Jennifer Litton!

"For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah 9:6

That is Yaacov's favorite "Christmas" verse. At Christmas, we celebrate the greatest gift God could give--His only son. He gave it freely to us, without even asking, despite all the crummy things we were doing, still do, and will do in the future. You might think I'm talking about this because of December 25 coming around the corner. But you would be WRONG!

I'm talking about God's awesome gifts because He has blessed me so much, in His own timing, and on His own terms. He keeps me on my toes but that just makes me a better dancer. You should see me spinning around right now! To get to the point, He is doing SO MUCH to get us to the MD Anderson program in Texas and just put one of the final dots on the line. So, before I had any interest in going there, we started having people offering help us go. To summarize, we already have had: people donating money for the trip(s), people offering us places to stay there, people telling us they can expedite my case to be seen in a timely manner, people telling us they can get us in to see any of the doctors there, doctors calling my insurance company to find out exactly how to finagle it, and doctors writing letters to the company on my behalf. So, all we need now is insurance, and the insurance head told us all she needs is the name of the doctor I want to work with there. Easier said than done, as no one looked perfect. I tried all the avenues I would think of on my own to figure out who could be best. I tried calling them directly, checking out all the doctors people have mentioned, reading the vitae online, and having doctors ask their friends. There were no clinical trials of interest so I couldn't do it that way, and none of the leads seemed like a match. I was uneasy about it all and unsure how to proceed, so I was just going to settle on one. But then it happened--In an unrelated issue I decided to go through all my backlog of email before we leave town, and saw that someone (thank-you Ann Spitzer!) sent me a link to a news story about a promising cancer finding. I thought it would be about untouchable treatments but read it anyway. There it was--a story about some great findings for people similar to me at MD Anderson. With Jennifer Litton as the head of a promising clinical trial. I don't know if I missed her vita the other day or what, but upon reading it tonight I see she has serious interests in cases similar to mine. Just looking at her little bio gives me goosebumps. She is definitely the doctor we've been looking for. God is the healer but she is one of the players. It is SUCH a load off, and I'm so excited to finally have a name and move on to the next step toward the airport.

This is really big to me, but I'm not sure if it'll make much sense to everyone else. It shows conclusively that God is working and helping me, and He does it for His glory and His name, not in the ways that would leave me room to boast. But, "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord" 2 Cor 10:17. God set it up. If I found a doctor there I might have started thinking I was in control, and I was finding the right doctors. But He knew it was this doctor from the beginning and hid the her from me until the perfect time.

I am really happy for the gift of Jesus, and really happy for the gifts like this that Jesus brings.

I would stop here, but we're going out of town and I just know you all want more. So I'm going to brag about more amazing things God is doing.

I realized I have the world's greatest husband. Literally. He is amazing, so thoughtful, so dedicated, never complains or worries. He is my rock and, even though I whine and complain about almost everything he does, he never actually does anything wrong. He takes the kids all the time, let's me rest when I need it, talk when I need it, cry when I need it. He is perfect for me and I will do all I can to be considerably more perfect for him.

Our friends, loved ones, family, and absolute strangers have been SO kind to us. It's actually so kind that I have had a really hard time coming to terms with it. I'm not sure if it's a pride thing because I've never been a "charity case" before, or what. I know people like to do things in private ("Be careful not to do your 'acts of righteousness' before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.", Mth 6:1), so I want to keep things anonymous, but I have never seen love at work like this before. I am so humbled to be a part of it. I hope and pray that we won't need all the things people have given us, and if that's the case I'll get it back to you or donate it in your name. But for now we're accepting it because I figure if God put it on people's hearts to give us things, He knows we need it. Anyway, among many other things, we have had care packages from people I haven't spoken to in 15+ years, money from people we've never met, even a tiny Christmas tree! Oh, and in January a group of Yaacov's friends are running a relay and raising money through it to donate to us. To top it all off, a complete stranger is lending us her beach house for the weekend, and a ton of people contributed with money and gift cards so we can truly relax. I am so looking forward to it. We leave tomorrow afternoon.

I feel sort of odd posting this blog, because it's just bragging about all this awesome stuff. Who wants to hear about all the great things someone else has? Unless it's out of jealousy, I mean. But I've been praying about this blog and when it came time to write I could not stop these feelings of awesomeness for what God is doing through His people. I'm so excited to be able to share it with you!