Paul- he's my home-boy!

About a year and a half ago, I was hospitalized due to some stomach complications. As many of you know, I have an autoimmune disease in which the immune system in my stomach decided to go hyper-active and destroy my stomach lining. (See! Even in my disorders I'm an over-achiever!)

After the hospitalization and a serious round of some nasty steroids, everything appeared to be fine.

However, the medicine that is currently being used to "control" my over-achieving immune system is not working as it should. This results in two negative outcomes. One- I get sick at the drop of a hat (or at the hint of a cough) because the medicine is an immune system suppressant. For that reason I've been sick since school started. Two- my ulcerative colitis is completely uncontrolled and I'm severely anemic.

This, combined with the stress, work, and hours of graduate school are making me very **ahem** unwell. (I hate admitting that!)

I have a doctor's appointment on Tuesday. Would you please pray?

Pray that miraculously, I would get suddenly, and instantaneously better. "You have not, because you ask not."

And pray that the reason why I have this autoimmune disease would become crystal clear- that I would use this "opportunity" to its fullest. I don't know why God has decided this would be a good thing for me, but I do know:

"To keep me from becoming conceited... there was given me a thorn in my flesh... to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (II Corinthians 12:7-10)

**I like to think that Paul's thorn in his flesh was in his stomach, just like me... Paul and I- we're autoimmune disease home-boys. Fo' sho'.**