A Gift of Prayer for Pastor Sarah

Dear Church,
 
   As I celebrate my birthday today, I am counting all ways that God is good to me – and He has been good! Skip to the end of the article if you want a few items off my God-is-SO-good list!
 
    I have had many health issues the last 10 years that are not typical for a person my age including extreme muscle weakness. My medical team began asking questions and running tests to determine what could be causing this weakness. I was diagnosed with Lupus and Fibromyalgia in March of this year, both auto-immune diseases. Once on medication, many of my symptoms improved but a few lingering issues continued. In August, after more testing, I was diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis, also an auto-immune disease, which causes extreme muscle weakness, and affects the heart and lungs. They determined the cause of the Myasthenia Gravis was an active Thymus gland, a gland that after infancy doesn’t really do anything, unless it reactivates and sends the body into confusion; the immune system doesn’t know which cells to fight, so it resorts to fighting everything, including healthy cells.
 
   After much prayer God has provided answers and a path to recovery! My medical team has decided that the best choice is to do surgery and remove the thymus gland, in anticipation that it will quickly remove the symptoms of Myasthenia Gravis and over time will remove the Lupus and Fibro, as well as some of my food allergies. They say that I am the perfect candidate for this to work: the right age, early in my diagnosis, and female. They cannot promise anything, but are positive! At this point, we are still waiting for the team to select a date, but the surgery will be before the end of the year. We are not sure what pre-op and post-op look like at this point, but they have warned me that I will have to be to be isolated from the public and from children at some point before my surgery and for a few weeks following the surgery as they will be shutting down my immune system so that it doesn’t attack the surgery site. Safe to say we’ll be doing things “a little different” in the HFC Kids hallway. I’m grateful for technology that will allow me to be with the kiddos, even if it isn’t in person.
 
   I am planning to work from home after the first 10 days of initial recovery. We will be relying on volunteers to fill the roles I usually handle on a Sunday/Wednesday during that time. If you are able to help out, please email me at pastorsarah@hfcog.org. Dates are soon to come!
 
   While this entire process has been overwhelming, the whole time I have known, beyond a shadow of a doubt that God is good. He has shown up time and time again! He has provided financially for all the specialist appointments, testing, and scans. God is so good. He has provided doctors on my team who are believers; He has provided doctors who told us outright they weren’t a good fit and referred us to the best! God is so good! God has walked with me on this medical journey, which not only spans the whole of this year, but even goes back ten years! God is so good. Even though there are still so many unanswered questions, I know the ultimate answer is in Him, and He is good!
 
   I know that you love me and that you may have many questions, but for right now please just pray for me. Together we will all just trust God with the details that have not yet been revealed to us.Thank you so much for your faithful prayers; they have been, and continue to be a great source of comfort and encouragement to me.
 
-Pastor Sarah