for you. and you. and you. and you.

I have this thing called compassion.  It reaches out, gripping my heart in a fierce, undeniable way.  It captures me.  It brings upon the tears.  It pushes away the selfishness.  And it lets me wait out the now for the good that inevitably comes later, the “God’s reason”, so that my friends, my confidants, my family are not alone.  never alone.  NEVER.

How blessed are we?!  How blessed…. ??

and is it just when “the streams of abundance flow?” or amidst the wilderness too?

After six months of wilderness, I’ve found abundance.  I’ve found it through so many of you—and blessed am I.  So blessed.  I know I say it a lot, I just don’t think I say it enough.  Even with “pain in the offering, I’ve turned back to praise.”  And blessed, so blessed I am.

I remember saying with confidence that the day would come that I would look on this past journey as a blessing, that it would just take me awhile to get there.  But here I am: happy, and me.

I started running again.  not just a little running.  A lot running.  CHECK. THIS. OUT.

5k. in the morning.

10 miles. in the evening. (p.s. I changed my name to “Donna” for the race…. stupid late registration…..errr stupid me for waiting so long to register….”

and a WHOLE-LATTA PRIDE.  a WHOLE-BIG BLESSING!

and a WHOLE-LATTA THANKS…because support is always, ALWAYS key!

so yeah.  here I am, acknowledging that this has been a blessing… and just in time…..

I have something ironic to share with you.

I bet you can’t imagine what happened next…. or maybe you can.

those blessings poured out.  oh yes, they poured.  and I needed my rain boots.  my hot, blue, hunter rain boots with the fuzzy welly socks to keep me warm as I started walking through a new journey.  My friend’s journey.  My friends’ journeys, my puppy’s journey, my cousin’s journey.

I’m sure you’ve heard this saying before.  It may be sappy, but it’s full of wisdom, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”

Let’s start shall we, friends? because by now you know just how much I really love dancing.  Pick your tunes.  Lady Gaga?  Enrique?  Bubba Sparxx?  or angry music?  just dance.  Here’s how I started.  Van Morrison. “from the dark and lonely street, to the bright side of the road….” righhhhttttt…..that was an awesome choice…. <insert sarcasm here>

I’m not a “my dog is my child” type of person.  I’m a “my dog is my best friend” type of person.  And my best friend was in the worst pain of her life.  She couldn’t walk.  And I swore she was paralyzed.  So we laid on the floor together.  Her crying… and then that thing I have called compassion caved in.  It grabbed my heart in that fierce way I told you about earlier.  So I cried too.

When I prayed earlier that day for the Lord to keep pouring blessings, this was NOT what I had in mind.  nope.  it surely was NOT.

I hand fed her.  and then I dropped her off for what would be the start of 3-6 months of recovery.

but this was a blessing?  right.  because I TOTALLY saw using what little was left of my life savings to save my dog as a blessing.  right.  But my God, He poured them down just like I asked Him to….

Right.  This was a blessing.  Modern medicine.  Modern veterinary medicine.  Hells to the yeah.  It is a blessing.  You know what the bigger blessing was though?  It was the fact that God gave me parents that supported me to get Sasha the help she needed.  It was a friend helping me to bring her home.  It was the hugs and well wishes from so many of my friends and family that know how much my dog, my best friend, means to me.  It’s like this crisis came along when I was least ready to forget the friends who helped me dance through my own journey.  They came and danced with me more.  Only this time, I was leading…not following.

I’m going to keep leading.  For you.  and you.  and you.  and you.

For you whom I love enough to wake up every three hours because I don’t want to see you in pain.

and for you whose children I have loved like my own.  I’ll walk miles in the rain with you.  I’ll do a marathon and then two more in the rain with you.  And we’ll dance.  and spin.  and sing a blessing over victory.  and we’ll wear pink.  The hottest shade of pink there is, because it’s our new color!

and for you, a man that gives one of the greatest examples of love I’ve ever seen.  I will be a blessing to you because of the blessing you’ve been to this family.  and together, with every pesky member of this family, we will dance.  And this will be a blessing.  And together we’ll all praise because you will recover.  and for real, we’ll actually run a marathon…or maybe just half.  but this will be a blessing.

and for you.  the warrior I know you are.  the warrior I wait patiently to see overcome one of the nastiest hands of life ever dealt.  together we will laugh, and tell jokes, and eat the worms.  but we won’t dance because I know you don’t like to.  I’ll just do it for the both of us–and maybe you can join me in the kitchen some other time.  I’ll do it for you.  I’ll be your blessing.  just like you’ve been mine.

This compassion has a hold on me.  Maybe it’s what’s really leading all this dancing.  But that’s okay because together we’ll be more of a saving grace.  Together we’ll make these blessings real.  In time, they’ll be real.  You’ll see.

So for you, and you, and you, and you– my sweet loves, I cry, I pray, and I hold on to the strongest hope I have because you deserve it all.  You will get it all, always.