A Word From Tabby

A year ago this month we finally reached finality. The long, arduous diagnostic process was complete. We prayed for a year and a half for the “right detective”. Aubrey was four when we started the journey and within six months she knew something was different. Something in her world had shifted and she didn’t understand why daddy couldn’t easily push her on the swing or play soccer like he often did after dinner. So, we told her we were praying for the “right detective” to guide us. Her sweet tenderhearted voice would ask the Lord to help daddy and help us understand what was wrong. It’s the most leveling experience to witness the faith of a child who knows there will be an answer.

Meanwhile Ray was three months old when our journey began. While Aubrey was in preschool Ray was my sidekick.

Between Wade’s needs, the house, kids, church, working from home, scheduling appointments, pleading with the medical system to act quickly and researching the unknown, my plate was 100% full to the max. I look back at that year and half in amazement. Like many of our friends and family members, I’m shocked at how long it took to find the right detectives. I’m proud of our little family for enduring the mountain climb and finding air and light at the end of it all. I’m tired writing it all out. It took every ounce of energy to wake up; nurse the baby; fight with the preschooler about the wrong shorts or socks that terrorized her being; encourage the man I love so much that each day is worth it and he is worth helping; cook paleo meals three times a day; find every ounce of time in between to work, design, plan and budget for our family business; and drive to Wichita Falls twice a day to pick up our feisty preschooler. Man. Aren’t you tired reading all that! I am.

I think that’s why I haven’t written in a really long time. Reliving my life through the written word is tiring. Yet, as I look back at all that and where we are now it’s a night and day revival. Our lives were in an instant pot of difficult with a secret sauce of “God’s got this” and a side of complete awe. Awe that we were dealing with an unknown that became the medical unfixable. Unfixable. Yet, so worth adapting to and making it work. For our children, for our workplace, for our witness.

A friend of mine once asked what inspirational music I was listening to to help get though the darkness of the unknown. I laughed because I knew she meant which KLove tune was on my heart. Songs like Mendisa’s “Overcomer” or For King and Country’s “Fix My Eyes” or Hillsong United’s “Oceans” all were Northern lights in the darkness. Those songs, however, didn’t come to mind during our texting conversation. The inspirational tune that I couldn’t get out of my car or head at the time was Poppy’s triumphant bland “Get Back Up Again” from Trolls. Poppy is me if I had wild pink hair and a glitter scrapbook addiction. I’ve always been that girl that dives off the diving board even if I can’t remember to swim (true story. I was 7.) I know I’ll figure it out. As Poppy walks, dances, flops and gets stuck in a Spider web she stays the course and knows she is called to save her friends. Poppy had Branch’s help to get her though. And I had a lot of support from family, friends and Wade to get me through. But what made the biggest difference is learning Wade could never fulfill me. Even with a healthy body he couldn’t complete my life or happiness. Only the one who made be could take that on. Only the God of miracles could make an impossible situation new again. Only He could take every doubt, fear and sorrow and fill it with hope, glory and victory.