October 2021

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October 2021  Hello! Thank you so much for your continued support and prayers. What a blessing it is to have both the local church as well as the Church all over the world caring for you and loving you. October has hit us like a tidal wave and our heads have barely been afloat. But thanks be to God that He perseveres us and cares for us in the midst of it!   A quick trip to Chicago to see my sister PR in her third marathon at 3:15 (Thats an average 7:44 mile for 26.2 miles!!)  This month has been really challenging. At the start of the month, Stephen's Aunt Kay reached the end of her earthly life and passed into eternity with the Lord. It was hard timing for Stephen to fly home right before midterms and walk through that grief with his family. He also had plane troubles getting home and was gone an extra two days (thankfully, I got to go on a quick two day trip to Chicago during that time to see my sister run a marathon and qualify for the Boston marathon!). In the whole month of October, he only made it to one week of classes because three days after he returned from the funeral, a kidney stone detached from his kidney and started to move. He was in severe pain and unable to move for about a week.  After about 10 days, he was able to move a little but still not able to sit up in a chair. At the two week mark, he was feeling a lot better and was able to return to classes. He is in the fourth stage of passing a kidney stone so the pain is very minimal as we wait for it to be passed. The twists of this month continue in that as soon as Stephen started to feel better, I completely crashed health-wise...turns out I accidentally snorted black mold *face palm*. If you're curious about that story, you can read it here. We also has midterms this month, half way paper due, and thousands of pages of reading. Yowza. This month has been really hard. Stephen is very discouraged. After missing that much class it seems nearly impossible to catch up, much less be able to work on top of that. It has forced us to keep trusting and resting in the Lord's providence and provision. We have seen his grace abound in the peace in our hearts and the ability to laugh at just how crazy this month has been.  I mean who gets to experience that?! We look forward to hearing from you and what your October looked like! Please respond to this email and give us an update and share how we can be praying for and supporting you. Much love and many blessings, The Byrd’s  Prayer Requests and Praises - Praise for the Lord providing both of us on campus jobs that allow us to get to know the faculty better and work in low stress environments! - Praise: Despite crazy sickness, holistically we are well and healthy. - Praise: The Lord provided a surprise financial gift which was really needed in the midst of Stephen being out of work for the month -Prayer For a deeper understanding in our minds and hearts of who Christ is as we dive into the beautiful riches of theological study -Prayer for strength of heart and encouragement for Stephen as he works incredibly hard to try and catch up. -Prayer for myself as I try and balance school, household tasks, and helping Stephen   Partner With Us Here! view this email in your browser Copyright © *|CURRENT_YEAR|* *|LIST:COMPANY|*, All rights reserved. *|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* *|LIST:DESCRIPTION|* Our mailing address is: *|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|* *|END:IF|* Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. *|IF:REWARDS|* *|HTML:REWARDS|* *|END:IF|* view this email in your browser Copyright © *|CURRENT_YEAR|* *|LIST:COMPANY|*, All rights reserved. *|IFNOT:ARCHIVE_PAGE|* *|LIST:DESCRIPTION|* Our mailing address is: *|HTML:LIST_ADDRESS_HTML|* *|END:IF|* Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list. *|IF:REWARDS|* *|HTML:REWARDS|* *|END:IF|*