“God uses broken things. It takes broken soil to produce a crop, broken clouds to give rain, broken grain to give bread, broken bread to give strength. It is the broken alabaster box that gives forth perfume. It is Peter, weeping bitterly, who returns to greater power than ever.”

-Vance Havner

“Hope” is a word my husband and I are using often this year. His body suffers with arthritis and pain from the hips down. He barely makes it to work and school, but pushes on because graduation is seven weeks away. Almost there. He has been seeing a rheumatologist outside the VA for pain issues, but any x-rays or attention to new medicine being prescribed is staying ‘under the radar’ of his VA primary care doctor. There has been confusion over medicine, over what is actually causing all the pain in my husband’s hips and legs, and more. We have been on an emotional roller coaster and my husband has been in contact with an advocate to seek help in communicating effectively with his doctor that something is wrong. The pain is too much to be ‘simple arthritis’. Is the pain from his fibromyalgia? Google doesn’t have all the answers we seek, and help with the VA is limited at this time. We have hope that the right someone at the right time will review all the x-rays and MRI results and see that the degenerative issues my husband is having needs attention. New medicine? A referral to see an orthopedist? Hip replacement surgery due to severe degeneration in his hip joints? Physical therapy? We have hope that this year, someone will be able to help him relieve some pain. We have hope that he will walk normally and not bent over working to put one foot in front of the other. We have hope that after graduation, he will be able to get a full time job. Driving is uncomfortable. The pain affects everything, yet every morning we wake up hoping this will be the day that my husband can be seen by someone who can help. Without hope and without knowing that God does see, He does hear, and that He may very well be working on the other end of the situation, I do not know where we would be. The days are hard. We are taking one step at a time. One x-ray, one MRI, one conversation with the advocate in hopes that things will change for the better concerning pain management is how we are managing. We do what we can do and pray God is working in ways we cannot see right now. In the meantime, my husband is able to keep a good testimony at work. He works with a lot of young people and they know he suffers and have shown they care. He is able to share with them about disabled veterans and how they can help support the military. In the meantime, we are still looking for ‘stray gifts’. In the meantime, we still count the blessings…the days when his pain is ‘manageable’ and the hours at night he sleeps. Every gift matters… especially in trying hours.

“…Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”

2 Corinthians 4:16

Stray Gifts Update: For March’s “stray gifts” themes, I had chosen to look for gifts fragrant, charming, growing, and sunlit.

1. Sunlit peach tree blossoms and blue skies- When this photo was taken at our church in Mexico, it had been a few weeks since we had been there due to an ER visit with my husband and pain issues. It was very cold in our cement building for months. On this day, we had the door open and the ceiling fans on.
2. One lone charming flower on a succulent plant outside.
3. A homemade greeting card from my niece who is attending Bible college in California. I labeled this ‘stray gifts growing’ because she is a young lady far away from home (Australia) growing in the Lord, in knowledge, and in beauty.
4. Sunlit mountains on the way home from a visit with my in-laws.
5. Sunlit, growing leaves on trees and bushes.
6. Charming, fragrant Lady Banks roses starting to bloom.