Dear Lord, what a journey this has been lately…. this journey called life. Not just for me either. This one is affecting the world while at the same time affecting each individual life… in a very negative way. The only thing I can think of at the moment that has ever done that is… sin. Sin is ugly and sad. Covid-19 is ugly and sad. Death and illness is ugly and sad. There has been so much ugly and sad for so long now.
I want to take a moment to thank You for the prayer warriors! We need them! I want to take a moment to thank each one who has been praying with me and for me! And I want to thank You for answering prayer! Praise Your Holy Name, Father God! I love You, Jesus! Thank You, Holy Ghost!
Friends… Prayer Warriors! I want to thank you for praying so faithfully and fervently with me and for me, and for my family and friends. On September 8th I was finally able to have a much needed appointment with the specialist about this struggle I have had with choking, and constantly clearing and cleaning out my mouth all day long. This has been a 4 year battle, with some dysmotility that has happened along the way.
While I was terrified to go through with the procedures that I knew it would require and just knew I would have problems with, your prayers finally gave me a doctor who HEARD me, who LISTENED, who BELIEVED me, and made notes for possible problems and possible procedures. And though I wasn’t really keen on going near the hospitals because of Covid, I agreed to do them on October 12th. Within a couple of days the doctor’s office moved them to the 16th so that my doctor could do the procedures himself. (See how personal your prayers were!) It was a 4 year battle just trying to get my previous doctor to even believe me (and he never did)!
I am so grateful for those prayers and grateful for this doctor because I did end up having the very issues we had discussed. But the morning I arrived EVERY.SINGLE.PERSON. of that team listened to me, reassured me, and were very attentive. When I awoke coughing so hard, they knew it was from that choking issue but had such fear in their eyes. Yet they STILL took care of me!
When I had told my sister Sandra that I would need those procedures, she called her doctor to check on her situation, and came to let me know they went ahead and scheduled her for a needed surgery. She was extremely nervous, and so many things were uncertain. She had hers on September 30th. Thank you for praying for her!
Then I spent a week doing the things instructed to do for my procedures/surgery on the October 16th. It was a challenging and stressful week. After the procedure, I struggled with choking, swallowing, talking, even the challenge of getting my medicines down for a couple of days. Thank you for praying for me. There was a moment I thought for sure I would be on a liquid diet for the rest of my life. I see my doctor on Nov. 3rd to see if we have any answers, and what to do next.
The following Thursday (October 22nd) my brother Nathan had a surgery on his tongue that took them 3 hours. He struggled with the anesthesia so it took him hours to wake up. He also had a lot of pain from them having to put a tube through his nose and down his throat because he would stop breathing. Your prayers surely helped him get through a horrible time!
Thank you!
Now yesterday (October 28th) he had his other surgery that the doctor told him would be worse. We were all concerned, especially with the anesthesia and breathing. So many of you prayed with me for my brother. God blessed him and his day so mightily! I thought of you and your praying for him each time God moved!. The surgery went well and timely! He did NOT struggle with the anesthesia! He did not stop breathing (so no tube down the throat either). They even took his stitches out of his tongue. He awoke and was alert much quicker and stronger this time! And the concern the doctor most had… was ruled out! Which also meant the biggest concern my brother had in losing function to his body… was no longer a scare!
I cannot begin to thank you enough, but I absolutely want to try a little. SO many of you have been so incredibly merciful and patient with me for quite awhile now with delayed messages, inactivity, falling asleep while talking to you, missing calls altogether (many while holding my phone… I’m still trying to get used to my first smartphone since February), and so many more things that sadly I cannot even remember. I have hated finding later I left someone waiting for a reply for a week or more! (Sorry, Tosin, Caz, Holly, Randee, Margaret, Maxine, Nitin, Doreen, Stu and so many more!) 😦 Or that I have lost awards and tags that someone nominated me for! I didn’t even get to thank them, and have forgot who and the award!
You guys are so faithful and loving, merciful and full of grace. You have your own health issues, family scares, and just as much loss, uncertainty, and unending numbers of family and friends contracting and dying from Covid too. Yet you are so loving to still pray, to still call me friend, to encourage me in the faith with your own, and to speak prayers over me right in the comments and messages in my inbox… some even sending me cards and notes to my mailbox! (I am still so touched by that one who sent the $200 in a birthday card for my birthday fundraiser! And each one who contributed to make the other $200. I can’t tell you just how much you let God work in me!)
Christ… and His wonderful, undying, unconditional, never ending love… this is what you have constantly blessed me with. You have shown me His mercy, extended His grace, accentuated His kindness, and bore burdens with me. Thank you especially to each one who has been praying for my friend Nitin and all of his colleagues as they fight on the front lines treating Covid patients. Many of my doctor friends read your comments and tell of their own gratitude and journeys which include losses.
Lastly, that is certainly the thing you have been most faithful to pray with me on. So much loss in this Covid war,the senseless and petty bickering over rights being more important than our concern for one another’s health, calling millions of deaths around the world a hoax, and so many people who live with asthma, COPD, and many other compromised bodies terrified to come out of their homes not just because of the virus that can take their life, but many fear more the careless friend, or that enraged stranger that may attack them for wearing a mask as they have seen on the news. So many loved ones dying alone, or having no funeral because of the danger taken serious a little too late.
I have not kept updates on the prayer requests I have had along the way because they are so lengthy it would depress you. It depresses me! And angers me for those whose loss was due to carelessness… some their own, some the carelessness of others. In just the last few weeks, 2 ladies from my lifegroup lost a father who began his horrible battle on the daughter’s birthday and lost it, and another who lost her husband, 2 local facilities warned of large numbers among their patients and staff (which house several family and friends of the ladies in the lifegroup, and a few were the staff members), another has a brother who survived Covid but now battles with Afib, and that same lady has another brother in hospice dying from cancer, a family friend who is 29 was on a ventilator for a week without anyone knowing until he came out of it, a 27 yr old girl with little children is fighting Covid so hard the doctors had to put her into a medically induced coma to stop her from having seizures, and another family friend in his 60s sounded pretty bad on the phone when letting us know he was headed to the doctor and we still haven’t heard back if he has Covid or not.
And I could not begin to count the constant postings of friends on their blogs, Facebook, and emails of surviving Covid. No one would have known if they had not survived to post! 😦 Many are now living with permanent health problems gained from Covid. And I mean of all ages.
On top of all of this loss, are the losses of many who are dying from the things that were already killing us…. cancer, suicide, failing organs, car accidents, heart attacks, strokes, murder… and the pneumonia and flu that get dismissed so easily to make Covid look so harmless. So many have lost husbands, wives, parents, children, sisters, brothers, friends, and many have lost more than one. And sadly so many pastors and others in ministry are among the suicide numbers.
And there are so many working in the medical community. The team that took care of me on October 16th knew my situation, knew to expect how I would wake up, knew I had been tested for Covid as all patients entering the hospital are required to do and cleared (Praise God!). Yet my heart sank to hear them before I could open my eyes, and then see the terror in their eyes when I could open mine. Some got away from me as quickly as possible. I wasn’t the least bit offended. I felt so bad for them. They’re living and working with this all day long! 😦
The Lord has made that burden to pray for them even heavier, as well as to thank you for praying! With me! For me! Thank you. And if you read this all the way through, I pray the Lord blessed you in a way that you know it is absolutely Him reminding you that Jesus is an intercessor for you when He prays to the Father on your behalf, and the Holy Spirit is praying for you with groanings that cannot be uttered.
God loves you! And He prays for you! And everyone you pray for!
A special thank you to my Lifegroup… Blooming Zooming!
Thank you for praying with me, and letting me pray with you! God knew exactly who to put me into a sisterhood with! I praise God for each of you being Covid sensitive! For being so burdened already on your own to pray for the Medical Community, and emphasizing to pray specifically for as many as possible by name, as often as possible! Thank you for having such a love for God, and a heart for pursuing obedience even now. Thank you for being wise as serpents, and harmless as doves. Thank you for making room for me, and for being so welcoming.
Me and God love you each one! ❤
Thank You, Jesus, for encouraging me to get a thank you written down, and for helping me to stay awake and get it written and posted!!
Praise Your Mighty and Majestic name!
I love you… forever… no matter what!!
“Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms. Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.
Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly that it might not rain: and it rained not on the earth by the space of three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.
Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him; Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.”
– James 5:13-20 KJV
Week Six
Day one reminded me of one of the key figures we are easy to forget was an important part in all of the comparison and hardship that Jacob, Laban, Leah, Rachel, Zilpah, and Bilhah were all tangled up in. Esau was Jacob’s first rival. It was Jacob who struggled with jealousy and comparison. His actions toward Esau were exactly those of Laban towards Jacob. And Jacob gained the same ill character in his wives and father in law, the same ill character that his children would inherit. The deception Jacob learned from the whisper of his mother Rebecca to usurp what was rightfully his brother Esau’s, would be the same deception Laban would whisper into the ear of his daughter Leah to deceive Jacob on his wedding night after he had labored hard seven long years for Rachel.
Day Two had me thinking that of all of the places I have been… according to Your will or by my own foolish wisdom. I would rather be wherever You lead me… be wherever You are, and am grateful that You are willing to go wherever I have strayed to lovingly lead me home. Where You are, I want to go to that place.
Day Three makes me joyfully think on that new name You tell me You have written down for me in heaven… a new name that only You know and will whisper into my ear. It reminds me of when I started using my middle name as my new name… Gail. My family calls me BrendaGail. It makes me think of the many names changes in Your word… Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Noah to Noe, Saul to Paul, and of course Jacob to Israel. It also reminds me of the sad news of Rachel’s death. It was sad to know how her life had been. Never happy… always living her life in comparison.
Day four has me thinking on all of those children born out of manipulation and deception. Yet even in the midst of a dysfunctional family, You created the twelve tribes of Israel, and the lineage from which Jesus was born. It reminds me of when I once felt “barren,” and for years was constantly provoked by all the other girls who had babies, some three or four. They were very cruel. Yet just like Hannah, it was when I made a particular petition and vow that You answered my prayer. And that was before I had read Your bible, and I was a single teenage mom. I don’t know why You allowed things that seem contrary to Your word. I only know that You give life, Lord. Praise Your name!
Day five had a survey to discern our spiritual gifts. I was began with making sure I only answered between 2 and 4, but was soon all over the place. I leave the results to You because just as we are trusting the outcome to You, we know that You have allowed us to answer the questions that made the score. So as our thinking is (flawed or right on), it will determine what we score.
My health is what it is. He has blessed me many days, and with encouraging and wise, and very patient therapists, nurses, doctors. I need to be thankful, and accept where I am is what God has planned for me… at least right now. Regardless of where that is and what it looks like or feels like, or lives like, I am to love who I am in Him, and to share that love with others. God has known my life long before I did, and as The Great Physician He has every right to do whatever He wants with it to bring glory to His name. Even in and ESPECIALLY in my weaknesses He is made strong.
This is what one of my dear sisters in Christ reminded me… because I am sharing with them in prayer my burdens, they will be able to rejoice with me in what I so easily think is trivial to others but is every bit huge to me and my health.
Five months ago today, I finished my fourth round of chemo, and then we decided to stop treatments. I have been in remission since December, but the doctors remind us there is no cure and much more treatment is needed to keep the cancer away longer. We, and many of you, prayed for weeks about this decision. We know God works through medicine but we also know He can heal without it, it’s all miraculous. So today, we celebrate five months of leaving it with Him. We pray constantly for encouragement, for confirmation, for direction and we give praise for every single day my remission continues. Don’t stop praying over us and praising with us. #fullofGodnotfear
Shian is dear to me. She led our bible study, and the Lord used her during a very challenging time of my life. I memorized the entire book of James. I cannot tell you how it helped me through multiple MRIs and other imaging, doctor appointments and procedures, and more. May the Lord return than blessing and encouragement to Shian. Her back fracture led to finding she has cancer (multiple myeloma) in her plasma cells throughout her body. At this point she is continuing chemotherapy and will prepare for a stem cell transplant. This is her with her husband, daughter, and son-in-law.
Hi Guys! Just wanted to share with all of you who came along my journey of posting 30 true aspects about myself that you may not know… the AWARD from our dearest Fatima aka 
gaillovesgod 