CONTENTS

Archives - INDEX to Personal newsletters

Jan 1, 2004 update

Contents:
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+Intro
+ Leg infection update
+ Allergies to antibiotics
+ Preparing for eye surgery - Jan 6
+ Getting closer to getting off cortizone
+ Another 7 year cycle ends with a miracle!!
+ Shoes
+ Immanuel - God With Us - an AMAZING thing that happened this past Mon.!!

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Dear praying friends!!

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!

How have you been doing this Christmas and New Year? I hope your times over this holiday season weree very encouraging and not too stressful!! I also hope that you and your families have been healthy!

Quite a few of you have been asking how my leg is doing these days, so I wanted to update you on that and also update you on a few other things, and to thank you again soo very much for your continuing love and many prayers!!!!!!

God continues to blow me away and also to keep reminding me in many ways that His ways are higher than my ways and His thoughts than my thoughts...and to KEEP TRUSTING HIM!

LEG INFECTION UPDATE
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After finishing 30 days of antibiotics, the leg infection was doing very well and continuing to heal...it is a long process...usually lasts for quite a few months but it was doing quite well by about Christmas. By Christmas, most of the side/after effects of the antibiotics were easing up considerably so that was encouraging, and some of my energy and motivation was also finally starting to return!

The day after Christmas?, however, I accidentally got a very small scratch on my leg and within a few hours I could see I would need to be back on my way to Emergency in a number of hours if I didn't do something about it right aways, although thankfully it was not NEARLY as bad or progressing as quickly as it usually has, because I still had so much of the antibiotic medication in my body, so that was a plus this time! I also had some antibiotics at home over the holidays (PTL!!!) so began to take some immediately, and so it never did get to the place where I had to go back to the hospital this time!! PTL!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It has been doing pretty well until the past couple days when it has become quite a concern again (I'm hoping I'm not getting immune to the antibiotics since I've been on so much of it the past couple of years). I have to keep a close eye on it and have to keep my leg up most of the time these days in order to promote circulation in order to prevent it from becoming gangrenous.

I'm very grateful that I have not gotten a flu or cold over the holiday season, which is amazing, considering that so many people have gotten it, even those with flu shots! I'm very grateful for the Lord's protection and for your prayers in that regard, too!

ALLERGIES TO ANTIBIOTICS
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You may recall that I was allergic to one or more of the antibiotics I had taken in Nov. for the earlier leg infection, and neither my doctor nor I were sure which one/s I was/am allergic to, which is very important for me/us to know since there are so few antibiotics that I can use - especially with such frequent serious infections - and the more I use them, the easier it is to become resistant to the few strains I am able to use.

So I began my initial allergy tests with a local allergist to find out which I'm allergic to....it is apparently going to require about 6 visits since I need to go back twice for each antibiotic that needs to be tested, and one of the visits for each test takes 3 hours (each).

The first one he tested SEEMS, from the intial test, to be one that I'm NOT allergic to!!! PTL!! Thankfully this is the one I had at home during the holidays, since my doctor had had to give me a prescription for a couple of pills for the allergist to test...and suggested that he increase the prescription so I'd have some on hand in the future, since this particular prescription only costs a few cents a pill after the initial dispensing fee, not a lot like some of the other ones!

I'm amazed at God's timing to have gotten me these extra antibiotics just before I needed them during the holidays and during the time when I was stranded due to the snow!!

PREPARING FOR EYE SURGERY Jan 6
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With recovering from the Nov. leg infection, although it was a busy Dec., it was also very quiet since I had to lay low and spend a lot of time with my leg up. About the only times I was out in Dec. was to go to the nearly 25 or so doctor and related appts.! - many of which were to test me to see whether I was able to go through with the eye surgery I was scheduled to have on Jan. 6.

Other than all these appts., backlog from when my computer wasn't working from about Sept-Nov., preparing for Christmas, etc., with this second leg infection following on the tail of the other one, it has continued to be a very quiet Christmas/New Year and Jan. so far! :) which has actually been a nice change from previous super busy winters!!

Although I prefer to be healed of my cataract BEFORE having to have to have eye surgery, it seems God wanted me to proceed with the direction of the surgery and to trust Him either way... Although I've not been looking forward to the actual surgery at all, especially the needle they have to poke into my eye to freeze it! - yick!!! - I HAVE been looknig forward to being able to see with my right eye again and to be free of the constant stress and headaches the blindness from the cataract causes!, so I have had mixed feelings about it but also had peace about moving in that direction. The tests seemed to also indicate that I would probably be fine with going through with the surgery, in terms of potential infections, because I was to take another antibiotic for almost a week before the surgery.

During this preparation, I had been asking God to stop this surgery from happening IF I wasn't to go through with it... And during this time I felt He gave me a dream about my eye being healed without me having to have surgery, just after He impressed on my heart two of the stories in the Gospels about Him asking a blind man what he wanted Him to do for him....and when he asked for his sight, it says Jesus IMMEDIATELY healed him!

On both occasions I felt God was asking me the same question, and I responded like the guys in the Bible, and also reminded God that it said He IMMEDIATELY healed them....however, I also know that it says that for God a day is like a thousand years, so who knows what IMMEDIATELY always means to Him, hey?? : )

Anyway, shortly after that, because of the leg infection, my doctor and I agreed that the eye surgery should be postponed, and I have felt totally at peace about this. At the same time, it is when the snow was the worst here and it was very uncertain as to whether I would even have been able to get to the hospital for the surgery, so God's timing in having it postponed is also very interesting...

I don't know whether this means God does NOT want me to go through with the surgery and maybe just wanted to find out whether I was WILLING to go that route even though I didn't prefer it, and whether I would TRUST HIM in a situation which I was initially terrified of due to the potential risk of infection, etc.? or....is this leg infection something the enemy did to try to prevent me from getting the help I need for my eye? I don't know, but I do know that the Bible says God loves to take what the enemy means for evil and turn it around for good, and says ALL things work together for GOOD, and so whichever it is, the bottom line continues to be WILL I TRUST HIM!...

At this point the plan is to re-schedule my eye surgery once my doctor says the infection is cleared up enough, but we'll see what God does....I would still LOVE to be healed and not have to go through with it! :)

GETTING CLOSER TO GETTING OFF CORTIZONE
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Having this leg infection has also, once again, set back plans on starting the other natural medication that my naturpath had wanted to start me on right before my Nov. leg infection - so there has been a delay there as well.

That medication is supposedly supposed to help me to be able to FINALLY begin to reduce the cortisone, which continues to be the major destroyer of my body, but which I'm unable to get off of barring a miracle of some sort...

My rheumatologist also has been wanting me to start a different medication (which is several hundred dollars a month and which he wants me on for the rest of my life - BC Medical will pay for about 2/3 of it) for some months, also to supposedly help me to begin to reduce the cortizone, which should enable my body to begin to rebuild more quickly.

My preference is to try the natural route first, but that has been postponed for over a year due to the last 3 lege infections....but HOPEFULLY I will be able to start that in a month or so as soon as I get the antibiotics out of my system again once the infections are healed enough to get cleansed of the antibiotics. In the meantime, my rheumatologist keeps wanting me to start his drug NOW...but I don't feel that I should right yet....I feel I need to give the other one a chance, first, but he's concerned that I've not been able to start either one yet...so please pray that I WOULD be able to start the natural one ASAP! Thank you!! I also cannot afford the other one as things are, and the natural one is a lot cheaper, apparently, so that's another good reason to try that one first and hopefully I won't need to even try the other one! The natural one is also not a lifetime thing....

ANOTHER 7 YEAR CYCLE ENDS WITH A MIRACLE!
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I've mentioned to you before how God seems to bring my life through 7 year cycles where He brings an area of my life through a 'death' in order to some major work in my life in that regard, and then 'resurrects' that area of my life with a MIRACLE after about 7 years! He's done this in various areas of my life over the years! - ie. a corn of wheat must fall into the ground and die before it can bear much fruit...

In that regard, I had mentioned to you early in 2003, I believe, that I felt that in winter, about Oct./Nov.? of last year, one night I felt He woke me to remind me that it had been about 6 years, at that time, since I had been almost completely homebound, and that He was impressing on me that I had another year to go till my miracle...! I immediately asked for Scripture to back this up if it was from Him...

He gave me two: one from Job....He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction.....!!!!!!!! and one in Malachai.... The sun of righteousness will rise with healing it its wings, and you will leap like calves released from a stall....!!!!!

And then in so many ways, this past year, He seemed to keep affirming this, including through 12 dreams that prayer partners, friends, my Mom, sister and I have had, about me being healed - all very interesting!!!! Of course we have to wait and see what is from Him and what isn't, but it has been amazing!! And of course we don't exactly know what this healing will look like or what His process is or will be, but I / we have known SOMETHING IS UP!!!

WELL, it's now about the end of 7 years, and it's during this time that things have gotten crazy again healthwise, with the 2 recent leg infections, recently being declared legally blind in my right eye and having the eye surgery scheduled until last weekend, etc.! I've also recently begun to get these wild, almost constant pains in my left elbow, so that almost whenever or however I move it, it immediately gets these feelings of having gotten a charlie-horse or feeling like my funny-bone has been hit...and it's in the better elbow, which is causing it to be somewhat more restricted than it has been...not a good thing since I rely on it a lot since my other elbow has barely had any leverage at all since I was young...even basics like using the washroom have been very difficult because of this, and now my elbow that I rely on for some of the basics is having trouble....so I'm always being reminded to keep trusting God.

Interestingly, although I have not yet been experiencing the kind of healing that I'm still expecting, this past week or so I DID receive what I believe is God's miracle, or at least the initial one, to indicate that this is the time of resurrection of this area of my life, and we'll see how He continues to work it out!!

The timing is very interesting with the proposed drugs I just mentioned above to help me FINALLY begin to get off cortizone, too!!

Anyway, here is the miracle!!

For about two years I have done some research on some of the motorized scooters that you see handicapped people using to get around, since for about 7 years I have hardly been able to get out of the house cause I can only walk such short distances because of pain and stiffness and lack of energy, etc., or stand for more than a couple minutes at a time without nearly fainting from the pain and exhaustion of it.

When I checked out these scooters, there was basically only about one that I saw that I figured would work for me due to my physical deformities and restrictions, etc., and it was about the most expensive one available. They run around $2500 in US dollars!!! Most of them also do not come apart so in order to move them from place to place, if you're not actually riding it from your home, you'd have to buy a rack for your vehicle or buy a van so it could be taken along, and of course it would be too heavy for most people to load up - you'd probably usually need a couple people.... Anyway, I thought I'd probably have to get a van in order to make good use of it!

WELL, it all seemed soooo expensive and like such an impossibility for me at the time, that I just left it and began praying about it on occasion. Just recently I began thinking about them again, but didn't do anything further with the idea.

On Christmas, a friend of mine (the father of the Mom of one of the missionary families that used to be with Frontiers and that used to stay with me for weeks {years ago when my health was much better} when they would be here on furlough), died of diabetes and cancer. I had gotten to know him over the years, as well, since he would sometimes stay with us then, too....he'd be here visiting from SK. He and I had developed a delightful friendship.

It turns out that he had just been moved from Sask. to a senior's home in Abbotsford last year, and they had recently gotten him one of those particular Scooters that I had been praying about. After his death, they decided he would have wanted them to give the Scooter, and a walker (again, one of the very nice ones which cost way more than I could have ever considered!!) to me!! It happens to be almost brand new and happens to come apart into 5 pieces, so I can even get help to put it into my vehicle to take it places if I need to! I don't even need a rack!!!

To me, this is an amazing miracle!!! AND ESPECIALLY THE TIMING OF IT!!! - it's just around the time when I felt He was going to do a miracle re my health!!

At first when they told me about this, I guess I was a tad disappointed...not because of the incredible gift/miracle!, but because I wondered, then, whether that was the extent that He was intending re my healing....

But as I prayed about it, I felt like God impressed on me that both the Scooter and the walker (and the upcoming medications to help me get off the cortizone), are all things to move me into the direction of MORE FREEDOM and LESS RESTRICTION - just like it said in the verse in Job - -- He is wooing you from the jaws of distress to a spacious place free from restriction....

His timetable and methods are usually different from ours, so perhaps how He does this is not instant, but it definitely seems to me to be the beginning of a new era in my health situation!!!!! - and once again started with a miracle!! which is totally related to my HEALTH issues!!!! And He also has been reminding me that He loves to do FAR MORE than we have asked or imagined, so who knows what He still has in mind with all of this!!!!! :) Whatever it is, it's good, because He is good and everything He does is out of His LOVE...

SHOES
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Interesting timing with this as well!!!

For years the only things I've been able to wear on my feet have been these big thongs....so it has gotten quite nippy in winter, especially in the snow, and of course when the snow gets to be more than about 2 inches, I can't go out into it for more than a bit or my feet would freeze... it's also very difficult to walk on ice with thongs!

So the past year or so I had been doing some internet research to find out whether I could find some footwear company that could design some custom shoes specifically for my very deformed feet...Though many kinds of custom footwear are able to be designed, I didn't come across anyone that seemed tehy would be able to design what I was in need of....so I kindof shelved the idea for awhile, hoping my thongs would hold up a lot longer...

Also, since I thought I may be healed this winter, I didn't want to unnecessarily spend a lot of money on getting custom-made shoes...

However, now that God has just provided the Scooter and walker, and since there has just been snow again, I had once again just started thinking about doing some more internet research on custom-made shoes.

Then, out of the blue, I 'happened' to watch Ripley's Believe it or Not for a bit couple nights ago, and 'happened' to turn it on just in time to watch this bit on this guy who was born with these feet which wouldn't quit growing and he also had a disease which was something like the Elephant Man had...he's about my age now, I think..

Anyway, his feet were/are waaaay worse than mine and eventually he found this company in the US to make him some decent shoes and they turned out GREAT!! and even look pretty normal, which is amazing!!! (since it seems custom-made shoes for people with irregular feet are usually sooo ugly!!!) I video-taped this section and got the name of the company and so checked it out on the computer later on.

As soon as I saw this and saw how they made the shoes and how great they looked, I feel that this is the place!

On Ripley's, the guy had to go to Denver to have his feet measured and all of that, but on their web site I see that they now can send a kit, which includes a digital camera, to you (which you need to return), with instructions, so that they can have you do the measuring yourself and send the data back to them to put into their computers so they can create the shoes that are just right for your feet! I'm sooo excited about that because I couldn't figure out how I'd be able to fly to CO at this point, with my health still as it is...my new scooter probably would take awhile to get me that far! : )

So I hope to check with them to see how long it takes, how much it would cost, etc. and will take it from there...

Again, the TIMING of this is verrrrry interesting to me!! I believe it's all a part of the plan...and once again indicates an increasing FREEDOM FROM RESTRICTION!!!!! : )

This is a hugely long email and I'm so sorry about that, but there is so much to share with you....there's so much more but I couldn't even begin to think about putting it all in here this time!

But I want to share with you one more thing which I hope totally encourages you, as well!!

IMMANUEL - GOD WITH US - an AMAZING thing that happened this past Mon.!!!!
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I have something really encouraging to share with you which totally encouraged me this week!!

I felt, at one point in the day, that I was compelled to go to the post office at the shopping center at the corner close to me here, to drop off a bunch of mail I had to mail. As I came out of the post office, a woman came out with me and said, 'you must be a writer to be mailing so many letters!'. I said, yes, I do a lot of writing, but this is actually CDs and bills and not letters. So then she asked if I was a musician, and I said yes, but these weren't CDs of my music, but of some plasticene figurines that I had been making...

Then, amazingly, she looked at me with this shocked look and said she had just been standing behind me in the line-up at the post office and had been thinking about plasticene figurines and that she knew someone in the movie business here in Vancouver that uses plasticene figurines to create those types of animated characters and that she had been wanting to contact them to see whether she could potentially get a job working with them in some capacity. She's been working for BC Ferries for years, apparently, and has had the past 2 years off on sick leave due to having to work through all kinds of emotional things from her past and also because apparently the work situation has been very abusive and apparently they really victimize their employees, etc. She didn't say too much about that but was saying that it's the end of her leave of absence and in thinking about going back she is so traumatized that she thinks she will need to find another job and so has been thinking about doing something more creative because she apparently loves writing and is developing in the area of photography and loves doing creative things...

So then when she mentioned her interest in the movie industry and didn't know how to go about it, I mentioned to her that I could connect her with my friend who heads up the network for local Christians in the movie industry and said that probably she could direct her to the kind of help she was looking for....(plus I'm hoping she'll get connected with some Christians in the movie industry). She's British, about my age, beautiful and looks like a movie star already...even her clothing....she looks so sophisticated...

Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you, but this time as we were talking, she was sitting with me in my car cause as you know I can't stand long so I had invited her to come in so we could finish our conversation and she didn't bat an eye.

It turns out she lives in my neighbourhood, has lived here in Canada about 30 years, and basically has no one in her life...her Mom, who has Alzheimers or something like it, is in Victoria.

Anyway, she just was talking to me as though she had known me a long time and gave me her card with her email addy and has already emailed me.

I totally believe God sent her....

Know what else happened? Just then P., one of my neighbourhood prayer partners, knocked on my car window in the parking lot, so I invited her in and introduced them and we all started visiting, as P. also likes to write and is developing photography. They were just connecting as well...a few minutes later the rest of my prayer partners unexpectedly showed up a few feet away so P. called them and they came into the car, too (Except L., who is visiting family in the interior this week).

So now this new lady, J., who lives in our neighbourhood, and is also interested in artsy things, and is lonely, and seems to be a deeper type of person, suddenly has met my dear neighbourhood prayer partners...potentially a new support network for her?!! I am so convinced that God is pursuing her!!! So we'll see what develops!!

Anyway, once I introduced them all, she left, and so the rest of us were catching up in the car. While we were in there, another one of the women's cell phones rang, and she was told that she was to meet someone at a certain place close by to be served her divorce papers.

She has known this was coming (her husband committed adultery and has been living with someone the past 3 years and over Christmas she knew the divorce was about to come through, but it's never the same to know as when it actually happens...).... Anyway, we were all totally amazed at how God had set everything up!

She had just been telling us how God had been showering her with affirmations of His love for her all weekend, and now here He brought all of us, unexpectedly and unplanned, to meet at the right time so that we were actually all TOGETHER when she got the news! So we cried with her and prayed with her in the car and then went with her to go pick up the divorce papers.

Totally amazing and so touching how much God loves us, hey?

NEVER have we ever met in anywhere in Surrey before - all of us at once! - and totally unplanned!

If this new woman, J., hadn't stopped me when she did, this wouldn't have happened..... so I also want to email Jean and tell her how she was an important part of this and just share with her what happened, too...

When I mentioned to her that the movie support group was Christian, I didn't see any negative response in her whatsoever...

So we'll see how the Lord draws this woman/artist and see what He's up to!! I would appreciate your prayers for her and also for my friend and her estranged husband and their children who are going through this painful time!! THANK YOU!!!

Isn't this all amazing?!! We were all in kindof a daze after all of this...it just affirms so much that God is in control EVEN WHEN WE DON'T REALIZE IT!! None of us thought we were being 'spiritual' by going to the shopping center when we headed to the shopping center...but God obviously had had it all worked out beforehand...I have been wondering how long He had to work on the plans beforehand to get this to happen as perfectly as it did?? AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyway, wanted to share that very encouraging testimony of what God did...so may that encourage you, too, that even in the things that seem mundane in our lives, you never know when He'll totally change things all around and let you see that He was leading you even when you had no sense of that...There's a vs. in Acts 17 (?) which talks about God ordaining the time and exact places where He wanted us to live, etc. This verse has been coming to me over radio, TV, in emails, in the Bible, etc. every day this week! - just at the time the above incident happened...

GOD BE WITH YOU and may He do FAR MORE than you have asked or imagined this year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks again sooooo much for your prayers and support/encouragements!! God bless you!!

Thank you for sharing with me some of the faith challenges many of you are facing as well. I will continue to pray for you as well.

Much love and deep appreciation,
Grace