Ovarian Cancer strikes in Kentucky – couple NEED your help!

Early last week, one morning, my son and his wife were heavy on my heart, I kept praying for them throughout the morning… I didn’t know why they kept coming to my mind, but every time they did I’d offer a prayer, Lord please help Chris and Jennifer, please be with them… Please take care of them… repeatedly throughout that morning… then I spoke with my son…

His wife was going to need surgery, she had a mass on her ovary the size of a small canteloupe… they (the doctors) didn’t know what it was, but they would need to remove it… in preparation they did some blood tests… her t-cells were high.. it might be cancer… they couldn’t do the surgery in Murray… Chris and Jennifer were told they’d have to go to the University of Louisville, the James Graham Brown Cancer Center…

For two young people this was a huge deal… so far a way… no car, lost wages… no insurance… no savings…

Chris, a former Marine joined the Florida National Guard (he was actually a civilian for 1 day) that was the winter of 2005… he spent a lot of active time that year with all the hurricanes and then served in Afghanistan… seeing things no young man or woman should ever have to see … when he came home… out one night with friends.. he met Jennifer… that was IT for him… they married shortly after that… He’s a fine young man… makes his mom proud… I knew too when I met Jennifer that she was the ONE the Lord had brought for my son… the last four years haven’t been easy for them, but they’ve worked together… forged a unit… “for this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and the two shall be as one flesh.”… That’s what God says… Chris is a really fine husband and loves his wife dearly.

Chris was a long haul truck driver, he and his wife basically living in the truck, crossing and recrossing state after state… taught me that Florida isn’t a drive through state… never thought of that before… then one night he had an accident…. near the small town of Murray Kentucky… fortunately no one was hurt… the Lord laid on his heart (as the One who works in us to will and to do) that He’d only used truck driving to bring him and Jennifer to Murray…. they settled in… with all the warmth and love that only a small town can give… they quickly became a part of the community…

As the jobless rate rose across the country this last year, finding new jobs hasn’t been easy… the pay? minimum wage… no insurance… no car… barely making ends meet from week to week… the way so many of us have started out lives on our own… but they were doing it… and because they were working together, the bond between them continued to grow, stronger… day by day… my baby and his bride were growing up… they joined the local Church and every time I spoke with them the peace and joy in their outlook and their words gave peace to my own heart as I knew the Lord was doing something with them.. .THAT I could trust… even though I didn’t know what it was that He was doing… didn’t need to know, just to trust…

Yesterday… was it just yesterday that the sky caved in?… Seems like a million years ago… That we found out that our Jennifer, 25, so young, so much in love with her husband… starting a new life of their own, young, strong, and vibrant… was at grave, deadly risk of a very, very ugly and real disease…

The doctors operated on Jennifer in a 5 hour surgery.. invasive ovarian cancer… they removed every thing from Jennifer that wasn’t needed for life… her chances of surviving this are 50-60% and they won’t even begin to know whether or not they got it all for another 4 or 5 days… she starts chemo immediately… what now Dear Lord? Why? Please.. NO!

I’m blind to tomorrow, haven’t a clue… so are Chris and Jennifer…But, God made some promises that are worthy of note… ALL things work to good [for believers - Chris and Jennifer]… He knows the thoughts He has towards us (Jennifer and Chris)… to good and not to evil… Jennifer was skillfully and wonderfully made in the secret of her mother’s womb… and God loves her and Chris very, very much! He loves them more than they love each other, more than I love my son, more than anyone loves anyone… God IS love….

We were able to talk today with joy and peace and strength… NOT about tomorrow… our Lord tells us clearly… tomorrow has too many problems, think of today… there’s enough here to focus on…

In 1998 my darling husband suffered 2 ruptured aneurysms and a massive stroke… he was in a coma, and the doctors said he wouldn’t make it through the night… no 50-60% chance.. he simply wouldn’t live… but I was able to handle that with strength and faith because five years earlier when my father committed suicide the Lord taught me how HE would get me through… while I could clearly see my Lord’s hand in preparing me for my husband’s sudden catastrophe… I didn’t know why he’d let Gordon have such a horrible illness… until yesterday… He in His “big picture” all-knowing set me up to be a role-model for my son… it wasn’t an act… it was real…. and it showed Chris how to place his face pointed to God and hold on!!!!

So today… we were able to be IN the middle of a horrible, earth shattering, catastrophe and find things for which to praise our Lord… and do as He instructs when He says… IN all things give thanks! … there is so much peace there… Jennifer asked me last night (how she could even talk after a 5 hour surgery and all the pain she had to have been in is totally beyond me)… she asked me if I was mad at her because she wouldn’t be able to have babies… NO, absolutely not, I was just THRILLED to be able to talk to her!

I have Jennifer’s and Chris’ permission to be telling y’all this stuff… there’s some huge needs here… If you’re a believer please pray for Jennifer and Chris and their families (mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, family, friends) who are grieved by this… pray that God heal Jennifer and let her be with us for a long time yet… Pray that Jennifer not have pain.. and that God give both of them the strength they’ll need in the days to come… that their faith can be an example to others, that God might be able to use this to open someone’s eyes to Him, that they might become believers too… please pray that God give the doctors the right knowledge to completely heal Jennifer…

Scripture says if your brother is hungry, don’t just pray for him… feed him… if he’s naked, don’t just pray for him… give him something to wear…
Whether you share our faith or not… please help if you can… Right now… Chris and Jennifer are 300 miles away from their tiny one bedroom apt… neither working.. and Jennifer won’t be able to work for quite some time… they have minimum wage jobs, no insurance and no car, no savings… Jennifer will have to go back and forth for chemo therapy a lot… please if you have been blessed financially please help them… anything… even pennies.. if everyone who read this also got their friends to read it and each one sent a small amount.. one dollar… 50 cents… it would all add up… and enable Chris and Jennifer to eat, to get back and forth to the hospital, to have clothes to wear… how much can you afford… please (I’ve never asked this of strangers before…) please help them… if you can please send it to their church… put “for Jennifer Johnson” on it and mail it to… this way you’ll know it’s not a scam… this is a very real desperate need…

First Baptist Church
203 South 4th Street
Murray, KY 42071

In any case, whether you can help or not… may God bless you bountifully… we’re all in the same boat you know… people are all we have, and we are each here for each other. Thank you for your time reading this!

Addictions….

I saw a question posed recently: How addictive is LoTRO (Lord of the Rings Online) a Massive Multi-Player Role Playing Game?

Nither LoTRO nor any other online game is in and of itself physically addictive. The key phrases here are “in and of itself” and “physically”.

For some thing to be physically addictive it must have a molecular structure and that structure must be similar to some chemical naturally produced by the human body. For example, morphine… it is addictive because it has a molecular structure nearly identical to a chemical naturally produced by you and I. When the body gets what it needs from an outside source it stops producing it and becomes dependent upon the external source of the chemical. Once addicted, when one tries to stop getting it from the external source the body goes through a transition known as withdrawal until it starts producing it again on its own. Some chemicals are more addictive than others, this is always dependent upon the length of time from which first ingested from the external source to when the body stops making the required chemical.

Crack is incredibly addictive because the body immediately stops making the similar chemical. Nicotine is much less addictive since one does not become physically addicted after only 1 cigarette. That is, the body keeps making the requisite chemical until its received the chemical externally over some period of time.

Based on the above description of addiction, it is completely impossible for an online game to be addictive as it does not have a molecular structure.
There are some who would say it is psychologically addicting. However, placing the term “addiction” on this is incorrect and is simply an easy way to escape responsibility, to actually place it (responsibility) on the game as opposed to the gamer. “Addiction” to LoTRO, WoW or any other game is ALWAYS the direct result of a choice. If I choose to play LoTRO with all my free time… some will say it’s an addiction, when in fact, it’s merely my choice.
Someone recently wrote that our (men’s) hearts easily/naturally make idols of things. I think that’s true and that it is an exhibition of our sin nature. When we choose to sit and play LoTRO (and I’ve done this too, so I’m guilty – probably more than most – of this specific sin choice) with all of our hearts, minds, and souls, we are making an idol to replace God… simply stated… choosing to sin – consciously… on purpose… there is no accident here.

Note: If I choose to eat too much or get drunk these too are sins and are examples of making idols of something besides our Father and of making sin choices.

If we do that which the Lord approves with appropriate moderation, keeping it and our Lord in the respective, proper and correct positions in our hearts, it’s fine.

I also believe God is where the people are… if we are online … then He is online too… I think mission fields begin at the end of our noses… wherever that may be… cyberspace included. I think God laid it on the hearts of those who start various online fellowship groups (i.e., guilds) (as the One who works in us to will and to do) so that fellow believers may have online fellowship as well as maintain a witness of Him… to be the fragrance of Christ to the saved and the perishing… online as well as off.

In fact, I actually have experienced more Christian fellowship through involvement in an online Christian guild than I do in real life. This is true because (1) I’m an extreme introvert – happier at the computer than at a gathering, and (2) after 9, 10, or 11 hours of work in a day, I want to come home not go out, even to Church.

It’s time people (AND MYSELF INCLUDED) stop blaming other “things” to avoid responsibility for our free-will choices. We all make our own choices, no one and no “thing” make us do that.

God’s Funny Bone

Someone remarked recently about me keeping my sense of humor during a medical problem I’m currently experiencing. Specifically, I’ve recently requested prayer that I literally not have a screw loose… which I myself find very funny….

I got to thinking…

Have you ever seen or owned a dog with a sense of humor? What about a cat? Perhaps your pet African Grey? Slate, our African Grey Parrot, 6th child, 28 and still living at home, and in the Guinness World Book of Records as the smartest bird has a sense of humor? Absolutely not, although he probably thinks he’s a riot. How about your pet gold fish? Pet rock? No; none of the above… I thought not.

If none of the other “animals” on this planet have a sense of humor where did we get ours?

I believe it must have come from our maker… as “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth,” (Gen. 1:26, NASB).
I believe in a literal translation of Scripture… God invented language, makes no mistakes, meant what He said and He said what He meant! But, He obviously didn’t tell us everything.

Our sense of humor had to come from somewhere, especially since it is not evidenced in any other living plant or animal, but is in nearly all humans… just in man. We must have gotten it somewhere… So, I think perhaps my Father must have an extremely intense sense of humor and I think He’s used it from time to time.

And, while our Savior was the “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief”, He was also acquainted with that wonderful peace that “passes all understanding” and although Scripture does not record that Christ laughed, in all likelihood He too had a sense of humor. After all He is a man and He is God.

Can’t you just see God the Father, with His son on His right hand side, sharing a laugh… most likely at some really stupid something one of us has done… perhaps at the prayer request they have before them… that Luci not have a screw loose…

I for one just can’t wait to hear God’s laugh.

The Great Planner

It’s been a long time since my last post in May… and a lot more than a vacation has been on my mind… Nevertheless, I spent a great deal (exorbitant amount) of time determining:

If I could make this vacation happen… all by myself… by brute force, if you will… I would have… But guess what? God has had an incredible lesson to teach me this year…

Earlier in May I blogged about James 4:13-17 which says,
Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.” As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil. So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.

And that is exactly what the focus of the last 2.5 months has been…. actually God started the lesson before that… way back to when I bought our tickets to go to Russia to visit our son and his family…. at some point during the last couple of months I began to think I’d sinned by not looking for the Lord’s will truly, nor at all… rather insisting (yet once again) on my own desires… but the lesson has really been to write His word on my heart with a keen understanding that I would not have been able to achieve without His repetition and the driving home of the point….

It’s one thing for me to write blithely a verse from Scripture… it’s another thing completely for God to write it indelibly on my heart.

Gordon (my husband) had been experiencing TCIs, small mini-warning strokes. Of course, at the time we didn’t know what they were… his right hand would go numb… he was seeing various doctors for this, and they were trying to come to a diagnosis as to the cause. Then one day in June… his right arm went numb and his left eye got blurry… very scary!

The doctors sent Gordon to the emergency room, where he was immediately hospitalized… they found his left carotid artery 99% blocked. They had to perform immediate surgery to correct this. He had the surgery and was recovering.

After 3 weeks of being in the hospital and at home, Gordon was finally well enough to return to work at the beginning of July. He worked just 2 days….

All of a sudden… when I left for work Gordon was fine… by that afternoon… he wasn’t… His neck, at the incision site, was swollen and inflamed. Gordon noticed, but didn’t pay much attention to it… He had a doctor’s appointment about a rash on his leg… The doctor told him the rash was fine, but that he needed to go to the emergency room because it looked like he had an infection at the incision. By the time I arrived at the hospital his neck had swollen (and was red and hot to the touch) to the point that it was incredibly obvious that he had a serious infection.

I knew that the source had to be down around the artery; otherwise the infection would have progressed slowly… this sudden appearance could only mean that it was deep and was well along.

They had to immediately reopen Gordon’s incision site, clean it out and replace the synthetic arterial graft (which turned out not to be infected – although all of the surrounding tissue was) with a vein from his leg. The infection was the one typically gotten from bacteria at hospitals although, thank God, not the MRSA strain.

Not only was my much loved husband in ICU for 5 more days, but he also had to be on IV antibiotics for 5 weeks, followed by a course of oral antibiotics for an additional 3 weeks.

Of course, the likelihood of our going on vacation… was not very.

After praying continuously requesting that my Lord spare Gordon’s life yet once again, and with His loving answer being, “Yes”… I then had to come to grips that perhaps I hadn’t been seeking the Lord’s will about going on this trip… and had instead forged ahead of God on my own… never a good thing to do.

My constant issue about “hearing God” is that I listen for Him and that I not hear just what I want to hear. And in this case that’s what I thought I’d done… insisted on what I wanted for myself.

Jeremiah 29:11 says, “I know the thoughts that I have toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
If God is real… He is loving… If God is real… He is consistent (never changing)… If God is real… He IS!

So in my present dilemma either (1) I had not heard God correctly – that is – He had not given me permission to go on a ths trip or (2) He was trying to teach me something… I continued to pray for God’s guidance and truly gave over to Him my selfish desires.

Last week… just one week before our scheduled departure… the Doctor’s said Gordon amazingly was well enough to travel… (yesterday they removed the IV line). So God said “yes, my child” after all??? Maybe not…

Then came Fay…. Here we were just a couple of days from our scheduled departure and we were threatened with a hurricane… Was I listening? Had I meant it that I wanted “God’s will” and not my own?

Yes… but…

Yesterday morning… while still not completely out of Fay’s way… our airline cancelled our flight. (I almost want to stop here and leave you hanging……)
We’re on another flight…. But the message on my heart, so clearly this morning is…. IF THE LORD WILLS…. We’ll be going on a wonderful excursion… and if He does not, then we won’t… and I’m very, very fine (and have tremendous peace) with that.

God knows all, sees all, planned all long-long ago…. And He loves me, even when He says “no, my child”.

God IS real and loving… and He teaches us! For the rest of my earthly life… this is a lesson I want to own… He is not great because He said yes to a vacation… He is Great because He loves me (us) enough to teach us His lessons individually, He’s involved in each of our lives, and because He is consistent and dependable. This time, He may be saying yes; next time He may tell me, “No, that would not be good for you.”… In either case… I want my Lord’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven.

« Previous Page — Next Page »