Today marks the two year anniversary of our son Josiah's passing from this earth and on into eternity. The difference that Crossbridge made in our families life during the 8 months of our son's hospitalization in Charleston is unmeasurable. My husband and I have been clinging to a verse for the past two years out of Lamentations that says, "Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions are never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. " Lamentations 3:22-23

I know that what Crossbridge does is a physical outpouring of God's Love and so I feel like I could say and not be wrong for changing some words in scripture, "Because of Crossbridge's great love we are not consumed." That is what Crossbridge offered us in the 8 months we were cared for by them. Melissa Altman and Crossbridge was a physical representation of God's great love for us and therefor we were able to live through the struggles of that time without being consumed.

I remember before Josiah was born trying to plan for our "trip/stay" in Charleston at MUSC. At that time we thought it would be for a couple of weeks maybe a month at the most. Early on I felt convinced that we should not worry about the cost of housing in Charleston, that our needs would be met. But as time drew near and we hadn't found a place to stay we began making arrangements to rent a home 45 mins from the hospital for $1,500 a month. I should have never doubted God and what he could do. Just a week before Josiah was scheduled to arrive our rental fell through. That very day I received a phone call from a member of our church saying, "I was at family reunion in Kentucky (i think) and I met this woman (i wish I could remember the exact details, I should have written it down back then). I don't remember if it was Melissa Altman or a friend of Melissa's but basically via a family reunion hundreds of miles away she put me in contact with a brand new ministry in Charleston, SC called Crossbridge, that was seeking to meet the needs of families while their loved ones were hospitalized. Within a couple of days Melissa had found us a place to stay for free for two weeks! We were thrilled! We would just wait and see what God would do after that. I don't think any of us could have imagined how great our God would have been to us and how he would use Crossbridge to bless our family. What was initially two weeks of housing turned into 8 months of accommodations, that turned into a home and a life for our family.

Crossbrige provided us a way more than a physical place to live, meals to eat, and financial resources. They provided us a home where we could bring our other two children and we could continue to be a family while our son was at MUSC. We celebrated 5 birthday's, Father's day, the 4th of July, a first day of pre-school, Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas as a family that year because of Crossbridge.

I worried a lot in those days how our two pre-school age daughters would handle all this change. How they would handle mommy and daddy being at the hospital so much with their brother. How they would handle daddy traveling 4 hours back home each week to work for a couple of days. I truly believe that the negative impact that could have happened during these 8 months was greatly reduced because of Crossbridges love for our family. Because of their help we were able to maintain the greatest sense of normalcy available for our kids. We were able to still have family dinners together, around a table. We were able to tuck our precious girls into bed most every night. We were able to take them to the beach, the park, have picnics, teach them to ride a bike, teach them to swim. These things and those moments are priceless. Those are the things for which we cannot begin to express our deepest gratitude to Crossbridge and it's founder Melissa Altman.

On this day as we look back at and celebrate our son's life and cry tears over the fact that he is no longer with us physically we wanted to take a moment to say thank you Crossbridge, for being the physical out pouring of God's great love in our lives. The Wilson family loves you Melissa and our Crossbridge family.