Shock, Awe, and thank you notes

Our home has been awash in gifts lately. It isn't a birthday or celebratory time - it is a time of receiving grace.

Grace has arrived in foil-wrapped pans of roast beef and vegetables, meatballs and pasta, frozen dinners, cookies and King Cakes, flowers and plants, Mass cards and prayers. There are many thank yous to write, calls of thanks to remember, where do I start?




With the neighbor I walked up to at 11am one Monday and handed the keys to everything I own and said, it's an emergency, I have to go? I needed help - and without thinking I just went next door where my neighbor took my keys and told me to go - as I babbled somewhat incoherently about what was happening.

Or the busy mom, who gathered up my older boys, provided a real meal and did the mom thing of "keep calm, carry on"?

Or the carpool mom who didn't think twice before adding one more to her brood, indefinitely? At 11yrs old sleepovers are fun - in the middle of the school week, with an impending ice storm - it is more work for parents.

Or the specialist that came in twice to reassure us? Reminding us again just by her presence at 8pm the gravity of the situation.

Or the legion of caregivers over the seven day hospital stay that provided care, laughter and distraction in a less than homey environment?

Or, well, you get the idea - so many people touched our lives in beautiful ways at a time when we were in shock, watching our world literally turn upside down. There are not enough words to fully express our gratitude.

We have spent the last six weeks walking through a miracle that left us all a little stunned, very grateful and a little sad. Life changed, our world shook, tilted and made me, at times, say why?

Thank you God, but why?

And it struck me, was that my thank you note to God? Thank you for saving the love of my life, the father of my children – but really, do we need this? Now?

When I thought about the thank you notes I needed to write to all those who helped us, would I say something similar? Thank you, the food was great but could you be here again next Friday with dinner – oh and medium rare this time, please?

How unthankful.

I need to fill up with thanks, simple enveloping thanks to God. Letting it settle in so that there are no strings attached. Psalm 92 is a good way for me to start.

It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High; to declare your steadfast love in the morning and your faithfulness by night to the music of the lute and the harp, to the melody of the lyre. For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work; at the works of your hands I sing for joy.



....foil pans of food, good recipes, a faith that I could lean on, the game 'Operation', shoulder hugs, hospital chapels, smiling nurses, life, a strong hand holding mine, basketball HORSE, watching brothers laugh, teenage kids filling the house, a loyal dog, the sacrement of the annointing of the sick, a new normal....








a new normal