THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, thank you.

This is a thank you post.  I wanted to express how full of thanks we are for you that follow our story. Your prayers, generousness, and goodwill for us bring such comfort.  I get so irritated with myself when I try to thank people because everything I say is so inadequate.  This too is an old sentiment from me.  For what it's worth though, I would like to lay it out there again. We are filled with such an overwhelming gratitude for the readers that we can barely get our heads around it.  Lately I was looking at the rapidly increasing number of hits this blog has gotten. I think there is a fairly good chance that it is the same seven or so of us just on here regularly! But truly, it really is staggering to be so hugely supported.

When I am having a down day one of my very least favorite things to do (well, fine, it is never something I want to do) is make dinner.  Someone who doesn't even know us but is a friend of a friend of MY MOM'S (what?!) gave us some really nice gift cards for thai food.  Which just happens to be our favorite.  Can you even imagine how it feels to be having a miserable day and have a stranger basically deliver your favorite meal to you and tell you they are praying for you?  We get emails from Danielle all of the time with news about money people have given us for our legal fees. Sometimes we rejoice over the generosity of our family and friends.  A lot of the time we are rejoicing over a gift from someone we can't even place the connection to.  An old friend from college recently knocked on my door TO HUG ME.  I had not talked to her for probably ten years.  People that I will never have the pleasure of meeting have made things to raffle for us that took them hours and hours and they have jobs and families of their own and kids' sporting events to go to.  The parents of some of our close friends keep sending checks to our house.  A few days ago we got an unassuming note on yellow construction paper that contained a really meaningful gift in the name of some friends that have suffered a huge tragedy in their lives.  We can't figure out why anyone would want to do these things for us.  But we are immensely glad that they are.  You just can't wrap your mind around a love like this.  Thank you. Thank you.

I am reading a book right now by a guy I love. His name is Shane Claiborne and he is writing with his friend Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove. They are talking about the importance of community and at one point say "...so much in the world tries to rob us of this divine gift, seducing us to settle for independence over interdependence -- security over sacrifice -- to the point that community looks idealistic and spectacular.  We express our deep hunger for belonging through such forms as nationalism, biological family, marriage or small group Bible study.  And there is some good in all of these.  Like appetizers, they give us little glimpses of community. But we often don't make it to the feast.  We stop short of the great community that God has invited us into."  We are forever changed by the experience of being on the receiving end of this kind of love.  And while we are offering nothing back to this community of supporters please know that there is something transforming about not being able to reciprocate. We are so humbled by you and hopefully are in a much better place to take care of the people around us that are hurting because of your great care for us.  We shudder at the thought of what this experience would be like without you in our camp. Thank you.

Thank you.

Love,

Molly