The Battle

God is good all the time…..

I have to start by saying, I pray these updates glorify God and help bring hope and peace to others. Twice, I have typed out significantly long updates to only have them wiped out before finishing and posting. I think it is the enemy just trying to stop a message of God’s goodness from reaching hundreds. (It could not have anything to do with my poor technological skills, or the fact that I cannot type and have to stare at the keyboard to strike every key – who knows what keys I have hit that caused the ENTIRE message to be deleted – haha – but I am going to blame the enemy and not myself!!)

I apologize again for taking so long in between updates. We have been going so many different directions. God has been so faithful in ordering our steps and helping us to respond to every thing happening in her body. We are continually adjusting to meet her needs.

We probably had the best few days of this journey the beginning of last week and then probably the worst few days of this journey. My healed wife had gotten to the point where the clock actually was telling us when it was time to take pain medicine again and not her pain telling us it was time to take her pain medicine again. Praise God!

We had been searching for a Palliative Care provider to help us manage her pain and have not been able to do so. Either they did not accept our medical sharing plan (Insurance substitute), or would not accept cash, or needed a referral from a doctor in Nashville requiring a visit for the referral. My healed wife is doing better but travel to her therapy in Murfreesboro 5 minutes away is about all her body can handle at this point.

So in efforts to help, our General Practitioner prescribed a change to the pain medicine that just did not go well at all. Nothing the doctor did wrong, but my healed wife’s body did not like the new plan and experienced probably a few of the worst days of this journey. We have resorted back to our original pain plan and have my healed wife back on track to victory. The Lord used our 14 year old to help us through those days. The new medicine was causing severe nausea and Hannah asked if we tried charcoal pills. We tried and calmed her right down. The other horrible side effects continued, but the vomiting stopped thanks to Hannah.

God has sure made His presence known throughout this whole process and He has confirmed His words with signs following. We were getting into a ditch where we were letting the enemy into our thoughts. He was trying to get us to focus on the one area not improving or getting slightly worse rather than focusing on the overall victory we are seeing. The Lord put it on my heart to talk to my healed wife about II Cor 10:5 and how we need to bind the enemy and cast him out of our thoughts and mind. A few hours later, a good friend or ours who has sent my healed wife an encouraging text every day since our first day in Mexico, sent her daily message. Guess what it was about? It was a study and breakdown of II Cor 10:5. Yes – God is good and always knows what we need.

Just this weekend, my healed wife and I were talking about how important it is to verbally speak the word and not just read it and think it. There is so much power in the spoken word. Less than an hour later we get a text from our sweet friend. Guess what it was about… the importance of speaking the word and not just reading and thinking the word. WOW! Although I knew it was Jesus putting his hand on our shoulder confirming our direction, I still accused her of having a camera in our house. HAHAHA

Thank you again for all the support from everyone. We need the encouragement, the finances, the food, the prayers, the thoughts, the help with our children…. all of it. What each one of you is doing is making a difference in our lives.

In total transparency, financially, we could not do this without your help. As many of you may know, we lost our business during the pestilence and ended up filing personal bankruptcy, so our reserves are slim. We have spent over 35k so far in this journey. The care we have hired to help us with this comes in 3 days a week and the outside protocols are twice a week. The two of those cost us about $1000 per week combined. This is such a time intensive process that I am going to take a lesser role (and lesser pay) at work so I can better focus on my healed wife (even with the hired help and her amazing Mom’s continued support. Which by the way, she is awesome and here all the time helping.) Converting our groceries to organic has been a significant impact to our grocery bill as well as the supplements that go with the protocol. All this to say, once again that God is good and he is using you all to lift us up financially and not allowing that to be a burden or stress on us.

We need all the support we are getting but I wanted to take a minute to thank everyone for the tangible financial support as it has made a huge difference along with all the other support we are getting.

We are so grateful for each one of you and pray for you almost daily. We love you all!!!

…All the time God is Good!!!.

God is good all the time….

A MESSAGE FROM MY HEALED WIFE!!

My healed wife has not been in a position to contribute a post but PRAISE GOD, she is on an amazing trajectory of manifesting her healing in her body…. below is an update directly from my healed wife’s hand (she has deleted Facebook off her phone to keep her from being sucked into the scroll hole and able to stay focused on the Word)…..

Hello my amazing friends, family and prayer warriors!

I am so grateful for each and everyone of you and completely overwhelmed that the Lord has allowed me to see His Kingdom at work through each one of you. He has used you all to provide for all of our needs in so many wonderful ways. There are no words to adequately convey the depths of our gratitude and I am anxious for the day we are able to serve Him as well as all of you have been serving us. I pray Luke 6:38 that as you give, it would be given back to you good measure, pressed down, shaken together so that you cannot even hold it and I pray 3 John 2 that you would prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers.

I want to thank my amazing warrior husband for being our communicator and keeping everyone up to date on what has been happening in our lives. He is such a blessing and takes such great care of me. So many of you have reached out to me and I want to apologize for not responding but also to let you all know how much I love you and appreciate your messages. I thought you all might like to hear from me and the last few months from my perspective.

I was just thinking this morning how very long ago our trip to Mexico seems. I remember when we first got back how good I felt. I was walking on my own and would occasionally feel well enough to eat at the table with the family. Then somewhere just before Christmas I didn’t feel so great. I was nauseous all the time and having a challenging time keeping food down. It seemed to get better over Christmas weekend but that night I got sick again. Looking back, there were several different things, just little decisions really, that we made that had we done them differently, the next little bit may not have been so hard. For the next two weeks I struggled with vomiting and even holding down water until I ended up in the hospital. After several days of receiving fluids, I was able to come home but I was still not doing very well. If I could describe myself during this time as the bobber on the end of a fishing line, I would say I felt like I was under the water way more than I was above. The bone pain I experience was dramatically increased which lead to the hospital putting me on pain medicine that had I known the effects of which would have on my body, I would have found a different way. We are still working on my body detoxing from the pain meds which often leads to me feeling very tired, horrible brain fog and unable to make decisions on my own. Detoxing truly is no joke! There were a number of times over the last two months that I wondered if my body was shutting down.

BUT GOD!!!!! He began to guide us and it was like I knew the next steps we needed to take to help my body heal and slowly but surely my appetite began to return and I was no longer getting sick. I began feeling better. Then about two weeks after we got home from the hospital, something happened.

For the past two years I’ve had issues with the lymph drainage in my right arm and have had to get Assisted Lymph Therapy to help move the fluid from my arm. After the hospital my body began building up the pain medication that I was taking and not moving it out properly. The doctor we have been working with decided to change my medication to a slow release rather than the every four hours I was taking. This is pretty standard for those who are walking through cancer and I understand it helps many people. Sadly for me, it didn’t work and in fact my pain was worse than it had ever been. Friday, February 10, I took the 3rd dose of the time release medication and within an hour I was vomiting and couldn’t stop. It was terrible! It had been two weeks since I had gotten sick. I have absolutely no idea what it is like to overdose on something but that is what I imagined it felt like. I remember laying in bed looking at my husband and feeling completely helpless. I couldn’t think clearly, I was in horrible pain and I felt almost like I was out of my body. Then God directed our steps once again and used our precious Hannah to do it. She said, why don’t you try charcoal pills??? I stopped vomiting after the second one, Praise God, and I honestly have no idea how many I took that first weekend. But we began filling me up with juices so I could do the coffee breaks and finally Saturday night at 6:00 I called my mom into the bathroom and said I finally feel a little better. It felt like someone had removed a mask or blindfold from me and I could see again. It is still a journey and I am still taking at least two charcoal caps a day but the medicine is slowly moving out of my body and my arm.

The following Monday, two amazing men of God from our church came and prayed over me. The Lord reminded me that I don’t have to “do” anything but rest and receive what He has already done for me. That night I went to bed determined to just rest in the Lord, in His promises and receive the healing He has already given to me. I woke up February 14, 2023 believing I am completely healed from cancer. The changes and improvements in my body since then have been exponential! I am still not where I was when we got back from Mexico but in many ways I believe I am even better!!!!! I am healed!

So going back to the fishing bobber analogy, these days I am definitely above the water much more than I am under. We continue to steadfastly submit ourselves to God and resist everything that the enemy to try to throw at us and he will flee in stark terror. He will soon learn that he has no place in this Knight house. I am so grateful for all that the Lord has and continues to do for our family. We see His Word manifest in my body and in our lives almost daily. Joel 3:10, I AM STRONG, is one of my favorite scriptures to speak and claim over my life and we are beginning to see the strength return to my legs and body. I cannot tell you how many times over the last two months we saw 1 Peter 2:24 manifest as I was head over a garbage can on the verge of getting sick speaking that verse until all traces of nausea and vomiting disappeared. I just love His Word and Hebrews 4:12 that His Word is ALIVE!!!!!!! One of my dear friends, who has been a true and completely unexpected gift from the Lord, has been declaring that this month will be a good month for me and our family and boy have we seen that come to pass.

I cannot complete this post without thanking my fearless mama and my warrior husband. These two are my absolute best and favorite caregivers who have sacrificed so much. I am completely dependent upon them and I cannot fathom how stressful and taxing and exhausting that must be for them. The Lord has blessed me beyond measure with both of them and they truly exhibit Agape love. Not only has my warrior husband become my amazing caretaker but he also has the burden of all the household responsibilities/decisions that he used to be able to share. And with the difficulties of the last few months, the person he confides in and talks about everything with has not been mentally capable of holding a conversation. I imagine there are times it feels he has lost his best friend. But GOD! We continue to rejoice in the improvements we are seeing and He has continued to bring us closer together and closer to Him at the same time. He has helped us to strengthen our relationship through His Word and facing yet another trial which my warrior husband can update you on. And my precious mama, I can’t imagine what it must be like to watch your daughter go through this challenge. She is the strongest woman I know and the most amazing caretaker for our whole family. She just comes in and does whatever needs to be done whether it’s taking kids somewhere or washing the endless amount of dishes and laundry or cleaning the kitchen. And she does it all without a complaint. We are incredibly grateful to her and I can’t wait for the day when I get to just take her out for shopping and lunch, just a mother/daughter day.

And now more good stuff……Before the hospital, we found an IV therapy group here in town. The first time we went was right before the hospital and I received two liters of fluid and never had to go to the bathroom. That’s how dehydrated I was at the time. Little did I know what a God thing it was that He lead us there! It turns out they offer a number of therapies we received in Mexico! They are working on a treatment plan for us that will last 12 weeks. We are incredibly excited and expectant about what God is doing. We appreciate your prayers over the next few months for easy treatments and no negative side effects. That my veins would be strong and easy to find. That God has lead us here and He will supply all of our needs.

Thank you all for taking the time to follow us on this healing journey and for doing so so much to love on our family and truly help us through this time. We love and appreciate each one of you and pray for you often.

God is good! And He loves you as if you are the only person in this world to love!!!!!!

…. all the time God is good.

God is good all the time…..

Sorry it has been so long since we have provided an update. Let me start by praising God for His goodness, faithfulness, and love. He continues to be with us throughout this entire process and shows us His love and presence continually through you all and so many others.

We have been making some great progress and had found an AMAZING clinic that has been able to provide most of the US approved treatments we received in Mexico. The staff and ownership are so invested in us (and I would imagine in all their other clients as well.) They have such amazing hearts to help and are all about focusing on cure. We had started a 13 week intense daily IV therapy treatment and we had gotten about 2 weeks into the plan by early March.

My healed wife had some inflammatory healing reactions the week of the 6th of March and was not able to sit up without pain and became bedridden other than to use the restroom and that involved extreme pain. Late Sunday night to 13th we ended up calling 911 because she was passing out and her blood pressure bottomed out to a dangerously low number.

She was anemic and dehydrated. Overall the stay in the hospital was extremely long and full of bad news in the flesh and no support for the protocols we have chosen to follow. Our goal was to get stable enough to get home and get back on the IV protocols. Because we were not follow traditional oncology, the attending physician was not supportive of anything we were doing. To get my healed wife stable, they had to give her 4 blood transfusions. It is amazing to me the way we were treated. When you have the “stage 4 cancer” tag put on you, (and maybe because we were not following traditional treatment) they did not really care to dig into what caused the sudden blood loss or any other abnormalities. They standard answer was “that is cancer.”

All I can say is we felt like we were in the belly of the beast but had God around us and every step of the way. We had one God moment after another.

We asked for them to put in a pick line so we could continue our IV therapies when we got home. The hospital said they would struggle to find a surgeon willing to do that since it was not for traditional use. Well with all the testing my healed wife needed and blood draws and transfusions, they ended up blowing out most of her veins and had to put in a pick line so they could do their job…. and we came home with a pick line! Absolutely a divine intervention.

We finally got released under the care of Hospice. They are going to help us manage her level of comfort while we continue to let God manifest the healing in her body with the protocols.

So in full transparency, mental strength has been the biggest battle and the Lord has sent us messenger after messenger to help us when we have been weak.

God sent us a nurse technician to continually love on us and bless us, he sent the wife of another patient to love on us and bless us. He sent friends to the hospital with such thoughtful gift, prayers, and words of kindness. (I have to say, the most incredible gift was a stick of chapstick – haha – it was soooo needed.) I developed an instant relationship and found a spiritual mentor in the exact right hour. God gave me this man to prepare me for some news they delivered and support me through the processing of the news. He was just an acquaintance that I am now so thrilled to get to know better once we get out of this season and to be able to call him my close friend.

We had an awesome family from church come to the house after our release and gave us a sermon that was a direct message from God to us and spoke exactly to what we needed to hear. It has inspired us and motivated us to stay focused on Jesus and His word but to also rest in Him and His word. The key word being rest! Something we were not allowing ourselves to do. That message brought us peace once again.

God used that stay to continue to develop our relationship with Him. The word says as you draw near to Him, He will draw near to you. At one point I was getting frustrated and wondering why I needed to pray for her healing over and over and over. He clearly put it on my heart that I only need to pray once for His sake. The rest was for my sake, to draw me closer to Him and to strengthen my faith and relationship with Him. The more I pray, the more time I spend with Him, the stronger my faith grows, the deeper my relationship becomes. It was about 3AM and my prayers had become desperate or almost begging for His promises to be released on my healed wife. That revelation he put in my heart brought such tremendous peace and changed my prayers of desperation back to prayers of faith, confidence, expectation, and just reminders of His promises.

We are so excited about what He has in store for us when we get to the other side of this. We have a more intimate relationship with Him than we ever could have imagined and we are so ready to be available for him to use us completely to His glory. No matter where it takes us, who it puts us with, or who it takes us from. He has AMAZING plans for us, and the enemy is working his tail off to try to stop us from getting there! He will not succeed. We are MORE than conquerors through Him who loved us!

We were getting ready for dinner Sunday night and the kids came tell us that there are a few families out in our driveway. Our basketball goal had gotten blown over and had broken. A dear friend of ours noticed and would not rest until it got replaced. These two families found one, delivered it, set it up, and tore down the old one. My healed wife was in her bed just humbled again and in tears of joy for His goodness and He put something powerful on her heart. He told her that she was able to trust the people in the driveway to take care of what was going on outside, she needed to completely trust Him for what He was doing inside her.

I know the Lord has been talking to us since we invited Jesus into our hearts, but we have never slowed down enough to hear Him to the level that we are now. He is ALWAYS present and always directing our footsteps. We are just now finally starting to listen with intention more than ever and following His direction more than ever. It is a beautiful relationship and brings such amazing peace.

So much more to add, but I have gone on long enough. As I mentioned, we have come home under the care of Hospice and it has been a huge blessing. Hospice is helping us to manage my healed wife’s comfort and the pick line is allowing us to continue some of our therapies at home. The circumstances have tried to tell us otherwise, but the TRUTH is in the word of God and He says she is HEALED. She will be out of this bed soon and walking in the park before we know it!

We love you all and thank you for your continued love, support, and prayers.

….All the time God is good.