Obviously when you undergo surgery on your lungs you expect to have some coughing. In fact coughing for the most part is good. Coughing will help to keep pneumonia from setting in. You’ll cough as you keep working your lungs to gain full expansion. Well, for the past week or so I’ve been coughing a lot. I mean like all day. If I talk, breath deeply or exert myself I’ll start coughing. Once I start it seems to go on for a while and at times can be quire harsh. So yesterday I called the CCF nurse line and in turn I received a call back from the nurse practitioner in my doctors office. After explaining everything and her asking questions she suggested I come back in for an x-ray to get a look at my lungs. She then made this statement, “your last x-ray showed a little pleural effusion so we need to see if that is getting worse.”

As soon as I got off the phone I said to my husband “hey, what’s pleural effusion?”. He said that it was fluid or air that would build up in the pleural cavity around the lung. The lung may be leaking. Hmmm, interesting. Well, let me Google that and see what Wiki or some MD sites have to say. So yesterday I began on my quest to learn all I could about this topic and wow, was I overwhelmed! All of a sudden I was reading about surgeries, chest tubes, lung collapses, hardening of these areas etc. Way To Much Information! I haven’t even had the x-ray yet and already I am thinking and planning for another surgery in my future! I filled my head with the good old “what if’s”. Maybe that is why at 3:30 a.m. I’m sitting here writing because I certainly can’t sleep. I let the overload of information and the “what if’s” take over my mind….again. Sigh.

So I sat here and began to pray. First for forgiveness for running to wiki before running to my savior. Thank you Lord that your mercies are new every morning! It is bringing me to tears just thinking about how I let something once again get in my head. After months of trusting Him, meditating on His word I let crappy thoughts jump ahead of what thoughts I should have. A passage of scripture came to mind:

“So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today.”

Matthew 6 has a lot of great instruction on several topics one of which is worry. Starting in verse 25 Jesus tells us not to worry about what we will eat or drink. Not to worry about clothing. He also says not to worry about tomorrow. Yesterday I seriously got caught up in worrying about tomorrow. So many what if’s entered my head when I hadn’t even had the tests. I haven’t even talked to the doctor. Worse of all, I hadn’t even prayed.

Philippians tells us not to worry about anything but in all things with PRAYER and supplication (asking humbly) we should present our requests to God knowing that He will give us peace!

Lord, thank you for the gentle teachings and correction you give me in every area of my life. I am so sorry for what transpired yesterday and that I wasn’t focusing my thoughts where they needed to be at that moment.  I know that you already know everything that is happening in my body and have the perfect plan. Your Word says that by the beating Jesus took we are healed so I claim that healing for whatever is causing this horrific cough. Jesus you tell us in John 14:13-14 that we can ask anything in your name and you will do it. Yesterday I sent our a bunch of text messages asking for prayer and I thank you for the prayer warriors that have been there since day one standing in agreement with me. I am so thankful for the FB friends that are praying and those they have shared my prayer requests with who also agree. The one thing I didn’t do was stop and pray myself. I went into fix it mode, diving into solving the issue at hand from my natural perspective instead of realizing that You are in control. Today is a new day and Lord I know I can face it with You! I will not be shaken.