If God asked your permission before a blessing or hardship, how would you answer? Most would say "yes" to the blessing and "no" to the hardship, especially if it involved our children. Thankfully, God does not ask; rather, he gives us the gift of hindsight-to look back and say yes to the hardship that made us who we are. Struggle produces more strengths than weaknesses, more courage than fear, and more resolve than complacency. Bookstores are filled with incredible stories of courage and overcoming insurmountable odds. No one wants to read about a person who was born, went to school, made average grades, got an average job, had an average family and died an average death concluding with an average funeral. We probably know lots of people like that, but there are no books about them. No, we want the stories of the "average" overcomers. We want to hear about the men, women, and families, just like ours, who have faced their own Goliath and won, because we want to believe, we too can muster the "umph" to make it through our own difficulties. I Would Have Said "Yes" chronicles an average family with above-average determination, who are blessed by an incomprehensible and awesome God to see extraordinary miracles-one day at a time.