Hope and Joy

Six years ago, when our oldest son was only 6 months old Dan was in a bad accident at work (June 2008). He broke both arms – crushing his right wrist and multiple fractures in his left elbow. He had both arms in a cast, multiple surgeries and months of therapy.  He couldn’t even hold his son on his first father’s day, the accident was the Wednesday before.



Dan day of surgery#1, 3 days after injury.

As the months went on after Dan’s injury it just seemed like instead of getting better, things just kept getting worse. Dan couldn’t use either arm or hand well. He had a second surgery on his wrist, and it still never healed right. In the midst of hand surgeries I had the challenge of taking care of our 8 month old son, caring for Dan, and at one point we had his grandmother over taking care of her for a few days – all while still working my full time job. Then just after Dan’s second hand surgery in the fall of that year I received official notice that I was being laid off due to a mass staff reduction at my company. The burdens were heavy.

We did our best to move forward, taking things one day at a time. This was life right? Things happen. We still went out into the world, and did life as normal as we could. One day we were with a group of friends. Someone Dan knew, but didn’t know well walked up beside him. He looked at Dan and with the most genuine heart said to him “I don’t get it. I see you around, I have been watching you. I know everything you guys have been through and what is going on in your life, and yet you still have such joy? How do you do it?” Dan never thought of it that way. There was still so much to live for and be thankful for. As a family we know there is Hope beyond our circumstances.  

Years later, now 2014 and a million more crazy unfortunate things have happened to us. We have gone through many deeper valleys in our lives even in the most recent couple of years. At times we have lost that joy.  That friend and that moment always stuck with us. We realized at that moment we had joy through it all because we were completely immersed in something (volunteer group) that we were passionate about. We had that passion and we lived with Hope. We chose Joy.

Life will constantly throw curveballs and forks in the road. Life is messy, and let’s be honest sometimes we are the ones that make that mess. But what gets you through that is being intentional about finding passion, finding purpose, living (with) hope and choosing Joy.