Okay, wow. What a year 2020 has been for us all. Because ours felt like 4 decades worth of experiences, we believed it really deserved a written review! 

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January / February was spent in prayer together, planning our wedding ceremony, and learning some solid lessons in "adulting" :)

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March was full of all the trappings of a Spring Wedding. We were overwhelmed by the showing of friends and family during such uncertain times. Folks who gathered with us to worship in person and our nearest and dearest who toasted from afar. We ended our night of love and dancing by jumping on the bed in sweatshirts and into our marriage! 

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April was full of Spring in Thomasville hunkered down on Gordon. After nearly 3 straight months of 6am - 12am work days, Grayson woke up with a fever on his birthday (23rd) and his first day of non-busy season. He never tested positive for Covid, and this was our first "symptom" of what was to follow. In 4 years of knowing Grayson, he has never had so much as a headache so this was new territory for us.

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May was rest, and cooking, and farm walks, and arrowhead hunting, and reading, and running, and quiet, and an announcement of "remote work until further notice". When we told mom & dad, their first question was, "FUN, so where are y'all going!?" Just G and me. My version of a quarantine dream team. We had always wanted to visit New England and felt it was the ideal place to temporarily relocate.

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June / July / August / September was full of Maine and Massachusetts, Farmers Markets, Pip walks, learning about Keelboats, and time together. Grayson read Dale Carnegie and I read A Land Remembered. We rented out our home in Atlanta and rented an apartment in Boston. We committed to daily prayer on our knees together. We cooked all of our meals on a hot pad and in a toaster oven. We drank good coffee on folding chairs on our fire escape. We pinched our pennies so we could learn to sail. We fell in love all over again with the people we had become and the united front we were becoming.

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At the end of September, we were super close to extending our time in Boston, but we felt a gentle nudging calling us home. So we drifted north for a little Vermont leaf peeping and a quick stint in the Catskills. By October 15th we were in Greenville for an xRay of Grayson's chest. The CxRay immediately showed G's collapsed lung and an impression of a mass. The CT that was taken hours later confirmed it. Within a few days Grayson was having a Bronchoscopy to hopefully biopsy the mass for a Carcinoid confirmation. Unfortunately, the biopsy was inconclusive and PET Scan + surgery followed.

 

For four weeks leading up to surgery, our four parents physically gathered around us. We felt as though together they were carrying us through. It was the most precious time I've ever experienced. Grayson and I literally prayed to be able to smile easily and laugh often because we believe in the power of smiles -- as we breathed, "Come Holy Spirit" He came and He brought those easy smiles a belly laughs with Him in the form of our beloved moms & dads.

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As many of you have walked through your own seasons with loved ones carrying similar weights, you walked with us and counseled us as we worked to understand what the future might hold. You prayed for shields of protection, peace, strength, clarity, and complete healing. You prayed for wisdom and discernment for our medical team, tenderness and compassion for our nurses. So many times I cried into my coffee cup literally at the feet of Jesus (a massive sculpture at the front of our hospital). Those moments were cathartic and purifying -- and so many times, you reached out at the exact perfect time one of us needed it most. You were vessels through which the Holy Spirit poured out and into us.

 

We are in awe of the blanket of peace we felt throughout the experience and we give thanks to our Heavenly Father for Grayson's prognosis, in Jesus' name.

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Grayson is healing and learning how to move forward with a little over one lung. There are strange sensations that often make us sleep with one eye open, but he continues to get good reports.  His spirits are high and he's chomping at the bit to jump back into his world of finance and onto the tennis court!

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We love each of you and hold you so near and dear to our hearts. Thank you for loving us so well during our 2020. We look forward to 2021 being the year of celebrations!!