Seeing God's Hand

It has been so amazing to watch the Lord work and show His hand in the middle of these times. I have mentioned before about all of the donations and money that has been given to us recently. We just started putting everything into a savings account for when we needed it. I applied for and got turned down for personal insurance. We are now in the process of applying for insurance through a state run high risk pool of insurance. There is ALOT of papework and and things to get ready and send in. Along with it all we had to send in the premium for the first 3 months of the insurance payments. David got the total back that it would be, and it was the very exact ammount that was in the savings account!! It was a need the Lord knew we needed before we even needed it. David came to me and said, "Babe, I think I know why the Lord gave us that money...." We are both just in awe as we watch the Lord's hand in our lives right now. Maybe it wasn't the Lord's desire for me to be complete healed form this disease, but He has shown Himself faithful every step of the way!!

I am so blessed to have so many friends who care so much about me. I couldn't begin to write everything that everyone has done for me. I know of many different churches, and poeple all over the world who are praying for us. People who don't know David and I at all, and yet care so very much! I cherish every single one of your prayers!

I wanted to write and let everyone know in specific how you could pray for me tomorrow during surgery. Yesturday I had all my different pre-op appointments with the surgeon and at the hospital. My surgeon told me that this series of surgeries could be done in a 2-step process instead of the 3-step process which he anticipates I will overgo. He said that there is a chance that tomorrow during the surgery if everything is going just perfectly smooth, and if my anemia counts and malnourishment counts are at a desent level he might just go ahead and proceed on with the second surgery. He wouldn't make this decision until in the middle of surgery, and his decision would be based on how things are going. He told me not to get my hopes up, but that it was a possibility. Well, its too late... :) My hopes are up, and very high! :) I am hoping and praying that He could do the first 2 surgeries all at once. It would cut off another major surgery, and a good 3-4 months of recovery time. Please pray with us tomorrow that this will be the case. Pray that the Lords hand will be on me, and the surgeons. The surgeon also told us that in such a detailed surgery as this that the chances of some sort of complication is very high...50/50. There are so many things that could go wrong. Yes, I am VERY nervous, but I can tell that so many peolple are praying. I feel a peace going in to this, and I thank the Lord for it!!

God is so good to me! I have so much to be thankful for!

Very quickly I wanted to tell everyone reading that I will be posting some belly pictures from before and after my surgery. I have found so much help from different people who have gone through the same thing I am facing on a website called j-pouchlife.com. They have been kind enough to post a link to my blog on their website so that maybe my journey through this could be a help and encouragment to someone else facing this as well. Others on that website have been couragous enough to show "real" pictures from thier surgeries, and it helped me so much to prepare for this. If I can be of any help to others out there, that would make me very happy. Basically this is a warning to anyone who reads this that the next few blog updates will have some not so pretty pictures in them. Sorry if it affends anyone, but please think of it as strictly medical because that is what it is.

Thanks again to everyone for your prayers for me tomorrow!! Will update on Saturday if I am able.