BIG News

This is the news that I have been waiting for months to be able to announce. If all goes according to plan, Michael is set to be released (when I put it that way, it sounds like he has been in the slammer) on October 18th!! 

Whew! Just typing that brings so many conflicting emotions. I am so excited to have Michael home. I am nervous about him making the transition and how it will work. I am anxious to see what new challenges will surface (and I know there will be many, that is the nature of this beast called brain injury). But mostly, I am so so happy that he will has improved to the point that we have arrived at this place.

The first time Michael came home last December, we were covered in love by awesome friends. Ultimately, the reality is that my parents are now accepting (gladly and gratefully) an adult son that will need them way more than they expected. Because of that, they need their friends way more than expected too. And Michael's friends- what an amazing group of people- he will need you too. Dredge that love back up from the months of absence and setbacks and hopelessness, and bring it on. Pretty please.

If you are still reading, I want to share something with you that I heard this week at a conference. It floored me. In Luke 15, Jesus tells the story of the prodigal son. If you have ever been a churchgoer at all, you probably know it. The father in the Bible welcomes his son back with open arms with an enormous party despite tremendous pain and bad choices that he had made. That is a picture of how God loves us. Did you know that the father never speaks to the son? Not one word. Not all the time the son is gone, not even when he comes home. He speaks to the servant and gives instructions on how to welcome him, but never to the son. The speaker (Jon Acuff) said that is how it works sometimes when we are in the worst pain and we feel like God is not with us, not speaking to us. He feels silent, and the reason is not because he doesn't care or doesn't know how much we are hurting. It is because he is planning a party. It feels so amazing to have hope.