Experience

We are seeing each other a bit early this month, yes. My apologies if it feels too soon. Usually, I would have several days to choose from in the week in between Christmas and New Year’s to write this month’s update. This year, however, we are blowing this town and heading south, taking the kids on the 5-year celebration / Christmas gift trip. Since I will be otherwise engaged that week, at the proper end of the month, you are receiving this early Christmas present. I know, I know, you didn’t get me anything. That’s how I wanted it. Let’s consider your gift to me reading all the way to the end of this. Or at least all the way to the pictures. Truly all the way is a big ask, you’re right. It’s a busy time of year… “Gotta get to bed, brush my teeth, feed the hog, still got some homework to do, do the laundry, wash the car, still got those bills to pay…” IYKYK as they say on the socials.

Keeping with the “early” trend, we are going to go ahead and count this as another month with no cancer-related medical appointments for Jennings. That’s 8 months down since his visit to St. Jude back in April of this year. That leaves 3 more to go until we return to St. Jude in April of 2026. What a blessing it has been.

We have been walking through our season of milestones and remembrances over the past month. Those kind of culminated this past weekend when we celebrated the twins’ birthdays. They have been such a marker for us on this journey. Born into one of the deepest seasons of suffering - by far the deepest we had walked through at that time. They did not choose that. They did not choose to have parents who, for the first year of their lives, were often too broken, too exhausted, or too otherwise engaged to really be there for them. During the first four months of their lives, I could count on my fingers and toes the number of nights I slept under the same roof as them. But, this was God’s plan for their entry into this world. They got to experience His provision when we couldn’t provide, often through the hands and feet of many who have read this blog and prayed for our family.

They turned 8 this past Saturday. They have brought so much joy to our family, each in their own unique way. They have stretched us in hard, but good ways. We can’t imagine our family without them!

I love their special bond…and how they look nothing like twins any more 🤣 We’ve been doing separate parties the last couple of years. It only seems fair. To everyone except L haha. I’m cringing at the “we’ve” I just wrote. Adding two birthday parties into the mix five days before trying to execute Christmas for four is not for the faint of heart. Henry chose a party at Spare Time with all his cousins and friends. They wore out the arcade for a solid hour with all-you-can-play game cards, then housed pizza and a sherbert ice cream cake from Bruster’s…with no actual cake in it. He is like me in a lot of ways; that is not one. Charlotte wanted a sleepover party with her bestie from school and her cousin. Lauren executed a pretty magical experience for them, curated by the birthday girl herself. They enjoyed a gourmet dinner from McDonald’s, hung out in their special beds, and watched the live action version of Stitch.

I guess we will cover Christmas, complete with the great trip reveal, next month. Ahead of that, here's a few from the rest of December. 👇

Left-to-right, top-to-bottom: The annual Palmer kid gingerbread house decorating…this year, L turned it into a competition with a 24-hour voting period through Instagram. Shockingly, there were no sore losers and I’m not even sure they could remember who won. Everyone got plenty of sugar, so that helped. Next, is our annual trek through McAdenville. We had one of C’s best friends from elementary school with us this year so that was a fun addition. I was the opposite of a fun addition, barely being able to make the trip after a bout with food poisoning the night before. That’s most of Lauren’s family at OMB for their annual Christmas market - a great way to spend a Friday night in December with family. Caroline had her mock meet this month and was supported by her littlest biggest fan. We are so proud of the determination and perseverance she has shown in the gym over the past month as she has worked after practice on two skills that she has been struggling with all fall. The next two are from the drop off of Lauren’s 8th annual toy drive for Hemby Children’s Hospital. Her usual partner in it was giving back with her family in a different way this year, so this was our first year taking on all of the donation receiving & handling. We were able to involve all the kids this year in helping unbox, sort, organize, etc. And Caroline got to play a little hooky and help with the drop off. We got to hear some impactful stories from the staff who helped us get the toys to their destination. It is such a privilege to be able to give back in a way that we personally benefited from in incredible ways. The last photo was from Dec 18th, which we determined would be our last fully free night together as a family. So, we capitalized on it with some hot cocoa in special mugs and watched an extra episode of our favorite show together.

I’ve been thinking a lot about experiences over the past couple of weeks, in this season of remembrances…how unique they are, how impactful they can be in our walk with Jesus. It stemmed, in large part, from a line that really stood out to me from one of the Advent sermons at our church. Our pastor was preaching from John 9 and the story of Jesus healing the man who was born blind and going through how each of the different groups in the story responded. The blind man responded out of his experience. He was being confronted, challenged, and condemned by the Pharisees because the healing occurred on the Sabbath. The blind man responded, referring to Jesus, “Whether he is a sinner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” Our pastor made the point: someone with an experience will never be beholden to someone with an opinion.

I just love that. It is so true. The blind man didn’t know the word of God like the Pharisees and couldn’t argue a theological point with them. But, he knew through his personal experience - Jesus is the son of God. He had blind since birth, living an extremely difficult life, and Jesus had healed him with one act. That experience cemented it for him.

I look back at what we have walked through with Jennings and our family, through all the trials, the suffering, the uncertainty, the darkness we felt. We experienced God’s presence, the power of prayer, the importance of community being the hands & feet of Jesus in significant ways. We had faith walking into that initial trial, but the experience of walking through it has cemented that faith on an unshakeable foundation. That doesn’t mean we don’t ever have doubts. It doesn’t mean we can always see how God is working. It doesn’t mean we can see or explain why such unthinkable tragedies befall our world. But, it does mean that I know what I know. Like the blind man, I have seen God work; I have felt His power. No one and no thing can convince me that He is not who He says He is. That is the power of experience.   

I’ve been reading in Job this month and this idea has stuck out to me there as well. Job (wrongly) accuses God of bringing the pain and suffering into his life, but he does (rightly) reject his friends’ insistence that his plight must be the direct result of his own personal sin. They come at him, tag-teaming him with the idea that if someone ends up in Job’s position, the only explanation, the only thing to blame, is his own wickedness. Job knows what he knows, though. That is not the life he was living before suffering befell him. He refuses to be bullied into agreeing with his friends.

It's just another way that each of our stories can be gifts from God. We don’t seek out suffering or hardship, but what we can learn through it is priceless. It’s something that no one from outside that experience can take from you. It’s yours and you know what you know, through hard-fought steadfastness and testing of your faith all while living under God’s grace and mercy.

Like the blind man, I often struggle to put it in words or effectively communicate it to others. I am not an expert in apologetics or theologically trained. But in my heart, I know. I am convinced.

Jesus finds the blind man after the encounter with the Pharisees and confronts him. He responds in John 9:38:

“He said, ‘Lord, I believe,’ and he worshiped him.

#allinforjennings