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Dear Praying Friends!

This update is basically a continuation directly following the sending out of my

May 2004 update

Update re re-scheduling eye surgery - hurricane/rainbow dream

How are you all doing and how have you been? I hope that your hearts are being encouraged in the love of God for you in deeper and deeper ways these days!!! and your relationships with those around you deepening further and further as well!

I want to thank you all, again, so very, very much for all your prayers in the past while again/especially regarding my decision about whether to re-schedule or not to re-schedule my eye surgery.

I have received very valuable input from many of you which I appreciate so much and have prayed about and factored into my thinking. Thank you sooo much for sharing this with me!

I'm so sorry it has taken so long to get back to you, but I was still waiting for a clearer sense of direction about this till about a week or so ago when I finally felt that I had enough to go on to make my next decision about what to do for the next step. My health has also been worse again the past couple of weeks (due to the lingering antibiotics in my system) so I've not been at the computer as much.

To make a very long story a lot shorter than it could have been : ), through more prayer, more Scriptures that I felt God had impressed on my heart, through other things, but especially the input I have received from many of you - some of which also includes Scriptures they've/you've felt God had impressed on your/their hearts, I have felt that I should go ahead and re-schedule my eye surgery!

One of the things that seemed to kindof clinch it for me was when my Mom called me one day and said she and her prayer partner had been praying about this and both of them had felt that I was to go ahead with the surgery and she shared with me a Scripture that she felt God had brought to mind as they were praying....about God leading us as we are in the way...(Gen 24:27?)

For some reason, when my Mom shared this with me, it was as though something happened and I started to feel very excited about re-scheduling again... it was like the fact that my Mother was saying this to me was very significant, and so when I prayed about that and whether this was my answer, it suddenly became more clear to me, too, that the basic response I have been receiving from people has been:
- they would prefer to see my eye healed without surgery
- they would back me on whatever decision I would make
- but they also felt that perhaps I should re-schedule - some were stronger than others about that.

So I had begun to strongly lean in that direction again, but it seemed when my Mom said what she did, it felt like that was what I had been waiting for, without realizing it.

I have since talked with my eye surgeon about re-scheduling, but it doesn't look like I'll be able to get another date until Aug. or so unless someone cancels - which I'm praying for.

In the past week or so my left eye has begun to also experience some negative changes so that has been quite scary as well, since I also have a cataract in that eye.

I do think that this time of waiting for an answer about this has been very valuable for me, even though also very difficult in some ways and very uncertain in some ways...but it has forced me to have to deal with the issue of potentially going blind in both eyes and not just one, (one of the side effects of cortizone can be 'sudden blindness') and so I have had to be working through these fears and trust issues with God to a deeper level than when I was scheduled to have eye surgery earlier.

I have really struggled with this but this past week I felt like God really encouraged me to continue to believe Him for healed eyesight....one of the passages He kept pumping into me 2 weeks ago was the one in Heb. which says SO DO NOT THROW AWAY YOUR CONFIDENCE, FOR IT WILL BE RICHLY REWARDED. YOU NEED TO PERSEVERE, SO THAT WHEN YOU HAVE DONE THE WILL OF GOD, YOU WILL RECEIVE WHAT HAS BEEN PROMISED.

Among the many Scriptures He encouraged me with in my prayer times this past week was the passage in Matt 7 where it talks about asking and receiving, and then says that if we ask even our earthly fathers for bread, will they give us a stone, etc...? and then says HOW MUCH MORE will our heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask Him!

He had been reminding me, too, of the Scriptures He had given me in fall, specifically about asking me whether I wanted to have my eyesight healed in a couple of the Gospels, and that I had asked Him to do this, and I felt like He was impressing on me "would I give you blindness instead of your eyesight if you asked me to heal your eyesight? - especially if I was the one that made you the offer?"

That in the midst of many other things which I felt He impressed on me really helped to give me peace again!!

I had been feeling a lot of fear, which I tend not to feel very often (though I have a lot more the past several months), and as I was in the process of working through this with Him, He dealt with some issues in that regard.

Then at one point I felt like I had gotten so stuck and didn't know how to move forward, and was just trapped in this sense of fear, when the thought came to mind "when did you first start feeling all this fear"?

And as I thought and prayed about it, what came to mind is that it seemed to have started when I began to think about the possibility of becoming blind in both eyes, and so I had been seeking to lay down this fear and be willing to be blind if that is what God wanted, since He does things His own way and they don't always look like our ways. So maybe He would allow me to go through a time of total blindness before healing me? I didn't know, and was seeking to lay that down.

Interestingly, though, it was as I was seeking to do this, that the Scripture about asking and the father not giving the son a stone when he asks for bread, came to me at that point. Then many other Scriptures came to mind to remind me of God's promises and I felt like in this particular situation He was impressing on me that I was feeling fear because I had not been thinking the way I should have been thinking - ie. whatever is pure, lovely, of good report, etc...think on THESE things....DO NOT WORRY about tomorrow....and the list goes on...so I needed to repent of those fears and worries and then replaced them with the Truth He fed me with.

Then He reminded me of how we're to cast our cares on Him BECAUSE HE CARES FOR US, and I felt like He was impressing on my heart through this and many other Scriptures that I had been seduced by the 'angel of light' into thinking that laying down these promises at this point in time was the right thing to do...when instead, at THIS point, He was wanting me to stand firm and keep believing the things I had felt HE had promised me rather than believing the lies the enemy was trying to fill my mind and heart with!

Let me clarify....I believe that we do need to submit to God and to lay things down, but one of the things I felt He impressed on me through this time with Him was that there is a TIME to lay things down - and it needs to be HIS timing...and there is a TIME to believe His promises and stand for them/fight for them... (Rom.)....so (Abraham) did not waver with unbelief regarding the promises of God, but was strengthened in his faith, and gave glory to God, knowing that God had the power to do what had been promised...). Well, when I began to think about potential blindness in both eyes instead of just one, the fears and unbelief started to grow until God reminded me (lovingly exhorted me?!) to believe what HE had told me rather than the lies the enemy was trying to fill me with...Yes, I needed to submit to Him, but in this case I felt like He was saying that submission means to keep believing His promises and not laying that down at this point. This was a new thought to me...

I felt that He reminded me of the story of Abraham having to lay Isaac down....but this time I felt He was focusing on the fact that Isaac lay Isaac on the altar ONLY WHEN GOD TOLD HIM TO DO SO...NOT BEFORE and NOT AFTER....if he had done so too early or too late, it would have brought big problems and would not have been the right time. Timing is so important to God, I keep finding...

And so although I have felt Him asking me to lay many things down in my life, and so I was going to do it again, THIS TIME I felt like He was reminding me, too, of the verse in Psalms that says that He is training our fingers for battle and our hands for war, and that THIS TIME I needed to KEEP BELIEVING IN HIS PROMISES and not lay them down...though He may ask me to do so next week, or tonight...? So I need to be willing to do that whenever He asks, but at this point I just felt, from all of the Scriptures that I felt He put on my heart, I felt He was saying that I need to keep TRUSTING IN HIM and just go forward with the re-scheduling and see what He will do.

So the faith challenges with my eye-sight continue as I wait for my new surgery date... At the same time there have been growing financial challenges and some more major faith challenges happening in my family and with many friends (including many of you), so it has been interesting...lots to keep praying about!!

That reminds me of another dream I recently had - maybe it will be of encouragement to you as well - it sure was for me in many ways...

I felt it was very symbolic...basically I was lying on the ground under a huge hurricane (my siblings and niece and nephew were there as well) and it was a horrifying experience with debris flying everywhere and the roar of the hurricane was deafening and everything was black! We were all shielding our faces from the horrific wind and debris and yet, terrifying as it was, I sensed that God was protecting us, even though everything around us was being totally devastated. Nothing landed on us and we didn't even get lifted up into the hurricane off the ground. We weren't even thrown or moved! It was almost like we were in some kind of invisible protective shield though we experienced the horrendous power of the hurricane above and all around us at the same time!

I remember asking, in my dream, whether everyone was ready to meet Jesus cause I didn't think we'd last there for more than a few seconds...

But then after some time the scene changed in my dream (after a night of hurricane) and it was morning....the warm sun was coming up gloriously and the sky was blue and peaceful...we were all still lying on our backs on the ground, totally amazed that we were actually alive, and as we sat up and started looking around, nothing was left as it was before...no houses anywhere in sight, NOTHING was left, etc.!! But we were all fine!!

But then I felt I was to go up this hill in what used to be our very big back yard in the dream...and felt God wanted me to look down it from the top...so I walked to the top (in the dream I could walk fine but I know that wasn't the point of the dream)...and as I looked down the hill, I was totally amazed....God, the artist, had taken all of the devastation and had crafted it into the most beautiful rainbow!! The whole hill and all around what used to be our property, etc. was this incredible beauty which He had made from the devastation... Even as I think about it now it makes me cry...

HURRICANE & RAINBOW Dream depiction - (this isn't a very good representation of my dream but maybe it will help convey the idea a bit)

I don't know if this dream is about what's currently going on in our lives or what's to come, or both, but it was soo encouraging...(at least the rainbow part - but even the hurricane part because of the sense of God's protection in the midst of it...)

Since then I've felt that God has been confirming this again and again by reminding me of so many stories, yet again, where He loves to bring life out of dead situations...and how He is in the midst of the 'mighty waters' with us, etc...Scripture has so many...

And a verse which I have been meditating on a lot this week is this (thank you for sending this Maureen!!):

"For Abraham, when hope was gone, hoped on in faith. His faith never quailed" (Rom. 4:18-19).

"WHEN HOPE WAS GONE" - my translation says: 18Against all hope, Abraham in hope believed and so became the father of many nations, just as it had been said to him, "So shall your offspring be."[4] 19Without weakening in his faith, he faced the fact that his body was as good as dead--since he was about a hundred years old--and that Sarah's womb was also dead. 20Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, 21being fully persuaded that God had power to do what he had promised. 22This is why "it was credited to him as righteousness."

This certainly is how I felt in the hurricane! and yet God made it soo beautiful afterwards....

So I don't know what this all means or how He's going to do things cause His ways are higher than ours, but I know I need to trust Him and I feel like He is strongly encouraging me, on every hand, to BELIEVE WHAT I FEEL HE HAS PROMISED ME and not give in to the fears and unbelief or even lay it down UNLESS/UNTIL HE TELLS ME...

So that's where I'm at at this point and since that night when I felt He put this on my heart, I have had peace again...

So THANK YOU again so verry much for all your prayers and love and helpful input!!!!

I'll let you know when I get a new date for surgery...

Thank you so much for all your emails and I am still in the process of responding... Thank you again for your patience yet again!!!

You are in my heart and prayers as well!!

With love,
Grace