In A Fog

I’ve been on a roller coaster ride these last two weeks. Back attack, constipation, then more massive back attack that required my family to carry me to the bathroom.  On Labor Day weekend, my daughter and her boyfriend drove from Davis to visit and I prayed so hard that God will give me a miracle for the walking portion so that I wouldn’t freak her out too much.  Then it happened on Saturday night.  On Sunday morning and thereafter, I could start walking again. Praise the Lord.  Just in time to give my daughter hope that her mom is not spiraling downwards.

Then a few days ago, hospice sent a professional massage therapist over to work on my back and I caught a nasty cold, threw up, felt loopy most of the time, the body not feeling my own.  The following night, the back pain came back with a vengeance, and now even the front ribs for some reason.  So after these many months of thinking that it’s muscle spasms only, I now know it’s probably deeper that topical ointment or bandages won’t be able to fix.

Since then I have finally succumbed to taking liquid morphine every 2-3  hours. I feel loopy most of the time but I will figure this out and get maximum mileage out of the drug and the time I have.  As you all know, I have been trying to stay away from morphine all this time because I was worried that I couldn’t hear the Lord with a barrier of medication, and that morning before the nurse came, I cried and cried and cried buckets but He gave me permission to take it.  I could still hear Him and talk to Him and when I have 25 mins of clear headedness within the 2-3 hours, I read the Word or draw.  I continue to thank Him.  I thank Him for morphine, and I thank Him for keeping the channel open.  At least now, I am pain free.

And not only that, the Lord continues to peel layers and layers of unfinished business and inadequacies that I have.  This is a very special time with my family, as I am bed ridden and they look after me around the clock when they are not at school.  I even got a new wardrobe of sleepwear because that’s what I am wearing most of the time and when I leave it to the boys to do the laundry, I need more than 2 change of clothes.  I feel so spoiled with 7 pairs of sleepwear and more to come from my shopping-happy husband.  On the bright side, I am finishing at least 2-3 drawings everyday, zen doodle style.  Too bad I don’t have the energy to upload them anymore.  I could make it to the dining room and back and that’s it for now.  One of these days, I’ll go farther.  I have not given up hope that Abba is going to heal me in the end.

I Will Follow Him

The longest week has just passed.  For a couple times I thought I was ready to go home to the Lord as my body slowed and I only wanted to sleep but my friend, Sharon, called and said I had to go to the doctor.  She had prayed for me for an hour and God gave her a vision that I had to get something out of my body.  Having walked from cancer treatment, the doctor is the last thing I think about these days.  But even the clinic said fainting, dizzyness and chest pains are beyond the scope of the clinic and I should head right over to ER at 5 pm that night.  And so I did.  This time, my middle son drove me.  I am no longer alone.  And there, they found fluid build up around the heart drowning it, suppressing healthy heartbeats.  More of that, it would stop the beat altogehter.  I didn’t even tell my husband who was away in Washington for 3 weeks when I undertook the procedure, perio cardiocentisis, where they took 1 liter of fluid out at the operating table and 750 ml the next day.  The next day, they cut a perio cardio window to drain the liquid to the tummy.  All this time, I hid it from my husband when he finished his work up there.  I only did it so he would not find me dead when he came back and I bought some time for us and not leave the kids stranded so to say.  He rushed home when the doctor called him.

One week later, I am finally out of the hospital, the last night being the hardest.  I didn’t know if I was going to make it.  Then when I signed on for hospice, I didn’t realize how affected I get with all the equipment, the hospital bed, the wheelchair, commode, walker cast a negativity on me.  I couldn’t sleep into the PVC heavy smelling bed and I kept having spiritual attack every night that I could sleep only 10 mins at most every 3 or 4 hours.  I felt I was dying even faster at home.  Then we finally raked up my old daughter’s bed in the living room to hold over until that hospice bed gets hauled away.

Hospice has great service and concept but it is the last resort.  They don’t expect someone like me wanting rehabilitation and resistance to slip further.  I’m fighting every inch of the way, every second for my family because they are just not ready for me to leave.  I asked the Lord what does He want me to do at the marsh.  I told him I’m just a simple girl and He has to make it simple for me to understand.  It’s so hard.  He said, “Nothing.  Just coast from now onwards.  It’s extra time for you and your family.  Just enjoy time when you are ready to come home.”  I cried and complained and I wanted to be able to eat too, simple things like sushi, rice with pork chop, oriental buffet or Indian buffet.  I want to eat with my family.  He didn’t answer me directly but this morning after telling my episode to a regular of the marsh trail and a neighbor, the Lord suddenly lifted the excruciating pain on my back that plagued me for two nights.  Now I just need to wait for recovery.

Not only have I walked away from all cancer drugs, I’m walking away from any morphine, painkillers or heart medicine to stabilize the heart.  The Lord made my heart and my body.  He has so much power He just needed to touch me to regulate it.  I don’t need medicine.  If it fails, it fails and I get to go home.  This is the testimony I have for all of you readers.  If you truly believe in the power of Jesus Christ, trust Him all the way.  There’s no other way.

Throughout all this, I have to thank all the people who pray for me.  Two churches are joining hands up here to pray for me, entire churches.  All the Herald Cancer Care Chinese group in the Bay Area, a lot of my online friends, and a lot of my nieces’ Christian congregation in Hong Kong.  And a caring family who looks after me every second and all the cancer support group friends who come visit.  There is so much love around me. How could I give up so easily.

Not so long ago, I watched Sister Act movies again and delight in the original.  The rendition of this song, I Will Follow Him, is so appropriate, so lively.  It speaks of my heart for God.

One night the Lord gave me a message at home.  He said that just like my body needs every part to be well enough before it could make progress and improve, the body of Christ needs to have every segment within its body to be in total unison on its mission, goal, before anything could happen to that church, before it could move forward.  I delivered the message to three churches that I visit.  The Lord continues to open my mind to His lessons daily.

As of writing, I am ambulatory.  I can’t walk more than two mail boxes away and had to sit and rest but I could shower, do the dishes, the wash very slowly and carefully.  It felt like a throw back to 19 months ago when cancer struck but this time, I have the Lord with me everyday, and a community and family of love I never imagined I would have.  That is the blessing in itself.

By the grace of God, I am still alive.  Every day is a miracle. And I won’t stop sharing His word and my testimony, nor will I stop laying hands on people and pray for them.  The Lord has trained me well and in the last couple of weeks, shown me signs and wonders.  When He moves, it is incredible.  People’s financial situaltion improves and health gets restored.  I’m ruined for life.  Having seen Him working the supernatural and divine healing through me, I’m ruined.  I can’t settle for a normal life.  I Will Follow Him!!

 

[Book Review] Love, Medicine & Miracles by Bernie S. Siegel, M.D.

The full title to this book is Love, Medicine & Miracles: Lessons learned about self-healing from a surgeon’s experience with exceptional patients.  Dr. Siegel admitted to becoming very depressed because the medical profession felt more and more like a mechanics shop and people continues to die quickly no matter how he tries to patch them up.  It has nothing to do with the skills of the surgeons but that hopelessness of patients often causes their demise sooner than they should especially when doctors always give estimates of the chance of success and survival rate.  The lower the rate, the faster the patient succumbs to the actualization of that predicatment.  It is absolutely true.  The medical profession usually only tabulate statistics on those who went through with the treatment and not those who are stubborn and walk away from treatment and becomes an outlier.  Siegel is not proposing that we all walk away from treatment.  He believes positive thinking or faith are equally important as the success of a treatment.  Nothing new there but it’s revealing to see a doctor agonize over patient’s psychology.  The book itself doesn’t have a lot of miracles and not a lot of God in it.  So if you want more of that, you need to look elsewhere.  I don’t really care for the parts about dream or drawing interpretation or guided imagery.  But considering out of 21 books I was given to read on patients and cancer care, this one is readable.

[Book Review] Kathryn Kuhlman by Benny Hinn

This is a thin book that has Benny Hinn as author but most of the book are excerpts of Kathryn Kuhlman’s ministry from Kuhlman’s own books. Benny Hinn did write about his own experience in Toronto when he attended Kuhlman’s ministry healing service for the first time but that portion is also found in Benny Hinn’s Good Morning, Holy Spirit.   In this book though, Benny Hinn clarified that he had never met Kathryn Kuhlman in private and therefore, his anointing was not directly from her.  Nevertheless, he was very affected by Kuhlman’s personal knowledge and reliance of the Holy Spirit and that was how he too started once he started inviting the Holy Spirit to guide his life.

[Book Review] How To See In The Spirit by Michael R. Van Vlymen

This book, How To See In The Spirit: A Practical Guide On Engaging The Spirit Realm, is exactly as what the title said.  Unlike The Veil by Blake E. Healy telling us what the spirit realm looks like, this one literally gives you steps on how to go about calming yourself down, brush away all the noise around us and listen to God’s voice.  It describes journaling, santification, prayer, exercise your senses and waiting on God.  A very thorough manual.  Having read all these books, I have decided it is not really paramount that I see in the spirit realm.  It is good to know what’s around us.  I am happy just to evangelize and lay hands on people and pray for them.

Bless the Lord

Sometimes I wonder how much more my heart could take when I cry out and sob and weep so miserably for the sick, the unsaved and my friends stuck in their Christian walk.  Today, I felt as though my heart was failing and would break apart any moment and I managed enough strength to crawl into bed. For only a few, I feel that way already.  How much more a burden our Lord carries for the whole humanity every moment.  Does Jesus smile on the world more than He grieves for it?

Posted June 15, 2014:

Just came back from another 5 day trip dropping off my daughter’s car for her 5 hours away and taking an 8 hour Amtrak train/bus home. I’m exhausted.  During those few days, I was waiting and waiting for the car to have a major overhaul and one thing led to another and we still don’t have the car and in the meantime, I had no access to McDonald’s for french fries and milkshake to boost my calorie intake.  Chinese noodle dishes just don’t cut it for protein or calorie count and I think on average, I could only stay awake 5 hours each day, mostly bed ridden because of poor diet.  Protein shake and protein bars are the only way and I didn’t have access to any that were sugar free without transport.  Glad to be home.  But all is not lost.  A friend lent me 21 cancer caregiving support books and I whipped through all but 3 of them so that was productive.

Ever since the Benny Hinn Miracle Service and the Bethel Redding Healing Conference, I had been weeping a lot for those who weren’t healed and also those who refuse my offer of prayers, those who walk away at the mention of God but I think I feel finally more stabilized.  I now understand the grief of the Trinity of our sickness, illness, stubbornness, arrogance and pride.  I’ll just have to do my best and press on to transmit that love from God.  I am finally back to a more stable operating level.

Give thanks

These two weeks I have consistently met homeless people, strangers in the street, and new patients all diagnosed with Stage IV cancer and the recurrent thread in our life is that we are all grateful for every day that we are still alive.  When I ask them what to pray for them, the first thing is not necessarily the total healing of their bodies, but that their families be able to walk with them spiritually and emotionally, or that their financial circumstances would just be a bit more stabilized while they ride through this storm of their life.  And then, they ask for removal of this incurable disease.

I believe the acknowledgement that cancer is incurable has already prepared the fellow patients and therefore spiritual and emotional health come to the forefront.  Very often, God has already touched their soul and strengthened them as they go through this trial while their family is still lagging behind.

Chris Gore, the director of the healing ministry, in Bethel Church, Redding, wrote in his book, Walking in the Supernatural, about giving thanks for every little things the Lord gives us and here’s a wonderful illustration.

At one of his conference, he called up a man in the audience in the front and gave him 1 cent and asked him if he is thankful to the Lord. He said he was and he thanked the Lord for it. Then Chris gave the man a $10 note, a 1000 times increase.  “And now?” Chris asked.  The man was very thankful and praised the Lord again. The director said you have to be constantly thankful for every small thing because the Lord will bless your gratefulness. Unknown to the director, the man was in dire need of $50,000 and that day, he went back to the parents-in-law house for lunch. The in-laws were trying to sell the house for a whole year and the market was down and no one was buying but at lunch time that day, suddenly, the realtor walked in with a prospective client and the client put a deposit down on the spot to buy the house. The in-laws previously have promised their son-in-law that if they ever sold their house, they would give him $50,000. The man ran back to the conference to report what happened with being grateful for 1 cent.

When we give praise to the Lord for every single breath in the morning, He will hear us and bless us.  For every improvement we feel on our bodily, emotional and spiritual state, thank Him for the progress and we will see more coming.  Do not focus on what He hasn’t done yet.  Negativity never works. Focus on what He has blessed you with already.  For my fellow cancer patients, when I pray for them, I ask also for the small improvements they want to see immediately: a return of the taste bud that has been traumatized by chemotheraphy, agility in fingers that has been numbed by neuropathy so they could play the keyboard again, an opening up of the throat so they could swallow pills without difficulty and sing praises again.  Those are the areas I pray for first, and then the rest.  Healing comes in many forms: miracles which are instantaneous and you see immediately, evident mostly in conditions like a bad back, a hurt joint, arthritis, asthma, stomach pain and etc; healing which could be longer term and takes time; and emotional/spiritual healing with or without physical healing to follow.  Kathryn Kuhlman, the evangelist in the 60’s and 70’s who healed thousands just by talking about the goodness of Jesus in her healing services said that it is God’s sovereign right to heal.  She doesn’t know how He does it and she doesn’t need to.  It’s all God.  And we need to appreciate all that He does for us no matter how minute the improvement is.

Don Moen’s song  Give Thanks echoes this need for gratitude nicely.

 

[Book Review] The World Is Not Ours To Save by Tyler Wigg-Stevenson

I picked up this book because I have an up and coming son who is interested in politics and I needed to find out how he should blend politics with Christianity.  The full title of the book is The World Is Not Ours To Save: Finding The Freedom To Do Good.  The author was recruited to an antil-nuclear weapons organization and in his first organized event, some San Franciscan extremists decided to protest in the buff and he had to quickly escort his boss away from the venue.  A couple more failures later on, he realized the limit to social activism.  Countries intent on building nuclear weapons would not stop just because a few dozen people went naked in the street.  Their self-interest will continue no matter how you protest.

One day, God said to him, ” The world is not yours, not to save, or to damn. Only serve the one whose it is.”  It was such a revelation !  Examine right now the social causes that you embrace, that you indoctrinate your kids with, and how much striving can you do to change the world.  Sure, be a good citizen and vote when you need to.  But if you entered the striving to be a hero to right a wrong, then you got the wrong focus. The underlying message of the gostpel – the good news – is that God is love.  We have to love our neighbor.

The author illustrated the epitomy of the love of Jesus Christ in a Palestinian family in Israeli land.  Their farm land was disputed by the Israelis and the family was constantly harrassed by Israeli government in terms of police searches, the cut off of utilities.  Nevertheless, the owner of the farm extended hospitality to whoever came to do the harassing, offered them tea and a seat and conversation.  In the end, the soldiers leave apologizing for the inconvenience caused.  That is the love of Jesus taht we should work towards.

The book has other examples including Coventry, Hiroshima victims and more.  The Book of Micah is especially referenced.

[Book Review] Spiritual Warfare by Dr. Karl I. Payne

I picked up this book, Spiritual Warfare: Christians, Demonization, and Deliverance  from my bible institute library and it’s exactly what I have been looking for these months.  Most book on spiritual warfare is scriptural quotations and say that it’s real and that’s about it but this book goes to the extent of how to interrogate the demonic forces and literally cast them out to the pit, something that I believe every Christian should be knowledgeable of.  Many Christians are worried that if they take on the demonic forces, they would be afflicted even more.  The truth is that our Lord Jesus Christ has already defeated the devil at the cross and we know the ending for them from the Book of Revelations is that they would be the losers.  In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, there is nothing to be afraid about.  I urge everyone to read this and be brave.

Do you know that even Chrisitans could be oppressed and demonized?  The least bit of habitual sin allows these forces an opening/a foothold and once they latch on, oppression starts.  I was taken aback to read that ancestral and generational sin affects you.  Say for instance your parents have rebelled and proclaimed that God is dead or perhaps any sin that they dwelled in, their sin will affect you and your children.  Don’t take this subject lightly!

It is dangerous to cast the evil spirits out of a non-Christian without that person accepting Christ at once.  Once the house is cleaned, the demons come back with a vengeance because he is not filled with the Holy Spirit or any authority at all to prevent reoccupation.

Throughout the book, the author gave examples of how he detected demonic forces at work in the people who were brought to him for help.  For instance, sexual immorality itself is caused by demonic forces.  One young adult was reluctant to give up his lifestyle of sexual immorality even though by mouth, he went through the motions of asking for forgiveness from Jesus Christ.  He couldn fool neither the devil nor God.  The devil was rebuking the intercessor when he still hung around and the intercessor asked what ground he had to remain in the patient and it was all because of the patient’s reluctance to change.

Prayer intercessors, church leaders, parents, read this book!  It is not scary at all.  It’s educational and equip you with the knowledge of how to discern spirits.  And always read the offensive and defensive psalms to clear the air.  Read psalm 27, 35, 83.

 

A love song for heaven

My best friend, Denise, passed away the week I was traveling and I never got to say goodbye to her.  I was heartbroken that she left so soon despite the Lord having touched her and held her pain back from cancer.  But she got her wish.  She passed her 62nd birthday.  On the long 5 hour drive home, I was teary, but also more determined than ever before to lay hands on every cancer patient that I meet and pray for them.  For the last two hours of the drive, I couldn’t stop humming the song, Ain’t No Mountain High Enough by Diana Ross.  Ever since a young age, I loved this song for its high crescendo and lyrics.  Unlike the song, I Will Follow Him by Little  Peggy March which also describes a love where  “There isn’t an ocean too deep, A mountain so high it can keep me away”, but totally a song just for my husband, I believe Diana Ross’ song was written for God and me.  When I was young, I always wondered if there is a love that

Ain’t no mountain high enough
Ain’t no valley low enough
Ain’t no river wide enough
To keep me from you.

That day as I drove back, I understood finally.  I am coming after you, God.  I’m not going to stop until I see you face to face and get everything I could from you, to save these poor suffering fellow souls down here on earth. It’s unnecessarily that we are sick.  It’s unnecessary that we die of cancer.  It’s unnecessary that we spend eternity elsewhere other than heaven.  I am coming after you to get all the gifts, all the strength and all the stamina I could to bring as many as I could to you.  It hurts.  It really hurts, to see my friends all dying off like flies one by one afflicted with cancer, 6 within the last 6 months.

I read from a book that a musician once had a heavenly experience and he heard one of his songs being sung in heaven.  He asked why his song was up there and the answer was that heaven gave it to him in the first place.  And while this song might be a secular love song, the love described between Jesus and his bride (the church, the followers, believers) is a two way street and is exactly how I feel.  I would not be surprised to hear this song when I get to heaven.

So I encourage everyone to find your own love song between you and God and sing it often, make it your own.  Don’t worry if the artist has been in drugs, has a doubtful lifestyle and fall badly.  Look at the Old Testament and see how even King David, King Solomon, Gideon fell, not to mention Samson.  But in between, their one time faith and obedience were noteworthy.  And none of us is a fallen case until the last breath.  God is very patient.  He waits patiently for everyone to ask for his forgiveness and rejoin him, even a murderer on death row.