mundane miracles — Together International

Greeting dear ones! Your notes, gifts, encouragements, and check-ins have gone straight to my soul as I navigated the strangest part of this climb—survivorship.

Drinking in the joy with our son, Caleb.

I just finished a six week recovery from my fifth surgery. The good news is that I’ve been experiencing many “firsts” again. If that sounds like an oxymoron, it’s because it’s been awhile since these lovely things have been part of my life:

Working. I am honored to be named a Treetops Collective Fellow in partnership with One Million Thumbprints (1MT). I am excited to be partnering with them by creating a curriculum focused on resilience.

Circles of Support leadership team, Treetops Collective.

Traveling. Stephan and I will be heading out today to begin our first overseas trip to Europe and the Middle East in several years!! I am so excited to see the miraculous progress our 1MT partner Izdihar has made on behalf of Syrian Refugee women and children since our last visit. She has been busy with feeding and education programs on the new property they acquired in the middle of the COVID pandemic.

Izdihar, founder of *Together for the Family*, with her Syrian kids.

Finally, dear ones, I wish you a “Happy Lent.” I know that sounds like another oxymoron—happiness during a sacrificial season. But I am more convinced than ever that seasons of suffering and loss go together with seasons of joy and blessing. Why?

“There is nothing in life that cannot be made sacred,” says the brilliant author, Madeline L’Engle. “That is one of the deepest expressions of the incarnation.”

In these survivorship days, even the little things I experience throughout my day, things we may think of as mundane, show me just how near God is. Things like the first song of a robin in the Michigan spring. The warmth of dish water on painful knuckles. Deep breaths of sun-warmed air, reminding me I am still here.

So, whatever small things fill your days, may they be made sacred. God loves you in all your mundane excellence. Far more than you know.
Promise.