Just a quick update about the family on Extreme Makeover.
First of all what a deserving family to receive a new home and all the wonderful gifts given to them. Here's a mother, Ginger, who has three children who are ill. The two girls, confined to wheel chairs, had to be carried up and down the stairs. That two story house definitely was not built to accommodate wheel chairs.
The son, Christian, has croans disease and has become quite ill since the taping of the show. If you saw the program you saw a precious young man who loved his sisters and was deeply concerned for their well being.
There is so much more to their story but I don't feel at liberty to discuss details of their lives. I will say, God has blessed them with a wonderful community who has done so much for this family in numerous fund raisers.
A footnote to this story; the teacher who was a big part in their being selected by Extreme Makeover, Home Edition, met her husband through one of the fundraisers. She married him last Friday night and had the two girls in her wedding. How awesome!
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Now another family.
I couldn't finish the above story for several days because I received news of someone I knew who committed suicide. My heart has been terribly troubled.
This may not appear to be a story that should go along with the above deserving family but in a way, I think it will. Both families continue to need God's touch in their lives.
The family I now speak of had a deep dark secret which they kept to themselves. The man who committed suicide was in prison and rightly so. He chose to follow evil in it's utmost form! To protect their identity, I'll not give names or ages.
Before going to prison he was raising his two daughters alone, following the death of their mother. For the last eight years we thought their lives were going so well; skiing trips, lovely home, vacations , swimming pool. They were living the 'American dream', so we thought.
Because of one wonderful teacher who saw something 'not quite right' the secret was revealed. Both girls confessed to being molested by this man, their father, for the last eight years of their lives! EIGHT YEARS OF HELL! The details of what they endured and his addiction to Internet 'garbage' (I refuse to say the 'p' word) was inconceivable.
I cringe every time I think of what they went through. AND NO ONE KNEW!!! That's the danger of the evil which lurks around us.
So, this man is gone. He chose suicide! But what about these two girls and the damage which has been done to their bodies? What about their lives and the suffering they've endured? No, they're not in wheel chairs like the two girls from the other family, but these two girls have been 'confined' in a completely different way. Their confinement was the ugliness of sin......not their own but someone who should have had their best interest at heart.
I ask you to pray for both families. Pray for God's healing touch. Pray for God's mercy and grace. Pray that HE will turn all their 'dark' days into sunny, blue sky kind of days. Pray for laughter to fill their lives. Pray for God to send people in their lives who will share HIS GOOD NEWS! Pray, pray, pray!
God bless you today.
...(He will give us ) beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garmet of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he might be glorified. Isaiah 61:3