Ryan McGlade Prayer Request

Prayer Request for Ryan McGlade

Ryan and Tanya

"I love you fervently and devotedly, O Lord, my Strength. The Lord is my Rock, my Fortress, and my Deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust and take refuge; my shield, and the Horn of my salvation, my High Tower " (Psalm 18).

The battle continues to rage! It has been almost two weeks since our son, Ryan, has slept. (He had one night where he slept for four hours and that was in direct answer to prayer.) His leg continues to swell - it looks like a stump from the knee down. The pain, although it is not as excruciating as it had been (also due to the Lord's intervention, since no pain killers could touch it), is constant. For those of you who haven't heard, Ryan has a disease called neurofibromatosis which causes benign tumors to be formed anywhere in the nervous system. Although this condition has been virtually dormant for most of his 26 years, in the last month, a tumor that was located in his leg suddenly began to grow at a tremendous rate. We have heard by those closely associated with Ryan's condition, that there is a strong possibility that the tumor in his calf has become a fast growing malignancy (an occurrence which we now find out is common at his point in life) - and if true, the situation would be life threatening.

That is the bad news, now for the good news that we have heard from the Lord, our God. (He has given us the whole of Psalm 18.) He is our Rock, Fortress, Deliverer, Strength, Refuge, Shield, the Horn of our salvation, and High Tower! He has an "objective" in all of this. It is our job, as His people, to get out of the way in order to allow Him to fulfill His purposes and plans. We must lay down our fears, discouragement, confusion and doubt! We know that it is time for us to exercise all the spiritual weapons that He has taught us throughout the years - where AT EVERY POINT and ALWAYS we have experienced first hand our God's faithfulness - and victory! It is our living testimony and the enemy of our souls cannot take that away!

Ryan has been fashioned by the Lord to be a tool - an "arrow" - in the hands of a Mighty, and in Psalm 18 we are told, sometimes angry God - a God who comes "with smoke in His nostrils and lightning in His mouth" to defend those who are His, "according to their righteousness and the cleanness of their hands". Our job is to clean our hands and to stand in the righteousness of the cleansing blood of our Lord and Savior. Our battle is not against flesh and blood but against the principalities and powers and rulers in high places. Ryan is pure in heart, a vessel in the palm of God's hand. Our little body is continuing to fast and pray, asking the Lord to purify and refine. As we stay in a position of rest and peace in the midst of this raging and sometimes impossible storm, we continue to hear His still small voice and see His miracles unfold. He is changing us and we will never be the same! Purity and obedience are what He desires and with His grace we will continue to follow Him wherever He leads.

Be assured in that Ryan and Tanya are walking in the grace of the Lord, the strength and the courage that we have seen displayed in both of them is a living testimony of the resurrection power of a mighty God living within the hearts of ones totally submitted to His will and purposes. In the midst of his pain and suffering, Ryan has been an example to us all! This little body is walking in the grace of the Lord, determined to stand united against the forces of darkness that are trying to surround us. Know this! We are not holding too tightly to our son and brother, He is the Lord's to use and direct. His life is in the hands of our Lord. We can only do ALL, submit to our God and stand! After much pain and dying to ourselves, as Abraham laid Isaac on the altar, we have done so with Ryan. And like Isaac, Ryan has willingly took his position. Only the Lord knows if there is a ram that He has hidden in the thicket to take Ryan's place.

We thank you all for your prayers and love,

Tom, Linda and the McGlade family and our little body of believers,

PS Ryan has an appointment with a neurosurgeon, who is a Christian and friend, on Wednesday, the 23rd.

PPS Since writing this letter last night, Tanya reported this morning that Ryan actually got a little sleep last night and that the swelling has gone down somewhat in his leg. Also, several times throughout this process when things got close to desperation, we were ready to take Ryan to the emergency room - each of us took our turn from time to time in feeling low. However, each time, the Lord clearly intervened.

Ryan, Tanya and Family

The last time (Sunday morning), after an entire day and night of the men of our body reading Scripture constantly to Ryan (being the "gatekeepers") and after having the most Godly man we know, a 97 year old "elder" lay hands on Ryan and anoint him with oil, Ryan got to the point, after doing "all" and seeing no change, felt that he could not go on. He said that he needed to go because of his pulse rate being so dangerously high for so many days (it ranged from 130 to 150). In the same breath, Ryan told Tanya to once again take his heart rate. Tanya has a very accurate instrument called a Doppler that she uses for listening to the heartbeat of babies in the womb. She took his pulse and it registered 113! Ryan told her to take it again because he was shocked at how much it had quickly gone down even in minutes. The second time it was 93 - NORMAL! (Incidentally, Tanya checked our son Anthony's heart rate and it was 105. For those of you who know Anthony, that answers some of our past questions :) However, to give Anthony a break, he was also among those who was up all night reading Scripture!) It was clear that the Lord had again intervened. Miraculously, Ryan and Tanya decided to join us all for praise and worship and "church" at our home and have been praising the Lord and resting in His arms of love ever since.