Prayer and Supplication with Thanksgiving

When I visited my parents this weekend, I got to talk to my dad about his thoughts and wishes. I tried to absorb as much as I could. There is one thing he said which I took particularly to heart. He impressed upon me the importance of making my prayers to God (on his behalf) with thanksgiving. 

Now, any Christian who's been in the Bible or a church for any length of time can quote this verse: 

It struck me that, even at this painful stage in his life, my dad would still be exercising his skill sets both as pastor and parent. 

He knows me very well, this man. He knows that I have struggled with the effects of PTSD and anxiety for a long time now. He also knows that these things cause me no small amount of fear. Even my prayers can become fear-based. 

It was important for him to remind me that we can cast *all* of our cares on the Lord, even the scary life-threatening things. We can come to God in confidence:

He wants my prayers to the Lord to be made with confidence from a thankful heart. He doesn't want me to be drowning in sorrow to the extent that I cannot see God's love, mercy, and grace during this trying time. I *do* exercise faith but it is true that my fear can sometimes overwhelm that.

This morning, when I sat down with my girls to read the Bible and to pray for my dad, his words echoed through my heart: 

"Just be sure that you are praying with thankfulness. 

I want us to be thankful in all things through this. Our God is so good."

Our devotion today was in James chapter five, which was a timely blessing. Several verses, in particular, especially reached into my soul.

11 Behold, we count them happy which endure. Ye have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful, and of tender mercy.

1313 Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.

1414 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:

1515 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.

1616 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.

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Just about everything I was reading and thinking about this morning before we started the day was pointing to fine-tuning my prayer efforts. It was a good and timely reminder for me. I was able to go into my prayers today with calm and peace, knowing that God can answer them in His own way and His own time. We call that special feeling 'the peace that passes all understanding'. It is when unnatural peace and calm flood through your body, heart, and mind.

I am also reminded that I have seen prayer work. This is why nobody can tell me that faith is just misunderstood chance or the hopeless delusion of a week mind. 

For example, when I was carrying Giraffe, toward the end of the pregnancy I would wake up in the middle of the night positive that she was going to die at birth and I would never meet or get to know her. I mean, I would wake out of the clear blue, deeply convicted of this and sobbing my eyes out. 

Every single time this happened, I woke Chris and begged him to pray that she would survive her birth. He never once failed to wrap me in his arms, praying there in the dark that our child would survive her birth and live a happy life. When the day of her birth arrived, we endured trauma which caused her heart to stop beating within me. Her delivery was horrific. It is an experience I would never wish on any mother and child. Even our doctor admitted to Chris later in the year that he was supposed to go home alone that night, leaving behind two body bags. 

Miraculously, she was revived! By the grace and mercy of God, Giraffe and I both survived. My beautiful baby lived. You cannot tell me that prayer does not work. I *know* that prayer works. I have seen it. That is only one time out of many. When God tells you to pray, friends, you'd better do it!

Now, it would be narcissistic of me to think that God will answer all of my prayers in the affirmative. We know that the earth has been given over to the will of man. People are governed by what they want to do. Evil abounds by our hands and by our choices. Additionally, God has His own reasons for answering prayers in His own way. There are too many reasons for the outcomes of our myriad of situations to know exactly why any given thing happens. I will not always get the answer I want. I *can* be okay with that. :)

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My dad asks that the Lord be given the glory, no matter how God chooses to handle his life. That is one more way he has been consistent since I was a child. I can hear him praying over the pulpit of that first small church he pastored, "May everything we do be for Your glory."

This season of my dad's life is painful. It doesn't have to be ugly, though. It doesn't have to be depressing or despairing. Dad knows that his life is in God's hands. He trusts that whatever God decides is for his own glory. My dad may be in his recliner, it is true. He is not to be counted out, though. Even from his chair, my dad is serving the Lord and bearing witness of His goodness. 

May my prayers from now on be filled with confidence that God hears and cares. May my deepest wishes float to God's ears and be responded to in His infinite wisdom. May I never forget to thank Him that - even in this hard time - my dad can still be used. His life bears witness daily of the grace and mercy of God. I find that I truly *am* thankful for our present situation. I am thankful that this trial can be used to teach me even more about God's love and tender mercies. 

God *is* good. I so thank and praise Him for allowing me the dad that I have. I love that preacher man more than words. I am so truly and deeply blessed. <3 <3 <3

We have started a GoFundMe Campaign on behalf of my parents. Please consider sharing it on social media. 

The Big Question

Yesterday, I asked our ALS Association rep the question that has been scaring me to pieces off and on this whole time. 

"How is my dad going to die?"

I knew the semantics, mind you. I have been reading over sites about ALS and containing ALS information ever since we learned that he had an MND that was suspected to be ALS.

I know, for instance, that the nerve death happening in his body means that his functions are shutting down, one by one, because messages can no longer pass from his brain to his muscles. We see this affecting his tongue, facial muscles, limbs, etc. This changes how he swallows and speaks, how he moves. This is robbing him of the ability to walk upright. It will rob him the ability to walk at all. Nerve death is stealing his ability to get up and down. It means that he cannot catch himself when he falls. It means a lot of things.

The same nerve death that causes his brain to send signals, which are no longer being received, is happening in his lungs. He struggles to breath when it is rainy or if the humidity is even slightly up. So yes, I know *how* he will die. He will suffocate to death when his nerves can no longer tell his lungs to breathe. :'( :'( :'( 

What I was asking *Joanne is how this will fee. Will he be gasping for air? Will he be writhing or flailing around, keenly aware of taking his dying breaths? Will it be torturous and scary for him? :'( :'( :'( 

Thankfully, she understood exactly what I was asking.

I try to be very professional when I am on the phone but this question made me burst into tears. I was trying to hold them in. She, being so loving and caring, immediately took an even more compassionate tone. She explained to me that ALS patients have very peaceful deaths. When my dad is put on Hospice, they will keep very good care of him. The time will come when it is very clear that he is losing his battle. When that happens, they will make sure that he is medicated for comfort and that he is sleeping.

I know on our end it will be more complicated than that. My mother, at the very least, will still have to witness it happening. :'( :'( :'( On his part, though, my dad should slip off into eternity from a state of calm, in his slumber. This is everything that he has ever prayed for. I thank my God mightily for this!!

We don't know how long he has. Some days, it feels like he may not last the month. Other days, I can be more optimistic about everything. God is still on His throne, after all. There are things doctors cannot explain. Miracles do still happen in the everyday. 

Today I continue to pray for healing. I pray for the Holy Spirit indwelling my dad to move through him and to cause healing/regeneration in the nerves and muscles throughout his body. I pray that mercy will be granted from Heaven. I pray that we will all be spared and that the Lord will be glorified. 

That is the big thing, of course. May God get the glory. In good times or bad, in pain or in pleasure, in joy or in sorrow... may the world know that God is good. <3

We have started a GoFundMe Campaign on my dad's behalf. Please consider sharing it on social media. *Name changed for privacy

Fears in the Night - Part 2

Today I ran across an old blog post from my previous blog that blogger will not let me back into. (Grr) It was long but I read through to the end. I do not just relate to it because it happened to me (of course). This journey with my dad suddenly declining into a disease which is fatal has brought up his immortality all over again in a much-too-real way. My thoughts on the matter have not changed. I will *always* need my daddy to pray with me in the middle of the night when I wake up afraid. 

---------------------------Fears in the Night - January 12, 2011---------------------

Fears in the night

Life is so tricky, isn't it? The way we experience rises and falls in circumstance. Tonight, in part due to a bad dream I had earlier in the week, finds me revisiting the events of last November, and where I am emotionally at this moment because of them. 

The bad dream I had was directly related to my dad's heart condition and the fact that he is most decidedly not immortal. I have never thought seriously that any of us live forever, but there is a veil of immortality that surrounds our parents, so long as we do not have to see them in weakened condition. When my dad first went into the hospital it was all about being in survival mode. Matter of fact dealing with it. However, the Monday morning he had the heart cath procedure done to determine blockage in his heart and kidneys (he has both but not high enough to require immediate surgery) that veil fell completely off of my eyes and I was truly afraid. 

It has been around six or seven weeks since then, and most of the time I do not even think about dad's heart condition, beyond the immediate concerns of taking his medication and how he is feeling/doing whenever we call. This week has been different, thanks to that bad dream. It was a short one, but it was my mom calling to tell us that dad had passed in a heart attack. She sounded better than I knew she was doing and said not to worry about dad being in pain because he was ready to go and went quickly. He had been standing one minute and simply fallen over, already in Heaven the next.

That was it. No long dream about what happens next, just that. It was enough, though, and thoroughly rattled me. I got up and called my parents, feeling a little leftover terrified from the dream and needing reassurance, but also feeling guilty. I did not want to tell them why I was calling; I especially did not want to tell my dad why I was calling. It seemed an awkward thing to open with, you know? Both of them answered, though, on speaker phone, as is their custom of late. I usually really enjoy that, b/c it is great to talk to both of them, but of course, it startled me a little bit that morning. 

I tried to sound casual and asked how they were doing, but of course being raised to be completely honest with my parents and to this day still unable (or unwilling?) to keep any part of my life from them, I did end up mentioning the dream. 

That is what has me writing this blog tonight. I was able, like so many times in the past, to call on my mom and dad for a bad dream and get reassurance. That is what brought me back to the night before his heart procedure... a night when I was unable to sleep, and when I began to cry over the events of the weekend leading up to that night because all of the times in my life when I was deeply upset in the middle of the night - upset enough to need someone to speak to me and pray with me (other than Chris) - I have always, always called my dad. That night while he lay sleeping in the hospital, prepared for anything up to and including meeting his Maker, I was awake in my bed and could not call my daddy to pray with me.

Tonight I spoke with my mom. She mentioned that dad now has a crease in his ear. I did not know what that meant, so she explained that they had checked his ears at the hospital because a crease can be a visible precursor to a heart attack or something like that. I looked it up online and learned that some recent study (after years of it being a thought but not fact) links the crease in the earlobe 'alarmingly' to the sudden death of the patients, regardless of age, obesity, or even being skinny.

I know in my rational mind that this does not mean my dad will be dropping dead tonight or tomorrow. He may not go to Heaven for weeks, months or even more likely, years. This fact does not change the realization (all over again) that as normal as life gets, as hard as I try to erase a dream, my daddy is not immortal. I cannot reconcile that and I will spend every minute after posting this blog not thinking about it, but there it is. For this moment in this day, I am grieving just a little. There will come another night in the future when I will need my dad to calm my fears and he will not be there. 

Who in your life is immortal? Who do you take for granted every day? Do you sometimes leave "I love you" unsaid, or spoken as a hurried goodbye? The Bible says that none of us are guaranteed tomorrow. So right now, right this minute or as soon after this as you are able, call that person. Call them or go to them and let them know what a valuable part of your life they are. 

If my hunch is correct, each of us will also be making that same call via prayer to our Heavenly Father. Because come the night when there is no one there to solace our hearts, He is the father who will always still be there. Fears in the night are real, whether you are a child or have the occasional one as an adult. The unchanging factor of comfort to calm those fears is Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Father. 

Mama, I Wish You

Several recent birth traumas and injuries have caused my heart to be most heavy, most tender today. There is so much I wish for mothers in this crazy, unfair world of ours. 

Mama, I Wish You...

Mama, I see the tears trailing down your cheeks. 

I hear your sobs though I'm not nearby. 

Your heart cries out in pain without words,

and our hearts echo back in reply. 

I wish... I wish...

Mama, I wish you the arms of Jesus

wrapped tightly around your heart.
I wish His arms around your baby

while you two are far apart. 

I wish you had calm instead of terror;

 the fear of losing your precious baby boy.

I wish this nightmare you're living

could be somehow replaced with joy.

I wish that I could undo the moments

that lead to this frightening birth.

I wish yesterday had been the best of your life, 

instead of the scariest, and worst. 

Oh mama, how I wish I could express to you

the deepest sympathies of my heart. 

I wish that I could let you know that you are not alone

as you lay feeling empty, forgotten in the dark. 

Too many mamas have gone before you.

Too many of us know well this blackened road. 

You feel alone though surrounded with people

all wishing they could bear for you this load.

I wish you a healthier baby this minute, 

the next hour, day, and week. 

I wish you safe recovery to meet him in person, 

and plant mother's love kisses on his cheek. 

I wish health to his heart, mind, and body, 

and for his seizures to altogether cease.

I beg God for healing, in His Holy name

in my heart and on my knees. 

I wish you a mountain of mercies, 

new from the Lord each minute of every day.

I wish you His guidance, His goodness

every single step of the way. 

Lord, touch this mama and all others like her. 

Let your healing hand not from them roam.

Bring her and baby your healing, Oh God,

let these babies and mommies go home.