A little perspective

Good Evening Everyone.

Tonight's entry might be a little lengthy - sorry in advance.
I do not know where to start but let's pick a place - PRAYER.

PRAYER
Many times we have had so many of you in our home to pray over Gary. I think our last prayer gathering drew about 75 of you. I have been feeling the need to do that again for our family. Something very powerful happens when people come together and pray. I just got done reading 90 Minutes In Heaven by Don Piper and it was given to me by a friend at church. What an amazing testament! The book is a true account of a man who was hit by a semi and was dead for 90 minutes. To make my point short and sweet he basically says that the reason as to why he lived was because people were praying for him. Very specific prayers were said for him. I will set a time to do this for Gary and we can all gather again and pray for him.

Prayer changes things and prayer is healing and super powerful. No matter how sick Gary gets when I pray I feel empowered. I feel peaceful and calm. Pastor Denny led our staff meeting today and he used my absolute favorite verse as the basis for our devotion. This verse has changed my life and after studying it during a Bible Study at Coast HIlls years ago I knew it would have special meaning to me someday. I would look at this verse and disect it and think to myself how amazingly difficult it would actually be to NOT BE ANXIOUS and to HAVE PEACE that transcends human understanding. After years of wrestling with that very verse I can truly tell you that I HAVE THAT PEACE and I RARELY get anxious now. Sad. Yes. Overwhelmed. Yes. Anxious. No. It is ONLY by the grace of GOD that I have obtained this. Read the verse below and really try and apply it to your own life.

Phil 4:6-9
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
8Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. 9Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.

COMPARISONS
We will ask this of all of you one last time. We know this will be a difficult request but we want you to all promise to try and do this for us. PLEASE do not compare your lives to ours. How many of you have told me that you have no room to complain about anything compared to what we have to deal with every day? I am here to tell you that I want to be in relationship with you. I do not want you to feel bad when you are sharing your struggles and trials with me. Everything you go through is extremely significant and important. I can promise you that I am not wasting my time sitting around saying how awful you were to complain about your trivial problems when we are sitting here dealing with our nasty circumstances. What you struggle with is never trivial. PLEASE do not ever feel bad. We love you all and we want to share our life and we want you to do the same with yours. Was that redundant enough for all of you? Did I get my point across? STOP COMPARING YOUR LIFE TO OURS. Instead, with everything we all go through try and gain some perspective. Look at us and learn through our trial. We know so much good comes from bad and we see it every day. Hold on to your joy and try to look at the positive in everything.

MOST IMPORTANT SUBJECT MATTER - Gary
Gary has been kinda sick. Sick to the tune of a 14 pound weight loss in a 6 day period of time. Chemo is really taking its toll on him this time and eating is just so incredibly difficult for him. I try to "help" him eat and he just looks at me and tells me that he is trying and he does not mean to not eat. The mere thought of food repulses him. Everything tastes like metal. He threw up last night.

I want to force him to eat because I know when people battle cancer they have to eat. How can I look in Gary's painful eyes and force the issue? I can't. I see what he goes through day after day after day after day. He sees no light at the end of the tunnel. He sees no reprieve from pain and discomfort. He does not sleep at night despite sleeping aids. He longs to be normal and be a part of our lives outside the bedroom. Every day. You can't even imagine how heartbreaking it is to go through this with him.

Gary is a man who we can all learn from. During this entire journey Gary has never once complained about all the things he has to do in order to get better. He HAS NEVER EVER been SELFISH - NOT ONE TIME. He never makes the kids and I feel guilty for living. He wants us to be happy and places more importance on our happiness than his. He is a remarkable human being and so gentle and mild. He rarely has anything negative to say about anyone or anything. He has never disrespected me and always wants the absolute best for his family. We just love him so very much. He is such a remarkable husband, father and friend. When I grow up I want to be just like Gary!

DR. BARTH
Today was a huge day for us with Dr. Barth. As many of you know we have struggled in our relationship with Dr. B. He is a brillant man who I believe has been given a gift from God to help people that are faced with cancer. We know he cares about Gary but he is so incredibly intense and many times has made us to feel "less than intelligent". We are not MD's (although I wish I could be to be able to do what he can do for others). We try so hard to understand what it is we need to do. All I want is to help Gary and make things just a little bit better for him. So, the way in which we communicate is very different and we walk away frustrated most of the time after meeting with him. Gary actually gets physically sick when he thinks he has done something wrong and has to face Dr. B. It is so hard because we have the utmost of respect for Dr. B. and we really want him to like us and care about us as human beings and not just as a cancer case.

Dr. B was more than kind to us today and spoke to us in a way in which we could understand him. He was caring and it made all the difference in the world to us. I left the office with a few tears in my eyes - tears of joy. Gary had a ginormous grin on his face. We want to please him and do everything right. We want him to think we are doing a good job trying to manage Gary's care. Trust me when I tell you that this cancer thing is complicated and it changes on a daily basis. I am just so happy that we actually had a wonderful meeting time with him. I truly hope it continues. Thank you Dr. B for being so kind to Gary. He really needed it.

HOUSE
Well, we have committed our housing situation to prayer and we are trying not to stress. Deep down we know everything will work out. God ALWAYS provides a path and if the house sells quickly then we move quickly. Boo Hoo. If not, we stick around. YEAH!!! The boys love our home. We love our home. Everything will work out according to the plan. We need to just sit back and see what happens.

PRAYER REQUESTS

1. Pray that Gary regains his appetite and begins to eat more regularly.
2. Pray for peace for Gary and pray for him to focus not on the things he can't do but the things he can do.
3. Pray for Dr. Barth as he navigates us through the cancer field. Pray for his family and his mind and for peace for him.
4. Pray that God gives us direction in what to do with our home. We wait patiently to know what to do.
5. Pray for me. I am a little run down but holding strong. A greater measure of strength would be great.
6. Pray for the kids. They need stability and security and pray we continue to provide that for them.
7. Pray for sleep, rest and comfort for Gary.
8. Pray for TOTAL healing for Gary.
9. Pray for everyone who has come along side us and supported us and loved us.

There is so much to pray for so pray for whatever leads you.
I am sooooooo incredibly tired. We HAD to take Hobie for a late night walk (that is the last thing I wanted to do) and then the boys were already grilling me about our plans for tomorrow. I told them that we will get through today and think about tomorrow when it comes! We should all do that more often.

Thanks for your time.
Sleep Tight and Thank God for His goodness and peace!
Love, Me