Thank You Lord For All You Have Done

The beautiful curly headed woman you see proudly standing between her two precious children, Hannah and Nathan, and in front of her husband, Phillip, is my dear mother-in-law, Laurie. We are at Nathan's graduation from Law School, which occured this past May. This post is all about her and the journey the Lord has brought her through in the past couple of weeks. She is a faithful, Godly woman who has walked through a trial relying on God, His Word, and prayer. What an inspiration she is to me and everyone she knows! Before I go on, I would like to share some verses with you that I think are very appropriate--especially in Laurie's case since the Lord has especially gifted her with such a talent to sing. Oh, how she can sing!!! Our Sunday School teacher, Jason, shared these the week of Thanksgiving and they have just stayed with me.

1 Chronicles 16: 8-12

"O give thanks to the Lord, call on His name; make known His doings among the peoples! Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; meditate on and talk of all His wondrous works and devoutly praise them! Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the Lord! Seek the Lord and His strength; yearn for and seek His face and to be in His presence continually! Earnestly remember the marvelous deeds which He has done, His miracles, and the judgements He uttered."

I can tell you that I will definitely remember and always offer praise for what God has done for Laurie because she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of thyroid cancer about 4 weeks ago she had surgery a week ago Friday. The doctor removed her entire thyroid taking with it any cancer/disease/and/or problem. The amazing part is that in the course of a few days, the doctors who initially looked at her needle biopsies and found what they thought was surely cancer called her a few days after that and told her they could not confirm that it was malignant nor that it was benign; so we continued in our hopes and prayers believing that our family's and friends' prayers must have begun to work already! We also found out that Laurie would be operated on and cared for by one of the best doctors in the nation.

As a family we are so grateful that God allowed us to meet and be blessed by Dr. James Suen. We pray that he will continue to be blessed in his practice. You can check out this link to see just a little of what he has accomplished in his lifetime of dedication to the medical profession. http://www.otolaryngology.uams.edu/vascular/docs/suen.html Thank you Dr. Suen!!! Phillip, my father-in-law, told Dr. Suen that Laurie enjoys singing and that we would like to try and preserve her voice as much as possible, so dear sweet Dr. Suen spent 4 hours in surgery to make sure and protect her vocal nerves. God bless him! Also, talk about a small world...Dr. Suen's older brother and my grandfather were best of friends when they attended Little Rock Junior College (which is now UALR) and they even played football together, and played in the Little Rose Bowl together! I'm so glad that my Nana told me that and I was able to share it with Dr. Suen.

We will find out Friday if, in fact, Laurie's thyroid was malignant or benign, but either way, the Lord has taken care of her completely. Indeed, He took care of her the whole way through. Each prayer was answered along the way and she was so fortunate to be covered in prayer by so many loving family members and friends. Thank you to all of you who prayed for her. She felt it for sure!