"The God who commends and cultivates our faith will sometimes lead us into painful places, into unreasonable places, and into places that simply do not make sense. Why? Because real faith has to outweigh our emotional comfort, our human logic, and our passion for understanding. When it does, the Object of our faith has become the most important thing in our lives." {Worship the King by Chris Tiegreen}
The past almost 6 months have not made much sense. Not much sense at all in a lot of ways. For Malone in particular. He was on his way to finishing his junior year. His high school basketball team was headed on a track to a state championship. He had a date to take the ACT. We were looking towards college visits this spring and summer. I was urging him towards prom so a girl would have a nice date. And then January 18 all that changed with a split second that seems still to make no sense, seems extremely unreasonable in the human realm. Even now when I tell people about it, they look puzzled like I am speaking a foreign language. We now talk about "before the accident" and "since the accident". It was a defining moment.
And then I read the quote by Chris Tiegreen and breathed a sigh and went "yeah" quietly in my soul. It was like a gift to my heart. I'm also listening to a podcast from Granger Community Church by Mark Beeson on "When Your World Falls Apart". I say listening because I'm on round 3 of the podcast. I love how sweet God is. Mark talks about detours in your life and not wasting them. He says what my heart has cried. Something to the effect of "you wouldn't have chosen this, but now you wouldn't trade it."
So we are praying not to waste it. Kinda of like that last drop of slushy that you move the straw around until it's just right so you can slurp it up. Malone did go to Frontier Ranch in Colorado with Young Life and had an incredible experience. He came home sure of his decision not to pursue playing varsity basketball. It was a tough decision but he believes and I do too, the right one. He has also been blessed with the unbelievable opportunity to return to Orphanage Emmanuel in Honduras at the end of July. He has been twice before but has no memory of it.
The other great opportunity that has come up is for him to help with the Junior Varsity basketball team at Lee-Scott. Coach Darden was Malone's coach and now is Simms' and asked Malone to help with practice last week and a camp and has asked if he would like to help during regular season. One thing I love is that Simms is good with this and likes his brother being there.
Malone and I talked the other day about the challenges that he is still having. He still has long term memory loss. Those gaps do not bother him and he usually just shrugs when someone asks him if he remembers something. The biggest challenge ahead is that he still has some short term memory challenges and when school starts back we will know more about what tactics he will need to combat those. He knows he will need to work harder than he has before and need to ask his teachers for extra help probably. Prayers in this area would be greatly appreciated.
We are forever thankful for all that God has done and continues to do. We know that anything could have happened. In my field, I am thankful for great healthcare. I'm thankful for what insurance we have. I'm thankful for all of you that have prayed and asked about him. For all of you that have spoken to him and not cared if he recognized you or not. For the love and friendship. For the most important things...
