{"id":1336,"date":"2011-09-02T14:16:35","date_gmt":"2011-09-02T18:16:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1336"},"modified":"2011-09-02T14:16:35","modified_gmt":"2011-09-02T18:16:35","slug":"as-long-as-youll-permit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=1336","title":{"rendered":"As Long As You’ll Permit"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Friday Father!<\/p>\n

Thank You Father!!\u00a0 Thank You, thank You, thank You!!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

What a wonderful Blessing You\u2019ve given us Lord\u2026 Such a beautiful way to start the weekend!<\/p>\n

For those who follow our conversations and don\u2019t know the source of my joy Father, please indulge me while I explain.<\/p>\n

A couple months ago, we had Jonathan in for his yearly check-up with his pediatrician.\u00a0 It was a routine visit, but due to his complicated medical situation (Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis<\/a>), doctor\u2019s appointments always place some concern in our hearts.\u00a0 For the most part, everything went quite well; nothing obviously scary to report.\u00a0 Then the doctor examined some new \u201cgrowths\u201d<\/em> that had popped up on him over the last year; up went the red flags, and down went our spirits.\u00a0 She labeled them as \u201csuspicious\u201d<\/em>, and indicated that we should have them looked at by Jonathan\u2019s oncologist as soon as possible. We tried of course to stay optimistic, but the seed of worry had been sown all the same.<\/p>\n

The oncology visit didn\u2019t yield much in the way of answers either, but added another round of \u201cconcerns\u201d<\/em> and a referral to a pediatric dermatologist for a specialized examination and if necessary, treatment and surgical intervention.\u00a0 The oncologist did however, indicate that the possible skin involvement was all that appeared out of the ordinary at the moment, and that all his other tests and scans looked perfectly normal.\u00a0 That news certainly eased our fears a bit, but based on past experience with this disease, our guard was still up nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Today, Jonathan went to see the dermatologist.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re moles Father\u2026 All perfectly normal, and nothing to be concerned about.<\/em>\u00a0 But You already knew that, didn\u2019t You?\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

Please forgive my doubts Lord\u2026 I know he\u2019s in Your hands no matter what, and I\u2019m so thankful for that.\u00a0 But each time we have the specter of this disease rear it\u2019s gnarled claws, it takes our hearts back to that terrifying time of uncertainty and fear, when the possible loss of our son was very real.\u00a0 And while I realize Lord, that this life is temporary and simply a step towards Your Eternal Kingdom, Shannon and I are selfish in that we love this little boy dearly, and very much want him to remain with us for as long as You\u2019ll permit.<\/p>\n

Apparently, that\u2019s Your desire for the moment as well\u2026 And I thank You from the bottom of my heart for that Blessing!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In Jesus\u2019 Name we pray,<\/p>\n

Amen.<\/p>\n

~Phather Phil<\/p>\n

P.S. September is Histiocytosis Awareness Month.\u00a0 To learn more about this life threatening disease, and what you can do to help in the search for a cure, please visit : http:\/\/www.histio.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Happy Friday Father! Thank You Father!!\u00a0 Thank You, thank You, thank You!! What a wonderful Blessing You\u2019ve given us Lord\u2026 Such a beautiful way to start the weekend! For those who follow our conversations and don\u2019t know the source of my joy Father, please indulge me while I explain. A couple months ago, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1335,"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":[851,168,419,1113,286,132,369,425,556,795,915,1274,635,7,611,173,6,211,844,656,628,457,248,444,964,273,923,269,116,222,119,118,345,78,307,133,641,576,753,392,123,1068,688,217,585,613,683,227,732,117,373,95,512,370,114,40,8,481,49,378,379,192],"class_list":["post-1336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-beautiful","tag-bless","tag-blessing","tag-bottom-of-my-heart","tag-child","tag-children","tag-complicated","tag-concern","tag-conversation","tag-conversations","tag-dear-lord","tag-disease","tag-doctor","tag-doubt","tag-experience","tag-father","tag-fear","tag-fears","tag-follow","tag-forgive","tag-friday","tag-grow","tag-growth","tag-happy","tag-happy-friday","tag-hearts","tag-histiocytosis","tag-jesus","tag-jonathan","tag-joy","tag-langerhans-cell-histiocytosis","tag-lch","tag-learn","tag-life","tag-loss","tag-love","tag-medical","tag-necessary","tag-nothing","tag-obvious","tag-oncology","tag-pediatrician","tag-possible","tag-pray","tag-read","tag-real","tag-realize","tag-shannon","tag-situation","tag-son","tag-special","tag-spirit","tag-spirits","tag-terrifying","tag-thank-you","tag-thankful","tag-uncertainty","tag-week","tag-weekend","tag-wonder","tag-wonderful","tag-worry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/Cant-we-all-just-get-along-Cropped.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-ly","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336","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=1336"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1339,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1336\/revisions\/1339"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}