Little Bird Has Gone

On September 15^th, I received a very excited email from one of my young friends.  I met J in bible study several years ago and she is just a darling girl.  Absolutely smart, gorgeous, funny – everything you’d want in a friend.  J is probably in her early 30s and so is her husband, N. 

Anyway, J and N had let me know many months ago that they had decided to become foster parents.  This precious young couple doesn’t have any children of their own, but felt led to do this important work.  When they told me the news, I was elated – they are perfect and I knew that any children placed in their care would be loved and well-treated.

After many months of training, jumping through hoops and more, J and N were told they were on the open list and were ready to receive a foster child.  Just a few days later, the call came and a 15 month old little girl arrived at their home – that is when I received the excited email and was asked to pray for J and N and for the little girl who was coming to stay.

I prayed.

I didn’t hear much from J and N until yesterday, when this email arrived:

We received the much anticipated call this evening.  CPS will pick up Little Bird from our home at 8:30am tomorrow (Tuesday) morning and place her with relatives.  We don't know much beyond that. 

She was in our home for 28 days and it was the best 28 days EVER!

Your continued prayers for her, her family and us would be greatly appreciated.  

All our love,

N and J

PS - Please forgive us if we go "off the grid" for a few days, as we are learning how to heal from this.

How will J and N heal?  How do you love and care for a child, then let her go? 

I sent J and N this response:

What you did for that little thing will stay with her forever.  And I know with you also.  XXOO

I hope it stays or resonates with you too. 

The Power of Prayer and FaceBook

As many of you know, I had a planned hysterectomy almost 2 weeks ago.  Without going into too much detail, suffice to say that I have been having irregular (aka yucky) periods for a few years.  I wanted to have a hysterectomy, but my gynecologist Bob and many of my friends (Aren’t your friends doctors practicing without licenses too?) had suggested an ablation, so after a year or so of reflecting (aka stalling), I scheduled the ablation.  It is day surgery in the doctor’s office with about an afternoon of down time.

A short time before the ablation I went in to see my internal medicine doctor with an unrelated complaint.  While I was in with her, I told her that I was having the ablation.  Amy asked why I wasn’t having a hysterectomy and I explained that that was what I wanted but that my gyno felt like it was more surgery than I needed.  Amy said, “Oh, okay”. 

Well, this was all I needed to call Bob and tell him that I wanted the hysterectomy and not the ablation, etc.  Bob said fine and we set the date working around his vacation and so that I could be off work for the suggested 6 weeks recovery (Do NOT tell Bob that I am not taking the full time off – there are abused and neglected children that come before that for me!).

Anyway, the surgery went well and my stay at Baylor was glorious – what amazing people they have running that place and the nursing care was stupendous.  But the interesting thing was that Bob told me that when we went into to remove everything (this was another discussion where I told him I wanted him to remove all – apparently doctors like to leave the ovaries – but something told me to have him take it all), my ovaries were not healthy at all and one of them looked like it might have had a potential future cancer risk (Pathology reports all fine so far, though, whew!).  

I ended up spending one more day in the hospital than we expected because I felt so nauseous and just couldn’t keep anything down.  Bob broke me out on Monday evening and I came home, still unable to really eat (and even drink) anything without feeling sick.  This went on for several days.  Saw Bob, got new meds (no help at all), tried to get well, stopped all medication, but just kept feeling worse.  I was subsisting on about 1 glass of water a day.  My Mom (caregiver extraordinaire) and I were just at our wits' end.  Bob was thinking that my bowel had twisted and that I’d have to go back into Baylor.  Friday was our deadline to feel better or re-admit.

At about 5 pm on Thursday evening, I was about to give up – but not without a fight – a spiritual one. 

Now, the entire time since I had the surgery, I had my best friends and family praying for me.  Each morning I sent them a text with how I was feeling and asked them to keep praying.  But I was getting desperate.  With tears flowing down my cheeks, I sent messages to all of them to pray.  I sent messages to my friends with little children and asked them to have their kids pray.  I called the prayer tower at HPUMC and asked them to pray.  My Mom and I prayed.  And right then, over the next 30 minutes, I tell you I literally felt the healing come over me.  It was the most powerful thing I’ve ever felt.  God healed me as I sat there on my couch.  After not being able to even keep water down, I was able to eat chicken noodle soup and even a little Kentucky Fried Chicken. 

I see God’s hand all through this journey (Yes, I know the word journey is so Biggest Loser, but I am watching a lot of TV right now, so back off…).  Thank you for praying for me if you did.  I KNOW that God heard our prayers.

P.S.  You may wonder how FaceBook came into this healing.  Well, the only reason that I went to see Amy, my Internal Medicine Doctor, was that I happened to post on FB one night that I was chewing a lot of ice.  Several FB friends said I needed to have blood work done to see if I had low iron (I did).  If I hadn’t gone to see Amy, I would have had the ablation and Bob might not have found the sick ovaries for some time.  But most importantly, God wouldn’t have been able to show me just how much I need Him.  Halleluiah!