Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father!<\/p>\n
Today Father, my prayers are focused on my son Jonathan and my wife Shannon as they spend time at the A.I. Dupont Hospital for Children.\u00a0 The appointment today wasn\u2019t expected to be a big deal; simply an MRI with and without contrast to check and make sure that Jonathan\u2019s LCH was still behaving itself.\u00a0 As the scans were going to take a while and required Jonathan be perfectly still, the plan was to sedate him so that he could sleep through the process.\u00a0 This seemed like a perfectly reasonable idea and after he\u2019d been given some Versed to relax him a bit beforehand they got him ready for the procedure\u2026<\/p>\n
And then he saw the IV needle.\u00a0 He was no longer relaxed.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Jonathan has a very serious fear of needles Father, and from what Shannon described he changed instantly from my gentle, loveable little boy into a raving, angry, terrified child.\u00a0 In the end, they had to give him general anesthesia (gas) to get him under for the scans, requiring a longer stay at the hospital and leaving Shannon emotionally exhausted in the process.<\/p>\n Following the phone conversation with Shannon bringing me up to speed on the day\u2019s events, I started thinking about the fear Jonathan must have been feeling at that moment.\u00a0 His dread of needles has deep-seated roots, far beyond what he remembers.\u00a0 As an infant, Jonathan\u2019s disease and subsequent treatments required he be all too familiar with the prick of a needle.\u00a0 And even though he\u2019s not had to endure a large number of sticks since that time, there\u2019s an underlying anxiety that grips him whenever he requires one.<\/p>\n So, how to address this fear with him Lord?\u00a0 Well, if we examine Your Word there\u2019s quite a bit of wisdom to draw on.\u00a0 As I know Jonathan reads this Father, I\u2019d like to use the rest of our time today to pass some of those thoughts along to him here if I may\u2026<\/p>\n Dearest Jonathan,<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFor I am the Lord your God Whatever pain, fear or trials we face in this life, we need not be afraid because God never leaves our side.\u00a0 He\u2019s stayed close to you all of your life, and seen you through amazing hardships.\u00a0 When fear grips your heart and threatens to take control, I want you to close your eyes and feel God\u2019s Hand firmly grasping yours.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHave I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the <\/strong>Lord<\/strong> your God will be with you wherever you go.” \u2013 Joshua 1:9 (NIV)<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n The Lord desires that we show our character and faith in him through acts of trust.\u00a0 Courage isn\u2019t the absence of fear Jonathan, it\u2019s having fear and yet doing what you know is right with the knowledge that God will give you the strength to get you through when you lay those burdens at His feet.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cDo you not know? He gives strength to the weary Even youths grow tired and weary, but those who hope in the Lord We weren\u2019t created to rely completely on our own strength Jonathan.\u00a0 We get tired, and stressed, and scared.\u00a0 Thankfully, we have our Heavenly Father to hold us up and provide us that \u201cHoly Nudge\u201d to get us through when we call on Him.\u00a0 I see so much of God\u2019s Light in you, and when you seek His help I know that you\u2019ll find it in abundance.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI can do all this through him who gives me strength.\u201d \u2013 Philippians 4:13 (NIV)<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n I love you kiddo.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n Amen.<\/p>\n ~Dad (Phather Phil)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Lord; Happy Wednesday Father! Today Father, my prayers are focused on my son Jonathan and my wife Shannon as they spend time at the A.I. Dupont Hospital for Children.\u00a0 The appointment today wasn\u2019t expected to be a big deal; simply an MRI with and without contrast to check and make sure that Jonathan\u2019s LCH […]<\/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":[124,426,350,359,1454,969,1456,100,286,132,1461,581,556,43,915,143,1274,487,342,578,1460,15,173,6,1465,619,42,844,1459,1463,782,1464,457,1462,444,237,593,916,804,464,120,466,980,1457,116,313,60,118,104,133,845,1458,19,1455,977,16,587,217,205,249,893,609,547,227,117,817,86,384,40,730,122,789,1319,697,300,1279,157,504,142,348],"class_list":["post-1140","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-a-i-dupont","tag-abundance","tag-amazing","tag-bible","tag-book-of-isaiah","tag-book-of-joshua","tag-book-of-philippians","tag-burdens","tag-child","tag-children","tag-close-your-eyes","tag-control","tag-conversation","tag-courage","tag-dear-lord","tag-desires","tag-disease","tag-earth","tag-emotion","tag-emotional","tag-emotionally-exhausted","tag-faith","tag-father","tag-fear","tag-fear-of-needles","tag-feeling","tag-focus","tag-follow","tag-general-anesthesia","tag-gods-hand","tag-grip","tag-grips-your-heart","tag-grow","tag-hand-of-god","tag-happy","tag-hardships","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-help","tag-hope","tag-hospital","tag-isaiah","tag-isaiah-41","tag-iv-needle","tag-jonathan","tag-joshua","tag-knowledge","tag-lch","tag-light","tag-love","tag-need","tag-needle","tag-pain","tag-philippians","tag-phone","tag-plan","tag-power","tag-pray","tag-prayer","tag-prayers","tag-relaxed","tag-remember","tag-serious","tag-shannon","tag-son","tag-start","tag-strength","tag-stress","tag-thankful","tag-thoughts","tag-treatments","tag-trials","tag-trust","tag-understand","tag-understanding","tag-weary","tag-wife","tag-will","tag-wisdom","tag-word"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-io","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140","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=1140"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1146,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1140\/revisions\/1146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nwho takes hold of your right hand
\nand says to you, Do not fear;
\nI will help you.\u201d \u2013 Isaiah 41:13 (NIV)<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
\nHave you not heard?
\nThe Lord is the everlasting God,
\nthe Creator of the ends of the earth.
\nHe will not grow tired or weary,
\nand his understanding no one can fathom.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
\nand increases the power of the weak.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
\nand young men stumble and fall;<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n
\nwill renew their strength.
\nThey will soar on wings like eagles;
\nthey will run and not grow weary,
\nthey will walk and not be faint.\u201d \u2013 Isaiah 40:28-31 (NIV)<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n