Dear Lord; Good evening Father!<\/p>\n
For some time now Father, I\u2019ve been feeling like You\u2019ve been preparing me for something; teaching me hard lessons, tempering my faith and yet at the same time guiding me towards a destination somewhere \u201coutside my box\u201d<\/em>.\u00a0 You\u2019ve whispered messages of encouragement and direction into my heart, but as I called them in yesterday\u2019s chat all those \u201cpuzzle pieces\u201d<\/em> just haven\u2019t quite fit together yet.\u00a0 You told me there would be change in my life, You told me to \u201cExpect something wonderful\u201d<\/em> and over and over again You told me to be steadfast and have Faith.\u00a0 I won\u2019t sugar coat it Lord\u2026 The last year or so has been extremely difficult for me.\u00a0 But Father, somewhere during this time of trials something strange happened\u2026<\/p>\n I found that I actually became more<\/span> thankful for Your Blessings in my life, and have grown closer to You in the process.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n I got to thinking about this quite a bit today, and I realized that it wasn\u2019t the first time You\u2019ve used hardships to teach me something important.\u00a0 In fact, the first time was what I consider to be the lowest point in my life and at the same time, the beginning of my understanding of what true Blessings are.<\/p>\n On December 14, 1999, you gave to us a wonderful, beautiful little boy whom we named Jonathan.\u00a0 As we\u2019d been told for years that we couldn\u2019t have our own biological children, Jonathan was deemed our \u201cmiracle baby\u201d<\/em>; little did we know how true that description was.<\/p>\n At Jonathan\u2019s 10-week checkup, the pediatrician noticed that he looked awfully pale so she ordered some blood tests to be done.\u00a0 A few hours later in a flurry of anxious phone calls we were sent directly to A.I. Dupont Hospital for Children\u2019s Oncology \/ Hematology department for an emergency appointment.\u00a0 The next several weeks to follow were to be honest, a blur.\u00a0 Test after test was done, and yet answers still seemed just out of everyone\u2019s reach while terms like Leukemia, Anemia and Spherocytosis were tossed about between the physicians.\u00a0 Finally, on March 19th<\/sup> (coincidentally my 30th<\/sup> birthday) we were given the grim diagnosis.\u00a0 Jonathan had a rare disease called Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis, and it had infiltrated multiple systems in his tiny little body.\u00a0 While the doctors were hesitant to give us any specifics about his prognosis, we were quietly informed that based on how far the disease had spread and the lack of information about it they gave him a 10 to 20% chance at best.<\/p>\n Shannon and I were absolutely devastated.\u00a0 I was lost Father, and hurt, and angry\u2026 oh was I angry.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n You had started to bring me to You that day Father, although I didn\u2019t know it at the time.\u00a0 We spent the majority of our time over the next 14 months living at the hospital, clinging to his life with all we had.\u00a0 From rounds of chemotherapy and steroids, to surgeries, to recovery protocols we stayed fast and hung our lives on every change in his condition.<\/p>\n I\u2019d love to say that I prayed long, deep, faithful prayers Lord, but we both know that isn\u2019t true.\u00a0 I was consumed by grief, and anger and fear.\u00a0 I have no doubt You were trying to talk to me then Father, but I was nothing resembling receptive.<\/p>\n And yet, You never left Jonathan\u2019s side.\u00a0 I was broken, and lost and still You remained ever-faithful.\u00a0 Thank You so much for that Father.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n It\u2019s said that hindsight is 20\/20, and in this case it\u2019s an apt phrase.\u00a0 When I look back at that terrifying period of uncertainty in our lives, I realize that I needed to be there.\u00a0 In the midst of my darkest time, You were waving a lantern; pointing out things that had I not been forced to deal with, I would have never seen.\u00a0 It was a transformational and pivotal point in my life Lord, and it completely altered the path I\u2019d been on.\u00a0 The lessons I learned in those years changed me in ways I\u2019m still uncovering today.<\/p>\n Fast forward ten years time\u2026<\/p>\n Life again took a new turn down the road of uncertainty.\u00a0 Between severe economic nightmares, the unexpected death of my best friend and a seemingly unending set of problems, the last year has been the most stressful period I\u2019ve had since Jonathan\u2019s illness was diagnosed.\u00a0 This time however, it\u2019s different Father:<\/p>\n I know You\u2019re here with me, ever-faithful, ever-vigilant.\u00a0 Even in my turmoil, I feel Your Peace.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n See Lord, I learn.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Heavenly Father, I thank You for faithfully guiding me down the path You have laid out for me.\u00a0 Please keep my eyes open, my ears trained and my heart open for those whisperings You pass to me along the way.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n ~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Lord; Good evening Father! For some time now Father, I\u2019ve been feeling like You\u2019ve been preparing me for something; teaching me hard lessons, tempering my faith and yet at the same time guiding me towards a destination somewhere \u201coutside my box\u201d.\u00a0 You\u2019ve whispered messages of encouragement and direction into my heart, but as I […]<\/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":[124,1069,762,851,465,207,168,419,12,1066,1065,925,286,132,503,43,915,236,610,546,778,36,635,7,1071,1063,361,15,173,6,619,844,536,228,966,457,847,237,140,593,916,1067,923,120,121,116,119,345,1070,389,133,355,824,377,1064,230,845,418,802,123,81,25,1068,637,217,205,249,695,1057,683,998,227,117,469,384,476,544,362,370,114,40,789,106,8,697,300,622,1019,481,565,378,379],"class_list":["post-726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-a-i-dupont","tag-anemia","tag-anger","tag-beautiful","tag-birth","tag-birthday","tag-bless","tag-blessing","tag-blessings","tag-blood-tests","tag-change-in-my-life","tag-chemotherapy","tag-child","tag-children","tag-consume","tag-courage","tag-dear-lord","tag-death","tag-different","tag-difficult","tag-direct","tag-direction","tag-doctor","tag-doubt","tag-emails-to-god","tag-emergency-appointment","tag-encouragement","tag-faith","tag-father","tag-fear","tag-feeling","tag-follow","tag-forward","tag-friend","tag-god","tag-grow","tag-guiding","tag-hardships","tag-heart","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-hematology","tag-histiocytosis","tag-hospital","tag-illness","tag-jonathan","tag-langerhans-cell-histiocytosis","tag-learn","tag-leukemia","tag-lost","tag-love","tag-message","tag-messages","tag-miracle","tag-miracle-baby","tag-mother","tag-need","tag-nightmare","tag-nightmares","tag-oncology","tag-path","tag-peace","tag-pediatrician","tag-physician","tag-pray","tag-prayer","tag-prayers","tag-problem","tag-puzzle-pieces","tag-realize","tag-recovery","tag-shannon","tag-son","tag-sons","tag-stress","tag-teach","tag-teaching","tag-temper","tag-terrifying","tag-thank-you","tag-thankful","tag-trials","tag-turmoil","tag-uncertainty","tag-understand","tag-understanding","tag-unexpected","tag-used","tag-week","tag-whispered","tag-wonder","tag-wonderful"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-bI","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726","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=726"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":731,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/726\/revisions\/731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}