home

  Friday's migraine brought back some of the night sweating, more minor twitching, and fatigue of before, so I spent Saturday in bed recovering and being careful.  Sunday I felt pretty good and I was pretty active, but I got another migraine last night.  Thankfully the medicine helped after a while, and I was able to sleep. The voice recognition software on my phone helps me give updates, because looking at screens has been difficult for me to do. I've only tried TV a few times in the past five weeks, and usually only for a short time before the pressure in my head grows almost to a burning sensation.  One of those times was with Lincoln - he sat on my lap and we were watching an updated cartoon version of The Wizard of Oz. I lasted long enough to see Dorothy's house get taken up in a tornado, but the new tech-savvy Dorothy called her mom mid-flight, and her mom phoned ahead to a friend in Oz.  So Dorothy had someone waiting to welcome her when she stepped out of her house!  Ha ha.  But both the new Dorothy and the old Dorothy had one thing right: there's no place like home.  
  Katie and I were sad to miss family Christmases in Illinois and Seattle this past weekend.  Family always means a lot, but especially during hard times.  We are so grateful for great families.  But more than my Illinois home, these last five weeks I have been thinking about my true home.  More than any other song, I have been singing a hymn called "We are going home."  I discovered it this summer in the red Gospel Hymns hymnal that I received from my home  Morton Apostolic Christian church in high school (even gold embossed with my name on it!).  I not only like to write my own songs - ever since I was 12 I have loved to sing hymns out of the hymnal – sometimes with the original melody and sometimes with a new one (Ps 33:3!).  I gave "We are going home" a new melody, and it has been such an encouragement to me to sing on my bed with my ukulele.  Here's a rough recording I took with my phone in case you would find it a blessing (and not creepy to listen in on my bedroom, ha ha): https://www.dropbox.com/s/6r9pnh4xlewyxml/We%20Are%20Going%20Home.m4a?dl=0

Grateful for you all! - Casey