While I slept

I got up at 6:00 yesterday to write to you, but Chuck had already beat me to the race. So today I get to tell you, from a heart overflowing with gratitude, how well I feel. By Friday morning I was drinking clear fluids freely, and I began eating simple foods by noon. Yesterday I was ravenous and could eat anything. This morning (hear the joy?) we're planning to go to Sunday school.

Yesterday morning, in the light drizzle, I went out to see what I could do about the winter detritus in the flower beds. To my delight, I discovered that while I slept the past several days, God was doing His thing. Tulips and daffodils are blooming, iris will open soon, and peonies are up about 24" and budded. I filled a trash can with dead and dried plant materials I should have removed months ago, and it looks much better. Sadly, Chuck had to pull out at least six shrubs that we lost in last year's drought.

Our Liberian friend reported in Sunday school last Sunday that the mass removed from her throat was definitely not cancer. Then she said, "When I had to leave Liberia and come all by myself to America, my people said, 'What will you do in another country without family? How will you get along with no family?" My daughter said, 'You can't live alone without family, you will not live.' But I told my daughter, 'God will make a way.' Now see [and she gestured toward the people and the church building] I have family. I came here and I be here all these years and I have never be without family. That's all I can want to say." And she sat down--with moist eyes all around the room. (She left Liberia about 14 years ago after her first husband was killed for being of the wrong ethnic group.) Later, another class member asked, "Did God send her to us to give us a special way to serve Him? How easy she makes it for us!" Her husband still needs a heart transplant.

And the class member who received a kidney transplant last summer is in grave danger in the hospital. Her immune system (white blood cells) is almost zero, and she has two infections.

Have a blessed day.

Carol