Happy 2020! First off, let’s address the massive elephant in the room… or in this case, the one that’s NOT there… in that, I’ve been totally and completely MIA since mid to late October. For those who don’t know, one of our foster’s, a highly complex medical kiddo, got super sick and basically was dead for an extended period of time. We have no idea what happened, only that in a very VERY short period of time she got septic with some (still unknown) infection and before I knew it, we were airlifting her to the local PICU, only to have her further airlifted to Children’s Hospital in St. Louis the next day (4 hours away from us).

Loooonnnggg story short, she was on life-support for about two weeks, her kidneys took a huge hit with an acute injury from the sepsis so she went on dialysis for about a month, her body developed a clotting disorder which made a clot from her hips down to her ankles and we ended up having to amputate one of them above the knee (thank God! it was just one!!)…. she was in the hospital almost 3 full months when all was said and done. And all this to just a little girl! Ugh.

With that being said, I do apologize that the blogging just came to a screeching halt. Life happens as we all know, and life kinda punched us hard in the face for the entirety of the fall. But God is GOOD and man do I have some stories and amazing testimony to share from all this. I’ll slowly but surely put a lot of my thoughts and lessons from this entire ordeal onto the proverbial paper and share with you. Many have said it needs to go in book form? Maybe someday! We’ll see what God has in mind!

Until then, again, please accept my apologies for leaving ya’ll hanging. For those who follow my FB and IG accounts, you got to witness much of this is real-time and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the outpouring of love, encouragement, ‘stuff’, and prayers that have been lavished on us! God was near and quite dear to us during this extraordinary time and much of that was due to you guys all being His hands and feet.

Like all of you, I would have preferred to walk into the new year with strength, dignity, and a lot of rest and back-at-it mentality. I’m afraid, like my daughter, we’re entering with quite a limp and somewhat bedraggled. Slightly askew in all things, and weary to the bones. This is NOT how I wanted to start 2020. But God is good, He is faithful, and despite how I feel and what my surroundings look like currently, I know that He will never leave us nor forsake us, that He has only our good at hand, and He will remain faithful to His promises. So, tired though I be, I stand quite firm and assured of my Father’s attention to my life. You most definitely have that hope as well, and together we can enter 2020 with something better than rest or a mere hopeful outlook… we have something better than intentions and plans… We have a heavenly Father who will not abandon us and Who’s great love will overshadow and guide us no matter what the journey entails or where it leads.

I’ve taken enough of your time today already, but know that the blogging is back up and running for the new year! I am so expectant to see what God has for us and all the tremendous ways He’s going to be refining and sanctifying us into more of His Likeness!

In His GREAT love,

Bethany