IronSummer - Prologue

I am used to having all kinds of adventures in my life. Being married to Scott kind of guarantees that. He loves the extreme, there is nothing lukewarm about his character. He shoots high and is unstoppable in reaching his goals. The hard part is that those of us who tag along don't realize all the risks he is imposing on himself and on us.

It usually turns into an unforgettable growing experience for the whole family. We never regret the paths we took together as a family no matter how rough the terrain. There are always moderate dozes of resentment along the way but things end up working out one way or the other. I've already learned that God did not intend it to be easy for us. I've also learned that there are valuable lessons to be learned in life only through challenges.

I never expected to be smashed into a wall of such difficult curcumstances that I would evolve into a completely new being. Almost physically feeling my hair turn gray I realized I had grown (or got old) and become more sensitive and less judgemental, more meek and less ambitious. The dross of life has burned away and things I loved have now become of utter and only importance. What I knew was right, now was engraved in my heart with agony and pain. These things are - family, life, gospel, Christ.

This summer will mark our family history as one of the most tragic and the most miraculous summers ever. It was the summer of both Scott and me becoming Ironpeople. Our children, having tasted the bitterness of this trial, have also become stronger.

It was a terrible and grand experience that "grasped us by a power that is greater than we are, a power that shakes us and turns us, and transforms and heals us." It was the time of horror and humility, fear and faith, tribulation and testimony. Indeed, we've come to believe in the words of Paul: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress,, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us."

God and his angels (a.k.a. kind friends and family, doctors and nurses) have come to our rescue and lifted us up from the depths of despair. I am thankful, humbled and obligated to write about our hardships and the mirales that followed and were possible because of many wonderful people in this world and because of the Lord Jesus Christ. But mainly I dedicate this story to our sweet kids, my awesome Mother, and my strong and amazing husband. He is my Ironman forever.