NICOLE GRACE PRAYER ALERT AND UPDATE

#1 · July 15, 2004, 5:00 am

Quote from Forum Archives on July 15, 2004, 5:00 am
Posted by: lifeunlimited <lifeunlimited@...>
Friends:

Even though we sent an update yesterday, we feel this is significant enough to send on immediately. It seems the battle ebbs and flows, and right now Nicole's having a rough time.

We find ourselves caught in the middle, wanting to spare you unnecessary updates (and trying to discern which are necessary and which are not), and at the same time honor the requests of so many who want to be regularly informed of her status.

Because we're aware her little life is so precariously unstable at this stage, we want to keep the prayer channels open and the intercessors praying with insight. At the same time, we don't want to overburden people.

So, what we're going to try to do is this: we'll try to keep our updates down to one or two a week, UNLESS there is a critical need that develops. Since this is one of those potentially serious setbacks, we're sending this on to you from Deanna. It was written Wednesday night.

------------------

Well, today was a bit disappointing.

We arrived at the hospital to find that they had put Nicole back on the C-pap to help with her breathing. She had been stable from the time we left yesterday until about midnight. Then she dropped her saturation levels dangerously low several times in a short period of time and was no longer recovering well by increasing the oxygen levels. She was stable ever since putting her back on the C-pap. They did a chest x-ray and didn't find anything different. They also did a CT scan which we don't have results of yet and tomorrow they will do a heart ultrasound to see if they can figure out what was causing her to "de-sat" so many times.

It is possible that it's a matter of her body being tired from fighting the infection she had. It would be nice if that's all it is; however, it's a little scary to think that an infection so low-grade that they can't find it could cause such problems. If that's the case, what is a major infection going to do to her...

So, it was disappointing in the fact that she took some steps backwards, etc. She also lost a small amount of weight -- not as much as she had gained, but still it was the wrong direction.

The good news is that her white blood cell counts continue to improve (drop) and so far nothing has grown from the cultures. As long as this continues, she can still have her g-tube surgery maybe as early as Friday. Going back on the c-pap does not affect her having surgery.

Obviously, we spent a lot of time praying and wondering what God was doing in all of this.

At one point during the day, I was praying for her and started reading/praying some of my favorite "warfare" Psalms (35th, 38th, etc.) outloud over her. As soon as I began reading the first one, Nicole opened her eyes and remained very alert as long as I was reading. I thought her eyes looked better when she opened them (she still has MRSA infection in them). A little while later the nurse came back in the room and commented about how alert she was and that her eyes looked a lot better. This was just about 15 minutes after she had put drops in Nicole's eyes. Later, when Jim returned to the room, he agreed that her eyes looked better.

We still don't know what God is up to in all this. We often wonder what else has to take place before her healing is realized and recognized, if indeed that is His plan. And though we don't doubt Him nor distrust Him, we still sometimes wonder if we'll ever be taking her home with us at all - especially on days like today. Again, that doesn't mean our faith or trust is wavering - just that we still don't know exactly what His plans for her are.

We know what we desire, we know what we're asking for, we know what He is able to do, and we know WHO makes the ultimate decision and WHO holds her life in His hands. She couldn't be in better hands, so we'll take what we know for now and wait until more is revealed. We keep praying that He will do in her what no medication
can and that He will do in her what no doctors can explain.

Please keep praying with us for her - for His plan to be revealed and recognized beyond any doubt.

WWJ,

Jim and Deanna

-------------------------------

Sunday I'll be preaching again on the subject of faith, using the life of Abraham as an example. This will be my fourth message in the series. The situation with Nicole Grace is a perfect opportunity for us to test our faith against Abraham's as his was "Consistent in Its Growth and Progress". In Romans 4:20-21 it says, "Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised."

Abraham had such a deep, intimate, and personal knowledge of God that, in the midst of enormous odds and in the face of all human logic and rationalizeation, he was fully consistent in his walk of faith. This was his life-long legacy about which you and I read today. His faith was Stable as he believed what was unbelievable. His faith was strong to the end, and his faith was properly focused on giving all glory, praise, and credit to God alone.

So, it looks like God has given us the opportunity to "practice what we preach".

We'll keep you posted as noted above, and try to write only as we feel it is important to your praying. The good thing about praying, too, is that you don't have to "know" in order to pray. That's where the Holy Spirit's revelation and guidance plays an important part.

In His Bond and For His Glory,

Bob and Jo Ann

Bob Tolliver
IBC - Hope4Kyiv
lifeunlimited@pobox.com
Subscribe to "Hope4Kyiv" letter
  --  To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: hope4kyiv-unsubscribe@welovegod.org  

Posted by: lifeunlimited <lifeunlimited@...>

Friends:

Even though we sent an update yesterday, we feel this is significant enough to send on immediately. It seems the battle ebbs and flows, and right now Nicole's having a rough time.

We find ourselves caught in the middle, wanting to spare you unnecessary updates (and trying to discern which are necessary and which are not), and at the same time honor the requests of so many who want to be regularly informed of her status.

Because we're aware her little life is so precariously unstable at this stage, we want to keep the prayer channels open and the intercessors praying with insight. At the same time, we don't want to overburden people.

So, what we're going to try to do is this: we'll try to keep our updates down to one or two a week, UNLESS there is a critical need that develops. Since this is one of those potentially serious setbacks, we're sending this on to you from Deanna. It was written Wednesday night.

------------------

Well, today was a bit disappointing.

We arrived at the hospital to find that they had put Nicole back on the C-pap to help with her breathing. She had been stable from the time we left yesterday until about midnight. Then she dropped her saturation levels dangerously low several times in a short period of time and was no longer recovering well by increasing the oxygen levels. She was stable ever since putting her back on the C-pap. They did a chest x-ray and didn't find anything different. They also did a CT scan which we don't have results of yet and tomorrow they will do a heart ultrasound to see if they can figure out what was causing her to "de-sat" so many times.

It is possible that it's a matter of her body being tired from fighting the infection she had. It would be nice if that's all it is; however, it's a little scary to think that an infection so low-grade that they can't find it could cause such problems. If that's the case, what is a major infection going to do to her...

So, it was disappointing in the fact that she took some steps backwards, etc. She also lost a small amount of weight -- not as much as she had gained, but still it was the wrong direction.

The good news is that her white blood cell counts continue to improve (drop) and so far nothing has grown from the cultures. As long as this continues, she can still have her g-tube surgery maybe as early as Friday. Going back on the c-pap does not affect her having surgery.

Obviously, we spent a lot of time praying and wondering what God was doing in all of this.

At one point during the day, I was praying for her and started reading/praying some of my favorite "warfare" Psalms (35th, 38th, etc.) outloud over her. As soon as I began reading the first one, Nicole opened her eyes and remained very alert as long as I was reading. I thought her eyes looked better when she opened them (she still has MRSA infection in them). A little while later the nurse came back in the room and commented about how alert she was and that her eyes looked a lot better. This was just about 15 minutes after she had put drops in Nicole's eyes. Later, when Jim returned to the room, he agreed that her eyes looked better.

We still don't know what God is up to in all this. We often wonder what else has to take place before her healing is realized and recognized, if indeed that is His plan. And though we don't doubt Him nor distrust Him, we still sometimes wonder if we'll ever be taking her home with us at all - especially on days like today. Again, that doesn't mean our faith or trust is wavering - just that we still don't know exactly what His plans for her are.

We know what we desire, we know what we're asking for, we know what He is able to do, and we know WHO makes the ultimate decision and WHO holds her life in His hands. She couldn't be in better hands, so we'll take what we know for now and wait until more is revealed. We keep praying that He will do in her what no medication
can and that He will do in her what no doctors can explain.

Please keep praying with us for her - for His plan to be revealed and recognized beyond any doubt.

WWJ,

Jim and Deanna

-------------------------------

Sunday I'll be preaching again on the subject of faith, using the life of Abraham as an example. This will be my fourth message in the series. The situation with Nicole Grace is a perfect opportunity for us to test our faith against Abraham's as his was "Consistent in Its Growth and Progress". In Romans 4:20-21 it says, "Yet he did not waver through unbelief regarding the promise of God, but was strengthened in his faith and gave glory to God, being fully persuaded that God had power to do what He had promised."

Abraham had such a deep, intimate, and personal knowledge of God that, in the midst of enormous odds and in the face of all human logic and rationalizeation, he was fully consistent in his walk of faith. This was his life-long legacy about which you and I read today. His faith was Stable as he believed what was unbelievable. His faith was strong to the end, and his faith was properly focused on giving all glory, praise, and credit to God alone.

So, it looks like God has given us the opportunity to "practice what we preach".

We'll keep you posted as noted above, and try to write only as we feel it is important to your praying. The good thing about praying, too, is that you don't have to "know" in order to pray. That's where the Holy Spirit's revelation and guidance plays an important part.

In His Bond and For His Glory,

Bob and Jo Ann

Bob Tolliver
IBC - Hope4Kyiv
lifeunlimited@pobox.com
Subscribe to "Hope4Kyiv" letter

  --  To unsubscribe, send ANY message to: hope4kyiv-unsubscribe@welovegod.org