Personal Commitment

It is not personal achievement but personal commitment to live for God that is important. Achievements are simply examples of what God can do through someone’s life.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about all that Cale was before the accident. I think about how crazy good at math he was; I think about all the Intelligence training he did in the Army, and I think about how crazy fit and active he was. It all disappeared. What was it all for? Why did he have all those qualities and gain so many life achievements for it to be taken away? When I let myself really start to think about stuff and really examine him, my heart aches. He’s lost so much. So much.

I was reading in Ezra this afternoon and in my notes, I read the note above. All the things that we do and all the things we accomplish are examples of God at work in someone. He created us and created the way our minds work and He put the dreams and desires in our lives. The mere fact that we can function the way we do is a sign of how much the Lord loves us and didn’t just create us to be robots. Life is not about all that we can mark off on our “to do” list, but that we would have a personal commitment to live for God. If we are committed to someone, we then desire to spend time with them and to continually get to know them better. We long to spend time with them and to hear what they have to say, not just us do all the talking. Are you committed to the Lord?

I have been asked several times how I was able to stay so close to the Lord through all of this and stay with Cale even when things looked really messed up. Well, along with the life that we were living and the new life we had just started, we also had a personal commitment to God. Our desire was to live for Him, be used by Him, in everything bring Him glory, and to seek His will and direction for our lives every step…that didn’t go away just because of a car accident!

The daily life achievements are all great, but be careful to not make that what life is about, rather, a tool for the reason for life.

We had a little more of a relaxed day. I had gotten in my mind that getting everything organized and set up was priority because I want so desperately to be settled, after not getting to be for so long. There’s a list of things to get done, a bunch of papers to go through, but with Cale…that’s a little impossible. I knew that bringing him home was going to be a lot more work because he would still need my full attention, so, it shouldn’t have surprised me when Kathleen getting things done wasn’t happening.

I had to remind myself that Cale is priority and that yes, getting everything situated would be delightful in so many ways, they are so low on the list right now when it comes to investing in my husband. He still needs me and my very silly entertainment that I can offer! So…I chose to change the day around and work more around him, then around my focused little busy body.

Things went well and were a lot more fun :)




Basil is so adorable...he totally has me wrapped around his paw!


Our neighbor stopped by today and brought us flowers! They just wanted to welcome us home...thank you! :)


Last night while cuddling so sweetly in bed, we watched Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader. The whole time we have been married (except for when he came back from his last deployment and we were staying at our friends house), we never had TV, so this TV watching is new to us. First, I’m Kathleen Darling and I am not smarter than a 5th grader. Second, it was so much fun watching that show with Cale! He made some guesses and got some of them wrong, but because it was TV and the people playing missed some too, he didn’t get upset at all and we just had a good time! I’m not sure if that show is on all the time or not, but I think it’s a good one for us to watch! Lots of good learning stuff!

After our hard mind work last night, we woke up this morning to a yummy breakfast! Mama made us eggs, turkey bacon, and toast. Yum! Cale ate it up and so did I! That’s only one of the many reasons Mama is a blessing, staying here with us! ;)

We had made the decision that Basil was not going to be allowed on the bed with us, but OH MY GOODNESS is this not sweet?!