New roads.
grat·i·tude
/ˈɡradəˌt(y)o͞od/
noun
1. the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness.
Lately it has been hard for me to find the words to express how thankful we are for everyone’s outpouring of love and support while we enter this extremely uncertain season in Brady’s second round of battling leukemia.
We have been blown away as so many have shown us unbelievable kindness and generosity in the most unexpected ways.
Today, we are Philly bound.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t nervous.
Brady is nervous too.
Last night we talked through all the things worrying him right now. A new hospital. New doctors. New nurses. A new treatment. Another central line. And the biggest. The worry that even this isn’t enough and his cancer returns.
We talked for a long time while I scratched his head and we prayed over every fear.
Finally, we were both so tired that I fell asleep on the floor beside him asking the Lord to bring peace upon him and let love flood into his heart. His heart, and all of our hearts.
The truth is, his fears are the same as all of ours.
New things are hard.
Unpaved roads are hard.
You don’t know what to expect because everything is unknown.
But here is what I’m realizing, the road may be unknown to us, but it isn’t unknown to God. Because He intentionally created the road just the way he needed to.
The roads through the hills. Through the waters. Through the winding. On the ledges of the cliffs. On the tops of the mountains. And he is sitting next to us as the ultimate navigator.
Every fear. Every worry. Every anxious thought. God knows them all. He sees us. He loves us. He goes with us.
If the disciples had stood around sitting in their fear and worry of what may be ahead instead of stepping out in faith, no one else would have known about Jesus.
And if those of us who love Jesus automatically received the healing we asked for we would never have compassion for others walking through the same fires.
We wouldn’t fathom the pain others were walking through.
We couldn’t sit next to our neighbors and understand their loss.
As much as it scares us, we know there is a purpose for every single part of this journey.
Every. Single. Part.
So today before we set out for Philly, we made a stop.
A stop to celebrate one of the amazing things God is doing through Brady’s battle.
A pretty giant blood drive is happening in our town today in Brady’s honor.
All 100 spots were filled to donate blood.
All 100.
Do you know how many patients are going to get what they need thanks to these donors? It brings so much joy and overfills our hearts with gratitude to know how much this is going to help others all because people are answering the call to help.
We are now have over 80 people on our Red Cross Way To Battle team and that team has impacted over 2,000 lives so far.
A friend who is working with the Red Cross to host a blood drive in their community told us that the Red Cross said to her, “What the Martin family has done for awareness of donating blood is more than we could do in an entire year.”
So before we set out on our journey we just had to stop to thank all of the Red Cross team members making todays drive possible.
We believe part of the purpose of our cancer journey is to help others. Either through Battle Pups or bringing awareness to the severe blood bank shortage, we want to be messengers that no one battles alone.
Do we like driving on the roads close to the cliff? Nope. Not even a little bit.
I’m actually deathly afraid of heights.
But God is navigating the drive, so we go.
We go and we trust Him
We just keep our steering wheel following the dotted line He has drawn for us.
Shields up.
Swords out.
Deep breaths and new roads,
Kristin
“A voice is calling, “Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness; Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.”
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