Hello again dear friends and family. I feel like, over the course of this blog's history, a good deal of our posts have started by us apologizing for how long it's been since our last. And though this has definitely been the longest interval between posts thus far...I'll just forego that part for now.
A LOT has definitely happened for us over the last few months, ever since we moved on to our church campus, when I started working on staff and Corrie transitioned from children's ministry to pastor's assistanthood. Not only were those things in themselves huge life changes for us, but they have carried along with them spiritual changes as well. My world is being rocked by the lessons I'm learning about myself, about Corrie, about marriage, about Jesus, about the kingdom.
I think the central lesson I'm learning, like the trunk of the tree whose roots go out to touch all these different aspects of life, is this (as one of our pastors told me one day): "Don't concede your place." In other words, know who you are in the Lord. Know what he has given you. Know your place as husband, as father, as believer...and don't let the enemy fool you into thinking anything different. What the Lord has given you to do...do it. When it's hard, fight through. When it's painful, fight through. When it feels like you weren't made for the job at hand, fight through...because you were. For the sake of the kingdom and the sake of our loved ones, and the sake of the world...fight through. Because you are not alone. You may not be powerful or cut out for the job or even minimally able, but, like David, you "come in the name of the Lord," and in him you are, "more than a conqueror."
This blog is one of those places I don't want to concede. It sounds silly and small and relatively meaningless...I mean really...who cares about a little blog? But it is more than that. It's a tangible way of re-orienting my naturally selfish mind to start thinking about others. When you're sick with Lyme or any disease, it's very VERY easy to turn inward, to let selfishness rule and to start assuming that others exist to help ME. And lately, I haven't been feeling quite as well as I had been. Lo and behold, my attitude has been bending back around toward me.
On Good Friday, our pastor spoke on the story of the exodus and the first passover. He brought us to
Exodus 9:13-16:
The the Lord said to Moses, "Rise up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh and say to him, 'Thus says the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, "Let My people go, that they may serve Me. For this time I will send all my plagues on you and your servants and your people, so that you may know that there is no one like me in all the earth. But, indeed, for this reason I have allowed you to remain, in order to show My power and in order to proclaim My name through all the earth." ' "
So God's heart was, of course, to deliver his people because he cared for them and was moved with compassion by their suffering and captivity. But it was also so much more. It was, like with Abraham, to make them a blessing to the whole earth. God wanted the whole earth to know him in his presence and power. To experience his deliverance and freedom. To live life with Him, not on their own.
That's why I don't want to concede my place in this blog. It is an avenue for the world, our friends, and our family to look on and see God's hand in our lives. It's a way for us to align ourselves with his heart to use our healing journey as a blessing to others. May my healing not just be for me and Corrie only. May it be for others' healing, whether miraculous or by treatments we try. May it be a way for the Holy Spirit to speak a word of life to you. Our prayer is, "Lord, deliver us...and them too."
A couple weeks ago now, I had another doctor appointment with our wonderful doctor in Los Altos. I told him that, prior to my getting pneumonia in January, I felt like I had plateaued. I wasn't getting worse...I just wasn't getting noticeably better. Then shortly after I got over my pneumonia, it felt as if my body started slowly getting more and more inflamed. From that time until now, my joints have been a bit more swollen and my non-joint, fibromyalgia-type pain has been more frequent and a bit more intense. Not debilitating by any means, but at the same time definitely noticeable. Until these recent weeks, it had been months since I had had that kind of pain.
As I told this to my doctor, he didn't look worried. But he did look determined. He wants to act decisively and quickly so that my body can keep making strides forward. So, in addition to adding some solid herbal treatments, he brought up the option of pursuing ozone treatment.
Now, this is really exciting to me because, if you'll remember, we asked you all to pray that my body would be able to handle ozone months ago. We ventured to Carson City for one round of joint injections, had a wonderful experience, and then we didn't do anything else ozone-related for several months. Well, this time around we will pursue both joint injections AND systemic ozone treatment. If all goes well, it will be an integral part of my treatment plan. Exciting!
So, for the joint injections, in a month I will be seeing a doctor here in SC who, since our trip to Carson City, has been trained by the "inventor" of the treatment (the doctor in Carson City). I've put two appointments on the books with him, one for May 2nd and one a week later. It will be exciting to see what effect these shots have on my arthritis now that I will be receiving the recommended minimum number of treatments (2), with probable repeat treatments.
The systemic ozone treatment is what I am even more excited about. The doctor in Carson City uses systemic ozone all the time as a routine procedure for his chronically ill patients. Ozone used in this way has so many powerful effects that I'm considering doing another blog post just about that. But basically, ozone not only kills pathogenic organisms, of which I have had many, but it also is a powerful detoxifying agent. The more I learn by studying and by experience, the more I believe that detoxifying is even more important than killing the infections. Detoxifying is what actually allows your body to heal so that IT can kill the infections.
While in Carson City back in the fall, the doctor told me that, if I ever wanted to pursue systemic ozone treatment, I could actually buy my own machine and administer treatment myself. He said this would be at least 95% as effective as what he does in his practice. At that time, purchasing an ozone machine was definitely outside of our finances. So we began praying for it. And we are so excited to be able to say that God made a way! So...with our doctor's encouragement and guidance, we bought a machine, and I will soon begin that form of ozone treatment at home.
In the midst of all this, getting joint injections from one doctor, administering ozone treatment to myself under the care of my usual doctor, still going forward with my already established treatments (infection killing herbs, supplements, detox enemas, exercise bike, etc.), I have also scheduled a phone consultation with the doctor in Carson City. He is world-renowned in the realm of healing and particularly in the use of all types of ozone treatment. Since I've already established myself in his practice, I want to bring him on board as we go forward in this new phase.
By the way, let's not forget about food! Corrie, Rebecca and I have been diving headlong into eating healing foods. I don't believe any of these treatments would carry nearly as much weight if we weren't eating the way we are. We spend a lot of time and resources on getting good, nutrient-dense food, but it's the foundation for everything else we're pursuing. We've written about it before, but it's probably time for another post soon.
There you have it...some spiritual mixed with some practical. But really, it's all spiritual. As we're pursuing healing and the breakthrough of God's kingdom in power, we're also seeing him guide us in the physical pursuit of healing. We will go full throttle in praying for miraculous, undeniably-Jesus healing as well as in praying for him to lead us to the right foods, treatments, doctors, etc. And we are seeing that pursuit of one doesn't necessarily mean abandonment of the other. In each case, we bank on what moved the Lord to heal in the Gospels, his compassion.
PRAYER REQUESTS:
1) Please pray that the joint injections will have profound healing effects on my arthritic joints. May they produce results beyond what they could without prayer.
2) Please pray that the systemic ozone treatment we are about to begin would give my body what it needs to rid itself of toxins, to kill infections, to normalize out of whack systems, and to heal.
3) Please pray that my body would move beyond the plateau that it's been at, and that I would quickly start to see improvement and decrease in inflammation/pain.
4) Please pray that, in all this, my body would start to be able to stand more on its own and that I would be able to wean off of prednisone.
5) Please pray that my mind and spirit would be strong in the joy of Jesus. When I have bad body days, my countenance can be down, which is hard on Corrie and Rebecca.
6) Please pray for Corrie, that her body would be strengthened in the midst of her infections, and that we would be able to start treatment for her too.
7) Please pray for Rebecca and any future children (not that there are any to announce right now...). May this health battle end with my generation. May the Lord cut it off here.
8) Finally, please pray that the Lord would continue to provide for our needs. As you can imagine, treatments and supplements and doctor visits and machines are expensive. Also, the healing foods that we have discovered take a considerable portion of our income. But we believe Psalm 103:5 which says that He "satisfies our mouths with good things so that our youth is renewed like the eagles" and Philippians 4:19 that "God will supply all our need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus."
