Two New Knees and One Amazing God!

Christy was diagnosed with Juvenile Rheumatoid Arthritis at the age of 4, big stuff for such a little girl. She’s been through a lot in the past 24 years, some good, some bad but she has remained hopeful and faithful to her Lord throughout. Now she’s facing surgery once again, this time its new knees. Yes, being the overachiever she is she’s going for both at the same time. It was two new hips at the same time, so why not two new knees at the same time?

Last week, prior to her appointment with her surgeon, I e-mailed a few of my faithful friends and asked them to pray for my baby girl. They get the fact that even though she’s 28 years old and married she will always be my baby girl. And pray they did! Here is the request……..

Hello to all,

As some of you already know, Christy is now facing double knee replacement surgery and in my opinion, the sooner the better. She has missed three days of work this week because one of her knees has, as she said, been about the size of her head. I’m e-mailing to ask you guys to pray for her. Specifically for the following……..

Peace – She is so anxious about this surgery, and not just the normal pre-surgery anxiety. Her hips were replaced just over a year ago and the recovery for that was so intense and she knows that this will be at least as bad and much likely worse.

Timing – Pray that God will bring about His perfect timing for this surgery. There are so many factors weighing in on this, if she waits until she’s been with the college for a year she can withdraw time from the “bank.” Her one year anniversary is in August, the question is can she wait that long. The problem with doing the surgery before August is she has so little PTO that she will be off for most of her recovery without pay and they really can’t afford that. But pray that whatever time God decides, she won’t worry or be anxious over money.

Wisdom – for Christy and Josh but also for Dr. Nichols. She has an appointment with him on Tuesday and they have pretty much decided to go with his recommendation. They have so much confidence in him based on how wonderful he was during her hip surgery and recovery. Just a side note, he is a wonderful doctor. He told Christy prior to her surgery that he wanted to pray with her so that she would know without question to whom he belonged. He said he felt that this was very important considering she was putting her life in his hands.

For her anesthesiologist – I know this may seem premature but most of you will understand the importance of this. Pray that he/she will be gentle and understanding of her issues. Pray that the IV will work the very first time and that she won’t have to face 22 failed attempts again. Pray that he/she is very knowledgeable of fiber optic intubation and that he’s used it so many times that it’s second nature to him.

Josh – I’m sitting here in a pool of tears just thinking about how blessed my daughter is to have such a perfect partner. You know that I’m not saying Josh is a perfect man but he is HER perfect man. I’ve said this before but I have to say it again, God did such an amazing job in His choice of a husband for Christy. Pray that Josh will not grow weary during all of this. He loves her more than anything, pray that God will protect his love for her during this difficult time in their lives.

Thank you my friends. I love each of you dearly.

Where do I begin in sharing how God has answered these requests already?
This week has been revival week at Pleasant Green Baptist. They have had a guest pastor, we were able to attend Sunday morning to hear God’s word through Paul and it was amazing. On Sunday morning Josh announced that the church would be taking up a love offering each day of the revival and at the end of the week (revival week ends on Wednesday) the offering would be given to Paul. This is nothing new, Pleasant Green does this for each of their twice annual revivals and I know that typically they receive in excess of $1000.00, not bad for a church with an active membership of about 60 people.

Last night with about 15 minutes before we found out which David would be crowned our new American Idol, our phone rings. Chris answers and hands me the phone and says, “it’s Josh.” Well Josh really only calls me for a few reasons, it wasn’t my birthday, Christy has just celebrated her birthday – meaning he doesn’t need to bounce gift idea’s off of me, so my thought is “oh no, something has happened to Christy.” Not the case, he starts out the conversation with “I’ve got good news.” (Obviously he knows me well and knew he needed to clarify the reason for his call rather quickly.) It seems as though Paul, the guest revival pastor, had directed the treasurer at Pleasant Green to give his portion of the love offering to Josh and Christy. But pray that whatever time God decides, she won’t worry or be anxious over money. Isn’t our God amazing? He could have waited until the time they actually needed the money to provide them with it, but he didn’t because we asked him not to let her worry or be anxious over money. Can I just tell you that she spend ALL of Wednesday worrying and being anxious over money just for Him to tell her Wednesday evening that He’s got her covered!!!!! How amazing is our God?

And we prayed for God’s perfect timing, this has been my major concern not hers. Last night when she and I were talking she told me that she felt God was telling her that this was his perfect timing for her surgery and that he was taking care of all the details. (Note: she didn’t know of my concerns or my e-mail to my faithful friends.) So after Idol and the newly crowned David I go call Lori, I tell her all about the huge financial blessing that Christy and Josh have received and how God has revealed that this is his perfect timing. I’m all calm and feeling warm and fuzzy inside, thanking Jesus for calming Christy’s fears and throwing in the bonus of the timing discussion just to ease her momma’s worries, when I sit down to do my evening Bible study. I’m currently doing the Beth Moore personal study titled 90 Days with Jesus The One And Only, it’s amazing – thanks Stacy for telling me about it. I’ve been feeling guilty that I haven’t done my study for the previous two nights because I’ve been cleaning out kitchen cabinets like a crazy woman. I open my study to Day 6 and guess what the title is? Yep, “Perfect Timing.” Can you believe it? I just fell into tears thanking my Lord for his perfect timing. If I had done that particular study on Monday night, when I thought I was suppose to, I would have totally missed what He was telling me. I’ve always told God I’m a little hard of hearing so if He wants me to know for sure that he’s answering my prayer he needs to drop a big bolder in front of my car while I’m driving to/from work with the words “I hear you” on it. Thank you Jesus for dropping the bolder!

And we prayed for peace, as you can see by reading this post He has given all of us precious, amazing, wonderful peace.

I want to say a big thank you to each of my friends who answered my e-mail with prayer. I hope you realize what a difference you make in my life and how much you bless me. We don’t tell our friends often enough how much we love them and need them, so let me say right now……… I love you more than my simple words can ever express. Thank you from the very bottom of my heart.

So, it’s new knees on June 25th and answered prayer today! I love you Lord.