I’m Overwhelmed

Lately life’s fragility has surrounded me.  Is it possible to pray for all of them? Can it be? How can I really help them? Would God save them all?

Today I watched a video of a girl that will lose her life. She will lose her battle with CF. She only has a few days left. 

Sometimes I’m overwhelmed. Today is one of those days.

It’s like my heart is breaking off into little pieces. One for each of them. What do I do with this?

Part of me is so afraid. Afraid to put myself out there. Afraid to be a REAL friend to those who need me. I know that God has a reason he’s showing me all this. I know He has a reason that I am in their lives, and that I keep finding new people to bring in my life.

I know this in my head, but my heart is scared.

And lately, this fear has been paralyzing me, so to speak. I’m almost afraid to pray. What if He doesn’t answer in the way I want. What does that mean for my prayers?

Sometimes I even try to bargain with God. What if I were more faithful? What if I prayed every day for so and so? What if I prayed every hour?

What if it were just me praying, is that enough? What if it were 10,000 people? Does that make a difference? How does God choose?

What is He teaching me? And why is it so hard? Why is it so painful?

I know that this is nothing compared to those who are going through these things, and I’m sorry that I’m whining, but it’s too much to hold in. I have no answers, but I hope God teaches me something  tangible soon.

Prayer for the Little Ones - Jonah

From his blog:
On Feb 27th, 2009, we had Jonah, who was born with an extremely rare genetic skin disorder called Epidermolysis Bullosa. Jonah spent 32 scary days in the NICU, but is now at home! He has been diagnosed with Junctional EB, a very serious form of EB which CAN be fatal. The experts are fairly confident Jonah is non-Herlitz (less severe), although the biopsies were inconclusive. He faces a life of painful blisters, hair, nail, and major teeth issues, as well as the possibility of respiratory involvement. Jonah stays bandaged from the neck down. We suspect EB is the cause of Gabe's death. We know that no matter what happens with Jonah, God will be glorified. We can't wait to see Gabe in Heaven and can't wait for Jonah to meet his big brother a long, long, long time from now after he's old and gray and lived a long, full life. Please pray for a miracle for Jonah. We are.

My prayers for Jonah:
-Strength and encouragement for his mom; she seems to have hit a rough spot
-Help Jonah to eat solid foods
-Healing for Jonah

Prayer for the Little Ones – Kate

Sorry this is late.

Welcome to my weekly prayer for the little ones. I am so excited that I have found a way to show all of the many blogs for children that need prayer that I have come across. There is so much need in the world, and I am willing to give as much as I can. I hope that you join me in prayer for this little guys.

If you would like to be included or know of someone who should be please email me at

saffoa (at) gmail (dot) com

 

Click the photo to visit her website

Kate’s story (from her page)

Monday June 29th, 2009 was supposed to be a day filled with summer fun. The kids and I were going to the water park to celebrate summer. However, I noticed that a slight tremor in her right hand that she developed over the past 2-3 days had notably worsened. We decided to take her to her Pediatrician, just for safe measure. Her Dr decided to get a CT of Kate's head, to rule anything out. We proceeded to Phoenix Childrens Hospital for a stat CT of her head. At 5:30 I, Holly, Kate's mom, was taken into a room alone and told Kate had a massive tumor on the basil ganglia portion of her brain. The world stopped for us that day. I called her dad and through sobs told him to come to the hospital quickly. Our journey had begun. Kate was directly admitted to the PICU. One minute thoughts of the water park the next our child is critically ill in the PICU.  We would have never chosen to be a part of this journey with childhood cancer, but it was chosen for us, and our sweet Kate. She is now in the Phoneix Children's Hospital undergoing treatment for this disease.
Kate underwent a craniotomy with tumor resection on July 3rd, 2009. They unfortunately were only able to remove 50% of the tumor due to it's location in the left temporal lobe of her brain and the fact that the tumor had wrapped itself around major blood vessels to her brain. Kate experienced right sided paralysis immediately following surgery. She has since regained much of this, however right sided weakness still continues. 
After a few days of waiting the pathology report was in, Kate was diagnosed with a very malignant, aggressive brain tumor called a supratentorial primitive neuroectodermal tumor or sPNET. Our hearts were shattered. Dreams for our little 5 year old daughter put on hold to battle this monster. Long term prognosis and outcomes weren't encouraging so Kate has been put on a study that is showing a little more promising outcomes, hopefully a better chance at survival and less long term side effects. She is currently undergoing the Head Start 3 Study out of Los Angeles but doing it at Phoenix Children's Hospital. The study involves the initial brain surgery, 5 round of very intense chemotherapy with possibility of a subsequent brain surgery and then another round of chemo with a stem cell transplant. We are hoping to avoid radiation after transplant. Kate is also in physical therapy and occupational therapy and has been released from speech therapy.
We believe strongly in the power of prayer and the ability of Jesus to heal our precious daughter. Whether He does this through modern medicine or simply a divine touch, we aren't picky. We are asking others to join us on this journey and fervently pray for our Kate. The road is long and unbelievably hard. We have 3 children, all who are intensely affected. Olivia is now 7, Kate is 5 and Will is 4. Please keep all of us in your prayers as we try to walk this journey of childhood cancer. Thank you. 
As of September 29th Kate was readmitted to begin her 3rd round of chemo. She will be hospitalized for the entire round.

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Kate will be undergoing extremely aggressive Chemo to try and rid her of this tumor.

I will be praying for

• Protection for her organs
• Strength for her family
• Her cancer would be healed

Also, today is world cancer day.

• I will also pray that doctors would find new information today that leads them to a cure for cancer

Humility

Humility is something that is not easily learned. In fact, most of the time it is quite a painful lesson. Lately I have been reminded of this more and more.

Each morning when I start my day I usually have a quick thought on this. Then I go about my day forgetting about my little thought. Then this leads to a painful day where I don't learn anything. I spend most of the time fighting and struggling against whatever it is that God is trying to teach me. Well that's great!

It is getting harder and harder to ignore these subtle cues
They are not even that subtle anymore. For the last 3 months I have been a very difficult position. Everyday it gets worse and worse. And everyday I fight it more and more. As troubling as it is I am realizing that fighting it won't work. I can only change how I react to it. Yes yes people say that all the time. Everyone KNOWS that. But when you are in the midst of something, do you really know it?

So this is me learning yet another common sense lesson. Ugh these are so hard. Hard to learn and hard to swallow.

I'm not sure what this humbling will look like. I think there is a fine line between being humble and being walked on. Not to mention my pride is in there too. Today I'm giving up. I'm going to look to see where God is showing me the lessons he want me to learn. I'm going to open my eyes, finally. I expect lots of painful growing today.

Everyone has something they need to learn to be more humble about. Maybe it's a spouse or a job or even a disease, where is it that you can be more humble today?