Friends, Beauty, Fun, Revival

Breakfast with this lady this week was and always is sacred and special. I’m so blessed to have deep friendships with women from ages 13-70s. Michaelah and I love meeting at Northstar Café monthly.

 

It’s been over a week since my last infusion and today I had to email Dr Sudheendra to update her on my physical side effects. Thankful they don’t keep me from living my life. 

Wednesday I continued raking for hours and picking up branches to burn the brush we cleared on our property. And I literally moved gravel by hand onto our new driveway in the woods we built for the WonderVan. Some of these 2” rocks were displaced from the path by the massive dump truck that delivered it! I had the joy of moving them one by one!

This is what I relayed to the oncologist Thursday so she’s aware of what’s happening in my body since my most recent infusion. 

“Dr. Sudheendra, I wanted to update you since my last infusion. Skin inside nose was mostly healed since last time but started cracking a bit again. Using Aquaphor. Neuropathy in hands with tingling in finger tips and more hand weakness/fatigue and achiness. I have more difficulty opening jars or even opening a pull tab on can of soda water. It’s too achy to even hold a large jar. Feet fatigue especially when getting up after sitting or lying down but feels better after a minute or so. That’s all been consistent for months but hand weakness and fatigue seems a bit worse. Tonight I started getting Charlie horses and cramping in feet and different leg muscles. I’ll really focus on more hydration and let you know if it doesn’t improve.”

Thursday and Friday John and I went on a fun adventure trip with our friend, Trace, to Ray’s indoor mountain biking park near Cleveland, then on Friday after breakfast we all went hiking in Cuyahoga National Park where we saw waterfalls and incredible rock formations. 

It was perfect weather outside on Friday for some nighttime winter fun with light snow falling and so… we did something kinda crazy. We went tobogganing on a 700 foot drop ice chute going 40.1-42.6 mph!! Because very few people were in line, we got in lots of runs!. The hardest part was climbing the 107 stairs every trip to the top, but we made 16 runs which is pretty stellar for 3 old fogies! Yes, that’s 1712 steps in a matter of 3 hours! I wanted to keep going just one more run but we decided to stop before one of us dropped from cardiac arrest!

Once we arrived back home I literally rested for a couple days and didn’t do much but let my body recover. 

I have been full of thanksgiving for the priceless opportunity to get front row seats to a dear friend’s spiritual journey with Christ as she’s gone from desperate hopelessness to faith and hope placed in Jesus! Her enthusiasm for spending time in the Word, journaling and prayer is inspiring to me! She shared that she would like to study more about Christ’s return so I’ve been reviewing several resources to share. One such resource is: Behold Israel by Amir Tsafati, which I’ve only seen one or two videos but he certainly sheds light on the position of Israel’s Messianic Jews clearly. Another is an article by Billy Graham. Lastly I’m going to look into a book written by an acquaintance of mine from Voice of the Martyrs, David Brackemyre. I really appreciate this quote from the book:

It (The Lord’s Return) is the sole foundation on which every thought and action is built, since it is everyone’s exclusive hope. 

Real life confession… Monday night I woke up in the middle of the night realizing how much a Netflix series I started watching was negatively affecting my thought life. At first I really liked the shows because they had such positive outcomes despite difficult situations, but the more episodes I watched, the more awful and dark it became and I hit a level of intolerance for the outward display of the increasing ungodly and sinful lifestyles. I prayed about it and God reminded me that hundreds of Christian’s are spending their days and nights experiencing a 24/7 spiritual revival that started at Asbury University in Kentucky where my daughter attended for almost 2 years. In fact this is THE sermon that sparked it.  I could choose to fill my free time in prayer and worship instead of entertainment that pretty much is in opposition to the life Jesus calls me to live. So I’ve decided to stop watching the New Amsterdam series and focus instead on more glorifying activities with my time. It was a bit challenging because I was intrigued by some of the storylines but the bombardment of the ungodliness affected me in a way I didn’t like so I’m unplugged from it and it feels honoring to God. Thankful that God’s Spirit can work in me to sharpen and guide me despite my humanness to be weak. 

And here I am on this Tuesday again where I say in my head as I talk to God:

I’m thankful to be alive!

I’m thankful I can eat, drink, walk, play and live life!

I’m thankful my side effects are manageable. 

I’m thankful I can dream about life this year in the WonderVan. 

I’m thankful God is providing for me medically. 

I’m thankful I can afford healthy food. 

I’m thankful for loving family and friends. 

I’m thankful for today and right now, because that’s all I’ve got!

And mostly, I’m thankful for Jesus. Without Him, I’m nothing and have no hope. 

Hallelujah!