Blessings & Changes

The last few months have brought many MANY changes in themurphysix household!

RESTORED HEALTH

• In my last blog post I mentioned my yearlong struggle with severe debilitating fatigue and the very welcome change of restored energy! With it I’ve had to change my diet. Luckily, the clean eating diet Matt & had been following works perfectly, I just had to refine it and become stricter with it. So far so good and its more than worth it to feel so good! 

 CHURCH MERGER (who ever heard of that?!)

• Another big change is that our church plant, Arkeo merged with another church plant to become Free Life Fellowship! The story of how God brought us together is truly amazing. You can read more about it here.  There is so much more to the story, little intricate details that God has woven together that make it so clear that he is working and carving out a path before us. 

 NEW (to us) HOUSE

• It wasn’t long after we made the decision to merge that we were presented with another blessing. A friend of the family had moved away and I won’t go into all the details but had a home that basically needed someone to move in and fix it up and care for it. So Matt & I went to check it out. At first I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of work it needed! But after telling our church about it I was blown away! We have a contractor that flips homes for a living that was completely on board to help us and provide some materials we needed and after showing the yard to my fellow pastor’s wife she started dreaming up a plan! Stay tuned for more posts and pictures on the renovations ...

NEW PHOTO STUDIO

• There were other really neat things that came along with this house. For one, it has TONS of space, which means I get to have a photo studio!  Once I get the yard cleaned up I will be able to do things out there too. This means I won’t have to do everything on location!

CHANGE OF SCHOOLS

• Another change that I was worried about at first was switching schools again for Ayla. She has never gone to the same school twice since she started preschool and it always takes her awhile to form friendships because she is so shy. The new house is also only a couple of minutes from our new church pastors the Fenwick’s, which meant that our kids were in the same school district. Our daughters, Caroline and Ayla were only born one day apart, so they would be starting 1^st grade at the same school! To top it all off, this last week we found out that they were in the same class! (out of seven 1st grade classes)  

Ayla & Caroline first day of 1st Grade!

Ayla started 1st Grade and shares her favorites ...

 

Eden started preschool and here are some of her favorites ...

There are so many prayers answered inside of these paragraphs that we have been praying for for a long time. For so long we felt the weight of too many burdens; of sickness, financial resources both personally and for the church, demands of caring for our family and twins that are into everything, time restraints, uncertainty and we prayed that God would just take one of them away or provide in some way so we can better tackle the others. I’m seeing now how small that prayer was. God was so much bigger! His plan was so much greater! 

As hard as it was, I feel like that time in the desert was so important for God to have been able to bring us where we are now and to be able to experience the fullness and richness of His love and mercy. I praise him for his goodness and faithfulness and for the blessings and that he is pouring out on us! 

(This song perfectly describes my heart both now and at various times throughout the last year.) 

THE DESERT SONG

by Hillsong United

LYRICS

VERSE 1:
This is my prayer in the desert
When all thats within me feels dry
This is my prayer in my hunger and need
My God is the God who provides

VERSE 2:
This is my prayer in the fire
In weakness or trial or pain
There is a faith proved
Of more worth than gold
So refine me Lord through the flame

CHORUS:
I will bring praise
I will bring praise
No weapon formed against me shall remain
I will rejoice
I will declare
God is my victory and He is here

VERSE 3:
This is my prayer in the battle
When triumph is still on its way
I am a conqueror and co-heir with Christ
So firm on His promise Ill stand

BRIDGE:
All of my life
In every season
You are still God
I have a reason to sing
I have a reason to worship

VERSE 4:
This is my prayer in the harvest
When favour and providence flow
I know Im filled to be emptied again
The seed Ive received I will sow

Health Victory!

Wow! So it’s been a LONG time since I’ve updated this blog and a lot has happened since then! 

I have just overcome a very hard-fought battle for health! I think I’m still on the road to optimal health but I am functioning again. For the better part of a year I had such severe fatigue I could hardly get out of bed and when I did I was passing out, all of this while my twins were just infants. I was diagnosed with severe hypothyroid but my doctor couldn’t get me in range and the process to get me there was such a slow process. Test me, see I’m out of range still, adjust my meds, wait another agonizing 5 weeks until I can test again, and on and on. 

One day in July I woke up with a migraine and by the end of the day my head and arms were shaking non-stop with fine tremors. It looked like I had Parkinson’s disease and I was so scared. The fatigue was still horrible but my thyroid was in “normal” range. I went to the doctor and they were getting ready to send me to multiple specialists and I had an MRI done. 

Meanwhile a friend had told me about this doctor, Dr. Glen Luepnitz. He is a natural health doctor and nutritional counselor that helped her find a diagnosis for a condition that a traditional doctor could not find answers for.  I thought, what I’m doing is not working; I really should try this out. 

So I got an appointment and went. As I sat in his office for my appointment I just knew this is exactly where God meant for me to be. First, he is a Christian and believes firmly in treating the body as a whole as Christian principal – what a concept!

As I sat there I was blown away by how much he understood exactly what was happening with my body. He said I had a perfect storm going in which other medical issues I had were complicating my thyroid condition and that my thyroid condition was a specific type of thyroid condition an autoimmune disease called Hashimotos. He dealt with what I had going on emotionally, physically and spiritually. I walked out with a complete patient plan which included 5 new supplements (which you can buy anywhere), a new diet and exercise plan and a direct email to the good doctor himself.

He also did not charge me a dime because he knew we did not have a lot of financial resources as church planters and because of the work we were doing. What a great man of God!

I’ve been on the treatment plan for about 4 weeks and it’s been a night and day difference for me. I’m waking up on my own in the morning and can get out of bed – a HUGE victory. Most days I have enough energy to make it all the way through the day, even some to spare! My migraines have improved significantly and I am sleeping better during the night. It is just amazing!

I do have to thank all of the people who prayed for me, who prayed specifically for this doctor for me before we knew who he was. Your prayers have brought this victory! All glory to God!