The road is long …but we are never alone

So up till now Jess has posted all Mallory's updates (I proofed them so I wasn't totally absent guys ...I'm a good dude)

This past Friday marked "Our First Changing of the Guard." So with my first days in the hospital with Mallory this is what came to mind.

Mallory’s hospital schedule splits our time. Sure, it sounds hard when you hear it, and it is, but until you live it …it affects things you don’t think of. 

It separates a Husband and a Wife. A Father and Daughter. A Mother and Daughter. And most important to me and Jess the amazing, inseparable bond between Madison and Mallory. It also separates a person from their work. Dogs from owners. Immediate family and immediate needs. It is fractured from every angle.

Yesterday, I was talking to one of my best friends from high school about Mallory and our turn of events. He brought up another couple who were close friends going through a difficult health situation with a unborn child. He was talking about how amazing it was that the family had embraced the situation as difficult as it was. It reminded him of his own father and a situation with a younger sibling’s health issue in their own family. He said it is amazing how God had gives fathers, mothers, and families a peace and strength to handle impossible situations.

I had never thought of it that way. Thousands upon thousands have prayed and have called out to Him not just for Mallory but for strength for us.

All the time people say how amazing it is how we handle this situation with Mallory. We always thought, well we don’t have another choice …we have to be strong, we have Mallory and a family that has to be strong or we can’t do this ..its just what you have to do.

This whole time it has been because God has been answering prayers. It is His grace, His strength, His peace that makes it feel so natural to be how we are. We disagree with the phrase that “God only gives you what you can handle.” In reality God gives you what you need so you can handle anything.

The God who created this entire universe cares very much about Mallory Kate and what happens to her.

How we choose to handle what happens to Mallory and our family will be what you have seen. We will handle it with strength, grace, and courage and as a chance for ourselves to be used in ways we do not yet know to have an impact on the numerous lives that we will by chance encounter on this road.