James 5:16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
I am a faithful person. I have grown throughout the years in my faith and belief. I have been strengthened in my prayer life and in my love and devotion to Father God. I know how important prayer is. I love being able to intercede and pray for other people. I love knowing that I have a direct line to our Heavenly Father to be able to pray for my friends and family and even strangers. When someone asks me to pray for them, my heart soars knowing that this is something I can do to help their situation. I can petition God on their behalf and raise them up in faith to our Father for His will to be done.
I am not great at doing these things or experiencing these feelings on behalf of myself. I feel awkward asking for people to pray for me. I have a hard time letting the leader of our church prayer chain know when I need prayers for a situation. It is out of my comfort zone. Do I want people to pray for me? Absolutely! But I don't want to tell them that's what I need. It's very uncomfortable for me.
But, I find myself sitting at my kitchen table today needing to suck it up and ask for prayers and intercession. I haven't been feeling well. Some people would say that this is a perpetual problem for me. But when you live with autoimmune diseases, this is a reality. Some days just functioning is hard. It takes all my effort and energy to simply pull myself out of bed and get going. You get used to the fatigue. You get used to smiling and telling people you're fine. You get used to the pain. Well, there was a symptom I have been having that I finally decided I just couldn't get used to anymore. Persistent nausea finally did me in. It was like I was pregnant again with morning sickness all day long. I finally had enough and went to Urgent Care. (I'm NOT pregnant, by the way...so get THAT out of your head!)
Explaining my symptoms he poked and pushed and prodded. He asked about pain and I told him I have pain on my upper right side that wraps around my back towards my kidney area. He nodded his head and told me I needed to see a surgeon. He suspected, especially since I've had attacks before, that this was my gall bladder. My mom had her gall bladder out. My grandma had her gall bladder out. I'm fat, female, and (almost) forty so I fit the profile to a T. I called the next day and made an appointment with the surgeon. After meeting with him two weeks later, he scheduled an ultrasound and a HIDA scan to look at things and see how things were working.
My ultrasound was last Tuesday. My results were emailed to me Thursday. Which leads us to this plea for prayer and intercession. As I opened the email the first statement says that the ultrasound showed a normal abdominal ultrasound. The gall bladder looks fine and there is nothing wrong with the bile ducts. Relief washed over me! Yay! No gall bladder surgery maybe! Then I noticed the number two bullet point. Probable...was all I read. There were big long words with a lot of letters I didn't know for sure. I took a second to try and parse the words apart from my Latin classes at UW and only figured out it had somthing to do with blood vessels. I did a quick google search of the word and my heart stopped. Tumor. The big long letters spelled out that my ultrasound showed that I have a tumor on my right kidney. In stunned silence, I did some more quick reading, started writing questions I needed to ask my surgeon and took it to Father God with prayer.
My first reaction was that I wasn't going to tell anyone. No one needed to know. Not a big deal. The more I read the more I learned. It is small right now, but it's a rapidly growing tumor. The problem with the tumor is that it is made primarily of blood vessels from the kidney. So, if the tumor grows too quickly or if I have any sort of trauma to my back or kidney area, the vessels could burst and I could hemorrhage. The next day I called the nurse that works with my surgeon and asked some more and learned some more. Typically the only treatment is surgery. 75% of the time, these tumors are in the right kidney. I'll probably need a CT scan of my kidney. I need to watch for blood in my urine. And we're moving forward with the gall bladder tests to ensure that it also isn't a problem before moving on to what the plan will be for the tumor.
So, I am reaching out to my friends and family and prayer warriors and partners in faith, asking for prayer and intercession. It took some convincing from friends and family that I would need prayers and love and support. Because I don't really do this. I don't want people to know anything is wrong. Most people don't know I have seizures. Most people don't know I have autoimmune diseases that wreak havoc on my system. And if I didn't have some super passionate friends and family most people wouldn't know that I now have a kidney tumor.
But here we are. And I'm asking for prayers. I'm asking for prayers first of all that God's will would be done. I know the outcome that I want, but God is the one in charge of my life. God knows my comings and my goings and He knows what is in store for me. So, first pray that His will be done. Then, pray for healing. Healing for my gall bladder. Healing of my nausea (that's the worst). Healing for my kidney. That the tumor would be removed completely and that there is no damage to my kidney. That God would give me the peace and the strength to walk through this journey wherever it may lead. That God would bless my children and give them peace and strength in this journey. I ask that you pray for my doctors and nurses and other medical staff to develop a plan that is pleasing to Father God and that would lead to complete healing.
"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." This news is a mild shock to me. Not what I expected. But I am not afraid. I have the most amazing high God on my side and there is nothing that can steal me from His presence. Not Satan. Not evil. Certainly not a measly little tumor. I am strong in the Lord! He has me cradled firmly in His strong, loving arms. He has already walked me through some tough stuff in my life. And this is no different!
So, add me to your prayers, please! Add me to your church prayer chains. Share this blog post to your Facebook pages and let's take it to the Lord in prayer! He is mighty and loving and can do great things!
The Bible says in Matthew 18:20 "For where two or more are gathered in my name, there I will be also." Thank you, prayer warriors, friends, and family for gathering in God's name and lifting me up in prayer. I appreciate you all and I thank you for holding my hand in prayer through this journey! More to learn about God and my faith and myself, I'm sure!
God bless you all in your trials and journeys also! Let me know how I can reciprocate in prayer for you! For we can only make it through this life with the love and support of our Heavenly Father, and with hand holding and walking through this life with our brothers and sisters in Christ!
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