This is the topic of one of Tommy's sermons and time and again we quote this phrase to each other.

It really came home to me the first of this month, June 2024.  I had prayed and debated and agonized for a year as to whether or not to have knee replacement surgery.  When Tommy, John boy and I went to Universal to Harry Potter World, and I had to get a wheelchair in order to get around, we all agreed I should go ahead.  I had heard various takes on the surgery.  Some good and some bad.

I had snapped back so quickly when I broke my hip a few years back, that I thought surely I would do the same with the knee,

Huh uh. Na Da.  Negative.  No snapping back from this baby!  Oh, everyone tells me I am ahead of the game, especially my sister, Teresa, who has had it done herself.  However, I am 3 weeks in now and feel like I should not only be able to walk around Universal Studio, but I should be starting to train for a marathon, like our adopted son Greg was doing before his "easy" life got interrupted!  (another story.)

I have faithfully done all my physical therapy that the hospital gave me to do, plus another sheet that Tommy printed from the internet.  I am up to walking almost a mile a day and I haven't missed a day working at the ware house.  (I did miss the food truck this morning but that too is another story.)

The guys leave for Indiana tomorrow and will be gone for 4 days.  I will be here by myself, so am planning on working that old knee as much as I can, so that if I DO choose to run that marathon, I will be in shape.  (Don't worry.  I won't)

Through all of this though, I keep telling myself that "this too shall pass" and I need to quit "looking for an easy life."    

An old poem I used to have up in my bedroom when I was in high school started, "God did not promise skies always blue, flower strewn pathways all our lives through."  I can't remember the rest but that is sufficient. 

So I will keep going.  I will keep bending the knee.  I will stay positive  and most of all I will quit looking for an easy life.

​This came true in a mighty way this past week.  Our dear friend and actually, our third son...his claim AND ours....was training for a marathon.  He ran 16 miles one day and the next was in the hospital.  I won't go into detail, but suffice it to say, it was serious.  He was in hospital for a week before coming home and still is not 100%.

Go forward another week.  I was scheduled for knee replacement surgery this past Monday.  Because of the bureaucracy of hospitals and the fact that they are big corporations run by people who don't really care about others and are just out to make money, the whole process was pretty frustrating.  My Dr. is wonderful and I love him.  The nurses were wonderful as well but I, for one, am glad I have been getting better for over a week now instead of just two days!  ( My gripe is with big business, which is what I am afraid a lot of hospitals are these days.)

This whole thing with our son, Greg, and with me...one right on the coat tails of the other, has made me more aware and more appreciative of the blessings that God continues to rain down upon me!  I was grateful before, but it doesn't seem like I was, compared to what I now feel.

Just being able to swing my legs out of bed in the morning without having to "help" one of them, hits me every time I do it.  Climbing steps or getting into a car always just came second nature.  I didn't stop to say "thank you Jesus, for this blessing."

I am going about my daily activities...working in the warehouse, working on the food truck, doing the homeless meal on Wednesday night, having our boys youth group in, but my mind is constantly on how blessed I am.

My brother in law has been in the hospital this whole time and the Drs. don't know what to do for him!  Yet, he doesn't complain.  Why, then, should I?

My cousin has a new born baby who is struggling just to stay alive..This is going on as we speak.  Yet, they are positive and have fallen in love with this new life. They don't complain so why should I?

I have decided that a day can make SUCH a difference, so why not make THIS day the best day I can make it?  Full of gratitude and full of a mind geared toward seeing what other people need instead of always thinking of my own needs?

Time to lift this leg off the couch where I have been icing it and head to the store.  Embrace today!  You never know what will happen in 24 hours!