I'm happy to report that I'm starting to feel a little bit better.  Thanks for all your prayers.  I'm still feeling nauseous but I haven't thrown up for a few days!  Now instead of throwing up from everything except crackers, I have found that there are certain foods that I really need to avoid.  Here's my list so far, which I will keep updating.

Foods I can't Stomach:
chicken  (this kills me because that's all we have in the house)
eggs (this was supposed to be my 'easy' food)
shrimp
non-fresh food (can't eat leftovers the next day - which gets expensive)
soup - broth made from bones (my comfort food!)
Indian curry (homemade from Patak's starter sauce)
yogurt
Pho (do I need to say how tragic this is??)
MAYBE spicy foods (flaming hot cheetos, salsa, will test it again)

The good news, though, is that I'm not so paralyzed by nausea anymore that all I can do is sit there.  (Yup, there were days on end where I'd just lie on the sofa staring at the ceiling because moving made me sick.)  Now I can actually read a little, so I started reading a book called Fresh Faith by Jim Cymbala.  He poses this question - what amazes Jesus, the all-powerful, all-sovereign, all-knowing one?  What amazes him?  Only one thing - faith.  He cites the two examples of the Roman centurion (Lk 7:9) and the Canaanite woman dog + bread-crumbs story (Mt 15:28).  Jesus was amazed by their great faith, and He granted them their request.  By contrast, when He went to his hometown, it was their lack of faith that amazed him and rendered Him helpless to do any miracles (Mk 6:5-6).  Faith makes a difference! 

I guess I've been having a bit of a defeatest attitude for awhile.  One where I've felt like, "Well, if God's gonna do something, He'll do it. If He doesn't want to do it, He just won't."  It doesn't matter if I pray or don't, have faith or not.  But I'm not a Calvinist.  Thanks to Pastor Cymbala, I am reminded that, deep down, I really do believe that when we have great faith, God responds to that.  His heart is softened by our earnest hearts and our childlike faith.  I need to have fresh faith.  I want to have such great faith that I might "amaze" God.

I had a really vivid dream last night that a woman from my seminary prayed over me -- and then she spoke a word to me.  When I woke up, I didn't remember what it was until I started praying.  Then I remembered that she had told me to pray directly against the fears which have been hindering me.  So that's what I did.  And it was so freeing!  It was exactly what I needed to do.  I love that He spoke to me in a dream and provided the missing piece for my peace. 

The other night, I had come to realize some of my fears.  What has hindered me from moving forward in faith is this fear I have that my ministry will fail, fall flat, go splat.  I have this paralyzing fear that it won't work, I haven't got the right ideas, haven't looked at it from every angle or that it just won't work for everybody.  I'm afraid that I've evaluated things wrong, misunderstood where people are at and have come up with things that won't meet people's needs at all.  It's this dissenting, cynical voice that keeps making me doubt and second-guess.  But why am I listening to this evil voice?  It's satan's words of discouragement, and if I continue to listen, I will never move forward, and it will be my undoing.  To try and fail is better than to not try at all.  At least, even if I am "off" or "fall short", I am still able to communicate love.  I loved enough to try.  And in the trial and error, in the realizing I missed the mark, I will know better how to get closer to the mark next time around.  I have to try.  I can't throw my hands up in despair bcause I'm scared that I'll be the fool.  The fool is the one who does not take the step of faith to follow Jesus when He calls.  

And this is what I prayed about this morning.  I prayed against the dissenting voice -- that it will no longer be an influence in my life.  I prayed for God to give me the confidence that He is the one who gave me that certain vision; He is the one who is calling me forward.

The Place that Never Was

Today I read a book called "The Traveler's Gift."  I was most struck by the last place the traveler went.  It was "the place that never was" - a place where Heaven keeps all the things that were about to be delivered but weren't because the person stopped working and praying for them.  Things that almost were but never were because someone stopped believing.  The contents of the warehouse were filled with the dreams and goals (and answers and cures) of the less courageous --those who weren't courageous enough to take the steps of faith forward into the unknown or to keep persevering in prayer for their heart's desires. 

It caused me to wonder whatif there was a place that held all the things that are deemed "impossible" by the world - all those dreams and ideas -- which are just waiting to be claimed if only we'd be courageous and tenacious enough to dream, pray, push and believe.  And if we quit, those things that could've been will never be ours.

The Feeding of the Five Thousand:  did you ever realize that even as those 10,000 people sat down for the meal and even as Jesus gave thanks to the Father "for the food they were about to receive", there really wasn't enough food for all of them?  They gave thanks to the Father on faith for food that wasn't theirs yet.  It's kind of odd when you think about it.  But, for most of us, it's just reality that we don't want to sit down for a meal and give thanks for it unless there's actually a meal set before us.  We don't want to apply for a missions trip, go into ministry, start a new career, plan for a wedding banquet (oh, how relevant!) --  unless we have the money in our banks and all the plans laid out and all our ducks lined up in a row.  And yet I don't ever remember anything great happening through anybody who didn't (in a metaphorical sense) sit down and give thanks for a meal that they still couldn't see or smell.  That seems to be the pattern of all the great ones of faith, and I want to be one of those rather than being one of the ones filling up the Place that Never Was with more and more of things that could've been...