Update from Jonas

Can I just say thank you to everyone who has taken even a moment out of their day to pray for my beautiful bride Becky. Thanks to all of you at Glad Tidings Community Church for being such an amazing church family. Wow, we are truly blessed. This has been the most trying time of our lives and yet somehow in the midst of it we feel complete peace. I don't who you are out there reading this stuff. Maybe it stirs your heart to see what we're going through. That moves us. But please consider that we are believers in Jesus. I know to many this is an instant uncomfortable moment, but for us, it's our life. This is why we have peace, not because we were taught to but because this is just one of many times in our lives where God has proven his love to us. Some see this as God's punishment, some may see it as a sheer coincidence, we see it as the big picture. So far I've learned two very massive lessons. I'm going to tell you these even though it is extremely uncomfortable for me. 1st lesson learned: My faith is easily shaken. I sing about not being worried, and I sing about trusting that God has a plan. When it came out that Becky has cancer, I was lost. I knew the answers but I was still lost. I was confronted by my faith as I sat alone one night in the shower. It was an overwhelming sense of comfort followed by a massive sense of my loss of control. I'm a control freak (no surprise to anyone). Confronting that reality was so hard, but letting go and allowing God to do what He does best was a great relief to me. 2nd VERY HARD LESSON: I'm not the husband that I should be. It's easy in the middle of something like this to get scared. Shoot, we thought Becky was dying 3 weeks ago. She was telling me what to do with the boys, how to raise them! We were both crying and terrified. As I sat there watching Becky rest with her eyes closed, all I could think was how much of a failure I've been as her husband. I'm a good dad, but a pretty lousy husband. My failure showed up in me pouring myself into my kids and giving whatever was left to my wife. She got the leftovers and there wasn't all that much to give. I found that I put myself first in almost every situation. Needless to say, that changed in one night as I sat there watching my wife die, or at least I thought she was. Through this experience I'm learning to let go of my control and let go of myself. I have a lot more to learn but I'm EXTREMELY grateful that God would chose to use Becky and I to minister to you. Whatever that means. Becky truly believes that God is using her Lymphoma to help us grow closer to each other and more importantly to TRUST IN GOD MORE!

Here's what you don't know. Becky found the mass by "accident." it wasn't anything that we were concerned about. The Dr. sent her in for an x-ray just as a normal checkup. They found the mass. We went in for our appt. and we were expecting to wait until this Friday August 24th to meet with anyone about this. 5 days ago Becky was feeling seriously out of breath and tired. She was simply going to wait until Friday to deal with it. Liam (our 1yr old) got a cold or something. Becky decided to bring him to the Dr. to get him checked out. Turns out it was nothing. He's cutting teeth. But the Dr. told Bec that she didn't look good and that she needed to get to the emergency room. I got home that night and brought her in. She had a little over 1/2 liter of fluid around her heart! This was restricting her breathing and her overall performance. they moved her appt with the oncologist up to the next day! We met with them, they drained her fluid which helped bring her heart rate down and blood pressure back up. The next day she started chemo therapy. If my little buddy Liam hadn't been cutting teeth, Becky may have been dead! You may say great thing coincidence was on our side, I say PRAISE A GOD THAT IS CONCERNED WITH LITTLE O'LE US!!!!!!! Anyway...that's my start to what I'm sure will be a much longer and spell check rant. I am truly moved and blessed to have you all in my life.

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