Most of us have a hero or heroes in our lives that influence us in a great way. My greatest hero happens to also be the Creator of the universe and everything in it – the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no one else that comes close. Not anyone. He is the greatest! And He never makes mistakes. I have not always been a great disciple or follower but He has always been faithful and great. I have no reason why He would choose me to be His child…but that is why it is called grace! Getting something I did not deserve. Oh, how I love Jesus!
But the purpose of this email was to mention some other heroes in my life that really surfaced during my journey of cancer, surgery, and now recovery. That would be our children: Roanna, Alisa, Ryan, and Jamison. They have really been there for us. They have served and honored us well. We are very privileged and blessed because of them. And it would not be accurate to not also mention their spouses, Rick, Mike, Jayme, and Danielle, which love us like their own parents. God has used them during this time to be a huge encouragement and support. God said, so it is true, in Ps 127:3 “Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward.”
The boys live here locally and Roanna drove from TN with her two little ones and Alisa flew here from Tanzania and had to leave her two little boys with Mr Mom, I mean Mr Mike, for the surgery. They helped us in so many ways: with transportation, with food, cleaning the house, groceries, laughing, praying, crying, keeping close to Sandy during my surgery, paid for a hotel so Sandy could stay near the hospital. The boys took turns spending the night with me while in the Burn Unit Intensive Care so Sandy could get rest. They missed sleeping those nights while a doctor or nurse came in every hour. (We like sharing the pain! It’s a family thing…) They helped to smuggle in carrot juice (one of my home protocols) when the doctors weren’t looking. They brought in special artwork from the grandkids to put in my hospital room with the flowers. They helped us with all the doctor appointments, MRI’s and CT Scans, insurance, applications, etc. They created and managed the blog site so everyone could follow these updates, helped sell a lot of things on Craigslist…and I could go on. They took huge burdens off of us while going through this while still trying to balance their work and family responsibilities. We have very special kids and kids-in-law who love the Lord and love us. Very special indeed and we thank the Lord for them!! They are our HEROES!
Update: 1) met with the oncologist this week to discuss the chemo journey – sounds like a lot of fun we would love to avoid. I have a follow up appointment with the radiologist to finish deciding on the radiation treatment, another journey I would love to avoid. We will keep you posted. 2) the eye doctor is working on making me a set of glasses (actually it should be singular) so I can see again while the free flap is healing and shrinking (will take about 5 months). It will be highly customized since it will be one half of a set of glasses and will be hard to keep on my face. We’ll see how good he is! 3) still healing the 3 surgical sites of which the throat hurts the most.
Thank you again for praying for my healing! You are an important contributor to our support group! We love you.
Steve & Sandy
Ps 55:22 “Cast thy burden upon the LORD, and he shall sustain thee: he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.”