Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart

Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art

Thou my best thought, by day or by night,

Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light

I was reminded again tonight through this song of how lost we can feel in our trials, griefs, sadness, confusion. It so often becomes unclear of what we are supposed to do, how we are to respond. Many of us are in situations that we can't change so not only are we in situations that we don't necessarily desire, but we don't always know how to correctly respond to them either. I don't want Ian's life to be like this, and I don't always clearly know how we are to respond since he hasn't been healed yet. And then the rare times when I am thinking clearly, and do feel like I know how I should respond, I'm too tired to act on that truth anyway.

God gently reminded me and reminded Ian through this song that God is always our vision. Whether we are waking or sleeping, understanding or confused, thinking clearly or swallowed by sadness, he is our light. He will continue to be our vision- it's not dependent on us or our response. God promises to be with us, whether we feel that He is or not.

This life is very, very hard and many, many people are travelling the broken road as wearied and tired bodies. Ian's road has been much more broken than I could ever have imagined. This man that I love dearly is severely afflicted and there is nothing that I can do to fix it. I can't heal him but how I desperately wish I could. But we have to press on, and hold fast that God is our vision and that he somehow will strengthen us to finish this race well- whether we feel like we can or not- and we'll try to laugh along the way. He will be our vision leading us to heaven.

Thank you for praying with us these long years.

Larissa

Life

Random shots of life............................

(Don't worry, Paladin has not gained a significant amount of weight in four days. Keep scrolling. This is my friend's beautiful baby, Diana)

Ian, I'm so glad that you're alive to experience the joy of being an uncle. :) Welcome to our world, Paladin James Murphy!!!!

Trying

Our prayer lately has been that Ian would have clearer speech and a stronger short-term memory.

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Though Ian's speech is often not very clear, it's encouraging that he is regularly trying to make himself understood. He'll even attempt to spell out what he's trying to say. God bless Larissa for her patience in working with him on that! I've noticed a pattern in his recovery since the wreck: little break-throughs in areas where we've been praying and then suddenly he's doing it consistently. This is another good example.

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He struggles with his short-term memory, too. He often can't remember what happened 20 minutes ago let alone yesterday's events. We continue to rehearse things with him over and over again, and at times he'll remember those things we rehearse all the time. He and Larissa are going through the book of Luke together, and he remembers that. Occasionally, lately, we've noticed he'll remember something that happened earlier in the day - more little break-throughs. We pray that he would more consistently remember.

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There really are a lot of hopeful signs of progress in Ian. In one way it's sad, because it's as though he's starting his life all over again learning the basics. But, in another, it's pretty incredible that he's at this point. We're so grateful for Ian's growth and progress!

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Thank you for praying!

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Steve

Just a short blog to let everyone know that we're still alive (although it wouldn't be such a bad thing at all if we weren't, right? It would mean we were seeing Jesus). I don't have much to update on- just taking one day at a time. Ian keeps plugging away at therapy and working hard at home too.

For those praying for Ian, specific requests would be initation and speech.

Thanks!

Larissa

Last night I asked Ian what keeps him motivated to keep fighting through this. Right away he said, "God's glory."

It's so wonderful to get glimpses of Ian's heart and to hear from Ian that the Holy Spirit is still at work in him. It is such a clear example that our salvation is based on faith alone and not works. There are few works that Ian can do, yet the Holy Spirit is caring for him and sanctifying him to become more like Christ. What a pure view of faith Ian must have, knowing that there is nothing that he can physically do to serve God or try to win his favor. Yet here is Ian, obviously prospering spiritually and believing truth about God.

I've noticed over the past few days that Ian's clarity of thought has improved so much. He hasn't said anything confusing in a really long time. That is a very, very specifc prayer being answered by God and it encourages me to continue to pray.

Please pray for initation for Ian and for his clarity of speech.

Thank you for staying with us.

Larissa