Just Between You, Me, & God 3/26/2012

Change is inevitable. Don’t believe me; take a look at some of your grade school pictures or your High School yearbook, then take a quick glance in the mirror. I rest my case. I did this little exercise myself and it’s rather hard to believe that the bare headed, spectacled, old gentleman with dunlaps disease sitting in front of this monitor once had long curly red hair with bell bottoms, a 30 inch waist and perfect vision. Still not convinced; then ask any parent of a new born. Everything changes, and I’m not just talking about the diapers. You’re no longer your own person, you belong to someone else and they belong to you. You have responsibilities that multiply every day and with every situation. You don’t sleep the same, eat the same or sometimes even have the same friends. People with kids understand and sympathize with people who have kids where as others just don’t understand, it doesn’t make sense to them. Have faith new parents; from my vantage point you’ll live through it and it will be worth it. I do recommend having your grandchildren first if you can, that’s a whole other experience. However, there are some things in our lives that are unwelcome and we would love to change them if we only could, erase them as if they never happened. We have no way of turning back the hands of time but we can change the direction we are headed. The world, however, has a long memory about the things we do wrong and a very short memory for anything we happen to do right. Jesus offers us help and instruction in how to change. In Matthew 18:3 Jesus tell us, “I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” In order to truly change we must stop what we’re doing and start everything over again, we must be reborn in Jesus. Remember the new parents I mentioned earlier, well we must become like the child, completely dependent on Jesus; we must give our lives over to Him. When we do and when we repent or change the way we live and make Jesus the center of our lives, then an amazing thing also happens. All of those mistakes that the world tends to remember and hold over us will be removed from God’s sight by the only one that can remove them and that is Jesus Christ. 2 Corinthians 5:17 assures us, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” If you have decided to change your life and to follow Jesus, please let me know so that I may pray for your journey. God bless you, Pastor Dean

Pastor Dean is the Ministries & Outreach Pastor for LHF.

Review: City On Our Knees by TobyMac

Review: City On Our Knees by Toby Mac

Published 2010 by Bethany Press

Based upon his song of the same title, TobyMac penned a book of extraordinary inspiration. Like the song, which has a great message of togetherness wrapped in fantastic vocals with a trendy sound, the book City On Our Knees possesses great insight, God-inspired writing with a steady voice encased in a bright, intense graphic cover.

Instead of carefully fleshed-out explanations based upon a stringent outline, TobyMac chooses to allow others’ true stories to elucidate.The organization of the book adheres to the lyrics of the namesake song, with each division beginning with a writing from TobyMac’s blog and concluding in a “Remix”—a summation of the section and a prayer. Within each division, the stories of different people, both modern-day saints and those of times past, illustrate the meaning of the song’s lyrics. Most stories are written by TobyMac in his style, while some are in the person’s own voice.

From young Alexandra Scott, whose lemonade stands raise money and hope to many suffering from childhood cancer, to William Wilberforce,the 18^th century politician who worked tirelessly to end the English slave trade, the stories of those that are quite famous and those that not as well known unfold to give inspiration and provide example. Children and adults, teens and elderly, man and woman, people from every walk of life are included to show that anyone is capable of bringing about great change when they seek God’s presence and purpose.

The book is an easy read, entertaining, and thought-provoking throughout, and it is clear that TobyMac sought wisdom and inspiration from the Word when writing and compiling, as there is much Scripture to support each section. Young adults and not-so-young ones alike will enjoy and learn from the experience. It is well worth reading and makes an excellent small-group study. The website www.tobymac.comcontains not only information about his music and touring, but also has his blog, Twitter feed, and extra widgets to share on social networks and websites.One of these widgets is a “City On Our Knees” map of the US, which gives users the ability to add their city and watch it light up on the map.

For more information about TobyMac and all of his endeavors, friends, and activism, visit the following websites:

www.tobymac.com
www.strongtowerbiblechurch.com(Strong Tower Bible Church, TobyMac’s home church).

More links to the various organizations, groups, and individuals mentioned in the book are provided within the text or index.

Melissa McGinnis is the Children's Ministry Director for LHF. This writing was self-generated and is solely the opinion of Mrs. McGinnis. No compensation of any kind was given by TobyMac, Bethany Press, or any company or representative thereof. 

Just Between You, Me, & God 3/19/2012

We just finished our annual inventory at work. It is time consuming and requires a lot of man hours but it is necessary for businesses to stop from time to time and look at what’s come in and what’s gone out and if it balances. It is a measure of our ability to maintain proper controls and to adjust what we are doing in order to do it better. Without these periodic checks our business vision would be clouded, we would spend much more time trying to figure out where we are what we are doing and which direction we need to be headed in. It’s like having a great car ready and waiting at your disposal but if you can’t find the keys it’s not doing you any good and you’re not going anywhere unless you walk. So what about our spiritual life? What would it look like if we took a little spiritual inventory of our own, a little check up from the neck up, a little heart tune up, some soul balancing? First, you would need to consult with someone reputable and honest to guide us on our inventory. How about, oh, let’s say, God. Psalm 139: 23- 24 says, “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” Who knows us better than our Creator, the one that knows our very thoughts before we speak them? Let’s take a look at the balance sheet. What are the pluses and the minuses? Let’s start with the minuses and make a list of all of our sins. WOAH!! My calculator doesn’t have that many digits. Do I have to count even the little stuff? Any good inventory auditor will tell you that everything counts. OK, that took some time, now let’s move into the pluses; let’s look at our good works. Hmm, something seems to be missing, this can’t be right, I know there was more than this. I must have been robbed. How can I balance this? How can I bring back some control in my life? How did I get so far off and not even know it? I don’t see how I can make this right. I can’t, no one can. We need a loss prevention expert. His name is Jesus. He’s not in the yellow pages. He’s actually been there by your side the whole time just waiting for you to ask Him into your business, to take control, to balance the debt we’ve incurred. Romans 10:13 tells us, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Don’t get me wrong here, the guide lines for maintaining our spiritual inventory demand change in our lives so pick up your manual, the Bible, and get together with your loss prevention expert on a more regular basis and start making some changes so that your final inventory will balance. God bless for all you do, Pastor Dean.

Pastor Dean Hanssen is the Outreach & Ministries Pastor for LHF.

The Lines of My City by Brother Ben

**This writing comes from an assignment for Brother Ben's Master's Program at Fuller Seminary in California. Description of the project remains to assist with context.**

Local Exegesis Project:
1) Spend time touring your community setting, and notice how space is divided, how and where the structures are built, etc. Ask God to reveal insights about the people and the social, physical or psychological environment;
2) eat at a place you normally would not have eaten, noticing the others around you, the “community” the restaurant attracts, etc;
3) educate yourself about the people and/or organizations in your region that are striving to redemptively engage the population of that area;
4) and, consider taking members of your ministry team with you to share the experience.

The Lines of My City: Exegeting a Rural East Texas Community

​Native to my space, the community of Gladewater, Texas is fascinating, and perplexing, even in its dismal, tranquil state of economic depression. It is my space, much of which has not changed over my life span. Once booming from the discovery of oil over 80 years ago, the discovery wells are silent now…for the most part. Ruins of refineries and pipelines transect the surface of my space. The town-center is set apart in neat rows and columns of streets, but approaching a well site, the roads twist and turn to compensate for whatever obstacle. Along the way, progression stopped and the course altered. The lines, held in perpetuity, remain silent reminders of a bygone day of success, increase and generosity.

​It is evident that lines separate and divide this once prideful town. There are barriers such as Union Pacific’s rail line that has for over a century designated economic status and livable space. There is a crossroad intersection of two important federal highways. But there are still places of discrimination forever locked away from public eye but known and not trodden upon. Tranquil family neighborhoods during my lifetime have given way to row houses of irresponsible and addiction-laden tenants. They were built as “soul nurturing” but have fallen into “life denying” structures in my community setting. Hardships bring tension in all areas of town and with stress come friction within the family unit, socially and culturally. No one is homeless at night, for there are far too many unoccupied homes to "squat" in. Families live recklessly in exposed environments of unsanitary and non-forgiving conditions. While these conditions are bleak, something is happening in Gladewater.

Transformation is just beyond the crest of a new horizon. But, where is this hope-filled ingredient today and where is God at work in this city called Gladewater? Do these lines transect the Church or ordinary people?

​My assignment brings me to Don Omar’s taco stand, a downtown eatery that very few people attend. The family-owned, Spanish-speaking diner is a place with great service, complimentary smiles and abundant proportions. A small Hispanic family operates this with their children close to their side. They are pride-filled and always happy, two values they are teaching their children about success. Sadly, few in Gladewater trod their way. Their clientele is mainly the Spanish-speaking working class, to which Gladewater has yet to recognize as a part of their growing and rapidly changing cultural diversity. The wisdom of these two parents is positively colliding with their children’s educational endeavors to pursue equality, equilibrium and excellence within their community.

​I am also fortunate to be aware of Miss Katherine’s and Miss Earnestine’s*, et al, once-a-month free meal prepared solely by their volunteer efforts. Their plan is to feed the community’s hungry people a soulful meal while they serve and pray. Their outreach effort has grown during the current economic crisis. They are unique ladies of distinction helping from their heart and serving with their hands.

​Societal forces and local influences of race and color are still hampering our ability in Gladewater to flourish. Strangely, with all sides at an impasse, heritage and fear are the driving preventative agents. In local political arenas of school and city, a generation of emerging leaders with new ideas and new foundations are squelched by older fear-bearing authoritarians. Long past are the days of the United Way funding these programs, for Gladewater’s propensity to give generously plummets yearly. But God is working through this new leadership in our community in unconventional ways to transform community. They are the unrecognized parents and the adults/youth willing to volunteer their time and resources to make things happen. They are the service-oriented members of the community willing to give with no receipt of award, medal or trophy. They are the bi-vocational pastors and lay people with commitment to serve God beyond salary. They are individuals or common partnerships tired of a system of organization that feeds the egos of the elected politicos and going beyond measure to see that God’s redemptive plan is carried to all including the power hungry. Yet, these are individuals that are in positions of weakness. These heroes of my town allow their hearts to shape their ministry and God to set the agenda of passion for serving others. Their approach to success or failure is regulated by their stamina of volunteerism, provisional resource base and their attitude to conform to drive change forward.

​My excursion is a unique one into the depths of searching for God. My instilled compassion and activism for the unfortunate and weary has always been a driving factor of my service to God’s Kingdom, but I have been weakened in my attempts by arrogant family pride and communal stigma attachment of helping the hurting and denied. My work with this MAGL** program has been an educational eye-opener to what and why I have always been trying to accomplish. This exegesis project will provide me the determination that if “big cities can change then small communities can likewise.” In my context to ministry, envisioning the “what” is often dreaming, but Living Hope Fellowship can begin the faith journey of offering the Word of God to others in their native language. Fortunately, the MAGL program connections with fellow colleagues are linking us with personnel to accomplish these tasks. We will soon be speaking to a Spanish-speaking pastor about coming to LHF. As for me, I find God by crossing the line from ordinary to the uncommon, usually not with the status quo. There is great potential in my environment to seek the exceptional means of finding God. Just seek between the lines!

*Miss Katherine & Miss Earnestine are volunteers with the group Caring Hearts, a local community outreach in Gladewater.

**MAGL refers to the Masters in Global Leadership Program at Fuller Seminiary.

Rev. Ben Bright is the Logistics & Administrative Pastor at LHF, and is currently studying online for his MAGL at Fuller Seminary.

Just Between You, Me, & God 3/12/2012

Seventy years ago today, March 12, 1942, four PT boats left the Philippine Islands with a group of US military officials and their families fleeing from the oncoming Japanese and headed toward Australia. On the list of travelers was Gen. Douglas MacArthur. He arrived in Australia to set up his new headquarters for US forces and on March 20th in a small railway township in Southern Australia during a speech he spoke the famous phrase, “I shall return.” MacArthur kept his promise and on Oct. 20th, 1944, he walked ashore and proclaimed, “People of the Philippines: I have returned. By the grace of God Almighty, our forces stand again on Philippine soil.” I'm sure that for many that waited, they often had the feeling that the day might never come. Some probably gave up all together and just blended in with the occupiers in order to survive. Still, others never gave up and continued to fight against overwhelming odds for their freedom, many loosing their lives before the return of the allied forces. Almost 2,000 years earlier, in order to give His disciples hope through what would seem like the end, Jesus would often predict and talk to them about His death and ressurection. Look at Luke 18:31-33, "Jesus took the twelve aside and told them, 'We are going up to Jerusalem, and everthing that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled. He will be handed over to the Gentiles. They will mock Him, spit on Him, flog Him and kill Him. On the third day He will rise again." After the crucifixion the disciples huddled together in hiding, not knowing what to do. True to His Word, Jesus arose on the third day and returned to His disciples, giving them freedom. Before His ascension back into Heaven Jesus addressed His disciples one last time in Matt. 28:18-20, "Then Jesus came to them and said, 'All authority in Heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey evertrhing I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." The conversation continues in Acts 1:6-11, "So when they met together, they asked Him, 'Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?' He said to them: 'It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by His own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.' After He said this, He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid Him from their sight. They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 'Men of Galilee,' they said, 'why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into Heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen Him go into Heaven." We have been promised that Jesus shall return, and for many of us that wait, we often feel that the day may never come. Some have given up altogether and have blended into the world just to try and survive this life. There are still those of us who continue to fight and spread the light in the darkness of life. Some have given their lives for Him while the rest of us refuse to give up and still share the hope of His promise with others. Which category will you be in when Jesus returns? The God of the Universe promised and He will return for us. Be ready at all times and bring as many as you can with you. God bless you for all you do and we'll see you on the other side. Pastor Dean

Pastor Dean Hanssen is the Ministries & Outreach Pastor for LHF

Mutiny Is Fun: A Review of VeggieTales' Robin Good

For the second time this week, we have a guest blogger! This time, it is Rosaleen, age 5 and a member of LHF, who reviewed the newest VeggieTales adventure, Robin Good.

I could've reviewed it. I could've gone on and on about animation quality, plotlines, gags and humor, and Biblical truth, but let's face facts: many of you who are reading this are already familiar with VeggieTales, and are aware of the quality and production of Big Idea Productions.

What you really want to know is Will my kid like it?

So, without further ado, here is what Rosaleen had to say about VeggieTales; Robin Good. (And since Rosaleen is still learning how to read and write, we made it easier for her and did a video review). Roll film!

Click here for the VeggieTales website.

Melissa McGinnis is the Children's Ministry Director for LHF.

Just Between You, Me, & God 3/6/2012

Time is constantly moving forward. As time moves on it tends to take little pieces of us with it. It slowly erodes our lives until there is eventually nothing left. For some of us the erosion occurs almost instantly as if we were caught in a flash flood while others of us are slowly dissolved in a constant sprinkle. I’ve reached the age in my life where my children are as old as I am; at least in my mind I think that I can’t be any older than that. The only certainty that we have is this moment, the present. No matter how hard we try to relive it, the past is already gone and is not coming back. We are not guaranteed the future on this Earth, not just down the road but even the next few minutes. There’s no promise that I’ll finish writing this or that you’ll even be around to read it when it’s posted. The only one that truly knows the future is God and He’s already laid out His plan to us. A popular theme of movies today is that of immortality but to achieve that you have to give yourself to a desperate evil nature. This is another one of Satan’s lies to pull us away from the truth of God. Jesus Himself reveals the truth to us in John 3:15 when He says, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in Him may have eternal life.” No secret potions, no necks to bite or magical spells to remember. The work was done for us on the cross, all we have to do is to accept the work that Jesus did for us and then give our lives to Him in order that others may also know the same truth and joy that we know. For those of us who are true believers, there should be no worrying about the future because we know that God is in control and Jesus is not willing to leave us behind. John 14: 1-3 encourages us by saying, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” So I have the comfort of knowing that no matter how much older than me my children become, we will all have an eternity to spend together with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. If you don’t have that same assurance, you can. Accept Jesus today, right now, as your Savior and 1,000 years from now we will sit and remember this moment together. May God richly bless you, Pastor Dean

Pastor Dean Hanssen is the Outreach & Ministries Pastor for LHF.

Spiritual Memoirs of a Ninja

Today's post is the first to contain a "guest" blogger. Amy Dodd Peterson is the amazing mind behind the "Amy Goes Ninja on MS." I have known Amy since the fall o f1992, when we were freshmen in high school. She has been a light, a friend, and an inspiration due to her astounding faith. Below is an excerpt from her blog post "God Is In the Details." -- Erin McGinnis

Amy Peterson

I have a habit of always deciding how I am doing currently based on how I was doing when I first became ill. A good many of you who are reading this were in my life 17 years ago when my health took a drastic turn and I became a walking quadriplegic in a span of two weeks. I lost almost a full year of my life when I was 17, spending my time in both physical and occupational rehabilitation. I had to learn how to walk again, how to hold a pencil, how to feed myself and just about anything else you could imagine along the way.

I remember hours spent one afternoon with a stack of fifty sheets of paper and a green marker held loosely between both hands. My fingers dangled uselessly and kept getting tangled together, making me toss the marker often and have to buzz a nurse to retrieve it (I was a youngster in a rehab hospital full of senior citizens. I was every other patient’s surrogate grandkid and the nurses’ pet. If I had to be in rough shape, I was in the best place to get good treatment.) I wanted so badly to will my hands to write my Dad a simple two word note, “Perk Up.” It was an inside joke between us and I meant it to say, “I love you and I know you would fix this in a second if you could.” I sat in my wheelchair in that hospital room and went through the entire stack of nurse procured printer paper before finally managing the words. Pre-schoolers would tease me in the schoolyard if they saw those two short words, written horizontally and filling the page with two lines. It was the neatest my handwriting had been in weeks.

While I worked on that note, the mailman came to my room to bring me my daily stack of 20 plus cards (you all have had my back from day one.) He saw me sitting there with my hands covered in green marker ink and the floor littered with my failed attempts. His kind smile made me think that he was likely some kid’s favorite Grandpa. He invited himself to have a seat across from me. He commented that he had noticed I had a lot of daily mail and then he asked me about the project I was so feverishly working on. Ever proud of a quality comedic, yet tender, jab, I told him all about the story behind, “Perk up.” He laughed (I’d tell you too, but you had to be there) and then sat there and opened each one of those envelopes for me, pulling each card out slightly so I could manage to pull it out myself (which I did with my teeth.) This became a daily visit for me while I was in-patient and he became another one of the countless, and often nameless, cheerleaders I would meet along the way.

Since then, I have felt ill to be sure, but I have never been as disabled as that. How can I complain when I know how much worse it could be? Even as my body has been on this slow seven year decline, I have reasoned that I am still walking (mostly) and at least I am not confined to a wheelchair for my day to day.

I think that, because I can walk generally unassisted (I sometimes use a cane when very fatigued and also use a scooter or wheelchair for most extended outings) and because I can reasonably use my hands (though, my hand sensitivity is much as though I were wearing leather work gloves), I would often rather think that my MS is a good deal better than it could be than to think that it is all that bad today. If there is a flaw to this thinking, it is that I often don’t take the long term implications seriously and likely wouldn’t have if it wasn’t for the recent and persistent prodding I have felt from the Holy Spirit.

On this past Monday morning Eric and I went to the imaging center and I had a 2 hour MRI that looked at my brain and complete spinal cord. My kind neurologist asked me to come to his office with the finished scans that very day and he let me sit with him while he gave it a quick going over. He will spend further time looking at it in greater detail on his own and his final thoughts should be available in a few weeks.

Upon looking at the first few views of my brain, he marveled at how low my lesion load was. Indeed, he initiated his perusal of my scans with such marvel at the “mild” lesion load that I have to admit my gut reaction was to worry that he would continue to say, “In fact, this brain is pristine and you have just been a big whiny baby all these years about a little bit of nothing.”

My fears were not realized and to my “relief” he found some evidence of disease. (Am I the only ambulatory MS patient who suffers this regular episode of absurd panic?) The center of my brain showed a moderate amount of Dawson’s fingers (a kind of MS lesion along the ventricle-based brain veins that is so typical of MS that it has a name.) I have some degree of scarring on my brain, though not nearly as significant as I would have thought, or have seen on other patients similarly disabled as I am. He continued to scroll around and he spent a few minutes examining my right side parietal lobe. I have a nickel sized lesion worth being concerned about there, he tells me. (A lesion differs from a scar in that a lesion is nerves that are actively being damaged, while a scar is the aftermath.) He said that we needed to keep a close watch on it and then said to me, “You are in a good place to intervene and prevent further disability.”

He continued to my spine where he commented, “Here’s where we see more activity.” My spine had 3-4 lesions on it during his cursory look, as well as measurable scarring. This explains why a number of my symptoms are in the family of spinal cord injury – my spinal cord is injured and it happened all by its own self. It was at this point that he stressed two more times that I needed to intervene to prevent further disability.

I have to leave this doctor’s office scene for a moment to tell you why my brain’s appearance was so very incredible…

When I was first diagnosed with MS, I had a much larger lesion load on my brain than I do now. On MRI, lesions look like cotton balls and my scan in Feb. 1995 was dotted like the cotton fields in Lubbock, TX. It was, in fact, very easy for the doctor to determine a diagnosis at that time because it was just that clear. A lesion load that large would indicate that the scar load today would likely be significant, and yet my brain was incredibly low on scars.

Two years ago a dear sister in Christ prayed over me that I would be healed. Not even knowing that MS is a disease of the brain, she said while she prayed, “I am seeing a brain with wounds all over it and I see a skillful Artist’s hand with an eraser and He is erasing the wounds.”

Shortly after that prayer time with her and others, I began to feel a good deal better than I had since my initial recovery. I started to go on long walks, going up to three whole miles in one go at it. While I still was very aware that I had MS, I felt better than I ever had with it. This lasted for about three months and then seemed to stop suddenly. Almost over night I was again unable to walk long distances, my hands fumbled, and my pain level, which had gone from a 6 to a 3 on a scale of 1-10, was ramped up to a 7-8.

I believed that God intends to heal me of MS from the very day that I first heard the word mentioned in connection to me and I have not shied away from telling people that over the years. I do not say this because I believe that God intends to heal everyone on this side of eternity, or because I think I am extra special and deserving of something that not everyone gets. I simply feel it and believe just as certainly as you believe that Tuesday comes after Monday. This level of faith is one of many comforts given to me by the Holy Spirit though this journey. Having my body return to its former state of “works okay, but could be substantially better” did not change that understanding in my mind. It simply confirmed to me that He is the Author of my healing and the Permiter of my sickness and that healing is going to come along at His decided upon time and manner. Those three months were tucked away in my heart and felt like a heralding of things to come.

Now, let’s go back to the doctor’s office so we can wrap this up…

My neurologist is aware of my desire to go to Israel to receive chemotherapy and he only seemed concerned with whether I would be able to gather the funds. He finished up our visit with one last admonition that I needed to intervene immediately with “the therapy of my choice.” Based on tone and response, I can only speculate that he understands this to be a viable option, though I would not presume to speak for a man in his position on this public forum. He is a well regarded MS specialist and it is no secret to any of his patients what his thoughts are about what course they should take. If he didn’t think this was viable, I am convinced he would have not only said so, but he would have thrown in a jab at the “quacks who come up with this stuff.” (Important side note: It is extremely rare to find a neurologist willing to be vocally supportive of HSCT for auto-immune dysfunction. Few will argue with the results of FDA approved research into this – all the same, they remain mostly silent.)

So, I left his office with a mixed bag of news. It would appear that the disease is modestly 0active in my brain with only one active spot that immediately stood out. This is not great news, but it could be drastically worse. It also seems that God has protected my brain from the volume of damaging scars that so many experience. This is gloriously great news. My spinal cord is scarred and experiences the disease more actively than my brain. I don’t suppose I have to tell you what kind of news that is.

Here is how I understood that visit: I am at a fork in the road with MS and I am lined up to either continue on with further disability or go the other way and show MS the door once and for all.

The hospital in Israel has accepted me for treatment. In fact, they said I could come as early as January 16. That is nowhere near my timeline, and I told them as much. Though I don’t intend to leave next week, I am in a hurry to stop this disease while I am at this level. Before I saw my MRI results, I believed that God was lining me up for a whole new season of renewed health. The results are not a determiner of that outcome, but I feel they give evidence to His intervention.

For the full entry, or to read more about Amy, go to her blog, Amy Goes Ninja on MS.

Erin McGinnis is the Media Arts & Services Coordinator for LHF.