Hey guys! I've been enjoying the summer posts...from those of you brave enough to contribute :-). Also, has anyone watched Wipeout?? It's FREAKIN hilarious. Wow, I should feel bad laughing at people getting hurt, but they know it's coming! You should check it out sometime if you can :-).
I actually have a prayer request, so I figured I would just post it here because I figured it would have a pretty high likelihood of being seen. First off, Amanda's flying to Africa!!! Exciting but scary...I'll be praying for her as she flies tomorrow, as I'm sure all of you will be, too. Also, I have a very busy week ahead, which our family needs lots of prayer for. And sorry this is so long, I just don't know how else to condense it!
So this last week, my grandmother (Xantha...I know, it's pronounced Zantha...it's a flower) went to the hospital with abdominal pain which turned out to be acute pancreatitis which was caused by escaped stones from her gall bladder. They took out her gall bladder on Friday and were hoping to release her today but an X-ray showed that her lungs are starting to fill up with fluid so they're keeping her longer. She hasn't been doing her breathing exercises or walking as much as she should and needs to really get on top of these two things in order to improve and go home. So, if you could pray that she would find the strength and motivation to do both, and that she would heal quickly, that would be awesome.
The other thing is that my grandpa, her husband (yes, the same one who came to graduation and was yelling at people :-)), hasn't been handling it all very well because he is understandably exhausted from his treatments/his cancers. He doesn't have a lot of energy and cannot walk very far and these long days in the hospital have not been helping. He's also not the most tender of people (he loves my grandma, he just isn't very gentle) and it's been hard for him to see her in the hospital, so it's been making it more difficult on my grandma. To make matters more complicated, he has to go Tuesday for another round of chemo and my grandma is usually the one who takes care of him. So now they're both gonna be pretty under the weather, and we're gonna be trying our best to take care of them.
To top it all off, our 2nd cousin Randee and her 19 month old are flying in Wednesday morning for a two week visit (which we're stoked about)...but it makes the whole grandma/grandpa/Randee-visit a little more complex, especially if Grandma's not home from the hospital soon. I know Randee will understand, but it's just a little stressful for everyone, especially just trying to handle all the illnesses, etc.
So anyway, please pray for both of my grandparents and their respective health issues (which is so weird to say cause my grandparents have always been so strong and awesome!) and for our family to have strength and be able to support them in the way they need it. Also, my uncle who lives with them...pray that he'll be able to anticipate needs and be able to meet them. Pray for Randee who greatly needs this vacation and for our conversations with her--that God would be in them and that we would represent Him well to her (as she's in a place where she doesn't really see her need for a personal relationship with Him). Pray especially for me in the next week as I tend to get to the end of my rope rather quickly--especially that I would have peace and patience and not try to control things, since I have had much difficulty with those in the past! I am so thankful for all of you and miss you terribly! I can't WAIT till the Fall when we can all come together...CJ, you'll just have to come on down for the first week of school :-). Love you guys!
