Operational level of war targeting

Dear Ones,



As Deanna wrote, we had a tough couple of days. Two days ago around lunch time I got hungry. This is quite remarkable, a miracle in and of itself, because I haven't been really hungry since I got sick. Thirsty yes, but not hungry. But in the past couple of weeks, there have been several times when I was..., well, very hungry. I've had cravings for the stromboli sandwich and gelato at Vero's in Tucson, Italian food in general, and most recently for breakfast foods of all types. If I could, a few times I would have gone to IHOP and ordered one of everything on the menu.



Anyway, two days ago I got hungry and decided to fry an egg. I took one brown, organic egg, fried it over easy (but not runny) in a little EVOO, and seasoned it with some sea salt and pepper. It smelled wonderful. I decided to be very careful, so I cut about one square centimeter of the egg white from the edge and ate it, slowly and thoroughly chewing it up before swallowing.



Unfortunately, despite my precautions, it got stuck about half way down. The barium swallow we did had revealed the upper half of the esophagus to be in pretty good shape. The lower half, however, was so much thinner, and twisted. It looked like a twisted wire attached to the end of a pipe. So it's no surprise that the egg only went half way down. So the egg came back up along with a ton of phlegm. The worst part was the phlegm kept coming...for about the next 36 hours. I don't quite understand how this too is part of God's plan, but I know it is, and I thank him for it. I think it may have something to do with cleansing the mess left by the cancer. There was not much sleep that whole time.



However, last night at bed time, it just stopped. I was able to start hydrating. I slept like a rock, and in the morning I did not want to wake up and get out of bed. However, we had our oncologist appointment to go to. It was great sleep, but just not enough, so I took an extra morning nap today after the appointment. The white cell count was a bit low, so I got a booster shot. But the red cells were steady, and the platelets had actually come up slightly. Thank you Lord. Doc felt around my stomach and liver area and let loose with a rare little grin (he is usually all business, a bit on the stoic side). He said something like "I still can't feel a thing, not the tumor, the lesions, nothing." A little while ago, I even kept down some beef broth. Thank God, He has helped us weather another storm.



Today we had a wonderful visit from a faith healing couple. They shared how they had come through experiences similar to our own. They anointed me with oil, laid hands on me and prayed for me--wonderful stuff. Then they did something extra that I had not seen or thought of before. He said something like "And because we know that you are one flesh in Christ, we will anoint Deanna too." He proceeded to cross the oil on her forehead as he had done to me and prayed for her as well. For me it was joyous to see her receiving this love. And it was a Duh, Why Didn't I Think Of That? moment as well. I pray for her at least daily, and a few times, I've even laid hands on her while praying. But it never occurred to me to anoint her as well. It was terrific!



We are one flesh in Christ. If I am sick, she is sick as well, and is deserving of anointing, the laying on of hands, and prayer. My father died from a long battle with diabetes, so I have seen before how hard an illness of this magnitude is on the caregiver. It was just as hard on my mom as my dad. More so in many ways. It is the same with Deanna and me. As rotten as that 36 hours was on me, I think it was worse on her. I would appreciate it if everyone would say just a little extra prayer specifically for Deanna-for peace, joy, wisdom, strength. She is a bonafide hero, but this thing has really put her through the wringer.

So Monday morning I am going to have the GE Doc stretch my esophagus. He doesn't want to do it, wants instead to install that permanent metal stent. I have decided to just get a stretch and see how long that lasts. I would rather have to get stretched once a month or so than have the stent. It's permanent, which could back us into a surgical corner later on. It means sitting up semi-reclined and not able to lie down to sleep, and it will likely hurt even more than the temporary stents did. Which means back on the morphine...forever.

I want to buy some time by just getting the stretch. We are supposed to wait on the Lord, so it is an act of faith on my part to wait for God to do some more healing. Who knows?--With the cancer no longer active and ravaging the esophagus, it may, God willing, heal up enough to function again. God said in His book that he wants us to have life overflowing...overflowing! Not just a little bit, or a half life, or even a 100% life. He wants us to have even more than 100% of life...overflowing! So I do not feel too guilty to be selfish and ask him for even more healing than he has already so graciously given to me. I want more...I want the overflowing!

That stromboli at Vero's sure sounds good. You guys that are still in Tucson are lucky.

If we get that permanent metal stent, then the only way to further fix the problem is to do the big surgery. It's been our goal for so long now to get to the point where we could get the surgery. I'm not so sure now. I did some more studying about the procedure--they have to open you up like a dissected frog--both belly and chest. Since the tumor was also in the stomach, which is where they want to get tissue from to construct a new esophagus, they may have to get tissue from somewhere else. Which happens to be---the colon. So I might literal be split open from chest to groin. This surgery kills 5-10% of the people who get it, and it can take up to a year to completely heal from it.

But if we are patient, and make smart choices that wait upon the Lord for healing, maybe all that will be unnecessary. So we'll start with stretching and see how long it lasts. I'll do the metal stent and the surgery if that's where God leads us, but I don't want to take away the gentler options right now.

Deanna and I were discussing some dear friends who called recently and told us about a life threatening medical threat to one of their children. She said something like "Why are all these rotten things happening to so many of the people we love."

In my USAF work, we dealt with a lot of target lists created for training. I told Deanna how we used to sort through thousands of targets to decide which ones would be struck and when. While there were a number of techniques out there, I always fell back on the A-B-C system. It was simple enough for everyone to understand, plus it fixed a number of compatibility problems between two pieces of cantankerous software that we used to plan the air portion of the campaign.

A priority targets were targets that had to be effected on today's missions. They could not wait until later. They had first priority on missions that the air chief had at his disposal. You would do everything you possibly could to ensure these targets got effected because the success or failure of the campaign objectives hinged on them.

B priority targets were targets that should be effected on today's missions, but could be delayed for a few days if resources were not available.

C priority targets were the nice-to-have targets, but could wait for a long time if necessary. In fact, the war might end before they got effected, and they might not ever get effected at all.

Well, I supposed out loud to Deanna that Satan has a target list. She thought it was so interesting that she insisted that I blog today and include the idea.

I suppose people who are without a saving knowledge of Yeshua are C priority targets. Satan knows he already has them, so why waste his resources on them?

When someone accepts Christ and gets saved, I suppose they move up to the B priority target list. Satan hates Jesus, so he hates us too and becomes more willing to spend his resources on attacking us.

And when a christian matures in the knowledge of the Lord, begins doing His work, teaching, preaching, discipling, ministering, strengthening the body of Christ,--well guess what? Those Christians get bumped up to Satan's A priority list because taking them out will do the most damage per expended resource to the church.

So it doesn't surprise me at all that so many bad things happen to our most mature and capable and productive christian leaders. It's standard military targeting. I've done it long enough that I recognize it when I see it.

So we should all cover our elders, deacons, teachers, and other christian leaders with extra prayer, because I have a hunch that they are all A priority targets on Satan's target list.

With much love and thankfulness,
-Mike