wonderfully made

For You created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mothers womb. I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. I know that full well. Psalm 139: 13-14

The last few months, I have been thinking about this concept a lot. That we are all made in God's image and made perfectly because we were made by our perfect creator. If sin had not entered the world, we would all truly be perfect. There wouldn't be any sickness or crying or suffering or death. But, because of the fall and sin there is. Because we listened to the tempter and deceiver instead of our Savior, sin entered the world. And with sin came heartache, and death. BUT GOD, sent His son to redeem us from fear and sorrow of death. (For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. -Romans 6:23) Through His son, we can have eternal life. What an incredible promise, that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness!! (1 John 1:9)

Now, back to my first point, that we were all created perfectly in the image of our creator. (Genesis 1:27) God did not make a mistake when he created my mom knowing she would have lymphoma. He did not take a nap when he created me with my autoimmune disease and osteoarthritis. He knit me together in my mother's womb. He created me fearfully and wonderfully. He did not make a mistake, he did not mess up. He created us each with our unique "problems" and hardships, but they aren't mistakes. He created me this way and He created my mom this way so that He would get the ultimate amount of glory and praise on this earth. I wouldn't want anything less!!! What a blessing it is to know that I was uniquely thought of and perfectly made. You are too! We were all knit together PERFECTLY in our mother's wombs. God does not make mistakes.

So when you are discouraged or feeling anything less than perfectly made, remember that you are FEARFULLY and WONDERFULLY made. God made you with a purpose and HE will get the GLORY from your life. I love reciting this back to myself when I am sitting with mom watching her suffer through some nasty illness. That God loves her and He created her exactly how He needed her to be. I also relate this to some of the children I have the privilege of working with. God created them PERFECT. He loves them just the way they are and He created them in HIS image. It helps me to love them unconditionally when I know that I see my Savior in their eyes. He is getting so MUCH glory through their lives and that is an awesome awesome thing.

This is not always an easy thing for me to remember, especially when I have flare ups with my Crohns disease or I watch my mom sick in a hospital bed. However, I know that James says to  "Count it all joy brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." (James 1:2-3)

What a beautiful day it will be in HEAVEN when we can enjoy the GLORY of the Lord with NO MORE pain, heartache, sickness, cancer, fear, or death. But until then, we will endure and we will rest on the promises of our Savior.

I praise my God today that because of Him we know these promises to be true:

you are loved.
you are unique.
you are beautiful.
you are needed.
you are worthy.
you are made for so much more.
you are WONDERFULLY MADE.

even when it hurts

[Not only is all your affliction momentary, not only is all your affliction light in comparison to eternity and the glory there. But all of it is totally meaningful. Every millisecond of your pain, from the fallen nature or fallen man, every millisecond of your misery in the path of obedience is producing a peculiar glory you will get because of that.

I don’t care if it was cancer or criticism. I don’t care if it was slander or sickness. It wasn’t meaningless. It’s doing something! It’s not meaningless. Of course you can’t see what it’s doing. Don’t look to what is seen.

When your mom dies, when your kid dies, when you’ve got cancer at 40, when a car careens into the sidewalk and takes her out, don’t say, “That’s meaningless!” It’s not. It’s working for you an eternal weight of glory.

Therefore, therefore, do not lose heart. But take these truths and day by day focus on them. Preach them to yourself every morning. Get alone with God and preach his word into your mind until your heart sings with confidence that you are new and cared for.- John Piper Do Not Lose Heart]

Last Tuesday, April 8, I took mom to an appt with her oncologist. She was one week out of her first chemo treatment and not feeling very well, but we thought that was typical chemo illness. However, her oncologist said we needed to see her kidney doctor to be sure that everything was running smoothly since she was retaining a lot of fluid. By God's providence, her kidney doctor was able to see her an hour later and we got some blood work done. They sent us home after the blood work saying they would call with the results, a few hours later, I got a call from them saying that I needed to get mom to the hospital because her creatinine was 4.1 (normal is 0.7-1.2) and they needed to get that under control right away. (A creatinine of 4.1 is technically considered kidney failure) At this point, we were in shock and didn't know what exactly was happening.

The doctor explained that it was hard for them to know the exact reasoning for her failing kidneys. One explanation could be a problem called tumor lysis syndrome where essentially too many cancer cells were killed from the chemo, that the kidneys get overloaded with toxins and dead cells and they stop working because the can't handle it. If her condition was caused from this, IV fluids would help and potential short term dialysis could be needed. However, the other explanation that they were considering was that this was caused by her light chain deposition disease ( a very very rare disease that can attack organs and cause failure). If that was the case, then the damage is irreversible and she could be on permanent dialysis.

Unfortunately, without doing a kidney biopsy, there is no way for them to know which of these caused this sudden kidney failure.

So, her doctor decided to start her on fluids and see how her body would respond. The first night, she went from 4.1 to 3.8, which was a good start. The night after, it went down to 3.4. Because of this, her doctor said we could put off dialysis longer, but the numbers needed to get below 3 soon. The next day they went down to 3.1 but then after that went back up to 3.4.

And that is where we are at today. Because her numbers did not get below 3 and it has been over a week, her doctor is afraid she has plateaued and he is fairly sure that her light chain disease has caused the problem. Because of this, he has advised that we start dialysis soon. There are a few tests that they need to run before they start but then they are going to get her on it as soon as they can. In the short term, it really will help her to feel better and filter out the toxins and extra fluid that have been hanging out in her body since she started the chemo. However, there is still a lot of unknown in this because it is unsure whether she will ever come off the dialysis once she starts.

(*of course, there is a lot more medically going on than just these numbers and this little I have shared but for those who do not understand the medical jargon, I thought this was the easiest way to explain what we know right now...if you'd like to know more, feel free to message me and I can try to explain it better! :)) )

We had a good talk as a family though and we know that God is in control. This is no surprise to Him. We want whatever is best for mom and keeps her feeling the best she can. We are excited to one day be able to see the "big picture", we trust that the Lord has a reason for this time of suffering, and we are excited for Him to get the glory through all of this. We are thankful for the incredible nurses and doctors that we have and we are ready to learn this new "normal" that our life will be.

Thank you to everyone who has prayed for mom and our family. We also wanted to thank everyone that has tangibly showed us love whether by visiting mom, flowers, food, rides, etc etc. We feel so so loved and couldn't ask for a better support system.

It seems like this will be a long journey so please continue to keep us in your prayers. Praise God that He has worked it out so that most of us are home to help and it is almost summer so my dad will have time off to be able to spend more time with mom.

Finally, I wanted to share the words to one of mom's favorite songs these last few months. We listened and sang this together the night before she started chemo. We sang this together as a worship to the Lord and I know it plays in her heart everyday.

I come, God, I come
I return to the Lord
The one who’s broken
The one who’s torn me apart
You strike down to bind me up
You say you do it all in love
That I might know you in your suffering

Though you slay me
Yet I will praise you
Though you take from me
I will bless your name
Though you ruin me
Still I will worship
Sing a song to the one who’s all I need

My heart and flesh may fail
The earth below give way
But with my eyes, with my eyes I’ll see the Lord
Lifted high on that day
Behold, the Lamb that was slain
And I’ll know every tear was worth it all

Though you slay me
Yet I will praise you
Though you take from me
I will bless your name
Though you ruin me
Still I will worship
Sing a song to the one who’s all I need

Though tonight I’m crying out
Let this cup pass from me now
You’re still more than I need
You’re enough for me
You’re enough for me

Though you slay me
Yet I will praise you
Though you take from me
I will bless your name
Though you ruin me
Still I will worship
Sing a song to the one who’s all I need
Sing a song to the one who’s all I need