessing

I have been working on a post about Luke-and what his turning 5 means.
I will still post it, but had to post this first while the emotions are still right at the surface.

We have been planning for Luke to have a surgery this summer for his nose.
We have been planning to travel to California to the surgeon that did all of his surgeries in Oregon. (after we moved to OK, the surgeon moved to CA)

We knew that this would take sacrifice for our family, on many different levels.
The financial being the biggest.

I have been in contact with the surgeon and his office, emailing photos, and information back and forth. The surgeon said he thought Luke looked good, but he would preauthorize for the lip and nose, just in case he felt that his lip needed touching up when we got there.

One of my concerns was our insurance coverage. How much coverage would we have since we were traveling to CA- would they cover any of it? How much would this cost.

Well today, I was contacted by the surgeons office, to go over paperwork, and to talk about when we wanted to schedule. At the end of the conversation, I asked if they had heard anything from insurance and how much coverage we would have..and she said,

"everything is good, we are billing insurance only for the surgery"

My reply,
"excuse me?" as tears start to well...

After she replied the same thing, and then mentioned that we just needed to take care of getting our family out there and take care of where would stay, I did not have the sense of mind to ask: why? Only to say what a blessing this will be to our family.

I could not stop crying, and then she started to cry.

I am so thankful, grateful, and full of joy- for this blessing to our family.
It lightens the load, and makes our planning for this next surgery for Luke, a lot less fearful.

give a sign

A little while back I posted about a compliment I received.
And, I challenged you to let somebody else know how you feel.

Well, I found this today from Donna Downey's site.
I enjoyed it, and plan on using it more often.
Does not take much, but the impact will be huge, on you and the receiver.


give a sign of gratitude