My Story - August 2003

This is the story of the most difficult time of our lives. May the telling of it bring hope to others and help me to heal.

8/24/03 Sunday 4 pm

We spent Friday morning at the medical clinic and Phil seemed worse and worse to me. I felt certain that Dr. H would hospitalize him. He got so tired that I had to ask them if he could lie down. He got up from the wheelchair and onto the examining table and fell promptly sound asleep for about an hour. So imagine our surprise when Dr. H walked in and said that his lab work was great. His hemoglobin was up from 9.8 to 11.4 (12-13 is normal). I thought of the verse in Hosea 11 that said - But they did not know that I healed them. Dr. H gave him some anti-depressants which we thought would also help with the fatigue, but they haven’t. Now he is in a better mood when he is awake, but he is still spending 75% of his time sleeping.

This morning in church, God was telling me to trust Him generously in the area of finances and that somehow by doing that, I will be “sowing faith”. I don’t understand that at all, but I do want to trust Him whole-heartedly. He said that He will meet all our needs. During worship, I felt like God gave me Isaiah 61:1-3. I felt like verse 3 was for me, and that He was saying that although now I have ashes, mourning, and despair, He will in time remove these things and bestow on me a crown of beauty, the oil of joy, and a garment of praise. I felt like verse 1 was for Phil. I felt like God was saying that He is anointing him to bring salvation to the lost, bind up the brokenhearted, and release the prisoners from darkness (salvation, healing and deliverance).

A friend called this morning and told me that her daughter had been raped a few days after she graduated from college. It has been extremely hard for the whole family, but they are doing everything right for her. It’s hard when evil happens to God’s children because we think we should be immune to things like that. A lot of godly people I know are going through tremendously difficult things right now. P seems really lonely and is reaching out for a friend, and so I think that I am going to try to call her every weekend for the time being.