This Fall has been a whirlwind! As the excitement and anticipation of Thanksgiving approached this week, I purposefully spent time pondering things I’m thankful for. I used the mega-hours spent driving, moments in the kitchen when I was actually alone while the rest of the gang was involved in other hustle and bustle around the house, lovely time outside raking and walking the dogs and gathering chicken eggs, to think of many things I’m thankful for.

Not only is my list unending, but I’m once again reminded of some things. Concentrating on the good helps to put pretty much everything in perspective. It helps to keep the ‘harder to deal with things in life’ less pressing, and for me, it has once again helped me to see that although the media so consistently concentrates on the bad and the negative people and situations, there really are a lot of good, caring people out there.

The first time that I consciously thought about the fact that there are lots of good, loving and caring people was a few months after my sixth child came into this world. He was born with cancer. Life for our family turned upside down. All that we knew changed in so many ways, and my heart was heavy and hurting. I hurt for my little baby and all he was enduring with surgeries, hospital visits, chemo, infections, and just feeling yucky. I ached for my children at home who were homeschooled and used to me being home all of the time…teaching, cooking, playing, hiking, going on fun day trips etc. With our new life, they often woke up in the morning to find that in the middle of the night the baby and I had left again to Hopkins for days or even weeks. I worried about my marriage. I was running on auto pilot and just knew that statistically, many marriages didn’t survive when a child was critically ill.

So as life continued, because it just does, I kept having people ask me how this could happen to our family. But one day, as I really noticed many others suffering and scared and seeming so lost, I asked God, ‘Why not us?’. My eyes were opened to see a bigger picture. Our family was blessed with six kids, a home, friends and so much more. My question, why not us?, came as I sat in our fifteen passenger van nursing my little baby, ‘people watching’ outside of Johns Hopkins Hospital. My next thought  was that we were no better, no different, than those people I was watching.

It was in that moment that my perspective changed. I prayed that God would give me strength to not only get through the new journey we were on, but that He would be right by my side and use me to encourage and love on others that would he put in my path. It was a tough couple of years (five years really but the first two were the most intense). My son was, and is, my hero. He turned seventeen years old this year!

I would not want to go through that again. But, I am so thankful for lots of things during that time. We developed a ‘new normal’ and life went on. But it was the amazing people that made it bearable, and even good some of the time. We had ‘strangers’ calling, bringing gifts, meals and notes of encouragement. Friends stepped in and took care of arranging meals for the family at home when we left unexpectedly for Camp Hopkins for days or weeks at a time (pretty much each month). Fellow homeschoolers stepped in to help in so many ways. We had the best neighbors EVER! My mom came to visit each and every time we were admitted. My sister moved in to help out while carrying a full college load of work. We had such caring and loving nurses, doctors, Child Life Specialists and social workers! We met such sweet, sweet families when we were roommates, or in the little kitchen area when we just needed a break, or when we wheeled our kids around the halls in little cars with one hand and pushed IV poles with the other.

So that period of time opened my eyes to the goodness in people. And this week as I purposefully thought of what I am thankful for these days, I’m so thankful for the ‘best of the best’ – the people in my life. The other stuff is nice, but it’s just ‘stuff’. As I wrap up, I am thankful for this blog, Made To Love. That’s why we are here… to love God and to love people. I’m really looking forward to hearing and sharing peoples stories here. Not just the grim stats we see on television, but real people with real stories.