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Prayer Requests 5-15-20

It’s Friday, so please remember to pray for Mumsee, Mike, and the Nestlings.

Anyone else?

Psalm 96

1 Sing to the Lord a new song;
    sing to the Lord, all the earth.
2 Sing to the Lord, praise his name;
    proclaim his salvation day after day.
3 Declare his glory among the nations,
    his marvelous deeds among all peoples.

4 For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise;
    he is to be feared above all gods.
5 For all the gods of the nations are idols,
    but the Lord made the heavens.
6 Splendor and majesty are before him;
    strength and glory are in his sanctuary.

7 Ascribe to the Lord, all you families of nations,
    ascribe to the Lord glory and strength.
8 Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name;
    bring an offering and come into his courts.
9 Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness;
    tremble before him, all the earth.
10 Say among the nations, “The Lord reigns.”
    The world is firmly established, it cannot be moved;
    he will judge the peoples with equity.

11 Let the heavens rejoice, let the earth be glad;
    let the sea resound, and all that is in it.
12 Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them;
    let all the trees of the forest sing for joy.
13 Let all creation rejoice before the Lord, for he comes,
    he comes to judge the earth.
   He will judge the world in righteousness
    and the peoples in his faithfulness.

11 thoughts on “Prayer Requests 5-15-20”

  1. My best friend Karen, diagnosed last week with Stage 4 uterine cancer (and spread throughout the lungs), got her port put in yesterday and starts chemo this morning. I spoke with her on the phone minutes ago, and she is uplifted by all the prayers, while sounding very tired and weak. She’s got a horribly dry, high-pitched, unproductive cough. She said getting the port in was pretty rough, and she was semi-sedated for the procedure.

    She is requesting prayers for her family, as she believes this is all harder on them than on her. Please pray for them by name. I mentioned some of the family member’s names previously. I’ll repeat them here and add the names of her sons-in-law and daughter-in-law, as well.

    Husband Mike.
    Son Dan.
    Daughter Beth and son-in-law Nathan.
    Son Tim and daughter-in-law Abby.
    Daughter Laura and son-in-law Andy.
    Daughter Amber.
    Mom Valrie.

    Thank you, friends. Karen and I are both blessed to know you are praying.

    Liked by 3 people

  2. It occurred to me it might be helpful if I identified a little more about Karen’s family, to enable you to pray more specifically…maybe?

    Mike is a retired engineer.

    Dan is single and in his early 30s, living a few hours away. I can’t recall what his present job is. I think he lives with one of Karen’s brothers, who is also single. I know he did at one time, if not now, but still lives in the same general area as that uncle did or does.

    Beth is a school teacher and Nathan is a young pastor assigned to three scattered rural congregations in a Midwestern state that doesn’t border ours. So they’re a long ways away, and the difficulty of his getting a pastor to fill in for him keeps them from getting back to this area to visit very often.

    Tim and Abby live in the same community as Karen and Mike. They both work locally and have been married a couple years.

    Laura and Andy are both engineers, fairly recent college graduates and just married last year. They live a few hours away. Karen says she talks on the phone with Laura often, and the shock of Karen’s diagnosis really affected Laura.

    Amber is home and will be a senior in college (out of state) in the fall. She doesn’t have a car, but is looking for one. We could pray she finds one suitable for her needs, in addition to the impact of being the one child at home observing the effects of Karen’s treatments, family dynamics, etc.

    Valrie is in an assisted living / memory care facility, and has dementia. Karen’s local brother and sister-in-law take Valrie to church (or did, when it was still meeting), but Karen has done everything else regarding taking her mom to appointments, activities, etc.

    Karen’s one sister is named Carol, and she lives in Las Cruces, NM. Her husband is also a pastor.

    I don’t remember all Karen’s brother’s names or what they do, but they live all over the Midwest.

    I don’t know if that helps, but I thought I might help give you more of a picture of who you’re praying for. Thanks.

    Liked by 3 people

  3. John, a lifelong golfer, has been diagnosed with melanoma on his upper arm with a possible lymph node involvement.

    He’s in Lousiville, very complicated getting him into the hospital and treatment.

    A great guy who loves the Lord. Please pray it’s contained and his life goes on for a long time; 50ish.

    Liked by 1 person

  5. I am monopolizing the prayer thread today.

    I have a follow-up report on this that I wrote Tuesday:

    “Yesterday was a frustrating day in different ways, involving both extended family and non-family. My husband is also stressed about the non-family situation because no one has been responding to our queries about what’s going on.”

    We will perhaps get some answers about the non-family situation on Monday, and my husband is less stressed about that now compared to earlier this week.

    Also, the extended family situation appears to be headed in a satisfactory direction now. It involves my mom’s driving, which, formerly, my siblings who live in the same town as our parents weren’t as concerned about her driving as I was.

    That’s changing now. I took Mom to an appointment Monday, and there were a couple eye-opening things about that morning with her, even though she wasn’t driving, that reveal some serious dangers if she would continue driving.

    I won’t share my observations with you, but I did in great detail in an email with my siblings, and all of my three (of four) siblings who have responded so far now agree it would be best if she didn’t operate a motor vehicle anymore.

    I also had a conversation with Mom that day about how there are several of us who can take her and Dad where they need to go, so she really doesn’t need a car anymore. She kind of balked at that initially, but apparently something we discussed must have resonated with her, because two of my siblings have since said that Mom mentioned the driving conversation she had with me, and how I said she didn’t really need to drive anymore, and she told them she’s “thinking about it.”

    Progress. Thank you for your prayers.

    Liked by 2 people

  6. One more (told you I’m monopolizing the thread):

    I am now free to return to teaching piano in-person and have chosen to do so. I left it up to all of my families to decide whether they wanted to resume face-to-face lessons or not, and I outlined the safety measures I’m putting in place, so they know and can make an informed decision.

    My family with three children replied right away that they want to return to the studio. I haven’t heard from the other families yet, but I only sent the email last night, and let them know they could get back to me by Monday with their decision.

    It is going to feel very strange teaching in a mask, and I don’t know if that would frighten children unnecessarily. I really wanted to get back to meeting in person, and now that I am legally free to do so, I still am concerned about the possibilities of lawsuits and things like that if I don’t take the strongest precautions.

    I’m not sure what my request is. Maybe freedom from fear? Wisdom to know when I’m making decisions based on fear rather than faith? My inclination was to skip the mask business, and the no-parents-in-the-waiting-area, and don’t come to lessons if you have blah, blah, blah [insert six or so symptoms of COVID], but I felt I had to protect myself legally. I asked that the students wear masks, too, even though there aren’t any medically-vulnerable people in my household.

    Am I promoting fear with all of these precautions that seem so… I don’t know what the word is.

    Thanks for reading this ramble, and please pray as you are led.

    Liked by 2 people

  7. John’s out of first ultrasound and they didn’t see anything in the lymph nodes. Family is so thankful. A COVID test on Monday, 72-hours wait, and then they’ll do surgery to remove the melanoma on Thursday.

    Liked by 4 people

  8. I seem to have torn or injured something in my elbow. It’s never a good time, but I have many boards to sand, stain and finish for the floor downstairs. I was trying to get the sawdust holder off the sander and felt a snap in the elbow area and now I can hardly use that arm/hand.

    Liked by 4 people

  10. Two emails tonight — follow-ups to some of what I wrote above — then I’ll quit for the night:

    From Karen:

    Greetings to my friends and family:

    Today I had my 1st round of chemotherapy. It went well, thanks to your prayers. Your continued prayers for the entire family [emphasis, Karen’s] are appreciated.

    The pain was more manageable. (It was another answer to last night’s prayer.) When my port was installed on Thursday, May 14, the pain was not under control.

    The port worked well today. Any blood draws and the IV therapy could be administrated without more pokes in my arms.

    Dr. H’s plan is to have 3 doses of chemotherapy. I will have 20 days between each dose. After the 3 doses, more tests will be done to formulate and adjust for the next step in our journey.

    ———-

    From my brother:

    Mom shouldn’t have many reasons to drive to town on her own if [2 sisters in town] keep providing groceries for them and all of us are able to help out with the other things like hair and doctor visits. I believe she should be able to still drive to places outside of town like church and [2 friends’ in their rural neighborhood]. Friends of ours went through something similar with an aging parent several years ago. They felt it would be good if the only place they were allowed to drive was church. This would be a pretty low risk place to drive. Mom would still have some feeling of independence if she could still use the car a little bit.

    I put a new battery in their car. It is now drivable.

    ———

    Thank you again for your prayers.

    Liked by 2 people

  11. I often flush those ports and detach chemo infusions from them. They are definitely better than IV and most chemo cannot be safely given by peripheral IV, as it would be too corrosive to smaller blood vessels.

    Liked by 1 person

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