Do you believe God can bring beauty from ashes, turn sorrow to joy and bind up your broken heart?

I do! Let me tell you why.

Losing Craig, the love of my life, is not my first heart break. I’m not going to go into all my other ones because I want this blog to be encouraging and not depressing. :) But let me just say that the reason I have hope is because God has taken me through each of the other difficulties and even brought good from the bad. Some of the trials are still present and painful but many are already at the beauty stage.

Those three C’s might surprise you. Of course I have other awesome C’s in my life, like Craig, Cameron, Carole and Cheri but today I am going to write to you about these three C’s.

Carmel, CA was a special place for Craig. As a child, he would head up the coast every summer and stay with his grandparents in the Monterey/Carmel area. He loved to tell stories about roaming around the hills by their house shooting lizards and birds with his BB gun. In fact, his favorite story was

Our youngest turned 21 this past Wednesday, ten weeks exactly since her Daddy passed away. Wow! That hit me like a ton of bricks. I hadn’t expected to feel so horribly sad on that day…instead I had busied myself trying to think of ways to make it a special day for her. What kind of cake did she want? Did she want to go out to eat or eat at home? Did she want to invite friends? And what gifts would she love? My mom and I shopped and wrapped and planned the details. And then Wednesday morning…

Today, February 26th, it has been two months exactly since my love passed away on that snowy mountain the day after Christmas. Most days I feel as if I’m motoring through my tasks. Up. Shower. Coffee. Drive to work. More coffee. Work 8-9 hours. (Sometimes more coffee) Drive home. Dinner. Family connect. Weep. Bed.

Then repeat the next day.

1. God’s love has never been more real…through these last few days, he has continually dropped/ brought exactly the right person with the right talents at the right time. I am encouraged by the family of God and all of your prayers. As Lauren Daigle says in one of my favorite songs, Rescue, “I will send out an army to find you in the middle of the darkest night, it’s true. I will rescue you.” God has sent out an army for us, people who have been praying encouraging and helping us. All of you are part of this, and we thank you so much for all your love.

We know that he will continue to rescue us in our need.

2. Craig and I were a team, we balanced each other perfectly. I told him one day that together we were like a balloon on a string. He was the bright balloon with the big fun plans and dreams and I was the string that kept him grounded by asking him silly things like, “How will we pay for that?” He never worried about