Since starting this journey, God has made Himself REAL to us as a Family in SO MANY ways. It hasn't even been 3weeks that we know Andy has cancer, and as scared as we were in the beginning, so many unknowns, so many things to comprehend, we have found complete peace, through grace, by our Heavenly Father.
For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 2Timothy 1:7
We have been blessed in so many ways, that we can't help but see that God allowed this to happen, to bring a huge change in our lives & the relationships with people around us.
Andy struggled, many years, with feelings of anger & bitterness and because of that, he often lashed out in anger towards myself & the children. I'm not sharing this to put him down, but to show how God can transform a person's heart & life.
For many years the children & I have prayed that he could be set free from the anger that held him fast. Not long after we found out that Andy had cancer, a friend of ours shared a few verses with us & God spoke volumes through that verse, to change the heart of the man I love. He found freedom from all that anger & bitterness and I now have a new husband in Christ & I can't love him enough.
These were the verses that were shared with us.
Mark 11:22 Have faith in God, Jesus answered. 23.I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, go throw yourself into the sea, & does not doubt in his heart, but believes what he says will happen, it will be done for him. 24.Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours....but then Andy read further.
25.And when you stand praying, if you hold anything against anyone, forgive him, so that your Father in heaven may forgive you your sins.
That evening, he gathered us all around him & asked us all to forgive him for being an angry husband & father. Dawson burst into tears...followed by the rest of us.... Little did we know that that was just the beginning of a chain of events...Last night, the children were listening to one of their bible school CDs & the one song was how God hears our prayers & answers them if we believe...Dawson said, "momma, I started thinking God wasn't real. I prayed & prayed for daddy not to be angry all the time & I thought he wasn't listening to me or hearing my prayers. But when daddy said he was sorry & asked me to forgive him, I knew Jesus was real." Talk about being overwhelmed with emotion right then & there.
Another God-moment, was when we were driving up to see the Dr.s to get Andy's results. I could sense that he was nervous-anxious to know...I just reached over, closed my eyes & said a prayer of peace over him. I opened my eyes & within seconds of each other, we noticed that right in front of us, the sky opened up & brilliant beams of sunlight shined down in front of us, and everywhere else, the sky was overcast. we looked at each other with tears in our eyes, knowing that it would all be ok.
Dr. Lun gave us the results & said he has a 90% success with this type of cancer, & with God on our side, we believe Andy will recover fully from it.
Are we sad that we need to take this journey? absolutely!, it's not easy seeing someone you love go through a difficult time. But what Satan meant for evil, God is using for GOOD!
We would never trade our lives now for the life we knew a mere month ago, because through this process, God has blessed our family in so many ways that it's hard to fathom. Our marriage is stronger now than it's ever been, Jesus has been made real to our children. Gifts of encouragement, flowers, money, groceries, gift cards, gas money, & meals have been given at the exact moment we needed them, in some instances, without people even knowing that that was what we needed right at that moment.
God is providing for all the little things, right down to groceries given in the exact brands that I buy for us(without the giver knowing),He cares about the details of our lives & He is holding us in the palm of His hand. so I leave you with a song...keep praying and believing with us.
Thank you-Andy, Ruth & kiddos
Awesome and inspiring! Praying :D
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