How easily we forget.......

Thank you, Eric, for reminding us to look back and see just how far God has brought Dale since that fateful day at the beach in August, 2011.  I confess, I haven't viewed any videos of that time for a while now.  We still have some of the newscasts recorded on our DVR, and a kind family in our church put together a video disc of several news pieces on Dale, but I haven't taken the time to watch them for over a year.  Watching that video link now, I could only thank God for His kindness and care.  It is amazing, isn't it, to look back and remember how hopeless things seemed and revel again in God's miraculous healing of Dale!

It's good, too, to see how much God has allowed Dale to regain when we remember the grim prognosis the doctors gave.  Dale lay unresponsive for so long that our doctors told us he would probably never wake up.  The words one doctor used were, "There's no response whatsoever to any stimuli.  It's too soon to pull the plug, but........."  We were warned that, even if Dale woke up, he'd not be able to walk, talk, maybe breathe, feed himself, think, etc.  If you could see him now!!!  We get frustrated sometimes because Dale shuffles along---but he can walk!  His speech is sometimes slow and he loses his place in the sentence easily---but he can talk!  In fact, he can tell jokes and carry on a normal conversation.  This is good because our family is "quick on the draw" when it comes to repartee.  Dale might not get as far as we'd like in school since his learning abilities have changed (he has trouble recalling stuff for tests)---but he's in school and learning!  Isn't God good?

Hooray!!!  Our boys basketball team won the tournament!  We've been dying to win that tournament for years (decades!)  Our preacher has had a long-standing arrangement with our teams that, if they ever win the tournament, we all get a day off school.  Whoo-hoo!  PLUS, we finally have guys tall enough this year to dunk the basketball.  Our preacher also said that, if any of our guys ever dunk the ball during a game, we'd get a day off school.  One our guys, Nathan, had dunked the ball during practice but couldn't ever get a dunk during a game..........until the tournament!  He took the ball down and dunked it!  Preacher teased him that it looked more like a glorified lay-up, but it counts as a dunk.  So we have two days off to work into our schedule!  Go, Knights!!!

The varisty teams got back around 7:20 p.m. Wednesday, just as Preacher started his sermon.  They were exhausted, hoarse, and excited all at the same time!  Amanda and Katie got to sleep in Thursday morning, but each had to go to a babysitting job later that day.  Our church holds a Marriage Conference each year; this year it was held a few hours' drive away in Westport.  Amanda, Katie, and I each watched children so that their parents could go to the conference.  This meant Amanda and Katie only got to sleep in one day of their school break.  The rest of the time they were babysitting at different houses:  Katie had two children to watch, and Amanda had three kids.  Ashely helped me with the two boys who came to our house for those days.  They were very good but rambunctious!  As much as we enjoyed helping these families out during the conference, we were all glad to be home with just our family Saturday night.

Praise the Lord for His goodness to us!  There is no way we could ever give enough thanks to our gracious Father for all He has done for us.  From creating us in His image, to sending His precious Son to die in our place, to giving us abundant life here on earth, to promising us eternity in Heaven---we have much to be thankful for.

John 6: 35  "And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life:  he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst."