Dear Lord; Happy Friday Father!<\/p>\n
Ten years Lord\u2026 Ten years.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Thank You\u2026 Thank You\u2026 Thank You\u2026 Thank You!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This weekend Father, as You\u2019re aware, we\u2019re celebrating 10 years that our oldest son Jonathan has been off of chemotherapy, and other than for a few atypical skin irregularities that were removed as a safety measure, in remission.<\/p>\n While we live each day knowing that there\u2019s still no cure for his disease (Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis), and that it could rear it\u2019s ugly head at any time, we also know that we rest in Your Healing Hands and that even in our darkest moments of despair, You were always with us.\u00a0 I realize that our earthly lives are temporary and precious gifts Father, and I thank You from the bottom my heart for continuing to Bless us with Jonathan\u2019s presence here among us.<\/p>\n Driving in to work this morning, I was listening to a song called \u201cBlessings\u201d<\/em> sung by Laura Story<\/a>.\u00a0 Although I\u2019d heard it before, for some reason the lyrics struck a chord in my heart today and very much fit in with the thoughts I\u2019ve been having about that first 14 months of Jonathan\u2019s life.\u00a0 The chorus states:<\/p>\n \u2018Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops It\u2019s that last line that gets me Lord\u2026 What if\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n I know one thing for sure Father, the trials we endured during that terrifying time have irrevocably changed us.\u00a0 In my case, You took that tragedy and used it as a starting point for my path back to You.\u00a0 In the pit of my anguish, You saved me, and exposed me to lessons I desperately needed to learn.\u00a0 Much of my life since that time has been shaped by those painful, joyous teachings, and for that I thank You.<\/p>\n Heavenly Father, we rejoice in the Blessing of health You\u2019ve granted our son Jonathan these past ten years.\u00a0 I pray that You continue to keep him in Your Loving Arms, and that Your Healing and Comfort is felt by others who are going through such trials.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n ~Phather Phil<\/p>\n P.S.\u00a0 For those reading this who may not be familiar with Jonathan\u2019s story, I\u2019ve written articles about it on several occasions, including : \u201cThen and Now, Lessons Learned\u201d<\/em><\/a> and \u201cI\u2019m Sorry, and Thank You\u201d<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Lord; Happy Friday Father! Ten years Lord\u2026 Ten years. Thank You\u2026 Thank You\u2026 Thank You\u2026 Thank You! This weekend Father, as You\u2019re aware, we\u2019re celebrating 10 years that our oldest son Jonathan has been off of chemotherapy, and other than for a few atypical skin irregularities that were removed as a safety measure, in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[168,419,12,925,27,915,382,259,487,173,628,208,276,444,964,5,89,140,593,916,923,116,222,267,119,1273,345,78,682,760,96,479,388,203,506,230,257,845,670,19,81,217,41,46,585,613,683,88,727,113,721,187,117,258,469,817,584,476,544,370,114,730,430,703,789,1019,481,49,138],"class_list":["post-1021","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-bless","tag-blessing","tag-blessings","tag-chemotherapy","tag-comfort","tag-dear-lord","tag-despair","tag-driving","tag-earth","tag-father","tag-friday","tag-gift","tag-gifts","tag-happy","tag-happy-friday","tag-healing","tag-health","tag-heart","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-histiocytosis","tag-jonathan","tag-joy","tag-joyous","tag-langerhans-cell-histiocytosis","tag-laura-story","tag-learn","tag-life","tag-listen","tag-listening","tag-loving","tag-loving-arms","tag-lyrics","tag-moments","tag-morning","tag-mother","tag-music","tag-need","tag-night","tag-pain","tag-path","tag-pray","tag-presence","tag-rain","tag-read","tag-real","tag-realize","tag-remission","tag-rest","tag-safe","tag-saved","tag-sleep","tag-son","tag-song","tag-sons","tag-start","tag-story","tag-teach","tag-teaching","tag-terrifying","tag-thank-you","tag-thoughts","tag-time","tag-tragedy","tag-trials","tag-used","tag-week","tag-weekend","tag-work"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-gt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1021"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1024,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1021\/revisions\/1024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1021"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1021"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1021"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nWhat if Your healing comes through tears
\nWhat if a thousand sleepless nights are what it takes to know You\u2019re near
\nWhat if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n