thank you

thank you everyone for your prayers - i know there were a lot of people praying besides just Brad and me. please continue to pray for Brad's healing and especially for Bekah's allergies and asthma to be overcome for life! please pray for me too because now i can feel in my throat that i am coming down with whatever Brad has been suffering with. hopefully i can get it together to get out and shop - it makes a big difference when you are juicing fresh fruit and veges for sure!!

please also pray for our friends who are stuck at the Palermo airport due to a strike. they are supposed to be flying somewhere special for their anniversary/birthday and do not know now if it will be possible.

3 or 4 vets said

that Zelda's bladder stones were too big to pass, and too big to dissolve with medication. at that time i started praying for God to dissolve them.

so here's what happened today. Zelda and I got to the vet's office early so I sat outside reading the Bible and praying with her before I took her in (Isaiah 55). then we went in and the tech briefed me on the procedure and the order of what would be happening. then i found out the vet wouldn't actually be there until 9am but i was just supposed to leave Zelda so that they could start whatever prep they were going to do in advance.

so i went over to the library and i was working on a Bible study i started at Crosspointe called 'Living Beyond Yourself -Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit' by Beth Moore. (Based on Galatians 5:22-23 "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness and self-control. Against these things there is no law.")

So after I did a day of the study on the peace only God can give us, I went online and found a web site about prayer. Then my hour ran out on the computer. I decided to go to the exchange since it opens at 10am but I called my friend Lorraine and she said 'come on over' so i went to her house. she and another friend and i were talking about all the ways God works in our lives. just encouraging each other generally.

around 11am, my cell phone rang. it was the vet. she said....

Mrs. Currie - we just came out of the ultrasound room and i have some good news and some, well, rather strange news. i could tell she didn't know what to say. but i KNEW at that moment what she was about to tell me.

she said that they had done 2 ultrasounds and she could not find

a single stone

nothing but a bladder. and of course i had to say 'that was my prayer!! that is God!!! that is exactly what i have been praying for'. then she said that Zelda's urinalisys was the cleanest she had ever seen. not even a trace of sediment. and i fell on my knees and praised God.

i'm writing this because we are to tell of God's works to all generations. some may try to explain it away. Brad and I are struggling to find words to even try to describe the magnitude of what happened today. but words really do fall short.

to God be the glory!

Brad and our granddaughter and Zelda Lou

This is going to be a really long blog entry. So if you don't have a couple of minutes...just a warning....

I've got some prayer requests and some things to talk about when it comes to answered prayers. First of all, Brad has a cold with a sore throat. He has been sick for the last few days. Please pray for him to get better fast and that he could start on the path back to better health by adding exercise to our current healthy diet. We both signed up for a weight loss challenge through the local dietician and physical fitness program. So far we are both losing weight and eating healthy (for the most part).

Next is our granddaughter. She just had a birthday, but was unable to have her party because she had strep throat. Please pray that God would strengthen her immune system and that she would be able to fight off the allergies and infections that continue to attack her. We did get to call and sing Happy Birthday and she chattered away on the phone for quite some time. It was so wonderful to hear her sweet little voice. We are hoping for some pictures of her opening presents in the near future...

And lastly, tomorrow is Zelda's big day - she has multiple large bladder stones and they must come out. She is scheduled for surgery at 8am.

In the Gospel of John 16:24, Jesus said "Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete."

Matthew Henry, a clergyman from England (October 18, 1662 - June 22, 1714), wrote one of the most respected complete commentaries of the Old and New Testaments of the Bible. In his commentary on this Chapter he says this: "Asking of the Father shows a sense of spiritual wants, and a desire of spiritual blessings, with conviction that they are to be had from God only."
Matthew 21:22 says "And all things you ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive."

But of course, just taking those verses out of the Bible without the context, could make it seem like you should expect God to give you anything you ask for. I believe God wants us to live fulfilling lives - Jesus said He came so we could have life and have it to the fullest. However, if we are asking for our own gain and out of selfish desires, then of course we should not expect those types of prayers to be answered. It is not like you just send God a list of your wants and he checks them off as they are provided to you!!

For all of the healing prayers that I am asking, including Zelda's extra large bladder stones, I pray it because I know that God can heal - He has healed me in many ways. Physically He has provided me strength to accomplish things I thought impossible - He has provided relief from the RA symptoms and continues to show me new and different ways to safely deal with this chronic illness. Including the fact that I am now back to doing my aerobic workouts with light weights.

Spiritually He provided me with His Holy Spirit to teach me about His ways, and who intercedes on my behalf (sometimes God provides me with things that I haven't even fully been able to ask for properly and I will give an example in a second of that), and mentally because incident by incident He is slowly healing my mind from everything that ever happened in my life that gave me a twisted and distorted view of His love, the world and life itself. It is beautiful to experience.
So my prayer for Zelda is that after they give her the anesthesia and shave her little belly (where she loves to have belly rubs...) that they will do the ultra sound. And there will not be anything there but the bladder. Not a single stone.

Now I know that God answers prayers, but He doesn't always automatically just give us what we want. He sees the big picture and we don't. He's not there to just answer our demands. He loves us all and has a very complicated universe to sustain...'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways,' declares the LORD. 'For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways and My thoughts than your thoughts.' (Isaiah 55:8-9)

So no matter what happens, I will still praise His name and tell of His awesome works in my life. Here is an example. When the dogs and I were getting ready to fly from Atlanta (a very busy airport if you haven't been there before!), I had to check Ringo in to the cargo terminal. Meanwhile, I still had 2 other dogs, with crates, my luggage to be checked and my carry-on luggage in a rental van. I did not know what to do, so I prayed something like this, 'God, I don't know what is going to happen or what to do, so I am just going to drive to the terminal and I know you will take care of things for me.' I had not even stopped the minivan when a sky cap passenger assistant was waving me in. He said, "I'm going to help you" and I said, 'but I have this rental van and these dogs and all these bags!' and he said, don't worry about it, I'll take care of it. And he did!!!!

They let me actually leave the minivan out front where you are NEVER supposed to leave your vehicle. He took me to a special counter where the lady started processing my ticket and the dogs right away. He helped me take them to get weighed and checked in, got my luggage checked and had me back out in the van in about 10-15 minutes. I turned in the van, got on the shuttle and rode the long way back to the airport with nothing but a carryon and my tickets. Now THAT is the way God does things.

After everything else in addition to the above that happened during this moving process, I could never imagine doubting His love for me and how He cares about each one of us in every detail of our lives. He loves Brad and our granddaughter, they are so very precious to Him - even more so than they are to anyone else.

And he even loves little Zelda too because He created her and He gave her to me as a gift. She has been a comfort to me so many times and I know He made her just for me...

Anyway, I pray that if you are reading this blog, that you will join me in lifting up these prayers to our Father, believing that God can heal and that He does miracles every day!!

thank you!!

kitchen distractions

here's my latest creation in the kitchen.

it all started when i bought these really thin pork cutlets and then right after that some small bags of frozen porcini mushrooms, and some panna porcini...amazing! stuff you just do not really find in the states unless you find some really gourmet stores (i think?)

they have pasta here in the refrigerated section that i like because it cooks fast. i have fried it before with onions and garlic but today i just boiled it to save time. i cooked the frozen mushrooms in olive oil - i cook everything in fresh olive oil now. then i added a little slice of butter and some white wine and really thin slices of garlic. once i added the porcini creme sauce, it was incredible!! i put fresh lime juice on the cutlets and set them aside. then after adding garlic salt and pepper, i put them in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and put them in the freezer to be lightly fried later in, you guessed it, olive oil! the fact that i did not lose my breading and the cutlets came out perfectly proves that my Martha Stewart Living subscriptions is a good investment and also that my memory is still functioning on some level!

the cutlets were very tasty. and so was the red leaf lettuce and spinach salad, but the very best part of the meal was the fennel. since this was the first fennel i ever cooked, i searched for a recipe and found fennel au gratin. so you boil it for 20-30 minutes then slice it up and put it in a 'gratin' pan. i just used a glass baking dish. then i changed the cheese because they called for gruyere (it was a french recipe) and so i made it italian because i used fresh shredded asiago and reggiano parmesan and a few small slices of fresh provolone. i put some pine nuts on top and broiled it. it was the most incredible flavor - we both had seconds!

okay, all of this is just a distraction because tomorrow is our grandaughter's 2nd birthday and we are not going to be there. so i must do even more than the usual in order to distract myself. God gave me a love of cooking and so that is where i will continue to experiment. there is also a huge pile of dishes waiting for me in the kitchen. (no thrill there).

Gramps (Brad) was off today because he already had worked a full week, so he spent the morning here alone while i took ringo to the vet. then he started playing an online video game for the rest of the afternoon and evening. so he's definitely distracted.

now that we have a working camera again, we will go out hopefully tomorrow for a drive so i can capture some of the beauty of God's creation and the colorful towns of Sicily. this way i can share something besides what i can see off of the bedroom terrace...

Isole Ciclopes

life without communication!

praise the Lord, we have a working telephone and internet access (as of today - 4/28/07!!!) never take your ability to communicate with others for granted. as if it is not difficult enough to move far away from family and friends, not to be able to contact them once you get there makes it even more challenging.

things move slowly in Sicilia, and now that we have a kitchen sink and the grass is finally coming in too, well, life is good. no one is in a hurry here. i think everything is just slower in the south - it is like that in america and it is like that in italy as well...

the real highlights i will save for the next post - it's now almost midnight and we have to get some rest so we can get up for church in the morning.