Renewing Friendships

Every evening I await the notice in my mailbox of caringbridge updates. I read two sites, one written by my cousin Judy on the long progress back to health of her husband Frank Vermuellen, which I know many of you also read. The other is that of my cousin on my dad's side of the family, Louie Grams. Louie is the son of my dad's sister Loni and her husband Pat Grams. As I was growing up, I had lots of contact with Louie (then Little Pat) all the way through high school....but then marriage and family dwindled it to Christmas letters and funerals...and he has also moved to Colorado Springs, Co. This year when I received their Christmas letter, it contained his email address and the link to his caringbridge site. I didn't start reading it immediately, but I did email him, and immediately got a response back...like within an hour. We continued to renew our friendship, and I at some point decided to check out his caringbridge site (louieg) and now look forward to reading it each evening. Yesterday, I decided to send Louie some pictures of his parents and grandparents, and one of my dad and his mom. Things I thought he might enjoy seeing, that had been stuck in an old photo album for no one to see and love. I also told Louie of my blog, and how we had so many things in common. Our "specialness", how we have experiences in medicine the opposite of most. That we were both considered miracles to our family and friends. I shared with him a little background in my health and my faith that God was with me, and I experienced it in the love and prayers of my family and friends. So last night in reading his diary, I found myself the topic of it, and he invited all his readers to join in the prayers for me, and ended his writing with the following paragraph:
"My cousin, Mary, and I were reflecting today on the fact that experiencing God's healing power even multiple times in our lives does not mean that we will not experience more sickness or pain, but it does give us confidence and faith in dealing with sickness and pain that could not come any other way. It is not so hard to go through hard things when you know the Lord is there and you experience his presence and care through so many good people."
So even though the clouds are still in the sky, the sun is shining on me.
Last night I helped celebrate Wendy Culley's 40th and I think I got a hug from everyone there that I knew....and that was a lot! Just another reinforcement of that sunshine. So all in all it was a great day! Love and prayers, m