this is my story

Health Update - Surgery

As many of you already know, I’ve been battling some health issues for almost 2 1/2 months. I’ve been dealing with pain in my abdomen that no one seems to fully be able to explain. At this point, I’ve had to take a leave of absence from work.

To make a very long story short, after trips to multiple doctors, blood tests that all seem to come back normal, multiple medications, and months of rest, I’m still in a significant amount of pain.

Tomorrow(12/5) I’ll be having an exploratory/laparoscopic procedure. My doctor isn’t sure what she’ll find at this point, but we’re hopeful that this surgery will bring some answers.

The procedure is scheduled for 12pm at St. Lucie Medical Center.

I covet your prayers. For healing, wisdom, peace, provision, & for God’s will to be done here, whatever that may look like. I know He’s got this.

I’ll update again as soon as I know something.

Thank you for praying & for all your encouragement & support through this.

Quick Health Update

Friends, I so appreciate your prayers for my health. Figured I’d update you. I apologize it’s taken so long.In the last 7 weeks, I’ve had a few cysts that ruptured on my ovaries, on top of fighting a dairy & gluten allergy and fighting an infection that developed.

At this point, for every few good days I have, I have just as many bad days. I have a pain in my abdomen that just won’t seem to go away. I can’t seem to function. I’ve lost most of my energy and seem to be tired almost all the time. If I do much more than walk the dog, I seem to get dizzy and unable to focus.

We still don’t have a full explantation as to why I’m still dealing with pain. To add to everything, I seem to be having a reaction to the medication they put me on and am dealing with a new possible sinus infection.

We’re not sure if there’s something we’re missing or if it’s just taking a lot longer than anyone expected it to. I have another appointment with the doctor tomorrow to find out the results of the last round of blood tests they ran & to see if there’s anything else we can do.

Quite honestly, this has been quite a frustrating process. It’s turned my world upside down. I keep describing it as someone pulling the emergency break on my life while I was going my normal 90 miles a minute.

I’ll try to write another post soon to share some of what I’ve been learning, and maybe even a few of the songs I’ve written. It’s been quite a journey. It hasn’t been fun, but I’ve learned so much about our God & been simply overwhelmed by His love for me.

Still believing in God as my Healer, but even if that isn’t what He has for me, I’m still trusting. His ways are higher, and He is so good.

Love you guys. Your prayers are truly what have been holding my head up these last few weeks.

…I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me, ‘My grace is enough; it’s all you need. My strength comes into its own in your weakness.’
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

“

—	2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (MSG)

But I will sing of your strength; I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning. For you [God] have been to me a fortress and a refuge in the day of my distress. O my Strength, I will sing praises to you, for you, O God, are my fortress, the God who shows me steadfast love.

“

—	Psalm 59:16-17

Jake Dudley: arrival. »

arrival.
24.

The age where most of the world thinks you should have arrived…

whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Arrival? There’s one thing I know, if “arrival” does, in fact, exist, then I’m not there. And if I’m honest, I’m not sure I ever want to be there.

We never arrive. We simply struggle.

And when we do “arrive,” we’ve simply given up.

Arrival is an excuse to stay where we are. It’s justification for living comfortably with what we want. Arrival prevents us from acquiring our God-given purposes and enables us to live a selfish life.

Inevitably, when we arrive, we die.

Life is achieved in the journey. As we fight and struggle and pursue and hurt we live and breathe and seek and receive.

The journey will be hard. There will be scars and your heart will be broken. But here’s my advice:

Live in the journey. Live in the struggle and the terror and the doubt and the beauty and the failure and the hope because that is where Jesus is.

Faith fuels the journey.

In the journey, you discover that “arrival” is simply a term for “settling.”

Live in the journey. Seek Jesus. He is for you.

We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

Romans 5:3-5

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There’s nothing worth more that will ever come close
Nothing can compare, You’re our living hope
Your presence

I’ve tasted and seen of the sweetest of loves
Where my heart becomes free and my shame is undone
Your presence, Lord

Holy Spirit, You are welcome here
Come flood this place and fill the atmosphere
Your glory, God is what our hearts long for
To be overcome by Your presence, Lord

Let us become more aware of Your presence
Let us experience the glory of Your goodness

- “Holy Spirit” Brian & Katie Torwalt

‎Jesus, I need to give myself up. I’m not strong enough to love you and walk with you on my own. I can’t do it, and I need you. I need you deeply and desperately. I believe you are worth it, that you are better than anything else I could have in this life or the next. I want you. And when I don’t, I want to want you. Be all in me. Take all of me. Have your way with me.

“

—	Francis Chan (via littlethingsaboutgod)

Hallelujah
Holy Holy
God Almighty
Great I Am
Who is worthy
None beside Thee
God Almighty
Great I Am

littlethingsaboutgod:

A poem by David Bowden

I write to you for I see Christians but I don’t see Christ.
I see people living but not surrendering life
I see large buildings that cannot see strife
I see free salvation that is way underpriced.

Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

“

—	Phil 4:6-7 (MSG)