Update from Charissa

Dear friends,

Thank you so much for your prayers. It has been a long time since I have posted. I am so grateful to my parents for keeping you all updated as they could. Though I'm not able to get online too often these days, please know just HOW MUCH it means to me to know you all are praying. I am fully convinced that God is using your prayers to carry me from one moment to the next.

This will be a short update, but here are a few praise reports:

• I have been able to continue at an increased feeding rate but am slightly below target goal.
• My weight is up one pound from last week (so we continue to avoid TPN at the present).
  
• I have had a small amount of motility.
• God has shown His incredible faithfulness in keeping me when I cannot keep myself. He is my Sustainer and the Upholder of my life (Psalm 54:4).

Many of my symptoms have worsened over the past week, and the battle has been quite intense. Yet every time I think I must give up, God carries me forward again and keeps me. I have never been more aware of how I cannot sustain myself.

The prayer requests from the last post still stand, but here are a few additional ways to pray:

• For the peace of Christ to rule and reign in my heart, mind, and soul.
• For wisdom as we meet with my GI doctor again tomorrow at 12:45pm.
• For endurance and the ability to press on through each moment.
• That we would know the clear leading of the Lord throughout each step of this journey.
  
• For increased motility.
  
• For relief from the increasing multitude of symptoms as God sees fit and especially the ability not to focus on them but rather on Him and "normal" things of life. He is merciful, wise, and good and up to so much more than I can see right now.

Thank you all. I am continually humbled and amazed that God would show me such love and care through each of you.

This is my prayer right now:

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, YET I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; He makes my feet like the deer's; He makes me tread on my high places. - Habakkuk 3:17-19

It doesn't matter how much is taken away as long as I have Him. And often I don't feel Him there, but the unshakable truth is that He IS still there, and His truth never changes. He has given me what I need the most - forgiveness of my sins - and because of that, I can trust Him to give me the lesser (Romans 8:32). Pray that I would grow in my expectation of His continued help and goodness which will never change, even though I change from moment to moment. He is steadfast and trustworthy - always.