This is quite long, but I wanted to post it all. If you don't have time to read it now, do come back later :)
I bought this devotional book recently. It has short morning and evening devotions and I am really enjoying reading it. Here are two from this week...
A Morning devotional....
A Welcome Pursuit
Those who know your name will trust in you, for you, Lord, have never forsaken those who seek you. -Psalm 9:10 NIV
The Lord has made Himself known. - Psalm 9:6 NASB
Chase fame, power, accomplishments, or social status, and you may discover that the more you have, the more unstable you feel. Try to fill your innermost needs with wealth, relationships, or activities, and you will probably find yourself with a greater sense of dissatisfaction than you have ever felt before. Attempt to escape your sorrows with food, alcohol, or other substances, and the gnawing emptiness within you will only increase.
Yet pursue God, and the doors of joy and fulfillment will spring open. Not only does he give you a firm place to stand and satisfy your soul, but he also fills your life with his presence, love, and purpose. Seek him with all of your heart, therefore, because you will certainly find what you are looking for.
God, I want to know you more - teach me your ways. Thank you that when I seek you, I find everything I need and all that my heart desires. Amen.
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An Evening devotional...
Don't Lose Your Focus
Our eyes look to the Lord our God. - Psalm 123:2 ESV
I lift my eyes to you, the One enthroned in heaven...Show us favor, Lord. - Psalm 123:1, 3 HCSB
Everything changes when you set your focus on God. You filter every situation through the knowledge you have of him.
Is any problem too hard for him? No. Can he use every circumstance for your good and his glory? Yes. Because nothing is impossible for God, every challenge you encounter is just another opportunity to see his mighty work in your life - building your confidence in him. Unfortunately, sometimes you lose your focus. It's so easy to do - especially when trouble arises that you didn't expect. It can even be something small - a flat tyre, a bill that's difficult to pay, an irritating issue. Suddenly you're wondering, God, where are you? God hasn't moved; your focus has - and you must turn your attention back to him. Because he's still bigger than your problems and will certainly help you.
God, help me to keep my eyes on you! I praise you that nothing is ever too difficult for you and that you use everything for my good and your glory. Amen.
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And this poem from some literature I picked up at church this morning...
Which fits in with this email I received this morning just before church. If you are a regular reader you may remember me mentioning Tarica and Stephanie's emails before. I have also posted some here. Please pray for Tarica, her family, and her healing. You can also subscribe to receive Stephanie's email updates. Contact details at end of email...
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077: Looking for Miracles As We GoIf there is going to be bad weather anywhere between Altoona and Pittsburgh, we’ll find it on the barren stretches on Route 22 north of Johnstown. Snow, rain, sleet, high winds—we’ve driven through it all. That morning, the morning I write of now, we were driving through heavy fog mixed with light rain.
The poet Carl Sandburg wrote, “The fog comes / on little cat feet.” He was writing about city fog, not Allegheny Mountain fog. No dainty tiptoeing in these mountains. The fog had lumbered in, as graceful as a walrus, and the worst of it was sitting on the road in front of me, dizzying and disorienting. That stretch of 22 already looks identical for mile after mile, but the fog concealed even the faintest clues of our westward progress.
Tarica slept in the passenger seat beside me, not even waking when she had a seizure. It felt like we were the only people in the world, the two of us, driving through the fog in a little bubble of visibility.
We weren’t supposed to be driving to Pittsburgh. She should have been in math class; I should have been at home with Gairett. But nearly a week before, she had climbed out of the van without her helmet on and promptly had a seizure. She went down like an ancient oak and smashed the right side of her head into the pavement. In the hours that followed, she developed the now-familiar symptoms of a concussion. We monitored her closely, kept her home from school, and prescribed plenty of rest. She seemed to be recovering.
Except for one thing: she could hear nothing but ringing in her right ear. When her ear didn’t improve, I messaged her doctor to see if we should be concerned.
And that is why we were driving to Pittsburgh in the fog, bound for Children’s Hospital and a head scan.
It’s such a cliché to say my heart was heavy, but there was a physical weight in my chest, as if all the seizures of the past month had accumulated there. I was running out of room to hold them all and the pain that came with them. |
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Sleeping off a seizure
Tarica slept on, barely stirring in the stop-and-go traffic jam caused by an accident. A second seizure finally woke her. When she was coherent, I asked her to describe the ringing in her ear. I needed up-to-date information when we walked into the Emergency Department.
She lifted her hand to her ear. “It’s still ringing, but I can hear out of it now.”
I almost hit the brakes. “You what? You can hear? In your right ear?” I dared to look away from the fog and studied her. She had the faraway expression of someone taking internal inventory. “Are you saying that when you fell asleep, you couldn’t hear out of that ear—and now you can?”
Yes, she was saying exactly that.
The day before, Linford and I had decided to give her one more night with the frogs and test her hearing in the morning. If she failed the test, we’d go to Pittsburgh. She failed it. Why couldn’t she hear two hours ago and now she could? I think this is where I started laughing, although it was more from incredulity than hilarity.
We were close enough to Pittsburgh that we kept going. At the hospital, several doctors gave her a neurological exam and said she looked fine. She heard all the sounds she was supposed to hear, despite the continued ringing. At first, they wanted to do a head scan, but after further discussion, they said it wasn’t necessary. So we went home.
I spent the next hour feeling silly. All this worrying and driving and rearranging of schedules for nothing. If we had stayed home, her hearing would have quietly returned on its own.
And then I remembered the ten lepers who asked Jesus for healing. He sent them to see the priest, and as they went, they were healed.
As they went.
One man turned back and glorified God with a loud voice. He fell at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. One man out of ten.
I could feel foolish over what seemed like a wasted trip and go on my way like the nine—or I could stop and praise God like the one.
I’ve often wondered what it means to glorify God. How do we live for His glory? I don’t wonder anymore. Glorifying God means that in moments like these, when things come together in apparent happenstance and coincidence, I will stop and say, “This is God at work. He is here. This is what He has done.” I will credit Him for things that could be explained away, and when unbelievers would claim luck, I will claim His power. Why not? I lose nothing and gain a strengthened faith. I need my faith as strong as possible, because His healing so far has extended only to her ear and not to her brain.
If we do not do this—if we do not stand up and kneel down and declare that God is working—the rocks themselves might start to proclaim it. God is already here and everywhere, but we humans are the ones who call attention to His presence. Without our voices raised in praise, He will go unnoticed and unacclaimed. This is what it means to give Him glory—to see Him working and to tell others about it.
With God, nothing is left to chance. Today, I turn back and seize the hem of Jesus and thank Him, over and over, for restoring her hearing. For sparing her more tests and more worry. This is enough to get me through today.
Two weeks later, I learned that, while she slept in the passenger seat, a prayer meeting was held in the third and fourth grade classroom, and two third graders prayed for her.
Coincidence?
Of course not.
God heard, and He healed her as we went.
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It is not good. I don’t know if it’s the seizures or the drugs or the concussions—or some lethal combination of the three—but we are losing pieces of her every week. Her balance and coordination are disappearing. She can no longer walk in a straight line or use a spoon neatly. I think this collage of her handwriting taken from lessons done on the first, seventh, and ninth weeks of school demonstrates too well her deterioration.
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I’ve heard that epilepsy is called the silent disorder, because epilepsy usually isn’t obvious unless a seizure happens in front of you. But if you were to meet Tarica now, you would know something wasn’t right. The helmet would be your first clue, but you would quickly see more clues.
We are waiting on Pittsburgh to give us a surgery date. She is going to have a device implanted in her skull that will be attached to two electrodes in her brain close to the seizure source. The device—called an RNS—can be trained to recognize brain activity that leads to a seizure and use electricity to stop it. While no one is promising seizure freedom, the doctors hope for fewer seizures on fewer meds. They consider her an ideal candidate for the procedure. We’ve been burned too many times to invest all our hopes in this, but we clearly see the hand of God leading us here and feel peace about it.
By the way, I know when we see people hurting we want to help, but please don’t send treatment suggestions. Right now I cannot handle pressure to try this or that. I’ve been researching epilepsy for years. If we have chosen not to pursue a treatment option, it is because we have a good reason not to.
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Underneath everything, she is still our sweet Tarica. She still smiles and smiles; she still loves people. She never fails to notice someone’s new sweater or cute baby, although she might walk into a wall while commenting on it. She wants so badly to be like everyone else and asks me why God doesn’t answer her prayers. I would call her courageous, but courage is what happens when you don’t have a choice.
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Waiting for a favorite nurse’s shift to begin
The other night, Linford said to me as I was putting away folded clothes, “It’s been a long time since I posted an update on Tarica. What do you think about mentioning her birthday and suggesting that people could send cards? She would be over the moon if she got a whole mailbox full.”
I nearly dropped a stack of socks as I swung to face him. “You won’t believe this, but I was thinking about doing the same thing for Serendipity.”
Coincidence?
I’ll let you decide.
I would feel funny asking for anyone else, but I will do anything to give her joy. And what makes her smile is people. Since we can’t invite you all over for birthday cake, I’m going to invite you into our mailbox. If you include a photo, she’ll claim you as her friends.
She turns 11 on November 18. I’m sorry I didn’t give you more warning. We’re focused on survival here, and I have little time to write. But don’t worry about the timing; belated birthday wishes will still make her smile.
Send joy to this address:Tarica Leinbach
521 Cooney Lane
Altoona, PA 16601
Please pray for her. Perhaps as we go, a miracle will find her. |
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