Monday, July 8, 2013

Counting Our Blessings - Link Up!

It's been a difficult week for our community. However, it's been so beautiful seeing our communities come together to support the firefighter's families. Our hearts are still very heavy as we mourn the loss of our 19 firefighters and the sadness we feel for their loved ones. I've seen some amazing things this week and I know that there is so much goodness from good people who long to bless those who are hurting.

It's time to count our blessings and give thanks to God from whom all blessing flow! 

This post is very picture heavy, so please give it a little time to load. Forgive me for putting in so many pictures, but it was so hard to choose just a few this week.

111. My family and I went to see the memorial set up for the Granite Mountain Hotshots and it was over whelming! The out-pouring of love for these men and their families was just so touching. Here are a few pictures from the memorial. 










This memorial was so huge and, as I understand it, it has grown even larger. So many shirts from so many fire departments around the country were represented. So much love shown here. What a blessing this was to my heart and, I'm sure, to everyone's heart.

112. I have been having some health issues that have been plaguing me. There have been days where I have just was in a haze because of the fatigue. My blessing is that I have such a wonderful doctor who is understanding and is doing her best to get to the bottom of these issues. I have had doctors who don't care and doctors who do. It is always such a blessing to get a doctor who cares so much and vows to help you feel better. (It would bless me greatly if you would pray with me on this matter and that God will reveal what is going on).

113. My husband, son and I did something we very rarely do after going to the memorial. We went out to eat! We decided to go to Peter Piper Pizza as we love their New York pizza there. Then my son paid for our dinner, which was even more of a blessing. Here they are acting incredibly goofy! 


I love this picture of them. My son is laughing really hard here and I love how my husband is looking at him. 

Yes, these two guys bless me abundantly!

114. I have been blessed this week by dear friends who have called or texted me. It's such a blessing to hear from a friend. It seems like it's always when you really need to hear from a friend, too. They truly are moments that bless me and I am so thankful for my dear friends!

115. On Sunday, they brought our fallen firefighters back from Phoenix. They had to take them there for the autopsies as our facilities couldn't handle that many men (isn't that just incredibly sad that there was so many? *sob*) They had 19 white hearses with motorcycle policemen, firetrucks and more bring them back home. My husband and younger son and I went out to stand on the highway to welcome them back. There were literally tens of thousands of people from Phoenix to here doing the same. My oldest son was with one of the firetrucks that stood in the driveway to the morgue where they were brought when they got here. Here's a picture of my oldest son with his uniform. The black band around his badge just breaks my heart every time I see it. 


Here are a few pictures from the procession. 






At the end of the procession, a dedicated U.S. Forest Service smoke-jumper aircraft, Jumper 15, a DC-3, dropped 19 purple ribbons (the official colored ribbons for the fallen firefighters) into the open acreage in front of the hearses. 


I didn't think I had any tears left to shed, but when I saw those 19 white hearses pass by and then these ribbons fall from the plane, I just lost it.

The blessing in all of this is that there was such an outpouring of love. There were motorcycle groups that showed up to protect the families from some crazy group that was going to protest. There were literally hundreds of bikers that stood out in the hot sun to protect this procession. I'm not going to name this crazy group as I don't want to give them any publicity (even on my little blog) but I'm sure you all know who I'm talking about. They always show up at the military funerals with crazy signs. They call themselves Christians, but they aren't. They are unloving, vicious people with an agenda for publicity. 

It's been a hard week, but a blessed week in so many ways. I'm blessed by my family and my community and my church. All have stepped up to help during this difficult time.

Now it's your turn to share!! Please link to this post and share your own blessings this week.

Blessings - Julie

3 comments:

  1. Do you have fibromyalgia? Just asking because since google reader went down I've kind of lost some of my blogs temporarily. Fibromyalgia is the worst this summer for me that it has ever been. Sitting and staring out into space is a new symptom for me but only come when the pain is bad. I'm drinking more water and that helps. My daughter has it too so you should see us get up out of our chairs on some days. As I read about it I'll follow the instructions to move forward with stretches and other things I need to do to improve. Bless your firefighter son how painful it must be for him to grieve with all of us the losses. Hugs ~ Rita

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  2. A precious post. Thank you for sharing this with us all. It is one thing to read about these firefighters in the news, quite another to see your actual pictures. May our God be with each of these families in this time of great loss. I visited from Titus 2sdays & was blessed by the visit.
    Joanne

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  3. Oh Julie! I type with tears. I got goosebumps again from the white hearses. I saw them yesterday on T.V. So very, very moving. The ribbons. Oh boy! Talk about touching. So very, very glad you and your family are Christians Julie. I am especially thinking of your dear firefighting son.

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