You've Got Mail! In a Box! Full of Good Things!

It's 4:56 am and I'm lying awake. I suppose know its the steroids they gave me with my chemo infusion yesterday. They trick you, ya know. They gave me benadryl, too, which as everyone knows, puts you to sleep for the duration of the infusion. Even when you would rather be reading or knitting. The last hour and a half was spent with my head rolled to one side, saliva drooling from the corner of my mouth, and my knitting lying quietly neglected in my lap. (I'm kidding about the saliva...I don't drool...ever...never!)

At home I took another hour's nap and then the benadryl was done. But the steroids! They're still working! For another two days. Trust me. The house will be clean. I'll have baked, cooked, scrubbed, mopped, painted. And I'll have used 60,000 words per day instead of my usual 20,000. Steroids do that to me. On Monday I will crash on the sofa and by Tuesday I'll be my usual lazy self.

But here it is, 4:56 am. I tried lying on the sofa, thinking my body might think "NAP!" But that didn't work. So here I am.

As I lay in bed, checking the clock, I got to thinking about things. Specifically I got to thinking about prayers from a small church in Pennsylvania (900 miles to the east). My friend, a breast cancer patient, had put me on the prayer list at her church. (Yayyy, send prayers! I am grateful for any and all prayers!) There are ladies in that church who minister through knitting/crocheting. They make shawls. While they are making shawls, they pray for the one to receive the shawl. That's a lot of prayer-time, folks! You don't crochet a shawl in ten minutes time!

In the box that arrived in the mail a couple weeks back were a gorgeous shawl to warm my shoulders (it looks great over a red turtleneck sweater!), a couple mugs for Valentine's Day (definitely already filled with love), and a church bulletin. Why a church bulletin, you ask? You see, the Sunday before she mailed the package they prayed for me in church. And that day, the Scripture reference for the day just happened to be Rev. Ch 2:12-17. Why do I mention that, you ask?

The answer is that my friend knew from my blog why I chose WhiteStone as my blog name. I chose it from Rev. 2:17. You can read that here. My friend was surprised as could be to see that the Scripture reference for the day included my special verse. She sent the bulletin so I could see the coincidence. Except she didn't consider it coincidence. Neither do I.

Every time I wear that shawl I think of my friends in Pennsylvania. And I'm reminded , as their note mentions, of God's great love for us.

One of the things that cancer has taught me is to pray better for others. Life is tough! We're commanded to pray for one another, to lift each other up! It humbles and quiets your soul to pray for others and to know you have friends praying for you!

Today's scripture? James 5:16. And a second, Jude 2. (run your cursor over the scripture to read)

I think I'll go back to bed. There are still a couple hours till daylight.
P.S. This series of chemo is kind. I have no residual side-effects other than an exceptionally clean house two days out of seven.
P.P.S. You can read more about prayer shawl ministry here .

Bless you, My Friends.
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