« Email from friend in Africa | Main | June 21, 11:30 PM »
June 20, 2005
June 20, 8:45 pm
it has been a much better day, today, than yesterday. You know we often say that there is a calm before the storm, but I have found it to be more accurate that there is a storm before the calm. Which makes sense. Who would pray and ask God to bring a storm when you are in a calm? There are also a number of incidences when jesus’ disciples were in a literal storm and they cried out to God, because they were afraid, and jesus came and calmed the storm.
I can tell you that I did a good bit of crying yesterday, and in the midst of physically crying I also found myself crying out to God to calm the day’s storm.
Gloria spent the night with asher last night. I guess it would be more accurate to say that she watched asher throughout the night and got about 20 minutes of sleep sometime this morning. It is my privilege to be with him tonight.
Gloria got to meet asher’s physical and occupational therapist along with his respiratory therapist this morning. It was really helpful for her to get to ask questions, and even better to get answers.
Several wonderful things happened this morning during a couple of his times of therapy. They took the end piece off his oxygen tube. The end piece is what causes pressure to build up and sustained for him at a certain level. The level has remained the same, but it is not being delivered to him under pressure. If he keeps his blood oxygen levels up where they are supposed to be without this pressure, they will soon be able to take him off of oxygen completely. Given that we were told that he might not ever come off of oxygen, we are just thanking the Lord.
During his physical therapy session asher also responded to 2 commands. He shut his eyes and held them shut and he also stuck out his tongue. The day was pretty much like this all day. Thank you Lord.
All of those who came to take care of asher throughout the day were really wonderful. It was hard, at first to adjust to the new room and surroundings when they moved asher yesterday afternoon, but by the end of the day, today, we really felt much more comfortable.
Also, throughout the day, most of asher’s nurses from icu came by to visit him. It was like seeing family. I just can’t tell you how wonderful everyone was up in the icu unit where asher stayed 1 day short of a month. Each one of his nurses was truly a gift from God to us.
I also want to share a note that we received in the mail today from a dear friend of ours, Catherine, who had a dream about asher very recently and she wanted to share it with us through this note since she had to leave town on business soon after.
“dearest friends.
Here’s my dream of this morning. A toddler I knew had been hurt, but someone told me that his cuts and wounds had been healed. I went to see this little boy and as I was being shown how much better he was doing, I realized that he was walking, in the lock step fashion that beginning walkers use. Great joy flooded over me and I danced around saying “asher is walking! Asher can walk again.”
It leaves me speechless when I think about the ways that God is so obviously revealing His love and concern for asher and all of us by giving so many encouraging dreams and vision to others about asher and his being healed and restored. I know that it is truly because of the great outpouring of care and concern through the prayers of so many throughout the world that God is revealing in so many ways, like through dreams and visions, that our prayers are being heard and answered every moment of every day.
In luke, chapter 2, where it talks about jesus being taken to the temple to be dedicated (circumcised) on the 8th day, that joseph and mary met 2 people, simeon and anna the prophetess. Both were equally significant in that God used them to be witnesses to joseph and mary in order to, again, confirm to them who there son really was.
What is so interesting about anna, is that she was a widow, and had been one for 84 years, and her reputation was that she “prayed and fasted in the temple night and day.” She truly is the model in the Bible for the significant role that widows are to have in the world today. Another thing that is very interesting about anna is that she was a prophetess, and her father was phanuel, who was from the tribe of asher.
The only reason that I bring this up is that so many of the dreams and visions that have been shared with us about asher, from the very night that he fell until now, have come from women, and in the very depths of my being I believe that something very profound is being revealed to us by this fact. Lord give us eyes to see and ears to hear and your will made known.
With great thanksgiving,
Andy mendonsa
| By Leda | 11:48 PM
