Blessed

The other day I looked through my Facebook friends list and counted the number of people who I would not have had opportunity to meet had Justin not been injured. The number surprised me because I didn’t expect it to be so many. There were about 130 people who I wouldn’t have met and become Facebook friends with if Justin hadn’t been injured with an additional 15-ish that I might have met but likely wouldn’t have been more than passing acquaintances with had circumstances been different. That isn’t even counting the people from my home church that I probably would have met briefly on visits but wouldn’t have really gotten to know had we not moved back when we did. And that number just represents those on my Facebook friends list. As I looked at the faces and names of those friends, it made me think of how blessed I am to have them (or you if you’re one of those people and you’re reading this) in my life. God has richly blessed us, not just in spite of Justin’s injuries, but in some cases (like with these new friendships) because of his injuries. Our time at Walter Reed was a difficult time for our family. Thankfully, God sent various people to encourage us along that part of our journey. Sometimes it was someone keeping us in their prayers. Other times it was people with a non-profit getting us away from Walter Reed to enjoy some of Justin’s hobbies. Many of the new friends were either volunteers with various non-profits or others who we met through them. We’ve been welcomed with open arms by so many people all over the place. People that barely knew us made us feel like part of their family and towns we had never even heard of before made us part of their communities. Looking back over the last nearly 3 years, it’s amazing how God used so many people to help us along the way in both big and small ways.

There are also quite a few places we’ve been, both as a family and Justin by himself, that we likely would not have visited had Justin not been injured. Justin’s gotten to check some things off his “bucket list” with some more coming up before long. We’ve been on more road trips than I can remember and have visited states that we’d never been to before.

A few weeks ago, we went to a state we’d never visited, Indiana…and drove through some others we’d never been to before. On this trip, Justin got to go hunting with a wounded veteran organization and Corey and I visited with people we likely wouldn’t have met had Justin not been injured – the family of one of the soldiers Justin was deployed with when he was injured. Unfortunately, Justin didn’t even see a turkey to shoot, but none of us would consider it a wasted trip. On the way there, we got to have lunch with one of the guys Justin deployed with, and on the way back we got to spend some time with a couple we’d met on a different hunting trip and Justin’s medic from the day he was injured and his fiancé. While we were in Indiana, we met so many people who, even though we had never met them prior to this trip, they’d been praying for us for years. We were treated like friends who they hadn’t seen in a while rather than strangers and greeted with hugs rather than awkward small talk type introductions. Our trip was such a blessing to our family, seeing friends on the journey, and making new friends and having an all-around wonderful time at our destination.

Our trip is a lot like the past nearly 3 years. It was a long drive to get to Indiana and a long drive to get home. Likewise, it’s been a long journey to get where we are today. On the drive, we had friends along the way to help break up the discomfort of being in the car for so many hours and interesting scenery and cities to see to keep it from being too monotonous. Over the past few years, we’ve had friends and family to help us along the way and to just enjoy their company. We’ve been to interesting places and have seen the beauty of God’s creation in many different places we’d never been before. Then there’s the destination – when we arrived in Indiana, we were met with open arms and felt right at home. When we got back to Florida after our time in Walter Reed, we were also welcomed with open arms by family and by friends that we’d known from before Justin joined the Army and before we were married. We also met new friends and have really enjoyed the life we’re now living. We are blessed in more ways than I could begin to list, but a couple that I will list are the blessing of the friendships we have and the blessing of the prayers and support of both friends and strangers that have encouraged us along this journey. If you fall into either of those blessing categories (or both), thank you for being a blessing to me and my family.