Kate’s Crazy Cool Christmas (List)

(Again, originally this was posted by my wife on Kate’s Caringbridge)

So the Christmas drive is on, and an unbelievable thanks goes out to all of you! We are amazed and shocked by the HUGE response. We can’t wait! A few things I know I have failed to address…..

-First, we are asking that you don’t wrap the gifts so we can have people sort them as needed. We will get them wrapped though!

-Secondly, I know I have not posted a mailing address..

ATTN: Kate’s Crazy Cool Christmas 2211 E Pecos Rd Suite 2 Chandler AZ 85225

-Thirdly, we have received enough promises for Bibles, that we do not need to collect anymore!! How great is that!!! For those of you who have emailed me, we will count on you continuing to send the Bibles… if however, for any reason you are unable, please it is no problem. Once we are closer to the time, if we have not received enough we will purchase them! Please we want no one to feel obligated if for any reason they cannot continue to be involved!

Again thank you to all of you! The response has been more than encouraging.. we are actually thinking these gifts may spill over into the PICU and other areas! We know how stressful the PICU is! And would love to bless those kids also!

I know this is long but here is a wish list….
Infant
light up toys, noise making toys, crib mirror
Yo Gabba Gabba toys, dora toys
sesame street toys, thomas the train
Preschool
chunky cars and trucks
pirate ships and figures
Fisher Price spiraling speedway
princess toys
Games
Perfection, Jumpin Monkeys
Pretty pretty princess
Operation, Pizza Pile up
battleship, Bop-it
Catch Phrase
Other
treansformer toys
flip it remote control
older teen beads
models (cars, airplanes etc)
mp3 players
portable dvd players
ipod

 

 

 

Kate’s Crazy Cool Christmas

(My wife originally posted this on www.prayforkate.com a few weeks ago, but I wanted to make sure no one missed it. The response has been absolutely amazing, thanks to everyone who is making this happen. I will post the wish-list later…)

So we wanted to share an idea that we have been talking over for some time. I kept stalling, not sure about doing it. And then well, the night one of the kids up here passed away I felt an urgency to go ahead with it. It is about Christmas. Reality is, we could be at Phoenix Children’s Hospital for Christmas, which means, no Christmas with all of the kids together. And Kate’s birthday is the day after. The thought is so very discouraging. How could we not enjoy such a special holiday together. 2 kids at home, and one in the hospital going through an extremely tough and rigorous chemotherapy? No family breakfast, no opening stockings together, no traditions, no Christmas with the 5 of us.

So the more we thought about it, the more we realized, we may get the chance to be home, we just don’t know. But the reality is, there will be families up here. On the oncology floor, away from the traditions, their immediate families and extended families, fighting for the lives of their children. Some their resources spent to get their children treatment. Others deciding which children to spend Christmas with. Others wondering if this will be their last Christmas together. The thought never ceases to bring me to tears. And so we thought we could ask Kate’s amazing followers to help us try and make it a special day for these kids. We are asking for people to send donations for kids of all ages and around Christmas we will distribute the gifts to the families from all of you! We want these kids to know they are loved, thought of and treasured.

I wish fun gifts could take away a diagnosis, bring families back together, bring total healing. We obviously know it can’t. However, we can bring smiles where they may be lacking. And bring a glimmer of hope on very dark days. We would love it if you and your families would consider making these very special kids a part of your Christmas this year. Soon I will post some ideas for donations. I also want to include a kids Bible in each of the packages. After all, Christmas is about the love and sacrifice of Jesus. We want to offer that hope to all this Christmas!

busyness is not a virtue

I often find it interesting how we as humans brag about the strangest things. For instance, when did “I am so busy” become an acceptable answer to, “How are you doing?”. Many of us, me included, have this tendency to throw out “I am so busy” as if it is a badge of honor, a status symbol or some kind of measure of our importance and success. I am not advocating for idle hands or laziness, but being consumed by our ‘to-do lists’ doesn’t seem to be much of an alternative either. Our time is of great value, and we must be vigilant to spend it well, as the Apostle Paul said…

Ephesians 5: ¹⁵Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, ¹⁶making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

I need to be remind of this daily, I think most of us do! Unless of course you are like Martin Luther, who said something like: I have so much to do tomorrow that I must spend the first 3 hours in prayer. If this is you, feel free to totally disregard this post!

Trusting God (my latest read)

The other day I finished reading “Trusting God: Even When Life Hurts” by Jerry Bridges here are a some of the highlights for me. This was not an easy read for me at this time but it was an important one. I tried to reduce my selection of thoughts but found most too hard to delete. So here they are…(BOLD added by me)

-As Augustine said, “Nothing, therefore, happens unless the Omnipotent wills it to happen; he either permits it to happen, or he brings it about himself.”

-Our first priority in times of adversity is to honor and glorify God by trusting him…we honor God by choosing to trust him when we don’t understand what He is doing or why he has allowed some adverse circumstance to occur.

-God’s sovereignty and God’s promises were intended to stimulate prayer…Because God is sovereign, He is able to answer. Because He is faithful to His promises, He will answer.

-God always has a purpose for the grief He brings or allows in our lives. Most often we do not know what that purpose is, but it is enough to know that His infinite wisdom and perfect love have determined that the particular sorrow is best for us. God never wastes pain.

-Although we may be going to the Scriptures to learn how to respond to our adversities, we find those adversities help us to understand the Scriptures.

-For the believer all pain has meaning; all adversity is profitable.

-…trusting God is first of all a matter of the will and is not dependent on my feelings. I choose to trust God, and my feelings eventually follow.

-We are responsible to obey the will of God, but we are dependent upon the Holy Spirit for the enabling power to do it.

 

When Dr Phil Comes to Town

What an interesting day! We had the opportunity to have Dr. Phil visit our home and tape an episode of his show. Dr Phil and his wife Robin told us how they had been following Kate’s story from the very beginning and praying for us all the way. It was great to meet them and they were extremely gracious. We do not know when the show will air yet but we’ll pass the information on when we find out. We pray that God will use this episode to give hope to those going through hard times, to raise awareness and compassion, and in many other ways beyond our expectations. Here are a few pictures, maybe we will share more about all this in the future…

Pack Your Bags!!!

The other night Olivia came in the living room and declared, “I drew a picture of Kate’s tumor!” We all with horrified expressions looked at her to clarify what she just said. We couldn’t believe what we heard, and couldn’t imagine what the picture would look like. To our surprise and delight we saw this beautiful drawing of a blob with eyeballs, and a bag in hand.

Olivia proceeded to tell us that the bag was the tumor’s suitcase because it was packing up to leave Kate…Whew!!! We finally were able to breathe, and even laugh at the imaginative way a 7 year old deals with pain and deals out hope. Thank you God for the faith of a child!

Our Happy Anniversary

Well, for our 9th anniversary celebration today I am sitting in Kate’s hospital bed and Holly has been cleaning the room so Kate can hopefully head home tomorrow morning. Not exactly how we planned to spend this day but we will make the most of it. In fact, I have promised Holly a pepperoni pizza and corn dog from the hospital cafeteria for dinner, cause I know how to treat my lady right! It’s amazing how the years have flown by and how much we have experienced through our years together. One thing is certain our 9 years have not been boring, and I know well how blessed I am to have Holly as my wife. I am reminded of this…

Proverbs 18:22 ²² He who finds a wife finds what is good
and receives favor from the LORD.

I can testify that I have received great favor from the Lord and my wife is not just a good find she’s grrreeaattt! So today in the midst of our all our troubles I can’t help but say ‘thank you Lord’ for my beautiful wife and my incredible children! Thank you Jesus for being so gracious…

Fall Break and Olivia Is Still Busy!!!

Our oldest Olivia must have been in an important conferins (conference) in the playroom. Kate, Holly and I have all been living at the hospital for a couple of weeks now, so Aunt Stephanie sent us this picture to show us what we are missing out on. We miss being around for moments like these. Please pray for Olivia and Will, that God would protect them and guard their hearts while we are away from each other.

Kate’s Dog???

Should we get this Golden-Doodle for Kate? I am not sure if it is cute enough or not…

thoughts on fasting

In Celebration of Discipline, Richard J. Foster has a great chapter called ‘The Discipline of Fasting’. Here are a few highlights that keep me on track!

-Biblical fasting always centers on spiritual purposes.

-In most cases fasting is a private matter between the individual and God. There are, however, occasional times of corporate or public fasts.

-Fasting is not necessarily a commandment…but…in Matthew 6 Jesus does not say. ‘If you fast,’ neither does he say ‘You must fast’. His word is, very simply, ‘When you fast’.

-Fasting must forever center on God. If our fasting is not unto God, we have failed. Physical benefits, success in prayer, the enduing with power, spiritual insights- these must never replace God as the center of our fasting…Once the primary purpose of fasting is firmly fixed in our hearts, we are liberty to understand that there are also secondary purposes in fasting.

-Fasting reminds us we are sustained ‘by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’ )Matthew 4:4

-You will be engaging in spiritual warfare that will necessitate using all the weapons of Ephesians 6.

-Fasting can bring breakthroughs in the spiritual realm that can never happen in any other way.

In asking for a time of prayer and fasting for Kate, we are hoping to be a part of a movement that seeks God more passionately, knows Him more intimately and see’s His glory revealed on earth. Kate’s healing is important and we will continue to cry out to God that He will be gracious and grant our request. However, His glory is the ultimate goal and all of our efforts in prayer are to exalt Jesus! God gives us the unbelievable privilege to have access to Him in prayer and to trust that He actually hears us! So, with boldness we call out, with hope we know He is listening, and in fasting we withdraw from the cares of this world for a time to declare Jesus, You are LORD!

PRACTICALLY: We strive to saturate our times of prayer and fasting with…

Praise

Psalm 9:1-2 I will praise you, O LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonders. I will be glad and rejoice in you; I will sing praise to your name, O Most High.

Scripture

Matthew 4:4 Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.