When Love Looks Like Lumber

Friday: a volunteering group of contractors from GA throwing up walls to our house in a day! Lumber never looked so beautiful to me.

PROGRESS! It’s a beautiful thing! (See what happened here, here or here if you’re new to Generation Cedar.)

Just wanted to share an update with so many of you who have prayed, sent love and precious words of encouragement, thoughtful gifts and monetary donations to help us as we rebuild our lives.

Let me first just beg you all to accept my deepest gratitude. I have earnestly tried to send (and am still sending) personal notes of thanks to the many of you who have given of yourselves in different ways to our family, but I know I have lost track of addresses and have fallen so short in my efforts. Please know that every word, every letter, every gift and every prayer has been tucked and treasured in our hearts as a family even if I have failed to thank you personally. I wish I could list every gift, every perfect word at just the right time, every meal, every gesture given to us. There are literally hundreds. And I want you to know EVERY one has been a blessing. Not one has gone unseen or thankless. From our closest friends to people across the sea we’ve never known, this disaster has brought us the opportunity to bond closer and to meet so many of our brothers and sisters otherwise we would never have touched. From a milkshake coupon in the mail to unbelievable contributions, all have been equally received with the tenderest of thoughts toward the giver.

The devastation we have undergone may have overtaken us to the point of desperation were it not for so many of you and our friends and surrounding churches and neighbors giving of yourselves to refresh our spirits and bring us the daily encouragement we need to persevere. Words fail me and tears well up as I try to convey how thankful we are.

The Lord continues to show Himself strong and faithful through His body–YOU, who have come alongside us and literally held us up when otherwise we would have fainted. I have never felt more vulnerable and raw, but also never more caressed and deeply loved. This, I think, is the beauty of walking through the fire…to know the love of God in a way never imaginable.

You will never know what your love has meant to us.

***************

Many of the volunteer teams that come from out-of-town/state have stayed in the basement of my parents’ church. My brother’s team from CO, in their optimism, found the noise of the cots to be a memorable part of the trip so they made a short video to document their memory. (Thank you, dear ones, for sweating and working so hard in my flooded, steamy basement, also optimistically named “The Crawford Sauna”.)

“Sleepless in Alabama” from Grace in Pagosa on Vimeo.