Dear Friends and Family,

This is Rebekah.

This is it. God has called my dear mom home...He has totally healed her and made her perfect! Her pain is over, no more death...total happiness. She has seen the face of her Maker and gets to worship Him in His presence.
So much has happened in this past week...so much pain but all ending in Heaven. Mom became quite weak and our nurse ordered a hospital bed so she wouldn’t have to move around. Mom wasn’t in too much pain and mentally she was all there till Thursday night. Thursday evening was the turning point. Mom began having terrible pain and started to get confused. All she wanted us to do was sing her to Heaven. This request turned into 3 nights of singing with many family members from Winsor and the US. over Skype. Mom was able to sing with us the first night, she also talked a bit...but mostly she was just asking that we sing her home and that it would be soon. Friday our nurse gave mom morphine injection to help with the pain..and mom slept all day. Anytime she woke up for a few minutes she would mention something about singing on Skype that night. That night our pastor came and we all sang again, but this time mom kept drifting of and only spoke a few words. Saturday mom was awake for a whole of 20 minutes all day...most of that was during singing(we were trying to keep her awake). She could hardly comprehend what was going on. She managed to say hello to her parents when they came on for a few minutes but that was it. Jakob and I went up to North Bay(I was singing on the worship team Sunday morning) for the night...both knowing it would probably be the last time we would ever see her. Saturday night went by peacefully. Sunday morning dawned clear, sunny and just beautiful. I went to church early for practice and dad called me saying that mom had a matter of hours to live. Her breathing had become laboured and her system was slowing down. Dad said he would call me when anything happened and told me to pass the news on to our pastor. During the worship service I was touched by the love the filled our church and that in Christ we can have joy and sing praises to Him in our deepest sorrows. After the sermon the worship team got up and we sang “Oh Victory in Jesus” and closed the service. As I walked off the stage Jakob handed me my phone and it rang. It was dad calling to say she had just taken her last few breaths. She was at peace........


Dad was here with mom all morning, already grieving, trying to confort her and prayed with her(she was sleeping). The nurse came in the morning and said mom had only a few more hours to live. This was when dad called me. For the rest of the morning things were quiet. Around 12:20 dad went to turn some music on for mom and as he did she opened her eyes...he walked over to her and she breathed her last. She got her wish...she was escorted home with music. She was called peacefully home at 12:24 Sunday afternoon..January 23.
When us kids came home from church dad had one last devotional around mom; almost every night we used to do devotions around the table after dinner and we would sing a song. We had so many beautiful moments together as a family around that table....but yesterday was one of the most beautiful. It was the most painful...but we were here in our brokenness giving God the love and glory He alone deserves. Watching my dad and both my siblings giving their all to God in this time is truly a miracle. We sang the Doxology(well tried to) and closed it off. This is the beginning of a new chapter in our lives....we don’t know what’s going to happen but we know God is in the future with open arms. We pray for strength in this time...especially for dad. He now has to take on the responsibility of both parents but is only half of who he was before. He and mom have been together for a whole of 21 years (21st anniversary would be on February 3rd), 21 years of always being there for each other.....being one. God will meet him where he is and give him all the comfort he needs.

This is the last blog to be written here. This chapter is closed but not to be forgotten. God has shown His greatness through it all. Sadly some people are bitter over her passing and I am asking you all to think of how she would take your bitterness? God is God and will do everything for His glory and our good...leading to our perfection. Thank God for this, thank Him for the pain and the joy. Being bitter will only make it worse for you. Mom knew with full assurance where she was going and she knew why she was going there. Christ was her reason to live and die. Satan has lost this battle death has been defeated and Hell can never claim her. When you reach your death bed will you be able to say the same? Will you go before Gods judgment seat and hear from Him “Well done good and faithful servant”...or will you be lost for all eternity? Heaven is a real place and she is there!!!! Hell is also real and is also forever. God is calling you....Christ died to save us and to bring us back to Himself. Do not be hardhearted. Mom lived as a great example of Christ....keep her memory alive and don’t disregard it by turning your back to her reason for living.

I will leave you all with the scripture that dad read to us yesterday
1 Thessalonians 4:13-18
13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. 15 According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16 For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17 After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. 18 Therefore encourage one another with these words.

I have a blog that I will keep on updating. http://phoenix-with-a-heartache.blogspot.com/
We thank you all for being beside us and upholding us in prayer through this time.

In Christ and in His name alone!
Rebekah

The God on the mountain is still God in the valley....

Life Continues

Please pray for Jessica.. A few years ago we found a mass on her left elbow……the doc has been following it since than. She was sent away for a CAT scan before Christmas and last week they did an MRI on her. She is being referred to a Neurosurgeon….so we are waiting for that appointment….Again Our Trust is in the Lord!!!!!!! He has been completely fairthful til now…..

When peace like a river attended my way…….

Please continue praying…

In my Fathers hands
Miriam

Love, Joy, Hope and Lots of Food

Its hard to pick out which pictures for the awesome dinner I should put on. We all went to Ed and Elaine’s for dinner. Ed, Christina and everyone else helped out in the preps and this time mom actually sat and ate with us....



This is where the kids were ready with full tummy to get into the gifts and of course….desert .....clean up.



The next day we got set up on Skype….its pretty cool how small world this has become…the Marton cousins were on, we spoke with several states at the same time


One of the days Adina my sister had one of her friends come over and have a photo shoot of our family.

Well, Christmas 2010 has come and gone and with joyful, ecstatic hearts we have all been so blest. Not knowing what lay ahead……but TRUE to HIS WORD, GOD DID IT AGAIN. Every thing that needed to be in place was in place…even the small detail of the truck that delivered the oxygen for me was there waiting in the driveway by the time we arrived in Windsor...... daily nursing care…with the best nurse in town…Nandor…..

Its hard to explain all the family and friends we had a chance to connect with…..basically Windsor is my birthplace…where I lived the first 20 years of my life so I had school friends, church friends and relatives all there….

The Lord has given myself and my family much…..as you probably know going through this not easy but in a sense its not hard because every day He gives us the grace we need and all that overflowing grace He comforts and prepares us for the day, the wonderful day when we get to see Him.

I can’t wait…..

In His Mighty Hands,
Miriam

Pre-Christmas Update

Well it’s been many weeks that I haven’t been able to update my blog. One of my major symptoms lately has been not being able to focus and experiencing confusion.
This has been told to us by the doctors that it will happen. So I asked Nandor and Christina help me. We had a very busy last month with visitors to our home. My sister Christina and her family with my mom, my cousin Aniko with her family from Ohio and just recently I was happy to have Nandor’s parents and sister coming to visit from Hungary. It was neat to have three full generations under one roof. Our parents, us and our children. We also celebrated two birthdays in the last month Rebekah turned 20 on Nov. 16th and Jessica 18 on Dec 16th. This obviously required some shopping that I could only do with the assistance of a wheelchair. Lately I have a really hard time eating and drinking or keeping things down. I have lost about 30 lbs in the last month or so. We had what turned out to be our last visit to my oncologist. When he observed my condition he has concluded that there is nothing that he can do for me in the future and no other appointments would be necessary. God has again helped our family to arrive safely in Windsor for our annual Christmas celebration. I am receiving daily nursing visits while I am visiting. There have been many of my friends and family that make their way to see me in the last few days. It might just sound trivial and sounds that I am just repeating myself but God is so faithful and so Good to us He is our strength. Please keep praying that we will all see Him in His strength High and lifted.

Weeping Yet Rejoicing with Joy Unspeakable

On Thursday we got more news we didn’t want to hear…..My calcium is still going up steadily and there is nothing the doc can really do about it. My tumor has grown from 9cm to 13cm, I can feel it a lot now but the pain isn’t too bad. They are putting me on chemo weekly now hoping that it will be more effective on the tumor and it will help bring the calcium down. I am also on Prednisone to help my platelets be able to replenish quicker. Doc has no explanation how my body can handle the calcium being so high…
But the neatest thing happened as we were going through the appointment, my nurse sat down and asked if she could ask us some questions….she asked what is it that is bringing us through this, is it our faith? We had the opportunity to share with her “the hope that lies within us” 1Peter3:15. What an encouragement to our hearts, yes, God is still moving, working and we get to be a part of it. So as the verse says below when “He reveals just a glimpse of His glory we are glad with exceeding joy”

“Beloved do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; But rejoice to the extent that you partake in Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. Therefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator.” 1 Peter 4:12, 13, 19

So going forward I am so excited to see what God is doing, as difficult as it is sometimes He keeps giving opportunities to enjoy my family, pray, learn, read a lot and continue growing in Him…I still have a purpose…every day He gives me, I have to live to the fullest until the time comes when He steps in and heals me or takes me home. He sure gives the grace I need everyday!!! And even more exciting is picturing and meditating on Heaven as the scripture describes it…here is a tidbit, I’m sure you never thought of heaven this way before ”a bright, vibrant and physical Heaven. free from sin, cancer, suffering and death and brimming with Christ’s presence, wondrous natural beauty, and the richness of human culture as God intended it. It will be a place with real people with real bodies enjoying close relationships with God and each other, eating, drinking, working, playing, traveling, worshiping and discovering.” R.A Like Paul says “sometimes I feel torn between the two….” Phil 1:23
My prayer is that those who don’t know Jesus as their Saviour would come to know Him so they can also have this Blessed Assurance.

Blessed assurance Jesus is mine,
O what a foretaste of glory divine
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood
This is my story, this is my song
Praising My Savior all the day long

Perfect submission, perfect delight!
Visions of rapture now burst on m sight:
Angels descending bring from above
Echoes of mercy, whispers of love
This is my story, this is my song
Praising My Savior all the day long

Perfect submission – all is at rest, I in my Savior am happy and blest;
Watching and waiting, looking above,
Filled with His goodness, lost in His love
This is my story, this is my song
Praising My Savior all the day long. A hymn by Fanny Crosby

Please continue to pray for wisdom for the doctors , us and that God would be glorified and He would continually shape and mold us to be like His Son through this experience.
In My Fathers Hands
Miriam

Going to See Doctor

Dear Prayer Warriors,

Please pray that as we go to the doctor tomorrow we would go with the peace of God. We will be recieving the results of the CT scan I had Monday and what to expect next.

I have not been feeling the best lately but its still isn't too bad. But most of all we still stand firmly on the Promises of God....He is with us.

In His Hands,
Miriam

Update After a Difficult Week

Well here we are Oct 23rd, I can’t believe how time just keeps flying. Thanksgiving Weekend has come and gone. I didn’t update since then so I will add a few pics below and like they say “a picture is worth a thousand words”

When I was sitting and soaking this all in, all I could do was be overwhelmed that God has given me another year and God has given me such an awesome family….what a blessed woman I am.

Well on to the update, for the last 3 weeks I have been waiting for my chemo treatment. Things have gone pretty much how they should but this last week everything just started peaking, either too much or too little. My calcium was too high Sat so they kept me in for a while to rehydrate me and sent me home…they wanted to check next day so I went in Sunday morning. Calcium came down a little, defiantly not to the desired level but I still got to go home/ church. I left so fast that they forgot to take the intravenous needle out of my arm…so here I am Sunday morning this crazy woman running back in to ER waving her arm, telling them to hurry because I will be late for church… By Mon afternoon I was feeling really bad again and Nandor brought me back to ER. This time the issue was very low levels of Magnesium….they kept me overnight to replenish that in the ER…there was no room to be admitted so we all decided its best for me to come home instead of being exposed to everything in the ER. Wednesday back for bloodwork and found out there will be no chemo because platelets are too low but Doc ordered an intravenous drug for my high calcium for Thursday. Then Friday I got a blood transfusion because my hemoglobin was very low. So how is that for a full week of work?....well that’s what it felt like.
I wonder and ask the Lord what is all this accomplishing…what is this good for? Then he tenderly reminds me…I work through the little things…I have adopted you, you are my child, I love you and I am working on your heart…making you more patient…more confident in Me….giving more hope and faith…and giving you the eyes to walk by faith and not by sight. Then if that’s what you are doing Lord….I give You this “week of work”.

Only one life to offer – Jesus, my Lord and King
Only one tongue to praise Thee – And of Thy mercy sing
Only one hearts devotions – Saviour O may it be
Consecrated alone to Thy matchless glory,
Yielding fully to Thee

Only one hour is mine, Lord –May it be used for Thee
May ev’ry passing moment Count for eternity
Souls all about are dying, Dying in sin and shame
Help me bring them the message of Calvry’s redemption, In thy glorious Name.
A hymn by: M.Dunlop

Before I close here is a verse that we can cling onto as we go through difficulties…another awesome promise.
The Lord, He is the One who goes before you. He will be with you; He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed (worry). Duet 31:8

In His Hands,
Miriam