Saturday

A day of different directions. Joe went with Brandon, Melissa’s brother, to check out rvs and go to the Bass Pro Shop. John went with me, to the Zoo. We got to see the baby elephant. Mostly it was an excuse to walk around and hold hands. I wonder how much longer he’ll do that?

Later in the day, we went up to the school to ride bikes. It strikes me that the past week or so has been pretty good, maybe even really good. The boys’ counselor is very pleased with how they are handling things. She has been working with them for about 7 months, and so she knew them pretty well before Melissa died. We learned early on you have to be honest with them about all that is going, and pay attention to what they can understand.

Today marks the first week of clean eating. One of the things we were going to do was eat better. (Please, not that!) The Roz set me up with a plan for weight loss and muscle gain. Ack, more work. And today was the first day of interval training. I have always loved soccer (in Germany, there was no choice about that), but I hated running even in a game. Give me a ball to chase, and I’ll manage; running was a necessary evil if you wanted to score goals.

The Lord has given us such peace. I wish I knew how to describe it, this confidence in pressing forward, this sense that I will be ok, and more importantly, the boys will be, too. It’s hard to pin down, the way this peace comes; it’s more than prayer and fasting, scripture study, worship. It has just shown up. Part of it is conversations with friends who know me deeply, and remind me of who I am. I know that so many people are praying for us, and all along that is what we asked for, and continue to ask for. Lesser things have threatened to undo me, but in those times, I did not have near as many people praying for me. So keep us in your hearts. The biggest part of this peace is simply faith. I can’t even say how it is that I have it, because it is not so much stubbornness, although it sometimes seems like that.