Friday's Update

Yesterday was a long emotional day for me.

We spent some time with dad in the morning and then my sister and I wanted to ride to the hospital to see my mom. I had not seen her since Wednesday morning and my sister was leaving today so she wanted to see Mom one last time.

St. Mary's is about an hour from my parents house. We got there after lunch and the reality of my mother's pain hit me when I saw her. She has every possible thing hooked up to her and she looked so sad. I felt like every hopeful and joyful verse I had read the night before immediately left me. But both of us stayed as strong as we could for my mom. We found out that she would be having surgery that night so we both decided to stay in Athens.

We called and checked on dad and knew he'd be alone for a majority of the afternoon. This was also hard for us because we had not yet left him alone either. The nurses told us we should probably leave the ICU for a bit and let her rest. Fortunately a friend from Samford lives outside of Athens and both my sister and me went over to her house and took a break from the sterile environment of the hospital.

It was nice to see her home decorated for Christmas, listen to Christmas songs and play with her six month old. For a moment it felt like we were just in town to visit a friend and not there for other reasons.

We headed back to the hospital and saw mom before pre-op and then sat in the waiting room and prayed. Mom could not be put under because she had already had surgery not but 24 hours before. So they just numbed her arm. The surgeon said she was a good sport and joked with every one in the operating room. He said that although her wrist was properly set it had become pulverized in the midst of all the other trauma and required 2 pins. Unfortunately, mom had developed a rash to the foam rubber under her soft cast and he didn't feel good about putting a hard cast over that.

So we got to see her one last time after surgery and Amy and I prayed with her before we left. I hate that this weekend is almost over. It has been the fastest and hardest week of my life. I know my sister is sad to leave but she is a mom herself and needed to get back to her family.

When we got home we all read the story of Lazarus in John 11. And noted that Jesus wept. He cried because people he loved were hurting. He mourned with them. He sees the bigger picture and knew he would raise Lazarus from the dead but he also knows that his children hurt in their journey and he hurts with us. What a wonderful knowledge know that our God is with us in the midst of our pain and we have a High Priest who does empathize with us.

Blake came over late last night (he got accepted to his program for his 3rd year!-YEAH) and we will go and see Mom again. It may be my last time before I go back to Birmingham tomorrow. I'll try and post later.

Love y'all!