Remembering God's Faithfulness to Our Family

It has been quite a year for our family.

In June I found our then seven-week-old baby unresponsive in his Moses basket.  We spent the next 11 days in the PICU of our regional Children's Hospital where he fought for his life against a nasty Enterovirus.

In December, our five-year-old jumped out of our 12-passenger vanas I was parking around our very long driveway.  The van rolled completely over her, but amazingly she only fractured her pelvis.

We've contemplated God's faithfulness a lot.  Babies routinely die from the Enterovirus.  Our "Mighty Joe" suffered liver failure, kidney failure, and brain damage, but today he is a healthy (chubby!) nine-month-old who is meeting every milestone.  Little girls die from being run over by cars much smaller than ours.

♥

We read Practical Happiness last year and were encouraged to have a place in our home to remember God's faithfulness.  I cleared a shelf from the cabinet in the dining room and there now sit mementos of how God has watched over and cared for us.  Our wedding invitation, a celebretory note from friends when we bought our first home, a note written for Mighty Joe's crib in the PICU, a necklace with Joe's photo that I wore when he was in the hospital, our daughter's hospital band, and a thank you note from our local ambulence company after we took cookies to them at Christmastime. Even the author of that note praised God for His goodness!

How has God been faithful to your family?  We've challenged our older children to think back over their lives and see if there is something they can contribute to our faithfulness shelf.