Prayer Update from Greg Olson

Hello Dear Friends and Family and Disciples of Christ,        It's time for a quick update. I have been back at work five weeks now and it has been over two months since I got out of the hospital on April 15th. The sepsis infection and joint inflamation (gout?) that invaded my body and made me so sick is gone, and the cellulitis finally cleared up completely. My leg was red and swollen for a long time but now it's back to normal. I'm feeling fine and I am really grateful for all the wonderful medical treatment I received at the hospital, as well as the wonderful "prayer treatments" from you! The biggest news is that my kidney function has held its own. My numbers are not great by any means, but they are slightly better than they were six months ago and I am not on dialysis! Who but our God could accomplish such things? Two weeks ago my kidney doctor told me he had never seen anybody who had only one kidney and whose kidney function was as bad as mine get off of dialysis after they'd been on it. (I had four rounds of dialysis while I was in the hospital.) He and his partners were sure I would leave the hospital on dialysis and stay on it the rest of my life. He and I have a running dialogue about the power of prayer and about God healing me. I still don't know his religious beliefs so it gets kind of interesting sometimes. I love it. While I was recuperating I had a lot of time to think about my journey. I am so overwhelmed with gratefulness for life. How is it, God, that you care to bother with me? The only answer is the simplest one: except for his great love. A few weeks ago I wrote a devotional called The New Normal. Since some of you don't get the weekly e-news from Life Discovery, I am going to re-print some of that article below: The New Normal Jeane was doing laundry yesterday and thinking about a project we had planned to do before I went into the hospital. She thought to herself, "We'll get to that when things get back to normal." It stopped her in her tracks: When will THAT be? When will we stop unconsciously holding our breath while we wait for the results of every X-ray and CT scan? When will we not whisper fervent, quiet prayers to heaven before every lab and blood test? When will we not lie awake in bed at night leaning into our faith and the promises of God when circumstances look bleak all around? When will things be normal again? Really, God? Do you mean we have to rely on You every single minute of every single day.....for our very lives? .....for every breath of oxygen that passes through our lungs? .....for kidneys to successfully filter toxins from our body one more day? .....for blood sugars to level out and blood pressure to normalize and that the cancer doesn't grow back? Is this detour not a detour at all, but actually the road? Is THIS the new normal? Friends, I would propose that this may be the case for all of us. Aren't we reliant every single day on the trillions of cells in our body to somehow function together as one to keep us alive? It is the God of Creation who speaks that into existence. Since the day he first heaved breath into nostrils of the adam-made-from-dust, and "man became a living soul," he continues to bestow upon us his life--ever breathing into a dying world and into these dying bodies. Shouldn't that be our "normal" anyway? "For by Him all things were created...He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together."   Colossians 1:16-17 I think about the sustaining presence of God every day because I have experienced how quickly the enemy of life can try to snatch that life away from me. Many of you have experienced the same thing. It's just that when life is sailing along smoothly we often don't stop to think--or thank. We really DO, literally, rely on our Father God for each and every breath of life we take. So what am I saying? I'm saying the new normal is the old normal, but we are just more aware of it. We can see it more clearly now and greet it with more raised hands full of thanksgiving and more willingness to fight for the full life that scripture talks about and that Jesus died for. I end with my favorite definition of faith: Faith is living in the victory on the brink of disaster. Giving thanks with you and for you, Greg