Just some feelings

Greetings all, I am sitting at my desk trying to work and just having a difficult time focusing. Its just one of those days, they don't come that often but when they do they are difficult. To be honest this blog is not going to be that informative as much as it will be expressive, probably more for myself than for you the reader of just what is going on in my heart.
Ali and I had a date Tuesday night and it was AWESOME, good food, good wine (always a great ingredient to a date night), amazing company, and great conversation. We were sitting outside one of our favorite restaurants chatting about our kids, how much we love them, how different they are, how much they love each other, how different they love each other and how differently (not in a less than more than sense) we love them. We got onto Cate and her relationship, as simply as it is, with Dude, and my heart was just overwhelmed with love. I love my children more than words will ever be able to express. I love them very uniquely because they are very unique individually and require to be loved in different ways. Ella, just makes me laugh, she is all girl, and ALL my wife made over. Dude, is what my mother probably prayed I would have as retribution for the years of hell I put her through. And then there is Cate who I just feel a special connection with right now. Her and I can sit up in bed and "talk" and she just smiles and coos back at me. I feel like I can make her smile like no one else, whether that is true or not is irrelevant really. I can't get enough of her right now. I want to kiss and hold and love on her all the time, not to say I don't want to do that with my other two, but they are often too busy with "their own lives" or each other. For the sake of ending this rambling I just love that little girl!
Today I took her to get her ridiculously over priced shot that she must get once a month to prevent RSV and as I sat in the Doctors office my heart was just overwhelmed with sadness at the thought of what this precious little girl will have to endure. It’s difficult to think of doctors stopping her heart and putting her on a heart/lung bypass machine to keep her other organs functioning and for hours operating on her little heart and then the weeks and weeks of recovery she will have to endure. I went looking on the internet for solace, probably my first mistake, and found some book of mother’s essays of children with Congenital Heart Defects. There was this one story I knew I shouldn't have started reading as soon as I read the title, but I did anyway. This woman’s child was born with a serious heart defect and the child ended up not making it. As I sat at my desk with tears streaming down my face, ok more like a quiet sobbing, my heart just broke at even the thought of having to say, "goodbye." Now, Cate does not have the same defect as that child nor is her case severe by any means. But it is a potential reality we must face.
The only thing that continued coming to heart repeatedly was, "My grace is sufficient" and I know this, I want to believe this with all of my heart, but today my humanity struggles. It does not struggle with the, "Why Cate?" or "Why me?" it just hurts and is fearful of what is to come. But, what Cate has taught me and what I am wrapping my life around right now is to just enjoy today. I have today, the surgery is not today, we don't have to make any drastic decisions today, we just have to enjoy our family, today, with all of its craziness.
God has been revealing to my heart that I need to give Cate back to Him, not only in death, but in life. I have wrestled with this thought for quite a while now, but its time I start. My spiritual director posed the question to me as I shared these words that I felt God was telling me, "When was she ever NOT His?" To which I said, that looks real good on the pages of a Theology book, but when it’s played out in real life its different, but in the end his question was true. I think God is trying to teach me something about my fatherhood, that I must on a daily basis give my family back to Him, not only in moments of crisis, but everyday, so that when those moments of crisis come, I respond not in fear or desperation, but naturally. So, today Lord, I give my family to you today, I give Ali, Ella, Dude, and yes even Cate over to your divine protection and love. I entrust them to you and I trust that you will give me what I need to be a husband and father to them. I love you Lord, help me to Love you more.