Month: February 2011

Psalm 63

February 19, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

My verse for today..

Psalm 63

1 O God, You are my God; I shall seek You earnestly;

My soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You,

In a dry and weary land where there is no water.

2-4 So here I am in the place of worship, eyes open,

drinking in your strength and glory.

In your generous love I am really living at last!

My lips brim praises like fountains.

I bless you every time I take a breath;

My arms wave like banners of praise to you.

5 You satisfy me more than the richest feast
I will praise you with songs of joy.
6 I lie awake thinking of you,
meditating on you through the night.
7 For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings will I rejoice.

8 My whole being follows hard after You and clings closely to You;

Your right hand upholds me.

9 But those who seek my life to destroy it,
Will go into the depths of the earth.
10 They will be delivered over to the power of the sword;

They will be a prey for foxes.

11 But the king will rejoice in God;

Everyone who swears by Him will glory,

For the mouths of those who speak lies will be stopped.

A few months ago I started gathering a collection of my favorite Psalms.

I purposely left out all the parts that said things like “God kill my enemies,” because I was thinking in the natural of the people who were trying to take David’s life.

I felt kinda funny about “editing” the Bible that way

and knew something had to be wrong with it, but justified myself thinking

that maybe pre-Jesus it was impossible to love your enemies.. and now

that we are living in New Covenant times we have grown past those verses.

I felt pretty strongly about not keeping the verses

because after learning several years ago that “Hurt people hurt people,”

I had purposely developed a habit of walking in compassion and

forgiveness towards the people who hurt me.

And I definitely wouldn’t want God to destroy anyone on my behalf… until now.

This week a friend introduced me to

“The Healing School” CD set by Katie Souza of Expected End Ministries.

And Katie reminded me that I do have an enemy.. not of flesh and blood but..

“against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world

and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” Eph 6:12

I love to pray and intercede and war, but my deep desire is to worship

and sometimes war seems like an added bother. It’d sure be nice if the devil would

just admit his defeat and give up and run away with his tail between his legs.

He obviously hasn’t. There is still evil in this world and it’s up to us

to usher in God’s light and overcome the darkness.

And we can do it through His strength, goodness and faithfulness.

Worship and war are inseparable and

that is why they found are together in the Psalms.

My view of the “Destroy my enemies” Psalms has forever changed.

“Get them God. Destroy my enemies. Cut off those who seek to destroy me.

Send them to the depths of the earth. Defeat them with Your sword!”

I am hearing something like this from God:

I am His child. He claims me as His.

I am to rest in the shadow of His wings where His healing

beams are and feast on His love and goodness while He destroys my enemies for me.

He is a great and mighty warrior and in the end I am going to bask in His glory.

Jeremiah 1:8 and 20:11, 2 Chronicles 20:15, Malachi 4:1-3,

Psalms 23, 24, 36, 63 and 91

I have an appointment here on Tuesday with a nutritionist

that I hope can teach me how to take better care of myself naturally.

Then another appointment in Birmingham at UAB with a surgeon

named Dr. Helen Krontiras on Thursday, March 3rd in the morning.

We have to be there early for more mammograms and I am praying:

A. That between now and then my enemy will be defeated and I will

be completely and totally healed and the new mammograms

will shock and confuse the doctors and

I will come out of there rejoicing and the devil will be

so sorry he ever messed with me.

(and a distant) B. If mammograms show same thing as before,

God will give Mike, I and the doctor wisdom and agreement about what to do.

Thanking Jesus for His lovingkindness and for teaching me why He

wrote the Psalms the way He did.. He is so much wiser and higher than I .. 🙂

Jenny

Clarkson Bridge Park

February 19, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

This week has just been beautiful.

Weather in the high 60’s and yesterday it got up around 70.

We couldn’t stand spending all week inside so we got out and met some good friends

that we met originally in FL in Cullman at a covered bridge there.

The bridge was built in 1904.

Just beautiful.

Houston, Holden, Abbey, Judi, Joel and Zoë

Kids had a grand time hiking and playing hide and seek.

And we moms enjoyed just sitting and talking in the fresh air.

Valentines

February 15, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

We had a great Valentine’s Day.

Mike got me this beautiful hydrangea plant.

Did you know that you can take hydrangea as a supplement
and it will dissolve kidney stones?
I know from experience. Most regular doctors don’t know.

I made Valentine bookmarks (above) for our homeschool bowling party.

The bowling party was all Judi’s idea. She remembers going bowling (ages 5-9)

on Valentine’s with our homeschool group in San Antonio.

She made these beautiful cookies (from a roll).

Everyone said they were delicious.

The radiologist that I had an appointment with today called yesterday to cancel my appointment. She wants to move me to a different location. I was glad she cancled, because after all I’ve read about radiation I’ve decided not to do it.

I am waiting now to hear from the breast center in Birmingham

about new appointments with a surgeon and oncologist there.

When I talked to UAB last week, I found out that the one allergist that worked at the hospital last day was in December. 🙂 At this point I am kinda hoping that UAB has more options than were offered here. Ones that don’t include surgery would be nice.

I’ve read that only 10-25% of people with DCIS ever develop an invasive breast cancer. If I refuse to take the drug they want to give me (one of it’s side effects is uterine cancer), and refuse to do radiation, I am not sure how much surgery will decrease my chances.

And the corn I am exposed to during surgery could increase my chances of going into anaphylactic shock when exposed to corn in the future.

I’ve been reading about a supplement called Diindolylmethane (DIM) that helps fight hormone dependent cancers (which mine is). Here is a link.

Still believing for healing and lots of wisdom.

Love,

Jenny

The Blessing of the Lord Makes You Truly Rich

February 12, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

I love this verse from Proverbs

The blessing of the Lord–it makes [truly] rich, and He adds no sorrow with it [neither does toiling increase it]. Proverbs 10:22 AMP

I love that God loves to make us truly rich in every way and that He adds no sorrow with it. And that there is absolutely nothing I can do to earn more love or favor or blessing. Jesus has earned it all for me. It’s all mine.

I found a great collection of healing scriptures and confessions by Joyce Meyer.

You can look at it/download it here.

Love,

Jenny

Having a “Good Day” and Spiritual Warfare

February 11, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

I Peter 3:10

Whoever would love life

and see good days
must keep their tongue from evil
and their lips from deceitful speech.

To me everyday is a good day. Bad things happen sometimes, but they are still good days because God is good and He makes all things new everyday and is always working all things for my good. I never judge a day by what happens in it.

Some days are harder than others. Some days I have to press closer into God to make it through but they are still good days because His mercies are new every morning, His grace and truth carry me through each and every moment.

Wednesday night, I felt something heavy at the pit of my stomach, then yesterday there was kinda a funk in the air. Before lunch, I decided to take my laundry in my room, close the door and turn on my worship music. I have an ipod speaker system in my room and often set my ipod to play a random list of songs while I worship in my “closet.” Every time “just the right song” plays.

This time it was “They that Wait.”

One run through of that song and I realized that I had been attacked by doubt, conquered it, and was set free into joy again. Worship is a powerful spiritual weapon. I love it!

When you are worshiping, it’s easy to move beyond keeping your tongue from evil into declaring His wonders with David.

Psalm 40:5
Many, LORD my God, are the wonders you have done, the things you planned for us. None can compare with you; were I to speak and tell of your deeds, they would be too many to declare.

Love,

Jenny

2nd Law of Thermodynamics

February 11, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

A couple of months before I went for my mammogram, the Lord began speaking to me about my appearance. Kinda gave me a pep talk encouraging me to work on it more.

I tend to fall into decay just like the earth under the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. One of the major reasons I believe it takes a whole lot more faith to believe in evolution than it does in a Creator.

In the winter months especially, there are all those holidays with all that wonderful food, and when it’s cold, I like nothing better than to bundle up in nice stretchy sweats and a hoodie. Most of my time is spent at home schooling the kids, so what’s the point of looking nice?

The point is our body is the temple of the Holy Spirit and we need to do our best to make sure it’s glorifying Him. It’s much easier for us to reach out and love those around us when are in the best physical shape that we can be in. Just being in the presence of someone who is physically, mentally and spiritually fit is a blessing.

I’ve known this for a very long time, but have a very hard time with followthrough. I am praying that as I repent that God will work in me the will and the act of His good purpose (Philippians 2:13). I have a lot to learn about physical fitness and nutrition. I don’t want my body to remain in the same condition that allowed the mutated cells to live in the first place.

I’ve made a little progress since Monday. I have an appointment with a radiologist in Birmingham on Tuesday morning. She is doing a trial study where instead of going for 5 days a week for 6 weeks of radiation, they are giving it twice a day for 5 days with good results. The more I read about my diagnosis and radiation the more I move away from the idea of doing any radiation.

My mom has been a great help to me. She and Mike are both studying and researching with me. I am so thankful for the Wisdom that they both walk in and their prayers and encouragement.

This is the verse that I keep coming back to. I am so happy that God is my God and I am His possession. He makes all things beautiful.

Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you;

do not be dismayed, for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Love,

Jenny

Monday’s Progress

February 8, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

This is what my day was like yesterday..

Wide awake at 4 AM.
Which was good because I needed to get some questions together for the allergists I was planing to see. God so totally helped me with them. Sunday I didn’t have the ability to think straight enough to even start.

6:30 AM .. Drive with James to work.
We are sharing a car right now. I made him a little late because I lost track of time.. but not too, too late.

7:30 AM..
Run home get ready really quick because I was already behind schedule.

8:00 AM
Run out the door to drop Zoë at the vet for her spay.

I hate being late.. God cleared the roads for me and the GPS got me to my first appointment only 5 minutes after their office opened and 25 minutes before my appointment.

8:30 AM See first allergist..
Actually, I never saw any allergist.. I handed an introductory letter to the receptionist who gave it to the doctor to read over first so I wouldn’t waste time and money if they couldn’t help me.

Both allergist suggested I go to UAB which has a cancer center where I would have a team of doctors including an allergist (I think) work together.

9 AM See breast cancer nurse for counseling at Breast Cancer Center.
She was wonderful, sweet, a Christian and has an interest in and some knowledge about holistic medicine.. which makes her just perfect for me. 🙂 She will be following me throughout my case.

She mentioned a couple of things that were really helpful.
One. The doctors can give me something like Benadryl before the surgery to help lessen any reactions I might have. I don’t like to take stuff, so I normally just suffer through.

Two. Although for the most part my allergy symptoms have only been uncomfortable, they can be prepared to help me if they escalate into anaphylactic shock during surgery. I should also read more about anaphylactic shock, so that if I do go into anaphylactic shock, it won’t be as scary.

Three. They caught my cancer so early that it’s actually considered pre-cancerous. I like that. 🙂

10:30 AM Second allergist suggested I go to UAB.

**Through all this I started thinking about how your body is designed to destroy it’s own cancer cells and how the stress that my corn allergy causes in my body is probably a big part of why it hasn’t. This is a HUGE thought that I am not sure what to do about yet.. something I am setting at Jesus’ feet.

11 AM Home for a lunch break..
And a bunch of phone calls to our insurance, to a doctor’s office at UAB, and to cancel appointments here. And I got a 30 min. nap in. 🙂

1:30 PM Run to Costco for black ink and pick up James for his doctors appointment.
I got to talk to Mike on the phone for a little bit here. He is starting a new office at work. They are having a hiring “pause,” which is making it difficult to build a team to do all the work that they want him to do. He is flying to DC today to work on setting up the people he has there so far and won’t be back until Thursday night. **He is really getting hit from all sides and needs lots of prayer.

3 PM See James’ doctor
Which is also my primary doctor.. who did a very good job with him. She talked to him about exercising so that his body could be in top shape and fight off the little cancer cells that develop in each of our bodies everyday. So now, we all have extra motivation to exercise.

4:30 Pick up Zoë

5:30 Eat and phone calls

6:30 Update Mike in person

7:30 Gymnastics with Judi

I am so glad life goes on. I wouldn’t want it to stop for me.. 🙂

Bed.. and I slept really good.. Mike said something about the kids accidently hurting Zoë and did I hear her screaming last night. I didn’t hear a thing. 🙂

So to sum things up.. I learned:
Stress is bad.
Allergies cause stress.
Exercise is good.

My next steps are to get in to see a radiologist at UAB so that I can decide if or not I want to totally rule that out, to learn more about seeing an allergist there, and to look over this huge notebook the breast cancer nurse gave me.

Have a great day,

Jenny

Blogging

February 8, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

Yesterday was so jam packed with doctor appointments (mine, our puppy, Zoë’s, and one for James, too), that when I woke up this morning it took me a while to realize that it was only Tuesday and not Saturday. ha ha

Blogging is going to be so much different now. Up until now I’ve only had my Mom, two sisters and one or two friends ever look at it. I didn’t have to worry much about what I said, but was still very careful to write exactly what I wanted to say and took time to re-read through everything and tried to check my grammar and everything.

The kids would complain from time to time that I spent too much time on my blog. I thought, “You should see how few post I’ve written.” And they didn’t know that when I wrote post about deep heart stuff, that sometimes I spent days praying about what I wanted to write before I even started.

Now I don’t want to let too many days go by with out updating my blog. One: because I know what it’s like to have a dear, young friend with breast cancer and to be praying fervently and to long for news.

Two: because although I really would rather just have this little journey done and over with quickly then soon forgotten, it’s probably better that I relish every day of it.. the same as I’ve learned to relish and enjoy each and every day of my life and write as much as I can, so I can remember God’s faithfulness to me.

Much of the time, the reason I write my blog has been to give a testimony of God’s goodness to my kids. They don’t read my blog. They think they know everything about me and that it would be super redundant, and they are probably right because through my years of homeschooling I discovered that sharing my love for Jesus and my life with them is what being a parent is about.. you know Deuteronomy 6 ..and being at home for school has enabled me to do a lot of that.

For example, Judi and I have been reading this wonderful book by Sarah Mally called “Before You Meet Prince Charming.” I have been soooo happy with it. If you know anyone with a daughter who is ages 12 or up, I suggest you get it for them or if you have a daughter that age, that you read it with them. It’s about purity and she has said everything I would like to say to Judi and more. Reading it with her has enabled me to share much of my heart about purity with her. One of the last things we read was about defrauding and how in dating it’s easy to lead someone on because you like the attention, how that is a form of defrauding and hurts the other person deeply.

Back to what I was leading up to.. I need to be more spontaneous now.. write and post and not worry to much about grammar, and if or not the “secret” I want share might be too personal, or what someone might think about it, or wither or not I am ready to be criticized for it, or if later I will look back and think, “That was so childish.”

So here’s my secret for today.. The last 7 or so years I have been so completely in love with Jesus and so long to see Him and to be with Him that I am so totally fine with leaving this earth that I have actually prayed more than once that I could be like Enoch who walked with God and then wasn’t. I am ready when He is..

BUT I know I STILL need my Mom and Dad and I still really, REALLY need my wonderful husband.. so even though my heart longs for Him to be ready to take me now.. I hope He isn’t so I can be here for my husband and kids and I intend to live a really long, wonderful life filled with many grandchildren and great-grandchildren, too.. AND I fully expect to be here when Jesus comes back in the clouds.

This is one thing my kids do know about me. I think about it a lot and it’s hard not to tell them because I really, REALLY love being with Jesus and I really, REALLY want to see Him coming in the clouds, and I really REALLY want to see my children happily married with lots of wonderful little blessings to call me Grams.

Time to run (not think or check my grammar),

Love,

Jenny

God is Good and on the Throne

February 6, 2011 / Jennifer Coleman / 0 Comments

I have had some difficult news this week, but God is good and on the Throne. He has everything under His control, and He works everything together for the good of those who love Him.

I have a secret. I am more radical lover of Jesus than any of you know, than even I can understand. I am sorry for keeping it a secret. I was afraid you wouldn’t understand. You can be, too, if you aren’t already. All you have to do is ask.

I used to see the commandments “Love God with all your heart, soul and mind. And love others as you love yourself.” as something I had to do. Then one day, I got sick of my own failure and dared to ask God to help me to love Him.

You see, our RIGHTEOUS is as filthy rags. All the love I could muster was filthy rags. But because of what Jesus did for us we ARE the RIGHTEOUSNESS of GOD in Christ Jesus. All we have to do is ASK and receive, tap into what Jesus has given us and walk in it.

God has given me so much through this revelation. I told him that I was tired of feeling luke warm; He gave me a deep burning hunger. I told him that I needed to love Him more; He gave me a love so deep that it scares me. And much more..

Several years ago, He started showing me my sin and the wrong thoughts that were leading me into it. I asked Him to forgive and change me and He did. I did NOTHING but ASK and receive. I was set free by the truth He was showing me. It’s been a wonderful, growing, freeing give (on His part) and take (on my part) relationship.

This week I went for my annual mammogram and some calcifications showed up on the films that they needed to biopsy. I had to wait for a couple of days for a report. I called a friend for prayer the week before and I have felt an overwhelming peace and joy ever since.

I normally am easily given to fear. I have a several verses that I speak over myself.. like “When I am afraid, I will trust in you,” “Let not your heart be troubled,” and “Perfect love drives out fear.” Somewhere in speaking those verses, I realized that fear is a choice just like happiness is a choice and God empowered me to choose not to be afraid. It was wonderful.

The report was not what I had hoped. I tested positive for DCIS which is an early stage of breast cancer that has a very high cure rate. You can read more about it http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/dcis/DS00983

The decisions and road ahead of me are not easy, but I know that God loves me and will be with me every step of the way. I believe that I am the healed (past tense) of the beloved (Jesus, my betrothed) and I know my life is hidden in Him, and I trust Him wholeheartedly. Actually I am ASKING Him for the wholehearted part as I type. 🙂

Prayer request for now:

Total and complete healing.
WISDOM
An allergist, who can help me with going though surgery with a corn allergy (if not healed before then). If can read more about my struggle with corn here.
That I will know the right questions to ask the doctors and have WISDOM and PEACE about what I should do and whom I should let do it.
That my wonderful husband will have favor and be extremely successful in pulling together the new office he is sitting up in his job.
That my children will see what needs to be done around the house and have the grace and desire to do it.
That I will GLORIFY God through all of this.

Thank you for your prayers. I love you all very much. I will try to share all the wonderful secrets that I learn, keep you up to date with prayer request and all the wonderful things God is doing for, through and in me.

Love,

Jenny