All across the country, thousands upon thousands of college graduates are lining up, bringing their family and friends to witness their big accomplishment, and to celebrate the end of a journey that has seen them persevere through good times and bad times, times of sunshine and times of rain, but through hard work, they have reached their goal.
Congratulations to all of you that have graduated! For my niece Stephanie, this is her second graduation from college. She recently completed her Masters of Education in School Counseling. For her and all of her classmates, in fact, for all of the graduates, I give you my favorite Bible verse for you to reflect upon and to rely upon when things don’t always look rosy.
“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”~ Jeremiah 29:11
The older that I get, the more I realize that my dependence isn’t just with what I have studied and learned, both in school and in life; my dependence has grown over the years to the point that I realize that I need to rely on my Lord and Savior for guidance, help, and assistance through life. What astounds me is that so many of our youth already have the foundation, that realization that life isn’t meant to be handled by yourself, that you need to have God on your side to take care of the things that you are not able to do, and even some of the things that you can do for yourself too.
My prayer to each and every one of you that have graduated and are starting your lives armed with that knowledge is this: That you would remember all that you learned, and that you would realize, if you don’t know already, that there was so much that you haven’t learned yet, and that God can lead you in that knowledge.
Now, I don’t have any prayer requests and praises from last week for you, but please remember to go to pray for the ones that we have listed previously. You can access all of our prayer posts by clicking on the link. Until next week, let’s pray the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray:
Our Father, who art in Heaven
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy Kingdom come, thy Will be done,
On earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our Daily Bread,
And forgive us our Trespasses,
as we forgive those who Trespass against us.
Lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory,
Forever and ever. Amen.
My friend Amanda has an update on her husband Daniel and his cancer treatments. Here is what she wrote:
Are you all tired of the updates yet?! This has been a long week but we are trudging forward. School has ended for the year, softball season is over and we’ve passed another checkpoint in our journey towards Daniel’s liver resection. Now, hopefully, we can have time to take a deep breath and reset!
Daniel was able to have the embolization on Friday. YAY! It went well and the radiologist was happy with the embolization he was able to get. We started cycle 2 of chemo this past Monday. It was rough but not as rough as the first round. Daniel is very tired and it seems he gets chemo hiccups as one of the lovely side effects. For those that have never heard of chemo hiccups, they are caused by the steriods they give the patients prior to administration of the chemo regimen. He will have them off and on (mostly on) for the second through fourth days of the cycle and they are not a nice calm hiccup but a move your whole body hiccup. The chemo nurses are working to get them under control for next round. Otherwise, he had limited vomiting but still had nausea and the fatigue that comes with treatment. He will get fluids Friday through Tuesday to help with dehydration and neupogen shots on Friday and Tuesday to try to keep that white blood cell count up. Since we only have 4 cycles, the oncologist is kind of throwing everything at him to help get that healthy liver to grow.
As for the resection, we will re-image in the next 6 weeks or so (the 4th of July holiday will affect the scheduling) to see if the healthy liver has grown and the tumor has shrunk enough to move forward with the resection. There needs to be enough healthy liver for the surgeon to take the tumor and good margins and him still have 20-25% liver left. If we have the results we want, the resection will be scheduled for 2-3 weeks after the imaging so mid- July to early August. If we don’t have the results we want, we will likely have more chemo and work with the doctors on next steps.
So specific prayers, beyond total healing, is that the embolization and chemo work together successfully to get us enough healthy liver to move forward with the resection this summer (I’m praying for at least 45% healthly liver but that’s just a number I came up with – not medical guidance), that Daniel continue to have the strength to fight the fight he needs and that we can continue to support each other and keep perspective.
Once again, thank you for all the love, support and prayers! We love our prayer warriors and pray for each of you daily! If you have anything specific need us to pray for, please let me know!
Also, several people have asked if there is something they can send Daniel for encouragement. Before I go into this idea, please do not feel any obligation! In my frantic and scattered state, I can’t remember who has asked so I have to include it here. As one of the side effects of chemo, Daniel’s hair is thinning and he must always where a hat. He mentioned he won’t wear any of his ball caps he is currently wearing after the chemo has stopped because of the chemical smell and general emotional stress. So if you would like you, feel free to send a baseball cap. He doesn’t like the fitted or elastic banded caps because it hurts his hair follicles and the trucker hats don’t protect his scalp from the sun so just your general run of the mill baseball cap would be perfect. Again, no obligation!
Please pray for my friend Linda. She is having the first of two eye surgeries on Wednesday, May 28, 2014, to repair cataracts. The second surgery is scheduled for the following week. Please pray for her doctors as they repair her eyes, for her strength, peace, and comfort during this time, and for a quick turnaround on her healing.