"The spirit is willing, but my body is oh so weak..."

The only reason I write today is because my spirit is so willing to share the victories we have had this week in the midst of my body being very weak. Matthew 26:41, " Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak." You are all on this journey with us, so I must fill you in!

Since last Saturday's post, we have had a visit to the primary care doctor, landed in the emergency room that night, 2 rounds of high dose iv steroids (with one more treatment of that today), paralyzed upper body, weakened lower body...I think you get the point. It's been quite the week for us. Ready for the good part??? LOL! I'm sure that you are wondering, what good is there in this? So much!
On Sunday, my "symptoms", because that's all they are, started manifesting themselves in a very powerful way. I got to that point where I just couldn't bear them anymore after a year of ups and downs and about two months of dealing with pretty severe issues. I looked at Chad and he knew that we needed to do something. The only thing was that we started to react out of fear and frustration and we had a lot of confusion at work in us. Here's where the victory comes in for us. I stopped in the midst of hardly being able to operate my body and in the midst of complete physical exhaustion and said to Chad, " We have to stop and pray." We knew that the fruit that we were bearing right then was not from the spirit of God. All of the sudden my spirit man was stronger than my flesh. I told Chad that I felt that we were just acting out of our frustration towards the situation, frankly our frustration towards God, if we are being completely honest here, and all of our fears of the unknown. I did not want to make a decision to go to the emergency room based on that. I felt so strongly, for the first time in this long fight, that it was time to allow God's Word to come to life. So we called in the cavalry aka my parents :-) and Chad and I locked ourselves in the bedroom and started praying.

Our prayers started in frustration, fear and confusion but they ended in victory and peace. The victory, for us, is that we STOPPED AND PRAYED. We stopped and submitted ourselves to what our spirits were saying to us and not what we were feeling and seeing by the flesh. We decided to walk by faith and not by sight and see what God would do in that moment. We avoided a trip to the emergency room that night!

On Monday morning I got an appointment with my doctor and by Monday night my body was worse, so again, we locked ourselves in the bedroom prayed through it and this time we felt like it was wise to seek some physical counsel and see if there were some options for some immediate physical relief for me. We saw this as another victory because we stopped and sought the voice of God first. We went to the emergency room and guess what? They had nothing to offer! LOL! Well, we could have seen that as a fail, but we didn't, we felt like it was necessary to see what they could do in that moment. So they sent us home with orders to follow up with my neurologist, get an mri set up and move from there.

By Tuesday morning, my whole upper body felt like it was completely paralyzed, here I am again getting worse physical, but no fear in my spirit...victory, for sure. I calmly call my neurologist and they suggest an aggressive form of treatment, 3 days of iv steroids. So at this point we honestly just looked to God and said this must be the answer for now. Now, I was hoping and praying that God would just do a miracle and take it all away right then, but I am RECOVERING and this is the process that God has for me. So the last two days we have gone in for treatment and I am feeling better in some ways but still experiencing some things that could cause some discouragement. But I refuse. I refuse to allow my body to be bigger than my spirit. I can't go back now. This is my victory.

We are still in a process that we will come through, but the difference for us and the victory for us is that we allowed God's Word, that we have been standing on and hiding in our hearts to be living and active in us this week. 2 Timothy 1:7, "For God has not given us a spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind." This word came to life in Chad and I this week. GOD'S WORD WORKS!!!

So even though we are heading back to the hospital today, I know we haven't lost the battle, we are gaining more ground back from the enemy with each step in the process and even though my body is weak, my spirit feels like it could run a marathon! My quest to lose fear and doubt is actually coming true! For the first time, I can actually say that I am more in tune with my spirit man than my flesh...victory, victory, victory! I have to say one more thing and that is simply thank you to all of you who are standing with us. Your prayers are forcefully advancing the kingdom of God and pushing us towards the truth and we are humbled and blessed to have you all in our lives.

To be continued!