The Greatest of These is Love
Kevin my love,
Tonight as I was emptying my inbox (a bit of old Christine lingers late at night) before I go to sleep, I was sending an e-mail to a woman I have never met. She is a St. Jude’s mom. She and her daughter were here years ago, though I am sure it seems like yesterday to Joyce. I was writing about faith. I told her that we are living on faith. Faith that God will provide for all of our needs. That God will make up the difference between what one person said they would do and what actually happened. Faith and our belief in God will make all of this OK, actually better than OK.
How do you get there? How does one’s faith get to that level? I often ask myself if I am there or if there is even more that I can surrender to God. I have given Him you Kevin. This has been the longest I have been without you in over 16 years. I miss you and long to be with you to see you with my own eyes, to reach out and touch you, to bury my face into your shoulder and deeply breath in your scent, to listen to your voice not over the phone but right there next to me and to kiss you and kiss you some more. I have given up five of my children, I know that they are with you each night and with Megan all day, but they are not with me. I am not witnessing them grow. I am trusting that they will remember me and know how much I love them and that the minute I can return home to hold them I will. I have given up the understanding of each day and any control in any day that I live here in Memphis . I simply do what is on our schedule and when the day’s schedule is over we leave St. Jude’s and the Chilis’ Care Center and return to Target House. I have given up the checkbook and all of the expenses that we will incur flying the kids and you here to see Catie and me. It is in God’s hands and a number of very hard working and selfless folks who are doing our fund raising. What else is there to surrender? Catie? I will give her up too but not without a fight. God I need a little guidance here. Can you be more specific as to what You have in mind for my darling Catie?
Faith is like Chemotherapy. Faith will take you to the edge of everything you know and ask you to go further, give up more, and surrender or sacrifice everything that you hold dear – only to save you by bringing you even closer to God. That is why Faith is like Chemotherapy. Chemotherapy will take sweet Catie to the edge of death filling her innocent body with deadly chemicals to kill any lingering ATRT cancer cells. Then we will refill Catie with her own healthy stem cells to bring her back to all of us who hold Catie dear to our hearts and on our lips as we pray to God each day.
Accepting this is a challenge for the heart not the head. The head cannot understand God. The heart, on the other hand, cannot live without God, for there is much more to accept then can be understood. Kevin you wrote the Serenity Prayer in one of your last updates, yet you left off our favorite parts.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change;
courage to change the things that I can; and
wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is;
Not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen.
Richard Neibuhr
That is what we are being called to live out today. It is what we were called to live out yesterday. I am pretty sure that is on the menu for tomorrow but I’ll deal with that then. Today is enough for me and knowing that you are there with me makes this so much easier to deal with – you are amazing. I love you and I thank you for asking me to be your wife.
Yours,
Christine
My darling,
I love you with all my heart and the part that is difficult is that this situation has shut off our most effective way of communicating and loving each other, our physical touch. I miss you so much and yet the one person that I should never take my frustration out on is you…you are my best friend. I know you believe that my stubbornness keeps me from reaching out and accepting help from anyone, but in reality, I am doing ok for the most part, I have almost everything covered. The only thing I am missing is you, and no one can make up for that no matter how many people we ask. I love you and as always, I will reluctantly move away from the center of the envelope and find you and love you where you are.
Please do not give up on me….my grasp on things is firm but precarious. No one can help with the precarious part except you. If I have you, all the rest makes sense.
I love you
God bless
Me
Sharing the love that we attempt to share with one another is one way that we can intimately involve all of you in our lives as you have in a very real sense become a part of who we are as a married couple, as parents, and as a family. St. Paul writes in Corinthians that there are three things that endure, Faith, Hope, and Love, and the greatest of these is Love. Like anything else, our human ability to love is tempered by our very humanity, but God who can make all things perfect can take our love and make it all that it can be; selfless, complete, other focused, total, and faithful. Thank you God for not only creating in me the desire to love Christine, but also for taking the love that I have for her and making it perfect, (as long as I get out of the way).
Catie is now down to only 6 more radiation treatments. She continues to enjoy her new favorite food, ribs. (well, not actually ribs, but the choicest pieces of rib meat separated from the bone). She and Christine have sent Maggie and Aunt KC back to New Jersey, and await the arrival of Max and me on Thursday morning and my parents on Friday. Their return is still slated for Wednesday the 27th and as soon as we have the final details, we will let you know. The website continues to improve as Megan builds on what Cindy created. Upcoming events will have their own page with all relevant details. Please contact Megan for any issues or questions that come up with regards to the schedule or the Catie Fund. Her email address is
Thank you all for your continued support.
Love and God bless,
Christine, Kevin, Maggie, Max, Catie, Mia, Molly, and M.E. (and Megan)
Kevin my love,
Tonight as I was emptying my inbox (a bit of old Christine lingers late at night) before I go to sleep, I was sending an e-mail to a woman I have never met. She is a St. Jude’s mom. She and her daughter were here years ago, though I am sure it seems like yesterday to Joyce. I was writing about faith. I told her that we are living on faith. Faith that God will provide for all of our needs. That God will make up the difference between what one person said they would do and what actually happened. Faith and our belief in God will make all of this OK, actually better than OK.
How do you get there? How does one’s faith get to that level? I often ask myself if I am there or if there is even more that I can surrender to God. I have given Him you Kevin. This has been the longest I have been without you in over 16 years. I miss you and long to be with you to see you with my own eyes, to reach out and touch you, to bury my face into your shoulder and deeply breath in your scent, to listen to your voice not over the phone but right there next to me and to kiss you and kiss you some more. I have given up five of my children, I know that they are with you each night and with Megan all day, but they are not with me. I am not witnessing them grow. I am trusting that they will remember me and know how much I love them and that the minute I can return home to hold them I will. I have given up the understanding of each day and any control in any day that I live here in Memphis . I simply do what is on our schedule and when the day’s schedule is over we leave St. Jude’s and the Chilis’ Care Center and return to Target House. I have given up the checkbook and all of the expenses that we will incur flying the kids and you here to see Catie and me. It is in God’s hands and a number of very hard working and selfless folks who are doing our fund raising. What else is there to surrender? Catie? I will give her up too but not without a fight. God I need a little guidance here. Can you be more specific as to what You have in mind for my darling Catie?
Faith is like Chemotherapy. Faith will take you to the edge of everything you know and ask you to go further, give up more, and surrender or sacrifice everything that you hold dear – only to save you by bringing you even closer to God. That is why Faith is like Chemotherapy. Chemotherapy will take sweet Catie to the edge of death filling her innocent body with deadly chemicals to kill any lingering ATRT cancer cells. Then we will refill Catie with her own healthy stem cells to bring her back to all of us who hold Catie dear to our hearts and on our lips as we pray to God each day.
Accepting this is a challenge for the heart not the head. The head cannot understand God. The heart, on the other hand, cannot live without God, for there is much more to accept then can be understood. Kevin you wrote the Serenity Prayer in one of your last updates, yet you left off our favorite parts.
God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change;
courage to change the things that I can; and
wisdom to know the difference.
Living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is;
Not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make all things right
if I surrender to His will;
That I may be reasonably happy in this life
and supremely happy with Him
forever in the next.
Amen.
Richard Neibuhr
That is what we are being called to live out today. It is what we were called to live out yesterday. I am pretty sure that is on the menu for tomorrow but I’ll deal with that then. Today is enough for me and knowing that you are there with me makes this so much easier to deal with – you are amazing. I love you and I thank you for asking me to be your wife.
Yours,
Christine
My darling,
I love you with all my heart and the part that is difficult is that this situation has shut off our most effective way of communicating and loving each other, our physical touch. I miss you so much and yet the one person that I should never take my frustration out on is you…you are my best friend. I know you believe that my stubbornness keeps me from reaching out and accepting help from anyone, but in reality, I am doing ok for the most part, I have almost everything covered. The only thing I am missing is you, and no one can make up for that no matter how many people we ask. I love you and as always, I will reluctantly move away from the center of the envelope and find you and love you where you are.
Please do not give up on me….my grasp on things is firm but precarious. No one can help with the precarious part except you. If I have you, all the rest makes sense.
I love you
God bless
Me
Sharing the love that we attempt to share with one another is one way that we can intimately involve all of you in our lives as you have in a very real sense become a part of who we are as a married couple, as parents, and as a family. St. Paul writes in Corinthians that there are three things that endure, Faith, Hope, and Love, and the greatest of these is Love. Like anything else, our human ability to love is tempered by our very humanity, but God who can make all things perfect can take our love and make it all that it can be; selfless, complete, other focused, total, and faithful. Thank you God for not only creating in me the desire to love Christine, but also for taking the love that I have for her and making it perfect, (as long as I get out of the way).
Catie is now down to only 6 more radiation treatments. She continues to enjoy her new favorite food, ribs. (well, not actually ribs, but the choicest pieces of rib meat separated from the bone). She and Christine have sent Maggie and Aunt KC back to New Jersey, and await the arrival of Max and me on Thursday morning and my parents on Friday. Their return is still slated for Wednesday the 27th and as soon as we have the final details, we will let you know. The website continues to improve as Megan builds on what Cindy created. Upcoming events will have their own page with all relevant details. Please contact Megan for any issues or questions that come up with regards to the schedule or the Catie Fund. Her email address is
Thank you all for your continued support.
Love and God bless,
Christine, Kevin, Maggie, Max, Catie, Mia, Molly, and M.E. (and Megan)
