Saturday, December 17^th, Elizabeth will be graduated from Kent State University with a B.S. in Nursing. It also happens to be the anniversary of her first liver transplant. That first donation was from a living donor, Tina Driskell—someone we didn’t know two weeks before the surgery. Tina’s incredibly selfless gift was one that we will never stop being thankful for. [If you haven’t read it before, check the two photos of the newspaper story in the My First Transplant Journey gallery and zoom in to read it.] As for the second donor, we still don’t know much about them. But we do know they were thoughtful and considerate enough to complete their organ donation registration so that, when they died, Elizabeth and likely others were able to live longer. These two gifts, one 23 years ago and the second last year, have made it possible for Elizabeth to be leaving college tomorrow, ready for a lifetime of caring and giving back as she begins her nursing career.

God’s hand has been on this journey every step of the way—since literally before she and her twin sister were conceived. We are very proud of both our daughters (Lorraine began her engineering career last year) and we know that God is celebrating with us now. We are inexpressibly grateful to Him and we pray that they both remain close to Him for the rest of their lives. Today’s song is Fearfully and Wonderfully Made by Matt Redman [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL9p9bXQe-I]. Today’s Bible verse is Psalm 139:13-16 (NIV) which says, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”