Death,Unity,Venice,Returning

Death is too hard and it is not right. Without our consent, Adam made a covenant with death and we were forced to follow. It hurts. We feel pain, sorrow, incompleteness and grief. And this is right. Death was not in God's original plan. It is His enemy. But He promises that this last enemy, death, will be destroyed. (I Corinthians 15:26) We look forward to that, we yearn for it and we can confidently trust that death is ultimately swallowed up in victory. So, we can confidently say, "O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? Thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." I Corinthians 15:55,57

Psalm 133
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment upon the head, tht ran down upon the beard, even Aaron's beard; that went down to the skirts of his garments; As the dew of Hermon and as the dew tht descendedupon the mountains of Zion; for there the Lord commanded the blessing, even life for evermore.

We are knit together, the two families. We are one. We started this several years ago and have slowly meshed our families together. But now, we are bound together, we have been forged together through this firey furnace of loss. And the Lord has commanded his blessing upon us. We feel God's grace daily. We feel His power and love. His mercy and peace have hovered over us. This past week we have cried together, broken bread together, worshiped together, laughed together, held hands together, cried and rejoiced in the Lord together.

Elizabeth needed some private time yesterday so the 10 of us took the train down to Venice. All the siblings, plus two excited dogs, piled into Christian's beloved Defender and off the two cars went to catch the train from Sicile. Jon drove and immediately feel in love with Christian's vehicle. Upon arriving in Venice, we split up the two internation phones, decided on a time to meet back at the station and took off in two groups. We did not get very far before we were all clumped together in one group, strolling through the winding streets of Venice; keeping together by whistling the "code whistle" from the "Court Jester" which we had seen the night before. Venice knew the "Americans" had arrived. I guess the 10 of us just had to see Venice together. We did have a couple of blips in the screen, when at two seperate times we were seperated from two individuals in the group for a period of time. But we were eventually reunited and I will let you try to figure out who the culprits were. Our stroll to San Marco square included stopping for lunch, shopping,enjoying beautiful vistas down the various canals, and a coffee and hot chocolate stop before we departed.

Today our men have returned home. They are on three different flights back to the US. We stood in Elizabeth's dining room holding hands in a circle. Rob read Psalm 121, the Lord will preserve our going out and coming in....., we prayed and they left in two vans driven by wonderful Army men. Men who have made their presence and assistance available to us at any time of the night or day. Thanks to all those precious men and women in uniform. The women will remain and help Elizabeth with the remaining packing, sorting and the host of other details involved in her returning to the US.

"Our soul does wait on the Lord, and in his word do we hope" Psalm 130:5