Thursday, November 9th -

No blogs recently due to nothing new to report and no contact with Tom and Margaret. Sorry to keep you waiting!

Since the last blog, Margaret and Tom have made serious progress in packing boxes for their move to TN. The most exciting and new news to report is that Margaret is getting stronger everyday. With each passing hour, she gains more strength and breathes much easier. A home health nurse came to visit yesterday, and Margaret checked out well.

Tuesday, Margaret and Tom caught a ride to his neurologist. Unfortunately, the news was not very good at all. Tom's condition is rapidly declining. There is not much hope for improvement. However, the doc adjusted his medication to see if that would improve his mobility and sleeping patterns. Ultimately, Tom and Margaret left the doctor's office feeling pretty dejected. In the words of Margaret herself, "It just isn't fun to hear from medical professionals that your lives are basically winding down."

Despite this news, and to no surprise to any of you reading this blog, Margaret remains 100% optimistic. Thursday, she will visit the pulminologist. Hopefully, after this visit, she will be cleared to travel. If this is the case, the movers will come to their house in CA November 20th to begin packing them up to move. Tom and Margaret will hang out in CA for a couple of more days and then take a flight to either Nashville or Memphis on Thanksgiving day. They are excited about "coming home."

Publishing these posts can be quite depressing at times. Why can't we find any authentic good news to report? Things appear and feel grim, sad, and hopeless. Friends, if there is any encouragement in the face of the character killing and hope draining obstacles that lay before Tom and Margaret , heed these words from Romans 5:3-5 - "And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because Gods' love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us." Hope is Margaret and Tom's last bastion. Hope has become their mantra. Not only that though, hope personifies Margaret's very being these days. May we, too, embrace the same sustaining hope to which Margaret holds dear - the hope that comes only from God, our Father, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit who makes hope real in our lives. Amen.