Quote for October

A Prayer for the Ephesians Eph. 3:14-21

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom His whole family in heaven derives its name. I pray that out of His glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.


Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us, to Him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen!


Thursday, May 19, 2011

We are Fine

May is passing by us. I wanted to let you know that we are doing much better. Almost three months ago Richard and I took our daughter to Loma Linda Hospital because she was in a crisis, and I spent a month in agony. That seems far away from me now. The treatment Kay received took several weeks to bring her back to her normal self. Some days I spent my prayer time in tears, wondering when Kay's life and mine would calm down.


Now things are much calmer. Kay is at home and driving herself to various appointments. We are both reading classic books like So Big, Rebecca and My Antonia. We take a day trip out-of-town every two weeks go to the beach or look around a new city. The three of us have been to the former home of Sam Maloof, who was a craftsman of fine wood furniture. Sam gave rocking chairs to every president from John F. Kennedy through George Bush. It was lovely to see the home he built, adding one room at-a-time to a small cottage.


I do not know what the future holds. I have faith the I will continue to be well for several years. It is now 3 1/2 years since I developed carcinoid cancer. There are a few new therapies being developed now. One of them won't work for me because I don't produce 5-HIAA in my urine. However, my oncologist tells me the targeted therapies will be useful to me, and those are getting closer to being used.


I have the tiny carcinoids that are only about 1mm. If you have any information about survival with with that type of carcinoid, I would like to hear from you. I have one tumor (so it seems from the scans) in the upper part of my liver.


My daughter has been helped by her doctors and medication. We have faith that she will be able to go to the mission field, as she has wanted to do since she was 12 years old. If she cannot go, then God has another plan for her here in the US. However, Kay's faith remains strong that she will go back to college to major in Intercultural Studies and serve God with her life.

As we have gone through these had times, our family has been helped by the emphasis at church this spring. Our pastor has been preaching on what to do when life is unpredictable for several weeks. One of his key verses has been Ephesians 1:3. Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. Another reference is Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

Some helpful notes:
The issues you are dealing with are already decided by God.

"Failure is the greatest opportunity I have to know who I really am." William Klipinger
(In our church we refer to failures as "setbacks".)

"... the people around me do not make me the way I am, but reveal the way I am." Sam Peeples

This last one means the most to me:
"If I know what I am supposed to do, it doesn't matter what everybody thinks." Pastor Joel.
Be close enough to God to know what God wants you to do.

Blessings,
Sharon