our view.

 

our view from the river house over the weekend. thank you leslie for capturing it. the water and the sun is incredible. as it begins to get warmer out i am appreciating the absolute beauty of the elizabeth river more and more. this was a magnificent place to heal and is quickly becoming an even better place to live. really live. 

we moved into this house two days before my first chemo. thank you to some dear friends of ours. last night as i was cleaning up the kitchen and looking through the windows above the sink out at the water. it struck me in a deep way how much this house will always hold such a special place in my heart. this is where we lived through cancer and through healing. with friends and family who cared for us while i was sick. this is where ava learned to walk and to talk. she is discovering the outdoors here. justin and i dance here. specifically the first time we danced on the porch after chemo number one (read about it here) and i thought for a quick moment...he will dance with ava on this porch more than he will dance with me. fearing for that split second that maybe i wont make it. i will hold on to that moment forever. not the part about me not making it, but the intimacy of dancing to over the rhine. one of our favorite bands. we sat in the porch swing and talked with many of the people we love the most about cancer and life and what we were afraid of and what we knew was true. in the midst of the most uncertain time we have ever experienced in our lives we clung to what is true. Jesus and his love for us. that had to be enough and thankfully for us that was enough. maybe we forgot it at times. but that does not change the fact that it it true. everything else was too scary. so we stuck with what we know. not what may or may not happen.

i love this house. since we have been married we have lived in four different homes. one apartment, one condo, one townhouse, and now the river house. although our first apartment in lexington will always have a real special place in our hearts...along with the other condo and townhouse...because memories were made at each of them. really really special ones. but the river house is different. we changed here. we grew here. we got sick and we healed here. i changed. justin changed. our marriage changed. our hearts changed. i really believe this was the place where we grew the most as individuals and as a couple. that is huge for me. i am only 27 so i have a lot more changing and growing to do. i know that. i have not arrived. not even a little bit. but for me personally this is the place where i wept, laughed, danced, and experienced more life than i knew was possible in the midst of death. and that is cool. that's how great our God is. that He took us through a valley. a dark scary one. but carried us through to the other side and now we understand life and His healing in a deeper and more real way than i ever would have known had i not had cancer. 

i love right now. i love that i am processing and learning more about cancer and how it changed me than i ever realized when i was actually sick. its a very special time for me and i consider it all a gift. i am crying as i write this because its all still so fresh and raw and real. none of it seems like memories yet, because we are still living it. i guess that is life. what we went through and what we will go through and how it will shape us and mold us into who we are becoming forever.