vibrant life

we wish you a merry christmas...

This year's Christmas card/Thank you letter...

A Note from Meghan:

I just want to say thank you to everyone who has prayed and supported me this past year. 
God has truly blessed me with amazing, wonderful people around me. 

Thank You!

Love,
Meghan

DECEMBER 19, 2008

Dear friends and family, 

As I sat down to write this letter to include with our Christmas cards, I realized that on this date one year ago we received Meghan’s official diagnosis of cancer.  What a year it has been!  Our desire was to write a “thank you” letter with our card that would encompass all the gratitude we feel for the many blessings of this past year, but as I sit now and reflect I am aware that a simple letter could not even begin to scratch the surface.  It is simply overwhelming. 
How can we even begin to thank all those involved in blessing us and walking alongside us through this past year? 

Through all of you, we have experienced the faithfulness and provision of God.  He blessed us in material, emotional, and spiritual ways through His body of believers.  Our families, church family, extended families, friends, employers, school, hospital staff, highschool classmates, other cancer families, and even strangers whom we never met all prayed, supported, encouraged, cooked, gave, and provided in ways to such an extent that we were often left in complete awe at God’s goodness to us and the love of our family in Christ.  Thank you seems like such an inadequate phrase for what we experienced! 

We praise God for the good news we received in October that Meghan’s cancer is in remission.  The children are all regularly attending school, Michele is back at work part-time, and while it will still take some time to “pick up the pieces” from the past year, we are very much enjoying the simple things of life like family dinners, reading & snuggling together, playing in the snow, going to church as a family - even  cooking, cleaning, and helping with homework (wow - did I really just write that?)!  Meghan is continuing with physical therapy 2 times a week as well as periodic clinic visits.  She will undergo scans every 3 months for this first year off treatment (the second year it goes to every 4 months, third year every six, etc..).  The next set of scans is scheduled for mid-January.  Please join us in praying for clear scans! 
Feel free to check in on us anytime as we will continue to update the blog periodically.

We are looking forward in faith and while tomorrow remains unknown to us, we rest in the knowledge that it is sovereignly controlled by our loving and merciful God.  I often think of Hebrews 10:23 “Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”  This is our prayer for the coming year, no matter what it may hold for us.  We do have some wonderful and exciting things to look forward to in 2009... Meghan’s Make-A-Wish trip to Disneyworld has been scheduled for February (could there possibly be a better month to leave Michigan?  I think not!) and in August we are expecting a special addition to our family!  Lauren and Eric recently announced that they are expecting (Lauren’s due date is August 11, which is their 2nd anniversary) so Michael and I will be grandparents and Meghan, Rileigh, and Aidan will be aunts and uncle! 

We pray that you all experience the peace and love of God during this blessed holiday season and throughout
the coming year.  We are forever grateful for all the acts of love, kindness, and sacrifice you made on our behalf. 
To God be the glory! 

Much Love,
The Haan Family

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The photos used on our cards were taken by my amazing friend Terri this past fall (others previously posted here and here).  We kept the "baldies" photos a secret to use on our Christmas cards.  Here are the "outtakes" from those pics...

 

 

the gift of gifts...

O Source of all good,
    What shall I render to thee for the gift of gifts,
        thine own dear Son, begotten, not created,
        my Redeemer, proxy, surety, substitute,
        his self-emptying incomprehensible,
        his infinity of love beyond the heart's grasp.
    Herein is wonder of wonders:
        he came below to raise me above,
        was born like me that I might become like him.
    Herein is love:
        when I cannot rise to him he draws near on wings of grace,
        to raise me to himself.
    Herein is power:
        when Deity and humanity were infinitely apart
        he united them in indissoluble unity,
        the uncreated and the created.
    Herein is wisdom:
        when I was undone, with no will to return to him,
        and no intellect to devise recovery,
        he came, God-incarnate, to save me to the uttermost,
        as man to die my death,
        to shed satisfying blood on my behalf,
        to work out a perfect righteousness for me.
    O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds,
            and enlarge my mind;
        let me hear good tidings of great joy,
            and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore,
            my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose,
            my eyes uplifted to a reconciled Father;
        place me with ox, ass, camel, goat,
            to look with them upon my Redeemer's face,
            and in him account myself delivered from sin;
        let me with Simeon clasp the new-born child to my heart,
            embrace him with undying faith,
            exulting that he is mine and I am his.
    In him thou hast given me so much
        that heaven can give no more.

- taken from The Valley of Vision (A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions)

amazing kids (part 1)...

I would like to do a few posts to highlight some of the amazing kids (and their families) who we have had the privilege of walking alongside this past year.  One of these awesome families is the Fredricks.  They have a twelve year old son named Zac who was diagnosed with medulloblastoma (brain tumor) in October 2007.  We follow his carepage (ZacZone) and have enjoyed seeing and visiting Zac and his mom, Erika, up in clinic.  Sometimes Zac updates his own carepage and he has such a great sense of humor.  He often signs his notes, "from your favorite sick kid."  (I have pasted a recent update below.  **Note to Zac - you ARE one of our favorite sick kids, but soon we hope you'll be one of our favorite healthy kids!**)  Please join us in praying for the Fredrick family and for Zac's full and complete healing. 

What I'm Thankful for.....

Posted Nov 26, 2008 12:24pm

Dear Healthy people,

Monday night I got a temperature and with a port that means I need to come to Grand Rapids to the ER. They are planning for me to stay here for Thanksgiving.
But I'm thankful for being at the hospital and getting better! But my mom and dad tell me that this Thanksgiving might not be what I'm used to but at least we will be together, that's sounds like an Oprah moment. But when you have been doing this for fourteen months you just want things back to normal. And you call being in the hospital eating hospital turkey normal? I don't think so.

Now sense I whined enough already, how about the five things I'm most thankful for....
1. I'm thankful for being as close to God as I am.
2. I'm thankful for having a great family.
3. Getting the support from you Zaczone viewers.
4. Having teachers that understand what I'm going through and give me extra support.
5. Last but not least I'm thankful for having good restaurants that have take out near this dang hospital.
I have more things to be thankful for but that's for another time.

Everyone have a happy holiday and no financial problems when you go Christmas shopping.

From your favorite kid in the hospital on Thanksgiving,
Zac

great family get-togethers...

Lands End recently had a contest asking entrants to write a 300 (or less) word essay about their most memorable family get-together.  I struggled to whittle down my thoughts to less than 300 words, but finally submitted the following this past October (which incidentally did NOT win)...

So many wonderful memories come to mind as I reflect on 38 years of life, 20+ years of marriage, and 5 wonderful children.  Should I write about camping trips?  Family reunions?  The wedding day of my oldest daughter?  Or should I take a risk and go with what my heart is telling me?...  an unconventional choice that is probably not the story you have in mind for winning a contest.  You see my perspective shifted drastically last year when my 11 year-old daughter, Meghan, was diagnosed with osteosarcoma (bone cancer).  So my pick for “most memorable family get together?”  Time spent bedside in the hospital through her year-long intensive chemotherapy treatments and surgeries.  There is a lot of joy and laughter to be found in life... even in a hospital pediatric oncology unit (maybe especially in a hospital pediatric oncology unit).  Despite the many difficult and heart-wrenching moments we faced, this experience truly sweetened every aspect of our life together as a family.  Never before have we so deeply cherished and savored every single moment we are blessed with together.  When Meghan received her final round of chemo we filled the hospital room with loved ones and counted down the final moments.  We cried, laughed, cheered, sang and embraced.  The room was filled with a deeply intense joy and overflowing love that was more precious than all the vacations, holidays, and reunions we've had.  Just this month Meghan was officially declared in remission and we are looking toward the future with hope and a new appreciation for all the small and wondrous gifts and moments we are given.  We are choosing not to wait for a "most memorable family get together," but rather to make sure every day holds sweet moments and time spent cherishing one another. 

P.S.  You can read the WINNING essays here.

my mother's thanksgiving testimony...

Meghan with my mom and dad at the American Cancer Society's Relay for Life - June 2008

You will recall from my last post that my mother also gave a thanksgiving testimony at our Annual Thanksgiving Service.  I am sharing it below...

How does one even begin to put into words the thanksgiving in our hearts for the blessings of this past year?  What a year it has been!  As almost all of you know, just before Christmas last year we received the heartbreaking news that one of our beloved granddaughters had cancer.  It is rather easy to say, "Be thankful in all things."  But how does one praise God for the life-threatening illness of a deeply loved child or grandchild?  Yet we have had SO MANY occasions this past year to give God praise:  first and foremost, for the hope we have in him, for the knowledge that he is in control, and that he knows what he is doing, even when we do not understand.  Then also we gave God praise for the goodness and kindness of his people here at Harvest.  We were absolutely overwhelmed with the response of Harvest to a couple of guys (Brian Sytsma and Tim Dood) who called around and accumulated enough money to buy a van for Michael and Michele after theirs burned up.  Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  You'll never know how much of a blessing that was.  During these past months, I have become much more acutely aware of how extremely difficult it would be to give up a beloved child or grandchild.  It served to show me in a new way what it meant for God to give up his Son--the Son whom he loved.  How could he willingly give up his own Son?  And to do it for me?  for us?  Think of what that must have meant.  It must have given Him profound pain and heart-rending anguish to see his beloved Son suffer as he did.  What amazing love!  Looking ahead, we remember Paul's words in Rom. 8:  "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also along with him, graciously give us all things?" 

Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!