Happy New Year!! I pray each of you will have a new year filled with the peace and joy that comes from knowing the Lord. He is the unchanging foundation that is firm beneath our feet. Whatever this new year brings into our lives we can know that He is the same yesterday, today and forever. His love never fails. He is in control. He works all things together for good for those that love Him. What rich blessings He has given to each of us.

Update: My Dad is home from the hospital. We brought him home last night. He is so happy to be home. He still has a lot in front of him - three more stints will need to be put in in a few weeks; he has an appointment with a kidney specialist in one week (his kidney function hasn't returned to normal yet, and they want to be sure it does). We are more thankful than I can say for all that the Father has done for us. Thank you so much for your dear comments and for your prayers. Oh how we depend on those prayers.

Yesterday began for my husband and I at a little before two a.m. when the phone rang. My first thought was that my Dad had had another heart attack. It was my Dad calling - wondering when we were coming to take him home. It seems the medication they had given him to help him sleep had quite the opposite affect on him. He was so disoriented and so agitated.

At five a.m. his nurse called and asked if someone could come and stay with Dad. He was all dressed - jacket and all - and walking up and down the halls. They couldn't get him to stay in bed. So my husband and I headed to the hospital. He was sound asleep in his chair when we got there, but he woke up shortly afterwards. We got him to lay down at around 6:30, and he slept for a couple of hours. Then my husband went to get my Mom.

By mid-morning I think the affects of the sleeping pill had finally worn off. We had to wait most of the day for the doctor to come. He would have liked to have kept my Dad for one more day just to be sure about his kidney function, but all things considered decided he would do better at home. I think he was thinking of us too :-)

I don't think my Dad has any real memory of his early morning "adventures". I've talked to him a couple of times already today. He's doing well, and so is my sweet Mom. We continue to pray that he will recover fully and that all will go well with the other things. I can't tell you how much we are not looking forward to his next hospital stay :-) I have made just one resolution this year and that is to truly let the Lord Jesus bear my burdens. I imagine Him standing there with outstretched hands softly saying, "Give that heavy load of stuff to me. I have promised to bear them for you and give you grace to do your part. Please let me do that." I worry far too much, all the while knowing that God is in control and that He will only do what is best. It's time to stop all the worrying and do a bit more believing.

This is far longer than I intended, but I want to share something I "coincidentally" read yesterday that spoke volumes to my spirit:
"If the trials of many years were gathered into one, they would overwhelm us; therefore, in pity to our little strength, He sends first one, and then another, then removes both, and lays on a third, heavier, perhaps, than either; but all is so wisely measured to our strength that the bruised reed is never broken. We do not enough look at our trials in this continuous and successive view. Each one is sent to teach us something, and altogether they have a lesson which is beyond the power of any to teach alone."
H.E. Manning (in "Light From Heaven" by Jan Karon)
Blessings,