The Need....

A long overdue "Howdy!" from the Foxhole. Princess reminded me that it has been over eight days since our last post.  Thank you as well to all of our dear friends and followers who have checked in through your messages, texts, and posts.  We have now been home for two weeks and we are still adjusting and learning to be back home.  Balancing time between, work for myself, Physical Therapy at home for Princess, other nurse visits, continued doctors appointments, and of course the clamors of needs at home, it has been busy.  Friday night we were able to take a break resume with our Date Night.  Back at our spot, the Lord blessed us as we crossed paths with a childhood family friend of Princess that had been randomly following the Foxhole from Nicaragua on a recent trip.  This was an encouraging encounter and blessing!  Amazing to see how God works!

As the days pass, I have been able to share more with Princess of what the last month has involved.  Whether through messages, pictures or even stories, she sits back and listens to her life as if it was a story.  Truly unique what the brain can retain or not retain.  Names, faces, events have seemed to have unfortunately vanished, and yet, something much more important has remained...

Physically, Princess is still trying to work through getting her strength back.  Moving from bed to the bathroom is like sprinting a mile and leaves her exhausted.  Truly a reminder of just how difficult of a hill it will be to regain her strength.  Her voice is getting stronger and she isn't speaking with a whisper as much.  Her pneumonia has seemed to healed.  Her shingles is still a bother, and we have seen a couple times where it isn't as painful as before (this a huge relief).  A praise is that we have not recorded a seizure.  Rather, we have continued to record auras and fortunately, the last few days those have been decreasing in frequency, too.  So amid the backdrop of business, physical pain, and exhaustion, Princess is slowly getting better.  It is apparent that it will take some time and I pray that we can be still, and continue to keep our focus on the Lord and His work in and through this season.

As I left a thought hanging just a paragraph back, something of much greater importance for Princess has remained.  And while we adjust to the trials at home, we also recognize the trials that lay for all of us ahead.  This weekend a dramatic and unfortunate scene has played out in Virginia.  And for us what has remained, is what is absent from many in our Nation today.  Something, that because of its lack, has brought about hostility, anger, and aggression.  This lack...is a need for a Savior.

A question that has been asked of us a lot through our particular journey is if Princess remembered me.  Did she remember Critter?  Did she know who we were?  Yes, is the short answer.  And while this might be important, more importantly, she has rested well in our Father's grasp and has never lost sight, or better, never lost her mind of who Christ is as her Savior, Rock, and Redeemer.  Through the trial and through the pain, her focus has been and is continually on Him. Our focus remains on Him to be our strength and our Provider. Our Savior.

And this has kept our attention and our focus.  Our faith in Christ has given us balance, direction, and wisdom.  Today, I shared with Princess that in the heat of the early moments of our first hospitalization, and in a moment where I was finally able to sit and call my family to provide an update, the only words that I could muster out was what was and has been hidden in my heart.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

Do not lean on your own understanding.

In all your way, acknowledge Him

and he will direct your paths.

Proverbs 3:5-6

Matthew 12 says that out of the overflow of the heart the mouths speaks. As I shared with Princess the events and what was shared with our family, I am grateful that the overflow of my heart is with God's Word.  He is truly carrying us.  And in the same breath, I cry for our Nation, for our homes, for our families that we would all cling to the Savior, Jesus Christ.  

Chaos fills our lives and the tension of hostility and racism, among other things, spilled over and God has been left out of our culture once again.  Sadly, the decline that has been going on for decades is only getting worse and I, Princess, ALL of us need to pray, and seek the only One that can give us any peace or solution to our problems. Just like the Lord has provided in many ways for us, I am praying that all of us could stop and get back to a time when there was respect, moral values, and a belief in God.   

And while I don't feel qualified to speak on such an issue or even a matter, I turn to those who well before me have tried to address the Need.  

Here is a brief snippet from Dr. J Vernon McGee in a message he titled, "America Needs a Declaration of Dependence."

"I want you to notice a philosophy of history that we find in God’s Word. The three steps that precede the downfall of any nation are first of all, religious apostasy; second, there is moral awfulness; and third, political anarchy. These are the three steps downward that all the great nations of the past, lying this moment in rubble and ashes, have taken. Rome, for instance, is the classic example. The historian Gibbon gives five reasons for the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The first step down is the undermining of the dignity and sanctity of the home, which is the basis of human society. Second, higher and higher taxes, the spending of public money for free bread and circuses for the populace. Third, the mad craze for pleasure, sports becoming every year more exciting, more brutal, more immoral. Fourth, the building of great armaments when the great enemy is within — the decay of individual responsibility. And fifth, the decay of religion, fading into mere form, losing touch with life, losing power to guide the people. These were the downward steps that Rome took, Greece took, and which all the great nations of the past have taken."

He goes on to state...

"How Did It Happen? Pandora’s box of troubles was opened for America back at the turn of the century when professing Christians deserted the midweek service and then, after the first World War, deserted the Sunday night service. And before long there was no difference between the leading deacon’s language and that of the local bartender. Dr. Walter F. Tunks of the University of Akron said, “In the last six thousand years, there have been twenty-one civilizations, and every one of them has gone on the rocks precisely at the point where they let God go.” It was indeed interesting to find in the staid Wall Street Journal, when the Depression first began, a brief editorial that went something like this: “What America needs more than railway extension, western irrigation, a low tariff, a bigger cotton crop, and a larger wheat crop is a revival of religion. The kind that father and mother used to have. A religion that counted it good business to take time for family worship each morning right in the middle of wheat harvest. A religion that prompted them to quit work a half hour earlier on Wednesday so that the whole family could get ready to go to prayer meeting.”

"America’s problem is the same today; it is a spiritual problem."

So, as a long overdue update, we do appreciate you checking in.  We appreciate your involvement in our lives and we are so grateful for your prayers and support.  Lord willing, we will continue to post about Princess' improvements and most importantly, God's continued grace, and strength through  the adversity.  Please pray too for the communities affected by the weekend's events.  Pray for our Nation.  Pray most importantly for God to be made known, and for our homes, families, communities, states, our Nation to recognize that our problem is a spiritual problem and there is, just like there has only and always been, one solution.  The need for a Savior.