JDRF walk 2016

The 12 months leading up to the JDRF One Walk in 2016 were full of highs and lows for our family.  Every year has those kinds of peaks and valleys, right?  But there are two valleys from that year that really left impressions on my heart.

The first was the unexpected loss of Justin’s job.  His company did some restructuring and suddenly one Friday evening we suddenly found ourselves without income or health insurance.  Living with a disease that requires more than $1,000 in medical expenses every month means we really rely on our health insurance.  We went without a salary or insurance for 15 weeks (you can read more about that in this blog post over here.)  Those weeks were hard and scary for both Justin and I.

The other valley was one that I journeyed through with Mackenna.  She’d been living with type 1 diabetes for two years and for the first time, she opened up about her frustration with it.  We’d always praised her so highly for her courage and joyfulness, but I’m afraid we failed to acknowledge with her that this life would not be easy.  And we failed to let her know that she wouldn’t always feel brave and joyful; that there would be times when she’d feel frustrated and angry and sad.  And we failed to let her know that it’s ok for her to have those feelings.  So she kept them in for two years, but couldn’t keep them in any longer.  There was a stretch of time when tears came easily for her.  She resisted pump site changes like she had at the beginning.  She was feeling the huge weight of living with type 1 diabetes, and she was just done with it.  She sobbed about how much she hated diabetes and she didn’t want to “do diabetes” any longer.  I’ll tell you what, when you hear your child cry like that, your heart is shattered into a million pieces.  I hated it too.  And I didn’t want to “do” it any longer either!  But there’s no choice.  I held her a lot.  We cried together a lot.  And we persevered.

Can I tell you how we climbed up from those valleys?  It’s pretty simple actually.  We overcame fear with truth.  We overcame sadness with truth.  We overcame frustration with truth.  We overcame with Truth!

The truth is this: Our God is for us, not against us.  He loves us.  He wants good things for us.  He has a future for us.

When Justin had a particularly rough day during his job search, I realized we needed to be surrounded by the truth.  We needed to be bombarded by truth at every turn, rather than discouragement.  So I wrote Bible verses on index cards and plastered them all over our house.  Every mirror.  Every kitchen cabinet.  Above light switches and on doors.  We couldn’t look anywhere without one of God’s promises staring us in the face.

And then I did the same thing for Mackenna.  We taped verses to the headboard of her bed.  We read them during difficult times and when she went to sleep at night.  And unbeknownst to me, she often climbed up on her bed alone and read each card herself.

And it helped!  We were able to shift our focus off of our fear and sadness and on to what’s true about ourselves and what’s true about our God.

Truth wins.

And so when it came time to design our walk shirts for 2016, I looked back at the previous 12 months and saw the valleys.  But only for a moment.  Because what stands higher than the valleys are the mountain tops.  And for us, the mountain tops were covered in God’s goodness.  His provision and protection.  His love.  His mercy.  And the Bible verse for our shirts just had to be Psalm 126:3:

“The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.”

So on February 20th, 2016 at 8 in the morning, we arrived at the Mall of America.  We walked down the same hallways and met up with our favorite people.  We walked in support of Mackenna and her Uncle Josh who make living with type 1 diabetes look easy.  We walked knowing that it isn’t easy at all.  They are our heroes.

We walked full of joy that our loved ones raised over $7,000, every dollar of which is being used to make diabetes easier and non-existent.  We walked full of joy knowing that the people on either side of us are supporting us every day of the year, not just on walk day.  God has given us an army of support and we are truly so thankful for each person on our team!  And we walked, hearts full of joy, because God HAS done great things for us!  And we are so grateful for the Truth that held us up in the valleys.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In just two days, we will walk again.  For the same people and for the same purpose.  And we will keep walking, until there’s nothing left to walk for.

If you’d like to help our team reach a HUGE fundraising goal, click HERE and you’ll be directed to our team’s fundraising page.