Dear Lord; Good evening Father!<\/p>\n
Well Father, we certainly did talk a lot today.\u00a0 From a rough start between Shannon and the kids this morning, to a fearful trip taking our dog Hunny to the Veterinarian this afternoon, I\u2019ve had a lot of prayers in my heart and on my lips.\u00a0 Thank You for staying by my side Lord\u2026 Your Presence was very apparent.<\/p>\n
As You know Father, in our house we consider our pets part of the family.\u00a0 Along with the two-legged members of the household, we have four little dogs, a kitten we took in last year, a couple aquatic turtles and a tank full of fish.\u00a0 Needless to say Lord, life is abundant in our home at all times.<\/p>\n
The two older dogs; Brandy who\u2019s 17 and Hunny who just turned 16 have been exhibiting increasing symptoms of age as of late, so their care requirements have obviously increased.\u00a0 Along with age however, last year we found out that Hunny has some additional medical issues as well.\u00a0 It all began when she started having bouts of intermittent \u201chacking\u201d<\/em> coughs which would go on for several minutes.\u00a0 We took her to the veterinarian, and after a number of tests and x-rays it was determined that she suffered from an enlarged heart which was beginning to affect her breathing.\u00a0 We discussed options with the doctor, and although there was no cure for her condition there were some diet and exercise changes that we could make that would help extend her life and make her more comfortable as well.\u00a0 She responded well to the changes, and while the cough still showed up from time to time, she appeared to be doing better\u2026<\/p>\n Until last week.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The cough came back, with a vengeance.\u00a0 This time though, it wasn\u2019t restricted to intermittent bouts of coughing, but hours of deep, throaty hacking.\u00a0 We tried to keep her calm and comfortable, but the symptoms continued to worsen.\u00a0 As of last night, the cough was continuous and nothing I could do seemed to help her.\u00a0 She finally collapsed into sleep after hours of obvious discomfort.<\/p>\n Needless to say Father, rest didn\u2019t come easy for me last night.\u00a0 I know You heard me, both in my prayers and the pleas I kept silent as well.<\/p>\n I arranged an appointment for Hunny to be seen this afternoon, fully aware of the potential of what could be needed.\u00a0 The possibilities weighed on my heart Lord, but I felt You with me on that long ride; reminding me that You were with me, that Hunny was Your Creation, and that whatever the outcome that You cared for her.<\/p>\n \u201cIn his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.\u201d \u2013 Job 12:10<\/strong><\/p>\n I\u2019m thankful Father, that Your Voice is always there to comfort and guide me, and that the doctor\u2019s examination showed some room for optimism that she\u2019ll be with us for a bit longer.\u00a0 We were sent home with some medication to help her breathe, to fight off a bronchial infection, and to get some rest.\u00a0 While I know that her condition won\u2019t go away, it\u2019s a Blessing that we don\u2019t have to lose her just yet.\u00a0 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n Heavenly Father, thank You for remaining ever-faithful and staying by my side each day.\u00a0 In the shadow of having to make a difficult decision, It emboldened me to know that I had Your Divine Guidance to lead me.\u00a0 I pray that Your Presence is felt by all those facing such uncertainty.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n ~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dear Lord; Good evening Father! Well Father, we certainly did talk a lot today.\u00a0 From a rough start between Shannon and the kids this morning, to a fearful trip taking our dog Hunny to the Veterinarian this afternoon, I\u2019ve had a lot of prayers in my heart and on my lips.\u00a0 Thank You for staying […]<\/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":[505,168,419,1243,1101,451,107,639,27,1124,915,640,546,636,282,635,1240,561,820,1244,15,4,173,6,500,21,686,140,593,916,804,159,976,520,1242,519,190,757,658,78,641,141,506,845,670,753,392,1241,776,146,217,205,249,41,727,227,187,817,788,800,114,40,430,329,8,1245,71,481],"class_list":["post-983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-afternoon","tag-bless","tag-blessing","tag-brandy","tag-breathe","tag-calm","tag-care","tag-changes","tag-comfort","tag-creation","tag-dear-lord","tag-diet","tag-difficult","tag-discomfort","tag-divine","tag-doctor","tag-dog","tag-dogs","tag-emboldened","tag-enlarged-heart","tag-faith","tag-family","tag-father","tag-fear","tag-fight","tag-guidance","tag-guide","tag-heart","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-help","tag-home","tag-house","tag-household","tag-hunny","tag-job","tag-kids","tag-kind","tag-lead-me","tag-life","tag-medical","tag-mind","tag-morning","tag-need","tag-night","tag-nothing","tag-obvious","tag-pets","tag-plea","tag-potential","tag-pray","tag-prayer","tag-prayers","tag-presence","tag-rest","tag-shannon","tag-sleep","tag-start","tag-staying","tag-suffered","tag-thank-you","tag-thankful","tag-time","tag-trip","tag-uncertainty","tag-veterinarian","tag-voice","tag-week"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-fR","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983","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=983"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":986,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/983\/revisions\/986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}