I love pictures...

I just decided to randomly select a picture and tell you a story. So - here it is. That's me in college with my 2 friends, Laura (middle) and Christina (right). Here's the story: not about the picture but about Christina.

Christina is dying of brain cancer. This picture was taken just months before her first of many surgeries and a 10 year struggle that, by all recent reports, is about to be over. I lost touch with Christina not long after college. But Laura recently brought me back up to speed on her condition. It's rocked my world.

I could say the normal stuff about facing-your-own-mortality. And that's true and startling. But for me the thing that I am feeling the most deeply is about the devastating possibility of losing a spouse. It's Jack (her husband) that I find myself thinking of. I love Bill and my boys so much that sometimes it hurts me. And finding out about Christina has just made me mourn for her spouse so deeply. I find myself thinking about them and praying for them all the time.

If you are reading this post, please stop right now and pray for them...pray these prayers with me:

Father - HEAL. Come now and be the Healer that IS. Touch Christina and heal her completely! I'm asking you for a miracle. I want to read about her in the newspaper as an inexplicable medical mystery. I want to giggle and know that it was YOU while I'm sitting in my living room with my hot chocolate watching Dr Phil interview her and all the baffled doctors.

God, you say that Jesus is the Good Shepherd...please send out a shepherd with your heart to take care of Jack. He has faith in you. Honor that, Lord, and send him someone who can tenderly guide Him to your comfort and your shelter during this terrible time.

Be the Redeemer. Redeem this family's faith. Bring them all home again to you. Let not one moment of Christina's struggle be wasted... Father, bring them all into relationship with your son.
Lastly - I'm asking you to call up Christina's intercessors all over the world...put her name...her full name on the lips of people praying in every country in every language all over the world. Call them forward to ask for her healing.

Amen. So may it be.