An attitude of gratitude

2 Corinthians 4:15 (NIV) All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

It’s safe to say, we have started off 2019 with a bang! I’m SO happy to say though that Matt is doing so much better. He got the all clear from his infectious disease doctor a couple weeks ago, and then they removed his PICC line. That’s been such a morale booster in itself! He’s having to do at least one month of oral antibiotics just to be safe, but it seems like he’s finally kicked this awful infection! He’s getting his strength back and is enjoying not being tied down to an IV treatment three times a day.

So, Matt is on the mend and we’ve been looking forward to finally being able to enjoy our normal spring activities! MH is in full swing with t-ball, and she’s loving it! The whole group has improved SO much since last year, it’s finally not constantly herding cats – we’ve been playing baseball! Of all things, Matt was missing cutting grass the most while he was sick. He’s finally been able to cut our grass, and our house no longer looks like a jungle – praises! And we were finally set to go camping Easter weekend like we always do with my family. Life is good again!

And then I break my foot.

“You have got to be kidding me!”, was my first thought when it happened. We were getting the camper ready to move from deer camp to the lake on Good Friday, and a storm rolled in while we were getting everything ready and pushed part of the big, wrought iron gate shut at the entrance. So we get the camper hooked up and start pulling out, and I jump out to open the gate for Matt like I usually do. I went to give it a hard pull to get it moving, and I guess my foot was closer than I thought. I rolled the gate up on my foot, and that was it for me.

Matt can get his own gate next time!

Later that night while I was lying in bed, unable to go to sleep, I kept thinking “Why me?”. Of everything we have been through with Matt’s health, why this? With everything we survived in our marriage and our family, why this? Why can’t we catch a break? It’s been one hurdle after another it seemed like since last fall; weren’t we due for just a little bit of peace and quiet?? I was in MAJOR pity party mode, and questioning everything God had put on us so far. I kept circling around to “God, why me? After everything we have been through, why me?” But then I stopped with my worry over medical bills and my other anxiousness and I finally said, “God, why NOT me?” and I had this total peace come over me.

Y’all. To say 2019 has been hard would be an understatement. Actually, to say this last year has been hard would be an understatement.

But God.

We have been in valleys so deep that I didn’t think there was ever any way we would be able to climb back out. But God. We have fought battles where I was certain it would end in actual blood shed on either mine or Matt’s part. But God. God 1000% put more on us than we could handle – and we finally learned to turn it over to Him, and lean on Him in times of trial. You see, He started preparing us for Matt’s health issues long before they ever started. If I hadn’t learned to trust and lean on God when I was in those deep valleys then I never would have had the faith in God I had when Matt was at his worst in February. When Matt and I were fighting the worst battles of our marriage, and we were both certain it would end in bloodshed on our parts and we wouldn’t survive it – we both learned that those were the exact battles we had to fight on our knees before our Father, and sure enough that’s when things started to turn around for us.

So yeah, why not me! I decided to look at this with an attitude of gratitude instead of the pity party I had started having and everything began changing. I’ll admit, depression definitely set in for me after I got hurt, and it’s been pretty hard to shake that off. But all that is starting to change. God had blessed me beyond measure,and I had nothing to be laying around feeling sorry for myself about! My husband was lying next to me in our bed safe and sound and healthy, and I thank God daily for allowing us to get out of our own way and listen to Him calling us to be obedient rather than doing what we thought was right. Had we done what Matt and Lauren wanted to do back in September, then we would likely be another statistic today – just one more divorced family, miserably splitting time with our kids. Instead, we persevered and obeyed. And glory to God we are two stronger people because of it. Our marriage is stronger than ever. Our faith is stronger than ever. Our parenting is stronger than ever. Our love for each other is stronger than ever.

So bring on a broken foot, or osteomyletis, or whatever the world is gonna throw at us next. The Mangold’s are officially adopting an attitude of gratitude! We’ve taken trial after trial, stared each beast in the eye and won. So bring it! Ok, I don’t exactly mean that – we really would love just a tiny break, but whatever the next battle is for us we’re gonna come at it swinging too! I just hope we get a little bit of a breather in between this one and the next 🙂

At the end of the day though I just hope everything we’ve done and everything we’ve gone through has been for His glory. I hope that through it all we’ve exemplified God’s grace and mercy that has been shown to us. Here’s to a not mopey Lauren who’s going to do better about blogging now, and spend less time feeling sorry herself. Gosh there’s so much good in my life – there’s far less to even be upset about! Good things are in store for the Mangold family.. stay tuned!

Love you all!!