Day #3 Begins Our New Year!!

Well.......where do I begin?!!! John and I are fasting for three days.....we are coming up on completing Day #2 and we feel really good. Tom Wilson from Walk & Worship helped us put this together and it is an awesome program......We feel great!! I am going to cut and paste an email that I sent earlier to my sister Jen as she was asking why we were fasting so I went into quite a lot of detail for her. I think you will appreciate it too and also see the joy in my heart!! She sent me a rather inspiring story too. I am starting to get so many encouraging emails since the one year anniversary of my aneurysm is March 20th. Wow.....so much has happened this year.....amazing, amazing year.

It is through folks like you all that I have been encouraged so much. It is the simple things that have come to mean so much to me.

Happy Easter, Happy Good Friday and Happy March 20th!!! (We are all very fortunate to be able to experience each of these very special days this year.)

----- Original Message -----
From: Lisa Foto
To: tjkpek@netzero.net
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 4:33 PM
Subject: Re: Hi Lisa

Hi Jen!

Thanks for the neat email and story. Yes, John and I are fasting to give thanks to the Lord for all He has done in our lives this year as we prepare to celebrate Good Friday and Easter. Since I missed them both last year, they kind of have even greater meaning for me. I was intending to do the fast earlier and then as time got away from me, it all worked out to start it on Monday (which is what the Lord intended anyway as I see how things are working out) and John found out I was going to do this and decided to join me. We read some scripture verses at night together, pray together and we are finishing up Day #2 today. It has been really great. I have never fasted this long but it is good for you and we are doing a detoxing fast to clean out our systems of all of the crud that builds up over time but more for me to clear out my liver of all of the massive amounts of stored medication that is probably in there.

Jen, you and Tone should do this fast. I feel really good and so does John. I mean really good. We are not hungry and it has been relatively easy to do and I think it is very good for you. John Kuhlman is doing it with us too and he is loving it!! He heard John talking to me about it over the phone and asked to join us. It is a controlled fast with juice, green tea with honey, powdered greens and essential fatty acid capsules and I think by tomorrow, we will feel even better. It kind of feels like another new beginning as we start with March 20th being on Thursday. I am going to be able to go to the SICU and see the Angio Team at Mission Hospital as I'm going to visit them all on Thursday and just offer thanks again to all that has been done for me. One of my nurses emailed me today (do you remember Carol? as they are so excited that I am coming in ) I also am going to the fire station again and the gastroenterologist's office as my feeding tube was put in last year on Good Friday.

My neighbor across the street has a cupcake business and they look like little works of art. Her website is www.ditziecakes.com if you want to see what her cupcakes look like. She is making me Easter cupcakes that have crosses on them, some have chocolate bird nests with blue truffel eggs in them, some with flowers and some with a different kind of flowers. I ordered 5 dozen and I will drop off 1 dozen at each place and take a dozen to our small group which is also on Thursday night. I am having the best week!!!!! I made Easter cards this year with that card business that I'm doing. You will get one. It should come on Thursday or Friday (I'm hoping). I told the card company to print and mail them tonight and they mail from SLC, Utah so I hope they get here by Friday. They came out so good and I am mailing 35 Easter cards which is another first but so necessary for me to do. How can I thank the Lord any more??? I think I have to show it with my actions so I'm climbing up on top of this mountain of problems that I was given and I'm going to shout.......CAN YOU SEE HIM YET?????????

It has been an amazing year and John and I are really gearing up to be focused and healthy in our mind and bodies. After you fast this long, you really want to protect what you are eating so I think this will be repeated again as we are really enjoying the time with the Lord, the focus it has brought us and the attitude of gratitude as we enter Easter with the ultimate sacrifice of Christ for both of us.

I will try calling you before we leave for Arizona. We are driving and we will leave on Friday morning and be back home on Monday night. Mom just called and they will be home tomorrow. She was going to call you but sometimes you don't answer your phone. They decided to drive home a day early as they are kind of anxious to get home too.

Happy Easter, Good Friday and most of all Hallelujah for another March 20th!!!!!

I love all of you very much.

~Lisa

----- Original Message -----
From: tjkpek@netzero.net
To: McFoto1@cox.net
Sent: Tuesday, March 18, 2008 3:58 PM
Subject: Hi Lisa

Hi Lisa -
I finished reading your blog today and I was wondering why you and John are fasting for three days. Just curious. Hope all is well with you guys. Mom & Dad are arriving home on Thursday. We sure miss them and are looking forward to their return. I've been thinking about you a lot this week, what with Mar. 20th just around the corner. From here on out I think I will remember July 22nd & Mar. 20th as your special days...July 22nd your b-day & Mar. 20th the day that reminds me to be thankful that you are alive and well. I love you Lisa and am glad to have a big sister like you.
Jen :o)
P.S. - Here's a little something I read today that I wanted to share with you.
Stephen Hawking was not born in a wheelchair. The famous physicist was an active child, and even though he wasn't good at ball games, he was able to take up rowing when he went to England's Oxford University at the age of seventeen. He was one of the university's most brilliant students - already recognized as a star - but in his third year at Oxford, Hawking began noticing that he was becoming increasingly clumsy, occasionally falling over for no reason.
Shortly after his twenty-first birthday he was referred to a specialist, who began a variety of medical tests to find out what was happening to Hawking. Doctors couldn't tell him what he had, except that it wasn't multiple sclerosis. They told him that he had an unusual disease, that he would get worse, and that they had no treatment.
"The realization that I had an incurable disease, that was likely to kill me in a few years, was a bit of a shock," Hawking later wrote. "How could something like that happen to me? Why should I be cut off like this?"
How could life be so unfair?
But while he was in the hospital, Hawking saw a boy die of leukemia in the bed next to him. "Clearly," he concluded, "there were people who were worse off than me. At least my condition didn't make me feel sick. Whenever I feel inclined to be sorry for myself I remember that boy."
But it got worse. His physical condition deteriorated progressively. He had nightmares about being put to death, and others in which he sacrificed his life to save others.
"But I didn't die" he wrote. "In fact, although there was a cloud hanging over my future, I found, to my surprise, that I was enjoying life in the present more than before." Even as his condition declined, his scientific reputation began to grow and he became engaged to his future wife. "That engagement changed my life," he remembered. "It gave me something to live for."
After 1974, though, Hawking was no longer able to feed himself or get himself in and out of bed. Still, he managed to continue his scientific work.
But in 1985 Hawking suffered another blow. He contracted pneumonia, and in order to save his life, doctors had to perform a tracheotomy, an operation to open a direct airway through the neck, involving an incision in the trachea, or windpipe. Stephen Hawking, who had endured so much, and lost so much, now permanently lost the ability to speak, and required aroud-the-clock nursing care. He would have to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, physically helpless.
For a while, the only way this brilliant scientist could communicate was by spelling out words one letter at a time by raising his eyebrows when someone pointed at a chart of letters. Eventually, he was able to use a small computer and speech synthesizer to communicate. He has used them to write a book, dozens of scientific papers, and even public speeches.
Hawking is now perhaps the world's most famous physicist. He has three children, one grandchild, and twelve honorary degrees; is a fellow of The Royal Society and a member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences; and has received many awards, medals, and prizes.
Asked what he felt about his disability and the tragic twists of his life, Hawking responded:
"Not a lot. I try to lead as normal a life as possible, and not think about my condition, or regret the things it prevents me from doing, which are not that many."
Hawking does not complain that life is unfair. How do your problems stack up next to his?

I thought that was a pretty neat story to read. It is from a book titled "50 Rules Kids Won't Learn in School" by Charles J. Sykes. It is found in the chapter titled "Rule 1 - Life is Not Fair. Get Used to It." I also read in this chapter an inspirational quote by Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the Holocaust. He said, "Everything can be taken from a man but the last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." As I sit this week and remember you Lisa, I think you are an example of someone who's attitude is not governed by her circumstances. I don't think you learned this ability from Stephen Hawking or Viktor Frankl though...I believe you learned this ability from another very important person who we are remembering this week, the One who has saved us from sin and death, Christ Jesus Himself.
~Jen