The Blues

Tom nailed it at dinner... I think we all have a little case of the oh-my-gosh-tomorrow-is-almost-here blues!

We have been INCREDIBLY thankful to be home for several days before tomorrow hits.  We desperately needed a bit of a break from the crazy intensity of the month of March.

One friend (thanks, Stephanie!) remarked that our March came in like a lion and went out like a lamb!  She is exactly right!  Actually 2012 came in pretty strong for us... Stephanie prayed for a chilled-out-"lamb-like" rest of the year!  Yes, please, Lord!

Earlier today I thought I would spend some time posting some pictures and telling some stories from last week.  My energy has plummetted this afternoon, so I guess that will have to wait AGAIN!!!

Tomorrow...

• Jacob will go back to school. 
• Tom and I will get our heads back into our jobs.
• Jocie will go to day care.

Jacob is doing REMARKABLY well! The most wonderful thing is that he is NOT short of breath like he was from October-February!! That is FABULOUS! The challenging thing is that he looks great and it's sometime hard to remember that he had major heart surgery just four weeks ago. He says the hardest thing is sitting still in a chair... those chest muscles that are recovering from a SEVEN inch incision remember that they are not quite healed. Who knew it takes so many muscles to sit still!!!

School... that will be a physical challenge as well as the challenge of connecting with his teachers and coming up with a plan to get caught up. Jacob has done well to tackle homework for one class. We think his pre-calc teacher will be surprised.

Please pray especially for Jacob as he makes and implements a plan to get caught up.  He has six weeks before finals start.

This morning at church I realized that there are several interesting things about being uprooted and dropped into our Riley world for six weeks.  (I say six weeks because the week before Jacob's surgery he felt LOUSY!  He only went to one class each day that week, so it was really an extra week out of our normal lives.  Then he went to school on Monday, February 27 and then we left for Indy and his surgery was on Thursday.)

• It's interesting to walk into a large group of people and know that many of them remember that something major happened in our family and they know they haven't seen us for awhile, but they don't really remember what the big major thing was.
• It's interesting to look across a crowd and realize that lots of people are probably facing big things that we don't know about.
• It's crazy wonderful to know that many people have walked with us step by step and know the ups and downs of our last month.
• It's interesting to see dear friends and know they know exactly what we have faced these last six weeks but we have missed six weeks of their lives.
• It's unfathomable to me that some people face things as intense as we did in March (and even more intense!) and they don't know and depend upon the stability that comes from trusting Jesus. 

That's all I have in me to ponder right now.  Thanks again for continuing to pray for us.  We are SO VERY BLESSED to know that you are continuing to appreciate the challenges we face as we step back into our "normal" lives!!! And as we fight a touch of the blues as we still continue to feel the impact of our March- even as April has sprung!