New Prayer Request & Quick Update

Hello friends,

Thank you so much for your prayers. Just wanted to post a quick update, as I’m not able to go into a full one right now. Pressing through in getting the daily nutrition necessary to make progress has definitely been more challenging lately, but God has been so incredibly faithful in the midst of it all. Time and time again, I have seen Him help me get in food when it seemed impossible, and He continues to carry me.

God has recently opened up an opportunity for me to see a new GI doctor. Though I am not necessarily expecting this to bring about significant new changes in treatment, answers, etc., God has opened this door through a friend, and I believe it would be wisdom and faith to see what He may have for me in it. My appointment is at 11:15 a.m. tomorrow morning.

Today, I need to work on updating medical history/records and notes and would be grateful for prayer that God would give clear and simple direction to me and my dad as we put these things together. I know that the Lord is able to highlight the things He wants shared tomorrow, and I need not strive and take on too much. I also need to continue to eat and persevere.

1 Corinthians 14:33 says, “For God is NOT a God of confusion but of peace….” The many voices of knowledge, counsel, symptoms, and potential answers can be deafening at times, but we serve a God Who does not bring confusion but peace. Would you join with me in asking Him to make that a living reality both today and tomorrow? He knows what He is doing.

Thank you, dear friends!

Even for temporal mercies you may wait upon God, for He careth for His children in these temporary concerns. As for spiritual necessities, which are the heaviest of all, the Lord will hear your cry and will deliver you and supply you.

O poor friend, try your rich God. O helpless one, lean on His help. He has never failed me, and I am sure He will never fail you. Come as a beggar, and God will not refuse you help. Come with no plea but His grace. Jesus is King; will He let you perish of wants What! Did you forget this? - Spurgeon

Health Update

Thank you all for rejoicing with me in God’s sustaining grace and all the kindnesses and mercies He has shown me. I have definitely experienced some good moments and even better days since I last updated, but I would not be honest if I didn’t say that the hard moments have also been pretty hard. But He has never let go, even when I have doubted Him. What a patient God we have, and I am so grateful that His hold on me is what matters in the end. I am so quick to let go.

I have seen some improvements with the overall effects of the bacterial issues, but it is hard to tell how much progress I’ve made as the symptoms can be confusing and overlap with so many others. There was a point over the past few weeks when I was barely able to get any nutrition in, and since that point God has enabled me to have days when I could eat more which is amazing. The big struggle has been that once I eat a bunch my system gets stuck and cannot digest it, and then I end up with several days of not being able to eat much at all and feeling pretty awful. In light of the serious place I’m in, I am going to try raw dairy again. It has been two months since I’ve had it, and since removing it, I lost weight, struggled more with getting food in, and just slipped backward in many areas.

On a praise note, I saw my primary care doctor last week, and my recent labwork shows that things are fairly normal which is amazing for my condition. He is sustaining.

So, here are ways to pray:

• For my body to do well with the raw goat milk products I am reintroducing (kefir and yogurt).
• For wisdom to know what to eat, whether to stick with goat dairy or to try cow dairy, what supplements to take, when to push through and when to hold back, etc.
• For contentment and self-control to eat according to what my body requires and not make unwise choices.
• For grace and strength to await His deliverance during the moments when it is most difficult to cope with my symptoms. Some of the hardest ones lately have involved neurological pains, strange sensations, and an inability to control my hands as they lock-up for a period of time.
• For endurance and joy.
• For continued guidance with doctors, those giving me counsel, and decisions on further testing/treatments.
• For grace for my family who gives so much to take care of me each day.
• That I might begin to more fully grasp what it means to be “united with Christ” and to live knowing that He has fully paid all my debts, and I belong to Him.
• That I would allow Jesus to be my Good Shepherd and provide for my needs rather than striving to figure everything out.
• That God would be greatly glorified and magnified in my weakness. He alone is “the Upholder of my life.”

God has been teaching me that He is the only One who can bring me safely through, and this trial will not last one moment longer than He intends. I so often think I know better and want to take things into my own hands, but how grateful I am that He is wiser than I.

Thank you for your prayers! They are felt. I look forward to sharing with you more in the days ahead as we see how He continues to provide.

“He is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom.” – Isaiah 28:29

P.S. Thank you to those of you who prayed for Nathan. His seizures have lessened since you did, and he is better! We would still be grateful for your prayers, though.

So Many Kindnesses

The past few weeks have held many ups and downs, desperate moments, enduring moments, countless evidences of God’s faithfulness and deliverances, and a multitude of blessings. Through it all, I am slowly learning to trust Him more. And I continue to be humbled to be the recipient of your prayers, encouragement, and care. I am in awe at the way He sends help – just on time. He has given me such kind friends in each of you.

Today, I want to recount some of His incredible blessings and gifts. Tomorrow, I will put up more details on how you can pray for my health at this time, but for now, I wanted to recount His mercies and kindnesses.

Here are some ways I have been greatly blessed and encouraged lately:

• Welcoming spring!
• Celebrating Easter and the hope of new life and Christ’s resurrection which has transformed EVERYTHING.
• Receiving prayer from my pastors at their weekly prayer meeting.
• Finding grace to make it to multiple medical appointments back-to-back over several days.
• Seeking God for wisdom and direction about a particular decision and seeing Him answer.
• Receiving a verse from a friend at just the right moment.
• Finding rest in our backyard hammock which was discovered free on Craig’s List last year.
• Finding daily grace to take another step.
• Eating something that looked like a sandwich wrap (real food!)
  
• Receiving a much-needed dental examination and x-rays at no cost from a generous and kind dentist.
• Seeing how God sustains as He kept me and enabled me to keep eating when it seemed impossible.
• Enjoying a walk with a friend.
• Pink dogwood trees.
• Singing “Be Still My Soul” in church (the Lord gave me this hymn 10 years ago when I first started getting sick, and singing it reminds me of how He promised to bring me through in His timing.)
• Rejoicing with a friend at her healing from celiac, while watching her trust God and wait or Him for the bigger unanswered sorrows and questions in her life.
• Receiving prayer and words of truth from dear friends.
• Unexpected beautiful flowers from a friend.
• Being loaned a dress that fit which I will wear in a friend’s wedding next month.
• Seeing that He ALWAYS keeps His promises.
• Being reminded by a radio host on Good Friday that when things look the darkest incredible good is coming. In her words, “just look at the Cross.”
• Finding a beautiful Easter basket in my room – thanks to my sister.
• Eating chicken.
• Having several high calorie days.
• Eating “out” for the first time in a few years – parsnip soup from a grocery store!
  
• Slowly learning that it is HE “who will perfect that which concerns me” (Psalm 138:8) – not me.
• Meeting a friend’s little nephew and spending time with her one afternoon.
• Waking the other day with a particular verse in my head which I had not read in a long while and later on finding an email from a friend which shared that very passage and mentioned she had been praying. The time of the email coincided exactly with when I had been thinking of that verse. God ANSWERS our prayers.
  

And these are only a sampling of all He has done and continues to do! Yes, there have been moments when I thought I would not make it. Many moments when all I could do was hold on for dear life and wait for deliverance. But He never failed me. It may not be the way I would have chosen, but I am so glad that He knows better than I.

Note: My brother, Nathan, has been struggling greatly with multiple seizures yesterday and today. Would you all mind praying for him? Thank you so much!

“Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of man!” – Psalm 107:31