Thank you . . .

Thank you all for uplifting us in prayer especially over these last few days. In some ways it's a "sigh of relief" that we made it through this first year. It was a rough year. But God's grace and mercy are new every morning and am so thankful we can start out new each day despite our failures and lack of faith.

Last week our pastor came over and asked us what we wanted to do this (past) weekend. During the days following Matthew's death and Christmas Eve, people were continually in our home, just being available. They were willing to do that, or have some time of fellowship at their home, which is what we did. It was good to get away. We spent Saturday afternoon and evening at the pastor's house and quite a few families from church were there as well. The children went sledding and had a good time. Of course, there was lots of food.

Sunday was more of a "normal" day and we went to church. It was a little difficult, but ok. In the afternoon one of Norm's brothers & SIL came with their two children, and that was of great encouragement.

Today we went to Norm's Aunt Laurie's memorial service - his mom's sister. It was a very nice service, a lot of special memories of her shared, and beautiful music. Uniquely, her service was exactly a year after Matthew's service. One of the last songs was an old hymn, Day by Day, that touched both Norm & I. We just could relate to it, so I am sharing it below.

Please be in prayer regarding a job opportunity for Norm. He has been in touch with a Christian business owner that has the type of tooling machine that Norm has worked on and programmed for many years. This is a new machine in his shop, and he is not sure what he wants to do with it. It's been kind of up and down whether he will hire Norm, but Norm has now convinced him to let him come in and work on the machine and show him what can be done on it. If he is hired, it will probably be part-time to start out, which would work out good, especially through the winter months when our home businesses are slow. Norm really would like this job - but also want's God's will with it too.