We interupt our regularly scheduled program

A few years back, when our "little darlings" were younger and my Beloved was involved with MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers), we became friends with a family that was "not from around here".  Although there was little in our backgrounds in common something clicked between my Beloved and COWGIRL.  Even our children hit it off fairly well.  Well, as life usually does, it intervened in this friendship and they had to move away, but (my Beloved especially) has kept up the friendship.

Last week we found out that COWGIRL was diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer.  To make things even worse she is separated from her husband (to which i will NOT go  into detail), her family is also not in a good position to help support her as she seeks an aggressive treatment as possible.  Without my Beloved prompting me, i suggested that they come and stay with us so that she can seek treatment at Johns Hopkins Hospital, to which she has agreed to allow us to help her in this way.

I cannot imagine what this woman and her two children (son 13, daughter 8) are going through.  I cannot imagine what the next six months (and probably longer) are going to be like.  I cannot imagine how God will be using this time.  To be honest i am a little scared.  I am adding three people to my household, one who is very ill, one who is a young teenage boy, and another is a little girl (all girls baffle me).  There are times now i feel like i am holding on my the barest of fingernails as it is.  Now mix this in with my own teenage son, an Aspie pre-teen, a daughter who i never seem to have enough time for as it is now, and my Beloved and our relationship.  To be honest the odds are not on COWGIRL's side, and she knows it.  I've read 5 year survival rates of this stage cancer are at best 15%.  But we also know that her doctors where she is have not been doing the basics (she has of this note not seen an Oncologist yet).  She has already contacted the doctors at Johns Hopkins and is awaiting to get an appointment.  She is packing up her entire life and preparing for a four day (minimum) car drive East to settle in with us.  And at the same time she is hoping that God will give her the opportunity to unpack it all again.

I send this out to any and all of my fellow Christians who "stumble" upon this blog to pray for a miracle first, but if that not be God's will - that He has something else in mind, for His perfect grace, mercy, strength, courage, and peace be upon my home and all who live there.  Please pray for His hand to be involved in all aspects of our home, that His grace and mercy fill in ever nook and cranny of our lives, and that when we come out the other side His glory would be proclaimed.