Rejoice Greatly!

Well, after months of not knowing what was going on or which direction we would be taking to address these crazy medical concerns, tomorrow is the day of surgery.  It's a different surgery than I was expecting, and I am super grateful for that!  I think preparing myself for something as crazy as open heart surgery has really helped me to not totally freak out over this.  A hunk of my skull? About 4 weeks until I feel like doing things? A gnarly headache for up to two months?  That is a piece of CAKE compared to a year until I am 100% like they promised me after open heart!  I've spent most of my time stoked over the way things have turned out, and I think that was okay.

This week, however, I started to get scared. 

Just being real, here.  I mean, just because it's not open heart surgery doesn't mean it isn't a major surgery!  This is my head we are talking about here!  The tumor is in the skull bone and is currently obeying the "rules" of bone, which means it is growing very much like a bone would and is very hard like bone.  It also means that it is staying inside the bone and has not traveled into the brain at this point.  It is placing pressure on the brain, but not too bad at this point.  Removing it will help with the pressure and hopefully a whole host of other things.  So yay!  Except that when I spoke with my doctor this week he informed me that one of the side effects of cutting into the bone is that sometimes people end up with permanent worse headaches.  

That one kind of threw me.  

A 4-5 inch long patch of hair missing?  I'm cool with that.  I've got a hubs who loves me and a God who designed hair to grow back.  A few weeks of feeling pretty awful?  No biggie, Jesus can handle that one for me.  

A chance of permanent WORSE headaches?  Um, yeah, that one sort of bothers me.

I know that my Jesus is still in control.  I know that He has a plan and that He loves me and that if I end up with these worse headaches He will have a beautiful plan in that too.  I know a ton of the right stuff with my head.  If I could just convince my worried nauseated stomach I'd be grand.  

Then this morning I read this:

And I just knew that The Lord was speaking THIS to ME!

I felt like He said specifically, 

"Rejoice greatly in the face of this scary surgery because I, your loving, powerful, able, caring King, am COMING TO YOU to meet you THERE, in the fear, in the pain."

Honesty alert here: I really don't like it when I feel my trust shaken.

I mean, who does right?!? But still, I hate it when I know all of the right stuff to say or do but I just can't shake the worry or fear.  That's why I am loving this word for me for this situation so much right now!  He is not saying pull it together Jo.  Get with it.  Suck it up. Don't you trust me?

No.  Instead he is saying, rejoice in Me.  I AM COMING.  Rejoice in that and I will bring the rest of it to pass perfectly.

Some days I need to really see how in control God is.  But it's not a complete picture of His power until I see that I have none of my own.  As I face this surgery, which includes 3 hours in the operating room, the rest of the day in ICU ("just in case" my doc said...who likes to hear "just in case"? Ha!) and then one night overnight as long everything goes well, I am nose to nose with my inability to do ANYTHING.  

But I CAN cling to His promises!  And this morning He has promised to meet me THERE, in the surgery, in the possible complications, in the recovery room, in my life!  And He keeps His promises.

So tomorrow morning I show up for a CT scan at 6:30 where they will shave part of my hair and put a stitch in the skin and then be able to use the ct scan like a navigator of old days would use the North Star and his star charts and know exactly where to make his incision. Crazy cool, huh? (Ps talking about that makes me want to watch Prince Caspian or some movie about ships on the sea) My surgery will begin at 8:30 am and I promise that Christian will update Facebook with how things are going. Thank you so much to everyone that is praying!!!  

Oh and please pray for my doctor!  His name is Dr. Malamed and we are pretty sure he is not a believer.  He is super nice and very skilled and we had a total peace about this the moment we met him, but he isn't saved.   So please pray for him to also meet my King in that operating room and recovery room too okay?  We KNEW when we met the guy for the very first time that Jesus wants to do something awesome with him so yeah, please just pray for him.  Thank you everyone!

Oh and also thank you everyone for praying for our Christmas celebration and for the gifts and verses and kind words of encouragement and for the Christmas dinner and just so many blessings!  We are feeling like princesses and princes over here, sons and daughters of a great King.  Thank you for letting Him use you to lift us up.  It was a very sweet day!

Apple Picking

Yesterday the kids and I went Sprouts to get a few things we had run out of, and I had a startling reminder that we do not live in Paris, Texas anymore.

There's this guy that runs the produce department there that seems to be working the majority of the time that we go.  He is SUPER into nutrition and healing your body through food instead of medicine and when he is there I just know that we will be there extra long.  But he has always been sweet to the kids and chops open fruits that we haven't tried before and gives them samples so that's cool.  Plus I just know that Jesus wants a friendship to be born there that He can work through. So anyway, we usually chat about paleo diets verses vegan or the latest super fruit.  One day, a month or two back, he asked me about where the kids go to school and we shared that we home school.  He asked the kids how they like it and what they need. Through the course of the conversation Abigail told him that one of the books you need is the Bible (we have a 15 minute Bible class at the beginning of each day and our writing class is also out of the Bible).  Oh man, this guy stiffened up immediately.  He quickly said a little something that let us know what he thought about that and turned around and stalked off.  Since I got sick, I haven't really seen him.

Last night, I went in and he was there.  I had a question about the difference between yams and jewel yams so I had Abigail ask him (trying to train them up to be efficient in grocery shopping) and he came over to explain the differences to us ( which by the way, there is no difference besides the color of the skin.  So get whatever is cheapest or on sale). In the middle of chopping open the potatoes to show us that there isn't a difference, he has this look pass over his face and he stops and looks at me and says

"You're that family that home schools, aren't you?"  

I felt like I was on trial and it was so funny I almost laughed out loud. "Yes," I said.  "We are very ready for our Christmas break too!"  

Well that apparently set him off, because he looked right at the kids and said, "Did you know that Christmas was actually a pagan holiday and has nothing to do with Jesus?"  He wasn't looking at me. He wasn't really trying to ask a question or even debate with me.  He wanted to make my kids question Christmas!  I was like whoa, you wouldn't have a conversation like this in the produce section of Kroger or Walmart in Paris for sure!  

But people here aren't like people in Paris. This is definitely NOT the Bible Belt of the nation for sure.  We are part of one of the most liberal cities in America where practically everything is legal and nothing is looked down upon for fear of seeming "closed minded."

Well, my kids looked up at me with giant questioning eyes and looked shocked when I answered, 

"He is right, guys." I explained a quick synopsis of how Constantine wanted to make Christianity the Roman religion so he combined some of the old pagan holidays with some of the things Christians were celebrating, trying to make the transition easier for people.  I explained that although originally Christmas was pagan, we as a culture have redeemed it and shone the light of Christ on it and we ARE celebrating Christ now.  

The guy looked at me and said "Here's your potatoes" and walked away.  

I think he wanted to throw us a little, shake our belief.  I wasn't really offended, just a little shocked at how he passed me up and went straight for my kids. But not offended. I remember getting excited before I was a believer when I thought I had something that could tear down someone's faith (I know, I was awful). I just needed a good reason to suffocate the conviction inside of me that was screaming that Jesus is real and I needed him.  So, I'm not mad at him and I was trying to be super careful to respond in loving firmness, not arrogant pride.  I hope and am PRAYING that instead he maybe saw that although there are things that might seem to not make sense about Christianity, there is always a good answer. That was what the kids and I have talked about multiple times since last night.  The whole experience gave us the chance to really talk things through, to explain why it's okay to have a Christmas tree and to talk about taking the things of the world and redeem them and make them things that can bring glory to God.  We don't have to shrink back in fear when someone raises a question we don't know the answer to.  There is always an answer. (P.s. Alwaysbeready.com has a ton of answers if you feel like you're not equipped or don't remember the answer to something)

I think my kids learned some valuable lessons and I am praying that Jesus will keep giving us chances to kindly love this produce guy and share the Light of Jesus with Him.  I am praying that he will see that Jesus isn't who he thinks He is.  I am praying that he sees that Jesus is love and light and everything beautiful and that he surrenders to His embrace.  I am praying that this Christmas he will not be able to deny that the God of the universe came down, humbled himself, became a baby for US.  For LOVE'S SAKE, we celebrate His beautiful plan. Love came down! There can be joy in the world because the Lord HAS come!  

Pray for him with me, okay!?! And let's all remember that people are seeking this time of year.  Every trip to get apples can be a missions trip!  

Surgery Switch

Well this week has definitely been a roller coaster!

Jesus sweetly gave me this revelation of His character this week:

He is the One withe the keys. He is the One that can shut doors and if He shuts them, there will be NO opening them.  And He also opens doors and no one can get them shut if He has opened them!

I needed that this week.

Tuesday we met with the new cardiologist who specializes in congenital heart problems.  My cardiothoracic surgeon wanted his opinion because he was baffled by my numbers and scans.  So we met with him, and it turns out that he disagrees with Dr. Haffey, my original cardiologist.  Dr. miller (the new guy) says that my pictures and numbers would look startling to a person used to dealing with heart problems caused by poor diet but that he doesn't often look at a heart that was born with a defect like mine.  Dr. Miller says that he sees 200 patients a year with my exact type of stenosis and it is his opinion that although my heart does have a defect, it does not need to be corrected with open heart surgery (can anyone join me in a victory dance and a WOOP WOOP!?). He says that he sees my symptoms and they are measurable and real, but just not coming from my pulmonary artery.  

Back in September, while I was waiting to get in to see my cardiologist, my primary ran a test on me called a Holter monitor.  It's basically a 24 hour portable EKG. It showed that I have some bradycardia (low heart rates) and that I had TWENTY FOUR pauses.  Like your heart is pausing from beating kind of pauses.  We took that test with us to the cardiologist and originally thought he would want to do a pace maker.  Dr. Haffy thought the pauses were insignificant and that the pulmonary artery was the real culprit.  Dr. Miller thinks the pulmonary artery is insignificant and that the sinus node (the place in your heart that sends out the electrical impulse to make your heart beat) is the real culprit.  He says that anytime your heart pauses, not enough oxygen is getting to your brain and that will make you dizzy, faint, extremely fatigued, all that I am going through.  They still disagree with each other, but Dr. Haffy has agreed to a longer test to prove it.  So I am hooked up to a heart monitor for the next 30 days or until my doctor can record enough pauses to prove to my insurance that I need a pacemaker.  Fun times, eh?

Another thing is that Dr. Miller also thought that the tumor in my head may be having some effect on the nerves in my body and may be causing some of the issues.  Our neurosurgeon said that it's not very likely, but that the brain is a funny place and since it needs to be removed anyway, then let's get this puppy outta there.  So I am scheduled for surgery to remove the tumor in my skull on December 26th.  Seems crazy, but they had originally wanted to remove it in October and since it may have an effect, he is squeezing me in.  

Thank you so so much for praying for me!!! I know that the Lord has used those prayers mightily and I am blown away by the love that you have shown me through them.  So many of you said that you wished you could come and be a practical help, but prayer really was the most practical thing I needed!  I'll take a surgery switch over a meal dropped off! You NEED to see how powerful and important your prayers are! Thank you for them!

So quick recap:

Last week I was scheduled to have open heart surgery by the end of this week.

Now I WILL NOT BE HAVING OPEN HEART SURGEY.  YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Even though I don't feel better yet, I am so glad to have a much less insane surgery before me!  And I am so excited to get this lump out of my skull and see how my vision improves and my headaches decrease and hey who really wants a lump in their skull that the doctors say is "probably benign and probably slow growing"? So yay for that! 

I am still wearing this heart monitor and they are deciding about the pace maker.  But even if I have to have that surgery it is really pretty simple.  Even easier than my tumor removal! 

That's where this verse in revelation comes in for me.  We had a peace the whole time that this surgery would be okay. That I wouldn't die or anything crazy.  And He gave us that peace because He knew we wouldn't end up needing that surgery so hey Jo don't freak out.  He will not allow a surgery that I don't need! 

He will not allow a trial or a test in my life that I don't need!

So that means that every little last thing that passes into my life bubble is exactly what I need.

He will shut the doors that are not for my good, AND NO ONE CAN OPEN THEM!  But that also means that if He has allowed a door to be opened in my life, a trial, a difficulty, a person I don't know how to handle, a house full of sick kids, a knock on your door just after you've gone to bed with someone in need on the other side, I don't know, whatever you're dealing with, whatever I am dealing with, it is a door that He has allowed to be opened. 

So I am super challenged today.  I feel like its so easy to see his hand opening and closing the doors of major surgery, but can I choose to see His hand opening and closing the doors in my everyday life?  

Can I actually apply this and then see each person, each situation, as the door that Jesus has opened to me today and walk through it in boldness and with purpose.  Don't you want that? I want that! I want to walk purposefully, boldly into each day knowing that the Kingdom of God is at hand and that I have a Sovereign King looking out for me.

Ps. So the surgery on my skull is way less of a big deal, but PLEASE keep praying for me okay?  They will remove the outer layer of bone and most of the tumor is in the marrow part.  My surgeon says he most likely will not need to touch the inner layer of bone so that means he will not be touching the brain at all.  He says overall the tumor is in a very easily removable spot.  Recovery is 1-3 days in the hospital and four weeks to feel pretty normal.  I may have a crazy headache for up to two months.  WAY better than a year for open heart, but yeah if you want to keep praying for me I will totally receive that because it's still a month of my family not having a totally normal me.  It's funny, this surgery would have seemed so daunting before the relief of knowing that it's not as bad as it could have been. Jesus is sweet to give perspective, eh?

This morning He reminded me of this:

He is the One who sits on the throne.  He is in charge.  And He is encircled by a rainbow.  What a beautiful picture! A rainbow is the reminder that He will keep His promises!  So this morning I got a sweet reminder that He is powerful and in charge and that He is also faithful to keep His promises. 

What a beautiful Savior we serve!

P.p.s.

Merry almost Christmas!

Jesus Commands my Destiny

I have had the song "In Christ Alone" in my head for days now.  It is such a great song and full of beautiful truth, but the line that keeps ringing through my mind is

"Jesus commands my destiny"

It is so true! I am NOT getting all doctrinal this morning.  I believe that the free will of man and the absolute sovereignty of God can and do coexist because Scripture teaches that they do.  But today, this week, this season of my life, I am so thankful that Jesus does indeed command my destiny.

This morning as I was reading my Bible and praying and singing this song in my head over and over, I began to think about how He really always has commanded my destiny.  Like from the beginning.  But I won't go that far back this morning.  

This morning as I meditated on His Lordship over my life, I thought back to before I was saved.  When I was in my late high school years and then college, my heart was seeking.  I was filling it with a lot of junk and got myself into some very dark places, but that's not the point of this musing.  

Back then, when my heart would ache with loneliness and I was searching for a God I didn't even know I was searching for, I would find my journey often ended at the beach.  Alone.  It was the place where I ended up when I knew I was too small.  

I've always thought it was because my Dad from a young age instilled a love for the ocean in me.  I can remember taking trips to Hermosa Beach with him and the warmth of the sand and the taste of salt as some of my earliest memories.  But this morning I had an interesting thought.  Although I am not saying that the love of the beach that my Dad gave me is completely separate from it, I think it is interesting that the beaches I ended up at (Oceanside pier and Tamarack) just happened to be common surf spots of my wonderful hubs.

Okay let me back up a bit here and give you some more info so this makes more sense. 

Christian's mom told him at about 15 that he should add to his prayer list his future wife.  Sounds a little crazy, but he did.  He would pray for his future wife the things he prayed for himself, to have a great day or good devotions or whatnot.  

At about the age of seventeen, he felt God saying to him, "that's great that you pray for your future wife, but what if she isn't even saved yet?"  So he started praying that his wife wherever she was would be aware of Gods presence and if she wasn't yet saved that she would surrender her life to Jesus Christ.  I was twenty years old at the time and VERY lost in drugs and all kinds of yuck that the world offers.  This was the season of life where I would find myself down at the beach, watching the surfers ride the waves and the sun set and just wondering if there was something more than me.  Then  KNOWING that there was something more than me but not knowing what.

As a lost twenty year old I spent that year seeking, finding glimpses, turning away, turning back.  Always finding myself down by the water, begging to understand something.  That was the year that Christian spent praying for his future wife to GET SAVED! And two weeks after I turned twenty-one, I surrendered my life to Jesus.  Almost a year later I met Christian and well, the rest is a cute story but not the point.

This is the point: 

How crazy is it that as he prayed for me, I was drawn to the very beaches where he was surfing to ponder and seek out the God who so wanted my heart!  Like, I am tripping out thinking about the fact that I probably watched him surf while I was searching to know what life was about.

Jesus has been seeking after ME from before I even knew what to call the gaping hole inside of me!  And He is cool enough to use the man I would eventually marry to pray and gather me into the fold!!! 

I would sit on the sea wall and think how pointless my life was, how dumb and empty each step I took was.  But it wasn't.  Sometimes even now it is easy to think how pointless things might be, like how frustrating it is to have wait for ANOTHER test (oh and they switched me to a different doctor again), or how empty each day can feel when you can't even do the laundry and make dinner and play with your kids.  But I believe that my seemingly pointless moments now are not unlike my perceived pointless moments then.  Each time I sat there, empty and at the end of my understanding, I was closer to the TRUTH: that He loved me, that He came down as a Baby and LIVED and DIED for me to not only set me free from sin but to welcome me into His loving embrace that had always been there I just couldn't see it!

This applies NOW, too!

Each time that I come to the end of my understanding in this whole thing with my heart, each time I cannot get up for hours at a time from my chair in the corner of the living room, maybe (not really "maybe") I am closer to more truth, deeper truth, truth about His character and love.

You see, nothing is wasted.  Even if I miss it and don't understand it, HE IS WORKING ALL THINGS TOGETHER FOR MY GOOD.  Someday, I will look back at this season of sickness and see the intricate things that He is weaving together into a beautiful picture.  For now, I will look at the beautiful craziness of the fact that I sat on the beaches watching my future husband who was praying for my salvation ride the waves of an always changing ocean and KNOW that this too will be beautiful.

"He has made everything beautiful in its time." Ecclesiastes 3:11

Bringing in the Sheaves

Well this week has been a good one.  I've been moving pretty slowly but Jesus has been speaking sweetly.

First there was this:

It was kind of along the same line as the Daniel 6 thing.  Like hey Jo, don't be afraid to be drawn away.  Even if it looks scary and difficult, it can turn out to be the place that Jesus speaks sweet comfort and teaches us to sing His praises. And I know He is trying to teach me to sing a "new song."

Then this morning there was this:

Oh this was so beautiful! Yes, sometimes it's the seeds sown in tears that are the most fruitful.  I've heard a ton of awesome studies on that topic for sure.  In fact, the entire account of Joseph is beautiful like that.

But this morning the Lord pointed something else out to me.  You see it's not just about the tears.  It's about continuing to sow seeds whether there are times of ease or difficulty.  

The joy comes when we continue to go forth sowing the seeds even when we are weeping.

For me, I was instantly convicted.  How much time have I taken up thinking about myself and the difficulties of the week instead of sowing seeds for the Kingdom of God?  Have I been throwing myself a pity party when there are neighbors to pray for? People going hungry and freezing in my city?  Friends loosing loved ones tragically?

This week, my CT scan got denied and then postponed and then got done.  

This week my appointment with the surgeon got postponed and then canceled and then moved to this morning.  

This week, my surgeon said he still needs another test.  

And this week my focus has been on not having a nervous breakdown!  

Between the fact that I have had very little strength this week and a lot of disappointments and I'm totally bored of staring at the walls of my house, I've been a bit stir crazy, a bit whiny (pray for my poor hubs), and a bit ready to BE DONE with all of this.

Then comes Psalm 126 and I realized...

There is a Kingdom to invest in and here I am over in my warm cozy house pouting because this is taking too long to figure out and I'm tired of being sick and I just want to make gingerbread cookies with my kids.  

LAME!

I mean, I know that Jesus knows my frame and loves me no matter what, but I have a choice.  Do I want to waste the time I have been given?  

Do I want to continue weeping and stop the forward momentum into his embrace?  Or will I choose to sow seeds for His Kingdom WHiLE I am weeping?

I know, at least for me, that is what Psalm 126 means.  Yes, there may be tears but the point is that I continue to obey Jesus. Continue to sow seeds, to pray for these people, this city, Texas, California, Wisconsin, our nation, the future of my kids and my hubs and then back around the circle again.  If I truly believe that prayer is so powerful then really, how can I be so stir crazy?  When you look at it from that angle, my plate has been cleared so THAT I can pray.  

Basically, I'm going nuts over here because my focus is off.  My focus has been on my tears instead of on the seeds waiting to be sown.  

Can Jesus get His work done without me? Absolutely.  But He wants to use me so that He can fill me with that joy and bring such a bountiful harvest. And when I choose to beg Him to make His kingdoms work my focus, I am not bogged down with work but freed up into bountiful JOY.

So please pray for me that I walk in the joy that He has set before me.  It is beautiful and I don't want to miss it while I attend my lame pity party!

P.s. About the surgeon...

If you want all the nitty gritty details, the CT scan of my pulmonary artery was done in the hopes of seeing where in the artery there is a narrowing.  Unfortunately it did not show that. It showed that the artery is TRIPLE the size that it should be.  Dr. Propp, my surgeon, was absolutely flabbergasted. His exact words were, "This is MASSIVE." He explained that the artery has grown in size  because of the pressures from whatever is obstructing things.  He described it as turbulence.  Most arteries are like water flowing through a pipe.  Mine is more like a roaring rapids kind of thing and the turbulence has caused the artery to become misshapen and grow very large.  This has other implications we want to avoid.

 So it is further proof that something is WAY off but we still don't know exactly where the "kink" in the line is so he can't scheduled a surgery.  He has to know WHERE to cut.  So he is speaking with the interventional radiologist on Monday and hoping to squeeze that in early next week and surgery the following week.  Which puts me in the hospital over Christmas but that's okay.  Really, Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus and his beautiful grace and mercy and love! And we should be celebrating that every single day!

Thank you so much for praying for me and for walking with me on this journey.  It is nice to not feel all alone.

Drawn into the Den

First of all I just want to say that my heart has been completely overwhelmed by the love that all of you have shown to me.  Seriously, the support and love and pledges of prayer have been UHmazing and I am just so incredibly thankful for each one of you.  I have never before seen such a tangible outpouring of the love of the body of Christ as I have in the last week.  Thank you!!!

The last few days have had their ups and downs, as I'm sure they have for each of you.  It really doesn't matter what it is we are going through exactly, we all seem to come to the same place of need for our sweet Savior.  So I want to share with you a bit about my few days and what the Lord showed me just in case it might also be a word for some of you too.  

Wednesday I posted in the morning about some stuff going on around here that I had been putting off posting.  A couple of hours later, I received a call from my surgeons nurse saying that they were going to have to cancel my CT scan of my pulmonary  artery because the insurance company had denied the need for it.  Basically they say that I've had enough tests to prove I need the surgery and this isn't necessary. However, this is the only test that will show exactly WHERE my surgeon will need to cut.  That's kinda important don't ya think?  The pulmonary artery is basically like a "T" and the blockage could be anywhere along that and my surgeon says there's no way that he will operate without that test.

(The lavender one is the pulmonary artery.  I like pictures)

My nurse, Robyn, is the bomb and went to bat for me with the insurance company and got them to agree to send it to another insurance doctor for review and she says she is hopeful that they will approve it by Monday or Tuesday and then they will try to sneak the test in Wednesday of Thursday before my appointment with my surgeon on Friday. So there IS a chance that this hiccup won't affect anything as far as the timing of the actual surgery.  Please pray for that okay?  Robyn said that this is a money game for the insurance company.  They know I need the test but they are putting it off as long as they can because of the end of the year or something.

Quite honestly, here's some real Jo: I was super upset.  I was all tripping out because I mean how can they do that!?  How can they put off a needed test just because of money!?!

Later that day, I had some people in my life treat me very strangely considering the circumstances and it threw me, too.  Like hey, really? Right now? Shouldn't you be like uber nice?

Nothing got worked out that day.  I can't even say that I was floating down a stream of easy flowing grace.  There's a song by Rend that goes "I wanna float with You, the currents driving me, but I'll paddle hard too....I've counted up the cost and You are worth it."  Wednesday felt like a paddle upstream day. 

But Wednesday was also one of the sweetest days ever.  While singing a song about the faithfulness of God in my living room with our church family, my sweet friend's water broke and she went into labor.  Five hours later, a perfect little beauty was born.  What a beautiful thanksgiving gift to all of us!

Wednesday night, after sending my friend off to the hospital, I sat around talking with some close friends about the difficulties of the day and shared with them the struggle in my heart.  These couple of teensy difficulties seemed to be hanging on to me and I couldn't seem to shake them. But it was so obvious as we discussed everything that the choice was before me: 

choose to focus on the couple of difficulties 

OR 

choose to focus on the inpouring of love from all of my sweet friends through messages and emails and texts and focus on the beautiful new life that was about to be born in time for me to be able to hold her! (If she had been born in two weeks like she was supposed to I would not have been  able to hold her...Jesus is so sweet).  To be honest, I made the right choice. But it was apart from the warm fuzzy feelings.  And I felt like I was making the choice about every two minutes.  I'm lame I know. 

But Jesus was so sweet to me as I read Daniel 6 the next morning.  I've always loved the story of Daniel and the lions den, but it hit me differently this time (dontcha love how His word can do that?).  As I was reading this time, it was crazy cool to me how Daniel kept doing the things that he knew he had been called to do and he got in trouble for it but the Lord took care of his details!  He showed up and was Daniels deliverer.  And the deliverance was complete.  The mouths of the lions were shut by that angel.  

And The Lord just said to my heart, I am going to do that for you too.  No lion will touch you to harm you.  I will deliver you.

But something crazy stood out to me this time.  Daniel was assured of deliverance, he even had the king on his side and waiting up for him and fasting!  

But he had to GO into the den of lions.  

He had to let the door be sealed behind him.  

And he had to go ALONE.

What a crazy thought right?  We are assured of deliverance but so often we want that to mean we don't have to walk through the trial.  Isaiah gives us the beautiful imagery of walking through the fire and not being burned, of walking through the floods but not being overtaken by them.  Maybe I'm the only crazy one, but I think in my mind I get excited about the deliverance promised and forget about the fact that He never said I wouldn't have to walk THROUGH it.  But like here with Daniel, although he WILL be delivered, he WILL be given a greater revelation of the character and power of God, he WILL walk through and be okay, he still has to walk in and allow himself to be shut in.  Alone.  I feel a little like that right now.  I have ToNS of support and I am so so thankful for that. Seriously, each message or call or text means that world to me.  But I have to walk into that operating room alone.  

But, like Daniel, I am NOT alone.  My God is walking beside me, wooing me, drawing me into deeper fellowship.  Like a pair of lovers left alone to stare deeply into each other's heart's, it does not matter what the surroundings are.  The face and heart before them is enough to drown out everything else.  The den of lions can become my rendezvous point with the lover of my soul!  

And I am not in a den full of lions, but I am facing more snarling "teeth" than I ever have before.  Not that I mean to complain.  I truly do recognize that this isn't the biggest deal in the world.  Like I said in my last post, I DONT have cancer.  I DONT have something terminal.  But each thing we face is OUR thing that we face and it is meant to draw us into a place where we can gaze into the face of one that loves us so much He died for us.  God doesn't belittle our circumstances, He just wants us to hand them to Him regardless of the size. What are you facing today?  A broken family? A broken heart. A broken fellowship with an adoring Savior who is ready to welcome you in? Apathy at work? In your personal relationships? Whatever it is, big or small, your "deal" can be your lions den, the place where you are drawn away from all you know and instead of being trampled or devoured you can find yourself wrapped in the embrace of the God of the universe.

I guess Jesus is teaching me to stop being so afraid of the lions and the closed in den, to learn anticipate the nearness of the God of the impossible, to let go of what I understand and instead rest in Him.  Any body else feeling that?

Your Word is a lamp to my feet

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  How cool is it that we have an entire nationally recognized holiday set aside to give thanks!?!  I mean, I get it that not everyone is giving thanks to Jesus, but still, we are giving thanks to Jesus and its a wide open opportunity to practice what so many of the Psalms exhort us to do: "Give Thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever..."  That is some good stuff!

Being thankful this year actually comes a bit easier for me than it ever has before.  I feel a bit like a cheater actually.  I think when the heat turns up in life, its a little easier to focus in on what really matters and how much of the good stuff there really is going on.  Sometimes in the busy-ness of the every day, we miss the "little" things that are really the HUGE things!

Last month when I posted, I alluded to God's sweet faithfulness in the midst of troubling times, how He brings the sweetest revelations of Himself and His awesomeness in the midst of the pain.  I will begin this post by saying this:

1.  This post will be long and full of personal stuff, so if you're busy or bored I am totally not offended if you stop reading here.

2. This post will elaborate on the sweetness that He is currently bringing to me as I wade through some medical issues.

It's been hard to want to talk about the things that have gone on in the last six months or so because I haven't known what was wrong exactly and I don't like to bother people or complain.  And as we have found more details they all seem so unreal that I think I have been waiting for it to all make sense more before I try to explain what is going on.  I still don't think it all makes sense, but here we go.

This past spring, I began to notice that my right leg, arm, and side of my face had less feeling.  Not all the way numb, but like when you get a cavity filled at the dentist and its not all the way "awake" yet.  Along with severe headaches, a few other symptoms, and the fact that my biological mom died of complications of MS, we began praying.  Over the summer, my heart rates began acting weird.  I was born with a defective valve, but it has for the most part not affected my life too much.  I can't run (like really I CANT) but I can ride bikes.  I can lead an active life, I just literally am no good past 8:00pm, stuff like that.  But over the summer things began to change.  In September,  Jesus gave us insurance (thats a crazy cool story, just saying) and I went in for a check up.  My primary took one look at me and sent me to a neurologist and a cardiologist.  The neurologist sent me for an MRI and they found that I do NOT have MS!  Woop WOOP!  That was such an answer to prayer because MS is really really awful and there is no cure.  However, while they were in there, they DID find that I have a 1 inch in diameter tumor on the back of my skull.  Whoa.  That was sort of nutty.  They sent me for a CT Scan to help determine what in the world it is.  They still don't know for sure, but they THINK that it is benign and that it is slow growing.  SO yay for no cancer, cause cancer stinks for sure.  However, benign tumors can cause a lot of local damage and it looks to be doing so (it may be the reason that my vision has taken a dive in the last six months because it is placing pressure on my occipital lobe and it may even be the cause of my constant fevers that I have been battling for about three years) so the neurosurgeon said lets get that puppy out of there!  It's on the back of my skull so the scarring won't even be a real issue and although they will have to remove most of the bone in that area, they can reconstruct it and after a few months I should be back to normal.  The only thing he wanted was the okay from my cardiologist to put me on the operating table because my numbers weren't cool.

So we had our first appointment with my new cardiologist November 4th with the hope of getting cleared quickly so I could get this thing out of my head.  He took a look at my numbers and sent me that Friday for a few tests.  The following tuesday, November 12, he met with us to discuss the results and told us some crazy news that threw everything else out the door.

Apparently, my heart was worse than I ever thought.  I basically have a "kink" in my pulmonary artery and because of that I don't get proper blood flow.  To compensate for that, my heart is working harder to try to supply my body with the oxygen it needs.  It is working at pressures that are DOUBLE what they should be.  The extra work is causing my heart to become enlarged.  Although having a "big heart" sounds good, you can actually die of that so my cardiologist flat out told us, "You need open heart surgery to save your life."

  I guess my case is actually very rare and there is no way to balloon it or stint it or do anything less invasive.  The only way to repair this is to do traditional open heart surgery.  Like the kind where they hook you up to a heart/lung machine and stop your heart and all of that.  He said that my numbers are bad and that it is getting worse progressively and it needs to be dealt with quickly.  We left that appointment kind of in a daze.  We were prepared for talk of a pacemaker to regulate my crazy rhythms and instead left knowing that the next year of my life will be completely different than anything we have ever thought of.  I had a transesophagael echocardiogram and a cardiac cath last week.  This Friday I have a CT on my pulmonary artery and all together that should give the surgeon a "road map" to follow when he gets in there.  December 6th I will see him, and the scheduler from his office said that we would most likely be in the operating room within the next 5-7 days after that.  Total recovery time after the surgery is one year.  I guess it takes a while to properly recover when they cut open your chest.  Makes sense.

So that's why I say, this is the easiest year I have ever had being thankful.  I'm a cheater because after all of that, it is SO EASY to see a whole crazy list of things to be thankful for.

*I do NOT have MS.

*I do NOT have cancer.

*I do NOT have a condition that cannot be corrected.

*My heart should return to its normal size after the surgery because they caught it early enough and I am young (well, youngish.  Most people having these surgeries are much older)

*My babies are perfectly healthy and wonderful.

*My husband has had a lot of time off in November and will have a lot of December as well to help take care of the kids and house (I get winded even doing the dishes.  If I vacuum and clean a bathroom, I almost immediately have to go lie down and will sleep for up to 14 hours, so his help has been tremendous)

*I have a sweet church family here in Denver that is praying for me and supporting us in this.

*I have a sweet church family in Texas that has come along side me in prayer and has offered to help (although I don't even know what I need yet, the offer means the world to me.)

*I have talked with my brother and Dad more this month than I have in the last year (things get busy, its not anything bad, just life.  But its nice to hear from them more).

*Knowing how crazy the recovery will be, I am thankful that for the next two weeks I have the ability to shower and braid my own hair and wear a shirt that goes over my head and walk up and down the stairs and play legos on the floor with my kids and breath and cough without pain (they have to break your sternum and usually crack open your rib cage so yeah, even breathing will be fun for a while)

*I have the strength of God's word to uphold me even when I feel like it is all too much and overwhelming. That's not just some lame christianese!   That has been the crazy coolest thing to me!  His word really really is true!  Psalm 119 has really been amazing to me.  Over and over it says how God's word is what revives, strengthens, and upholds us.  And that is so so true!!!!  I am okay.  I am better than okay.  As we speak, I can hardly see the computer screen because my vision is wiggy, my chest feels like a stack of weights is on top of it, and I can't catch my breath even though I am just sitting here....BUT I AM GREAT!!!!!!  Figure that one out apart from the grace of God!  He just keeps giving me His word and it is beautiful.  When we first started getting some of these results, He gave me 2Timothy 4:17-18 and it has been a jewel I have been hanging onto.  He gives me promises every day, literally!

There is so much more I could list, but I don't want to make this longer than it already is.

Not every moment is sunshine and rainbows, but every moment is so full of His grace that I sometimes literally feel like I am floating on it.  Remember how the Lord told me that this winter season would be awfully cold?  Yeah, the frost is setting in, but I can FEEL Him beginning to work.  I can feel the working beginning in me that will bring the fruit that He wants to produce in my life.  Weird I know.  I can't seem to put my thoughts into the words I want, but I just want to say that this will be gnarly!  Gnarly hard, but gnarly amazing too.

So there ya go, my crazy long Thanksgiving post.  Thanks for hanging with me through so many scatterbrained words.  Thanks for reading and caring.  That's another thing I am thankful for.  And if the Lord puts it on your heart to pray for me, please do!  Specifically, that the surgery would go well, that God would provide help during the recovery time, because January and most of February will be rough and christian has to work.  I know God has it under control, but if you want to partner with us in prayer for that, that would be great.  And just all of the stuff that goes along with such a major surgery.  Oh and that my tumor in my head would not grow! And anything else the Lord leads you in to pray for.  Thank you thank you thank you!  This will be an amazing adventure to be on together, don't you think?

p.s. I threw this picture in for funsies.  Aren't these hilarious!?!  Gotta have a little laughter mixed in with these serious posts, right?