What is My Hope?

Dear friends, please forgive me for the lengthy wait on this update. I had intended to get something up much sooner than now. So much has happened since I last posted, and I am grateful for your continued prayers, especially when you had not heard anything new.

First, I just want to praise the Lord for His incredible faithfulness and mercies. This morning, a friend sent me the following quote by Paul Tripp. “What is your hope? Only this – His relentless grace, boundless love, patient forgiveness and unending faithfulness.” He has truly carried me through each valley and mercifully spared me from much. As my dad said in the previous post, the team of doctors at Hopkins agreed that I was not a good candidate for nutritional feeding through either intravenous or a tube and instead, encouraged me to increase my caloric intake as much as possible and continue to eat. I had expected to undergo one of these procedures and am grateful that God has once again closed that door.

Since I’ve returned home from my brief hospital stay, I have been able to increase my calories and even put on weight. Although it’s not easy to navigate through how to eat each day, it is a gift that I can still eat.

I continue to be overwhelmed by the outpouring of care, prayer, and support I receive from each of you. It has such a significant effect on my daily life, and I cannot thank you enough.

Praise Reports

• God met me while I was in the hospital and gave me the help I needed to talk with the numerous doctors and nurses who came through my room.
• God has been helping me to eat, despite the ups and downs, and I have been able to significantly increase my calorie intake. Most days, I still have the mental desire to eat (even if my stomach doesn’t agree) and that is a gift in itself.
• I have been able to put on seven pounds over the past few weeks.
• I have noticed greater overall strength in recent days in comparison to where I was at just 3-4 weeks ago.

Prayer Requests

• Daily joy and satisfaction in the Lord and that I might better rest in the care and love of my Heavenly Father.
• Grace, wisdom, and perseverance as I begin a trial diet tomorrow with a different nutritionist and that my body would be able to digest and tolerate the new foods it will include (in particular, that I might be able to handle fats).
• That both my weight and strength would continue to increase.
• Wisdom and grace to deal with the daily fluctuations of old and new symptoms.

Through all of this, I continue to come face-to-face with not only my physical weakness but my great spiritual weakness as well. I am constantly reminded that Christ is my only Hope. I have no goodness apart from Him. As I shared in the quote above, He has shown me a “relentless grace, boundless love, patient forgiveness and unending faithfulness,” and I do not deserve any of it. Christ has purchased it all. This is why I can get up tomorrow and face whatever the day holds. Not because I have the ability to handle what comes my way. I most certainly don’t. But He does. And He is my hope.

But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For His sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and may share His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own. - Philippians 3:7-12