Demystifying Prayer

Would you believe something else painful happens this year, and we’re only into the 2nd month? R was trimming a long viney & leafy plant (Golden Pothos), like she had for months, maybe years.

But this time, it fell over and hit her right on the forehead and left a goose egg bump! Ouch! Thank God it was just a bump. We got to urgent care in time last night before it closed. She got checked out okay. She slept through the night okay. The swelling from the contusion has shrunk, to a point that you wouldn’t know it had happened if you didn’t read this update.

Wow. That was a scary moment. Oh goodness. Please pray for R returning to the classroom to teach, this Thursday March 3rd. Pray for strength, endurance, wisdom to pace herself and know what she can do for the rest of the semester. Not too much, not too little, just right. Thank you.

Please pray for Rachelle’s well-being, recovery, strength and her desire to go back to work on March 1st. She’s working hard at managing her health with that recent diagnosis of diabetes and learning how to minimize the adverse stress of worry and anxiety.

She’s working as an adjunct professor at Chapman University and teaches a class on book arts. Yes, that is a thing; in fact, she has a master’s degree in book arts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_Art

Day by day and with each passing moment does bring some unpredictable ups and downs like a roller coaster ride. R’s experience with anxiety and stress has become less overwhelming these past 2 days, most noticeably. It was a joy and delight to see her easily enjoy Valentine’s Day with me and our son Jeremiah.

Our prayer is that R will continue making progress towards good recovery and health, regaining her energy, so that she can return to the classroom and teach by the first week of March.

Thanks for your words of encouragement. No more advice needed. What R can use help with a recommendation of someone who can coach her personally about managing diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure.

We are learning to live day by day, with each passing moment, especially Rachelle. It’s a different way to live, to just focus on the present. Learning to put aside genuine concerns and responsibilities for the future, for the sake of using one’s energy to stay on the recovery process to restore health, is patently hard for a planner personality type. Granted. But necessary. Desperately so.

We’ve made it through a month on this recovery journey. How far have we progressed? I don’t think we are ready to answer that yet. R is open to exploring and learning how to talk about her cares and concerns in a non-anxious way. And this exploring kinda feels like trying to think of a password. When she finds or hears the right word, that’ll begin to loosen the chains of those persistent thoughts and overbearing feelings.

Is this a work in the spiritual realm? Regulating meds to stabilize physical metrics like blood pressure, cholesterol, and blood sugar level? Psychotropics? Talk therapy? Yoga? Trying many things. Not there yet. That’s what we are slowly working on. Appreciate your prayers.

Now the stress has taken more toll on R, as she got this challenging news about her decline in health. Here’s her own words—

“Unfortunately I have received some news out of the blue. I’ve enjoyed relatively good health for 52 years. Yesterday I was officially diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. My blood pressure has been under control but have high cholesterol. I’ve had normal blood sugar but now it is off the roof. This just recently changed. I believe this is due to the stress of Covid and my parents. I am in total shock about this news and am now adjusting diet and taking a lot of meds. Thanks for letting me share this medical news so honestly.”

This is in addition to her having high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Now there’s high blood sugar. Some of you may have 1 or more of these conditions too, and they’re supposedly manageable. R would appreciate your prayers, and your encouraging words if you have life with diabetes too.