Today marks one month and one day since we entered the hospital for the second time. Following Cindy's surgery we spent two weeks in the hospital. We went home for a few days but were not able to manage her pain adequately, so back we came. In the last post I asked you to pray that God would hasten the day for us to go home in order that we might regain a modicum of normalcy. God must be listening to our prayers! Amen!! The docs are talking seriously about letting Cindy go home very soon. She has had a good day and a good night. The new cocktail of nausea drugs seem to be helping. I am praying hard that Cindy's tummy will once again begin to function normally and she will put on weight and add strength. At present she weighs between 100-105 and is very weak. Eating and walking will help her get the strength she needs. However, as you know, when you are fighting just to keep food down you do not want to eat and thus you continually get weaker.

I would love for her to be home for the 4th. So far we have missed our anniversary, her birthday, my birthday, Trey's birthday (our 4-year-old) while in the hospital. It would be great to experience the 4th with her at home. When she feels a little better and we are at home I am going to throw her a party to celebrate all of the things we have missed. I can tell you the oncology floor is not a great place to have a party.

While the oncology floor is not the most encouraging place, God works through Cindy even while largely confined to a bed. Not long ago one of the hospital chaplains came by to minister to her. She walked in and saw the flowers, the cards (we feel like celebraties as literally we get handfulls of cards daily from wonderful people all over the country); then she noticed her blanket. The precious women from Montgomery put together a prayer blanket. While I know nothing about quilting, basically they put their most encouraging verses on blocks and they sowed them together to make a beautiful quilt. As they pieced the quilt together they would offer a prayer for Cindy's healing and then tie a knot. All the knots remind us of their prayers. On the other side of the blanket somehow they were able to attach their pictures. As Cindy sleeps at night she is literally covered in the most encouraging scriptures you have ever read. The chaplain saw the blanket and was amazed as Cindy began to point to various pictures and describe these godly women. She talked about their faith and love. About that time the prayer pager went off. The Chaplain said, "What is that?" "Oh, that's my prayer pager." Cindy then told her as people pray they call the pager leave the number and as it goes off we know people are specifically lifting her name before the Father. The pager buzzes at times every 10-15 minutes. (The pager presently has a low battery. I will replace the battery today, I promise!) The area codes tell us where our prayer warriors live. And so we know people are praying in Georgia, Tennessee, Illinois, Alabama, California, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and from area codes we cannot even recognize. It's fun looking up the area codes in the phone book to see where people live. You talk about encouraging! Your prayers will see us through all of this. After the chaplain listened to Cindy she said, "What kind of community of faith are you part of anyway?" Cindy proudly said, "We are part of the Montgomery Church of Christ." Though she came to encourage Cindy, I think the chaplain ended up being more encouaged. I think the chaplain left Cindy's room with a greater appreciation for our community of faith.

Thanks for your prayers regarding yesterdays sermon. It felt great to once again to proclaim the Gospel that is found even in Job.

Blessings to you all.

kevin