Happy New Year! Can you believe it’s 2025? Time keeps speeding up, and I wish I could slow it down a bit. How was your 2024? Did you meet some goals? Did you change some habits? Or was 2024 a year of survival for you?
The New Year promises change and growth, but not always in the way we think. For me, 2024 was not what I expected. God allowed things to happen that I never anticipated, but I grew because of it.
In January of 2023 my son, Josiah, was diagnosed with Lyme Disease, Pawassan Virus and Epstein Barr. Shortly after that diagnosis we learned he also had pneumonia, which ended up being a stubborn case and took a while to resolve. He became quite sick, lost a lot of weight, strength and stamina. While he has a history of pneumonia, I have never seen him this sick, and it was scary. 
It felt like history was repeating itself with the doctor’s appointments, an ER visit, chest x-rays and lots of lab work, and I struggled with anxiety, bad dreams, and PTS from Jon’s illness. I didn’t understand why God was allowing this.
It felt like history was repeating itself with the doctor’s appointments, an ER visit, chest x-rays and lots of lab work, and I struggled with anxiety, bad dreams, and PTS from Jon’s illness. I didn’t understand why God was allowing this.His senior year of high school was very challenging. He missed out on a lot of things he wanted to do, but slowly, he began to improve. He was looking forward to attending Cedarville University in August of 2023.
After helping me drive out to Cedarville to pick up Jillian in May, Josiah had a pretty bad relapse. His energy level plummeted, and his body ached all over for weeks. He eventually rebounded, but it was slow. At the end of June we realized his stamina still wasn’t where it should be to be able handle the demands in-person college. So we had to pivot and come up with plan B. Josiah decided to apply (and was accepted) to Liberty University to do his freshman year online. We’re so thankful for the technology that allowed him to do this!
This was a hard decision to make but a necessary one. It took a while to work through our disappointment, especially for Josiah, as he was so looking forward to starting at Cedarville. While it certainly was not what we wanted, God had a plan. Over the course of the school year, he improved dramatically, and by January, 2024 he was regaining a lot of the strength and stamina he had lost and was planning to transfer to Cedarville in August, 2024.
Part 2 coming next week.
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