Yesterday was my birthday. I’m sixty-six now! And I’m still raising young teens That’s weird, right?

It wasn’t the kind of day I would’ve chosen for a birthday, but it was still dotted with so much sweetness and love and hope, and all of the surprise messages on Facebook were a blessing for sure. Thank you to everyone who took time to send me a message!

I also see that last year’s birthday was the last time I updated my blog. It’s been such a packed year. There’s no way to recap a whole year, so I’ll just say that I’m learning to live life in the new rhythm that Long Covid’s damage to my body dictates. It’s not fun. Sometimes it’s so discouraging and hard that I want to give up. I’m in multiple rehabs and daily at-home programs and still seeing specialists and therapists in Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. Just recently, I felt like I was making really encouraging progress with my energy and my breathing, and I was feeling hopeful about the future. But our children’s needs also continue, and balancing it all can be so complicated. If I overbalance just a little bit either in trying to meet the children’s needs, or in pushing forward just a bit too hard with my own rehab, then I have such physical and mental crashes that I have to back up and start again. That’s where I am today. And that’s what this new rhythm of life looks like. In fact, this current crash forced me to cancel my Rehab PT today and focus on resting instead—just when I felt I was doing so well. It’s 4:00 pm, and I’m still sitting in bed. Resting. Praying, Thinking. And now . . . writing this post.

Yesterday, on my birthday, Scott and I spent the day wading through tough cognitive testing with one of our adult daughters who will always be in our care. We are in the midst of several grueling processes to try and get some new, helpful services for a number of our kids, and those processes include more appointments, more testing, more meetings, and more drain on my limited store of energy. But the hope is that, eventually, this will also bring even more enrichment to these children’s lives and, in Kathryn’s case, more help for us. She is a total care adult, and we are praying that it will lead to some much-needed, in-home help with our care of her. Please pray that we can find someone who is knowledgeable, capable, dependable, and kind. Someone Kathryn will be able to connect with. Someone we can fully trust to care for our sweet girl when we have to be gone for other kids’ or our own appointments.

Additionally, one of our older kids is suddenly dealing with a very serious and completely unexpected health issue. It will require a very major surgery, a long and difficult recovery, and some possibly drastic life changes for this child going forward. I won’t go into more detail about that right now. But it has been hard for everyone, especially this child we love so much.

Kathryn’s seizures are finally stable again after a very rough spring, but she woke up with a mouth full of really terrible canker sores almost two weeks ago, and poor thing didn’t understand why she was in so much pain. She was mostly so sweet throughout the healing process, but trying to keep her hydrated and find any foods she could tolerate was huge and hard. As of today, the last sore is almost healed. This photo was taken a couple of nights ago. Kathryn had been crying silent tears of frustration after trying and failing to eat dinner that night, and Roslyn’s little Holland Lop bunny, Mako, snuggled close to her and gave her little bunny kisses, licking her forehead gently. It was the sweetest thing, and it made Kathryn smile a bit.

All of these extra challenges — not to mention the school I still need to finish with the kids this summer, the broken appliances and wheelchair lift in our Ethel van, and the current financial crisis with our non-profit, The Shepherd’s Crook Orphan Ministry (etc. etc. etc), were gradually draining my tank, leading to the crash at the end of the day yesterday.

But when we got home in the late afternoon, one daughter had spent a few hours with Kathryn, baking these darling and yummy daisy cookies as a birthday surprise for me, and another showed up with these flowers, a card with a note of deep love, and a gift card for a manicure. Those things felt like my own sweet little rabbit kisses. I’m so thankful for the support of my kids and my husband.

I’m also so thankful for the precious, deep-in-my heart lessons God has been teaching me as I’ve worked very slowly through several books during my private study on Biblical lament over the past couple of years. I use the word “precious” intentionally, focusing both on it’s meaning, “dear, beloved, and cherished,” and the meaning, “of high cost.” I do feel these lessons have cost a lot as this health struggle has been real. Harder than anyone except Scott knows. Every aspect of my life and our family’s live has been affected in many ways by it. But I truly have never tasted anything so sweet as the nearness of God that has been, and continues to be, part of this journey.

As Michael Card says in his book, A Sacred Sorrow:

“Could it be that today He is inviting us to taste and see that what we imagine as bitter and foul tasting will lead us to a sweetness we would have never expected?”

One more piece of happy news. Our family is growing again as we welcome a new daughter by marriage into our circle. Nathan, our first adopted child, will be marrying Leslie in September, 2026. We had a little, very low-key, family celebration for them this past Sunday. This photo includes everyone except four of our children, a son-in-law, and daughter-in-law, and eleven of our twelve grandchildren. We are so happy for both of them, and the joy of this season is felt by all of us! (The camera was on a tripod with a timer and no person behind it, so all three of our dogs were so confused about where they were supposed to be looking – but they are very much part of this family, so . . . )

I really did have a happy birthday, and I am so, so blessed. And although there was some discouragement in having to cancel my plans and pause the progress in my recovery today, the rest and the time to reflect have been sweet.

And I might just close this then hold one of our rabbits for some real bunny kisses now.