God's Immense Love

"But you, O God, are both tender and kind, not easily angered, immense in love, and you never, never quit. So look me in the eye and show kindness, give your servant the strength to go on, save your dear, dear child! Make a show of how much you love me so the bullies who hate me will stand there slack-jawed, As you, God, gently and powerfully put me back on my feet." Psalm 86:15-17 (The Message)

War

 I found this in my drafts, written the morning before my first stokes: I'm convinced there is some spiritual warfare going on here. If you feel led to pray in this vein, that would be wonderful. Much of this started as Mom was seeing dramatic improvement from pain that's held her captive for 25 years, and the day I had a major breakthrough in God's direction for my current book is the day I really started going downhill physically. The old snake doesn't like it when God's winning and he seems to be pulling out all the stops to try to sidetrack us from God's victories right now. So glad we serve the One who will crush satan's head with his heal, but boy do snake bites hurt when we are going through them.

Another Thorn

Last fall, Oct. 2011, I experienced multiple strokes with brain-stem involvement. I have vision loss, doubled vision, hearing loss, a partially paralized hand, and I cannot walk, so I have trouble reading or typing. I am posting updates at http://infertilitymom.blogspot.com/search/label/stroke if you wish to read news. I would be blessed by your prayers not only as I fight to recover from this near-fatal experience, but also as I prayerfully work on my next two books, first a devotional on The Fruit of the Spirit and then, if God allows, a Hannah's Hope-style-book on the Apostle Paul and living with chronic pain or illness. I will resume post to this blog when I am able. I also invite you to join me at https://www.facebook.com/GivenMeaThorn .

My Next Book

I'm often asked when I'm going to write my next book. In reality I've been in the process of writing a book on the life of Paul as encouragement for living with chronic pain and illness (the reason for this blog) for probably close to 5 years now. Since Hannah's Hope: Seeking God's Heart in the Midst of Infertility, Miscarriage & Adoption Loss took me about 10 years to write, that may not be such exciting news because it tells you I still have a very long way to go!

What I hope is more exciting, what I would like to ask you to partner with me in prayer about as God continues to unfold His plan, is that two of my other blogs, one on beauty and (now that I've gained more focus for what I want to do with this project) specifically Harvesting Hope from Heartache™, have becoming a launching pads for what I feel God is turning into my "next" book.

Yes, I'm continuing to work on the Given Me a Thorn too, but over the past year God has me focusing more on an exploration of the Fruit of the Spirit (a passage written by none other than Paul himself) through a series of articles I've been writing for Glory and Strength and my InnerBeautyGirlz blog. I've been working on a Bible study related to what He's teaching me and I've written much more than could be presented only in my articles, so I think God's growing a book out of all of this! :)

How does the Fruit of the Spirit tie in with Harvesting Hope from Heartache? I'm glad you asked. ;) It all has to do with sowing seeds, gathering fruit, and ultimately what Source my hope springs from. What better time to look to the Lord for help than in the midst of trials? I'm very excited to see how God is tying so many themes together in my life as He's teaching me through Galatians 5 this year! I pray that this book will be as much of a blessing to you as the journey has been to me.

It is my current goal to have enough of this study written and ready to present to publishers that I can begin the query process around the end of the year or in the very early part of 2012. Will you join me in specific prayer that God will give me His words to write and that this project will unfold according to His will and in His perfect timing?

If you would like to stay updated about my progress, I've just opened a new Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/HarvestingHope and would love to have you "like" me over there. :) If you don't do Facebook or would rather get updates via feeds, please follow my long-standing Harvesting Hope from Heartache blog directly. Feel free to pass these link along to your friends as well.

Focus

I almost tossed this picture. The rose is all out of focus! In fact, the only thing my eye can clearly make out is the background, and look at all those nasty thorns!

Oh wait. Isn't this a perfect picture of my life sometimes? So often I miss out on the amazing beauty and blessings right before me because I'm focusing on the annoying, the irritating, the ugly, the painful.

Lord, please help me to remember that even when you give thorns, they are always accompanied by gifts of grace. Sometimes I may have to work harder to adjust my focus than other times, but when I look for your blessings, they are always there.

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 12:7b-10 (The Message)

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Thank you to my sweet friend Abby of Mavora Art and Design who took this idea and made it into my beautiful new header! Feel free to visit her website or follow her on Facebook.

National Invisible Chronic Illness Week

Welcome to National Invisible Chronic Illness Week (Invisible Illness Week, or IIW for short)! Please join me in watching this video produced by my dear friend, Lisa Copen, founder of both Rest Ministries and IIW.



How will you observe IIW? What can you do to spread awareness, comfort, or simply snuggle into the resources and reality or hope and support extended to you?

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: International Consensus Criteria

Could "Chronic Fatigue Syndrome" finally be loosing its ambiguous "fatigue" label? We can only hope that this is a step in the right direction!

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis: International Consensus Criteria - Carruthers - Journal of Internal Medicine - Wiley Online Library