What a great week!

July 29, 2016

Some of you may have seen a picture I recently posted on Facebook and Instagram. The picture is of Ben and Brooke smiling away! I had captioned the photo, “One of the best days in awhile! We Love You Daddy!” (The photo is here to the right) This week truly has been a great week! Ben has been up and active, for the most part feeling well and appears to be more “himself”. He has had a few bouts of nauseousness, but it seems that he usually recovers quickly from this. By Wednesday (July 27^th) Ben was up and about and determined to take on some of the projects that he felt calling his name around the house. i.e., cleaning out his closet and doing laundry. Yup, you read that right! And organizing the garage. We also were able to enjoy a “date day”. The kids went off with his parents as we adventured through Niagara Falls playing tourist. A good laugh when we decided to stroll through the Casino and I was ID’d because they didn’t believe I was 28… awesome!  We enjoyed lunch out with each other, followed by some relaxing time at home before going off to Brooke’s swimming lessons. Watching Ben watch Brooke swim alone for the first time during her lessons with a huge smile and pure joy on his face melted my heart. I was so happy to see Ben feeling up to all of this. It almost felt like life was “back to normal”, like he wasn’t even sick. I found myself thanking God throughout the day, spontaneously, everywhere we went. This week we have been enjoying the down time with the girls and taking in all that the day has to offer. We’ve enjoyed taking the girls to the splash pad and watching them carelessly run around and play together.

 Ben and I have found ourselves in conversation this week about how God truly has had a plan for us. We look back on some of the decisions we’ve made to get us where we are today, especially with the purchase of our new house. We recognize God in those big decisions and acknowledge that those were HIS doings. The move took away a lot of added stressors that had been previously dragging us down, not to mention I am now down the road from my family and work, which is a tremendous help.  We are thankful for the path He has directed us on and truly believe God has placed us where we are for a reason. We may still not understand why Ben has cancer, and I don’t think we ever will, yet sometimes there feels like there is a huge purpose for all of this. At least Ben and I feel this way. A friend of mine recommended a daily devotional book to me called, Jesus Calling by Sarah Young. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone. It's a simple daily read, short and sweet, yet seems to really hit home for me. One of the bible verses that came up the other day was from Romans 12:12. "Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer". Bang on! I read that over, and over again. Letting it sink in as I enjoyed my cup of coffee, watching the girls play around the house. Patient in affliction... joyful in hope... yes! I know this will be a verse I will go back to when times get hard and will have to remind myself to believe those words. This week we thank God for Ben's good days and for being able to get out of bed and enjoy the time with me and the girls. We ask for prayer for this coming Wednesday, as Ben heads into his third round of chemo.

We hope everyone enjoys their long weekend! Relish the time with your friends and family and don't take any of it for granted! 
-Amy