After the rain the sun always comes out again May 20, 2008

     I’m here… Brains once again intact and all! Yip-ee!! The count down is on folks. Exactly one month from today I will be flying to the writer’s conference. I’m excited but a bit nervous because i’m sure as time gets closer the devil will toy with me in some other way and i’m trying not to imagine what he might be plotting next to try to keep me from the conference. Nevertheless, I’M GOING whether he likes it or not! Now that’s that!

     I feel like over the past few days i’m coming to the harsh realization that people everywhere are hurting and struggling. Never before has my heart been sad in this way. I guess the closer you become to the Lord the more sensetive you are to the things that break His heart too. Some of these people i am referring to know the Lord in a personal way and the others i’m convinced not. Regardless, I want to share with you a quote i came across in a devotional yesterday.

“Be still sad heart, and cease repining; behind the clouds is the sun still shining.”

– Longfellow

     In otherwords, even though things look grimm or the struggles feel like their gonna wear your nerves thin. Just remember that even when the clouds seem to be blocking the sun, it’s still shining. God has not gotten to busy for us that He isn’t aware of what’s happening. We just need to pray (cry out from our hearts like little kids to Him, our Abba Father) trust Him and look for the lesson in the cloud. Remain focused!

     Three weeks ago i sat in the big medical facility at Tampa General Hospital waiting for my turn to see the new surgeon. Inside i was shaking, not from fear, but just the whole waiting period for the last 4 months to please come to an end that day. I was reading in my Disciplship Journal Magazine about how worry steals from us. Emotions can become an idol in our life, my worry was just that. Another cotton-pickin’ idol! Just what i needed right?! I realized that i spent 4 months thinking and worrying about this situation that i could totally miss out on a blessing. YUK! I started repeating that verse in my head… “Lord, I believe, Help my unbelief!” Again & Again & Again i said it in my head. Then i had to soul search a bit. I asked my pathetic self, “Heather, do you really believe that God can deal with this surgeon problem?” Heather replied, “Yes, you gave me the best before Lord.” Heather’s wiser personality spoke up and added, “Then what’s the problem here lady. If you know & trust then why are you wasting time worrying. T-R-U-S-T” Okay so now the truth is out and you all know i too talk to myself. Unfortunatly, not always have i listened to wise myself.

     I think the only remedy for this problem i see in us all is to pray to the God who is in control of it all. The one that love’s us, cares for us, has our best interest in mind, and know’s what’s up ahead around that corner. Because i feel so compelled to break this stronghold in myself and a few other’s i know i am about to embark on fast #2. This Friday i am fasting for a few personal things but mostly for a few friends, family, and aqcuaintances that the Lord is going to break the strongholds that are happening in their lives. Sin, Singleness, Jobs, Moves, Healing, Discernment, Life-altering changes, financial blessings, and Salvations. The more i have learned from that Fasting book on the biblical examples set in the Bible on fasting i’m convinced that if my heart has the right motives and i’m doing the other things that God has commanded then i’m simply opening the door, by my sacrifice to Him, for amazing things to take place. If you have a concern or need that you’d like me to pray over during my fast on this Friday please shoot me an e-mail and i’ll lift you up in prayer.

      Hang in there my family & friends! God is moving! But we need to get moving in His name!

Heather’s e-mail:    proofofhisgrace@tampabay.rr.com  (That reads Proof of His Grace)

Home Again, Home Again Jiggity- Jig May 16, 2008

     Alas, my dear friends… I have escaped the clutches of the hospital once again. Thank you for your prayer’s &encouragement. It was a very unnerving experience! I am glad to be home in my normal world. Although i am a bit loopy from the morphine hanging around in me and the sleeping pill. Prayerfully, i’ll be back to my good senses in a day or two.

     I had a scary episode hit me on Tuesday evening @9:30PM.  Before we hopped in the car and went to the ER i though i was gonna die in my house. It was a peculiar pressure under my ribs, up high in my chest. I felt like i was being suffocated from the inside out! Nothing even close to comparison with my typical abdominal pain from the muscles. Before it started i became very nauseous, shaky, and chilled. Typically these are the symptoms of a bowel obstruction which is very likely for someone like me. The pressure got to the point i nearly couldn’t breathe because my chest felt like a hippo was sitting on it. This nonsense spiked my BP to 150/100+ and my WBC was up @ 14,000 from 4.3. The pressure was causing me pain in my back and making me fear things like kidney stones, appendix, gallbladder or bowel obstruction. None of which they found in the end! Praise the Lord!! After admitting me and doing CT’s, x-rays, and starving me I released yesterday. The two doctors they had look at me and the labs came in to say, ”Now you know… NO doctor gonna touch you!” I laughed because they acted as if i was clueless to that bit of information. I didn’t really want them to quite frankly but i did want them to rule out any dangerous stuff. The pressure & pain from the pressure hung around for nearly two days then backed off. Now i just have some irritation internally from it but i’ll survive. They think i could have possibly had the pain from either an ulcer or adhesion’s. Either way neither was confirmed. Adhesion’s could never be confirmed period but an ulcer can be seen. They released me and said go to Tampa since they worked on you. I have since made Tampa aware but we aren’t going up there. They will look at the labs from a distance. We will finally be going to speak with the potential primary care physician next Tuesday. I’m not so concerned about getting an answer to whatever was going on because i know with what’s happened to me it could be impossible to figure that out. Some things are just going to remain a mystery and i’m okay with that. As long as the scary stuff was ruled out i’m okay with the not knowing. Life goes on! If those feelings and pressure where familiar to me i would have stayed home no matter how bad the pain because i know what to expect but to answer your questions “no” what was happening was very unfamiliar and that’s why i resorted to the ER.

     I read something in my testimony today and i laughed to myself because the Lord keeps me honest to my words. Those words were:

 ”Where He leads i’ll go and if that means tragedy, heartache are there too then i’m confident thatHe’ll give me the strength i need to handle those. He hasn’t forsaken me yet… even when i had pretty much forsaken Him for myself.  We are ever changing He is always the same. I am smiling right now as I say that because i think of all the things i’ve changed my mind about. Good thing He never changed His mind about me!”

     As always i have to remind myself that i am dependant on Him for everything and this life keeps me humble. Again, Thank you for your prayers. They are precious to me. While i’m on the prayer note i wanted to ask once again for prayer for a couple of people. One being Jim the man who i met with the throat cancer. The other being Kristin who is going to give up a kidney to the love of her life. An obviously the man receiving the kidney. I want them all to know the same peace, strength i do in these trials. I also would love to be witness to the healing of all three of them! Please take a quick minute to lift them up in prayer too. Thank you for doing that for me! Love to you all from me! 

Heather’s in the Hospital - Prayer requested May 15, 2008

Hello blog friends and family,

This is not Heather writing, but her mom.  (My first blog experience - Yippee!)

Heather went to ER Tuesday night with serious abdomen pain, back pain and nausea.   They admitted her and doing some different tests to see what’s going on.   This a.m. she is scheduled for an upper GI.

We do have some praises to report this am.  She actually got some sleep last night.  First sleep since Monday night!  Also woke up this am with no pain, and took no morphine during night!  God gave us a sweet day nurse today.  We praise HIM and give all the glory.  He is so merciful and loving.

II Chronicles 16:9 says - “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth looking to show Himself strong to ‘those’ (is this you?) whose hearts are loyal toward Him.” 

Isn’t this a wonderful promise. . and, isn’t it also wonderful that through this bloggy internet media we have the ability to connect with each other and lift one another up in prayer!  On behalf of Heather and Barry and our family we thank you.

Blessings - Heather’s mom

Garland of Grace May 11, 2008

     Proverbs 1:8-9

Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching. They will be a garland to grace your head and a chain to adorn your neck.

     I was looking for a verse this morning to use as my inspiration for writing something that could portray the way that i feel about my mother. Then i came across Proverbs 1: 8-9 and i knew that was what i had been looking for.

     As an adult i have come to know the true value of a mother, my mother. In all the wealth of knowledge i have learned in life, the jewels mother has taught me as an adult will be the kind that last through ages even if i don’t have any kids to pass them on to. If i only could have known what my future held as a bratty teenager i probably would have behaved a lot better. Wouldn’t we all?! Saved my precious mother a lot of grief.

     My mother is a treasure to me. She is that garland to grace my head and that chain to adorn my neck. Her beauty stretches far beyond the physical and deep into my very soul. I love her with every breath i take and praise God for His healing her so that i could know her value in my adult life. I am proud for people to know she’s mine! Am i’m stingy and don’t want to share her anyway!!

     I laugh when i think about how God must have been humored while He was up in heaven making mom then deciding to give her me and vice versa. She and I have a very warped sense of humor. Mom, Queen of the Niave. Heather, the opinionated Mouth of the South. The two of us get humored over something so stupid and laugh until we practically can’t breathe. This happening on a far to regular basis.

     I thought it would be fun to share a memory- one of my favorite memories- of my mother with you all. I better fill you in a bit so it’ll make more sense. At the time when this happened my mother was going through her radiation for breast cancer. Mom was the first in our family to ever have cancer like this. She had always been fairly healthy and before the cancer we ate & lived like “normal” people. Then one day we came home to find our refrigerator had been completely emptied of all normal food and replaced with lots of weird stuff- almond butter, flax seed oil, etc. That was the beginning of a huge life change for us all. Mom went on this quest to remove whatever could have played part in giving her or any of us cancer. Right down to cleaning supplies and so on. We still were not accustomed to these new weird rituals and everyday brought on something else new and strange. This was Heidi (my little sister) and I’s experience one afternoon coming home from high school….

     Heather & Heidi come rip-roaring into the driveway in Heather’s cool car with music blaring, window’s down. They opened the housedoor in the garage and this is what they saw: Mom with her face completely submerged in a clear purple tinted Pyrex bowl. Eyes squined shut. Ear’s not under the water and totally hearing us.

Heidi 15yrs: “What is our mother doing?!!!!!!!!”

Heather 18 yrs: Shaking her head in disbelief.  ”I have NO CLUE! Only our mother would be trying to commit suicide in a Pyrex bowl on the kitchen counter.”

At this moment it becomes apparent that mom is hearing every word and she starts blowing bubbles in the bowl from laughing. She lifts her head up and is cracking up laughing but will not look us staight in the face.

Heather 18 yrs: “Is this something else we’ll all be trying out now?”

Mother attempted to explain about how this was some healthful face wash for removing radiation or something. As for Heidi and I we were still laughing because we thought we must be the only kids on the planet with a goofball for a mother. I still can’t ever look at that Pyrex bowl the same again.

Mom,

Thanks for all the laughs. The talks. The cry’s. Thanks for just being you. Always asking me what color shirt to wear. Making me tell you if your butt is too big in “that” outfit. Letting me steal back the homeless shoes. <NO I DIDN”T REALLY STEAL FROM THE HOMELESS> For sharing the same stupid humor that i do. Thanks for inviting me to your bible study. Thanks for helping me learn how to really hear God talking to me. Thanks for watching me fail in life and helping get back up. Thanks for spanking me. Thanks for hugging me. Thanks for holding me. Thanks for praying, trusting, and waiting for the Lord to bring me back to my “home” and not giving up even though i know you must have wanted to 100,000 times while i was in the “lost years.” Thanks for being that mom who didn’t always do the right thing but tried. Thanks for the meatloaf even though i hated it. Thanks for the sacrifices i do and don’t know about. Thanks for letting me have a key to the house to drive you crazy 24-7. Thanks for spending time with me, calling me, and sharing far to many laughs with me. Thanks for being my mom and not somebody else’s. Thanks for being a Godly mom i can look up to and follow after. Thanks for just being you! Happy Mother’s Day!!

Love you mom,  Heff

Trauma Surgeons with Cowboy Boots? Hmmm… May 6, 2008

    I wanted to say to everyone “Thank You” for your prayers about obtaining a surgeon. It was a great appointment this morning! The doctor came in with nice doctor looking attire, his medical jacket, and … brown cowboy boots. I wonder if he performs surgery in those and jams out to “Cat’s In the Cradle.” Funny thought! I have accidentally joked that my birth in the hills of TN was at a veterinarian’s office before. oops!

     He didn’t say that he has ever seen or dealt with anyone like me (w/ an injury as severe as mine) and my medical history in his career. Although, he seemed to have a wonderful disposition, smarts, and the ability to deal with me & any future issues that may rear their head. Natalie, my nurse from way back in the beginning, was there with him and helped us through the meeting. He checked out my graft site (the location where the skin for my temporary graft on my belly was taken from- my right thigh), saw the pics of me when i had the graft intact, and then had a gander at my belly now. He was very pleased with the looks of everything. He even checked out my perfected trach scar. That always weirds me out!

     What now? Well, his associate is from the Sarasota area and is going to recommend a primary care physician to me whom then i’ll be going get established with. This other new doc will now look over my bloodwork (liver enzymes) and deal with any little things. Lucky for me… I haven’t been sick in 6 years!  Therefore, i have not had the need to get established with any MD’s. Pain- yes, but that is from my accident. As far as other coughs, colds, and junk- NO. That has been a blessing since my list of drug allergies grows & grows. As soon as i get the name i’ll be going to see whomever that is and if anything arises greater than a flu or chest x-ray i’ll be going to Dr. Ciesla, my new trauma surgeon.

     Happy Happy- Joy Joy!! God is good. He answered my request for a replacement with a well rounded surgeon, who actually has a sense of humor about these health woes. Not that my previous beloved Dr. Flint did not because he did too. But i have encountered some on the more serious doom & gloom side which i would prefer to stay far from. Glory be to God! Prayer answered!

Doing the Happy Dance,

Heather