Sue Thomas Ministries

Category: Sue Thomas Ministries

As a witness of God’s grace on the journey of life…

  • Riding Away with Support

    Riding Away with Support

    It is a little overwhelming to see the support pouring in for my battle with Stage 4 lung cancer, the I BREATHE t-shirts are going out across the country and we are now going back to print!!

    Friends are wearing their support with the t-shirts so far in twenty one different states, the entire eastern part of the US is saying, I support Sue Thomas’ battle except Connecticut and Rhode Island at this time. We have even gone as far as Alaska!!IMG_20200821_170948You know I would love to see every state supporting me as I have spoken in every state in this country except Utah. (who knows what Utah will do?)

    To all of my friends in Maine, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Ohio, New Hampshire
    Alaska, Massachusetts, Vermont, Iowa, Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Kansas, New Jersey, Virginia, Arizona, Michigan, Florida, Maryland and Nebraska thanks for giving me a shout of support!
    If you are wearing an I BREATHE t-shirt, please snap a selfie with it on and send me a picture or post at the FaceBook page so I can see your smiling face, it would make my day!!
    We are off to a fantastic start and I believe that we will indeed see the support across the entire grand ole USA!!
    Please go to the t shirt page to have someone from your state show support  for me….it would totally make my day!
    I Breathe,
    Sue Thomas
  • I Breathe Tshirts are ready!

    I Breathe Tshirts are ready!

    Friends have rallied together to create and offer these I Breathe Tshirts in support of Sue’s lung cancer and we are delighted to let you know they have arrived!  Our heartfelt thanks to Nick C.  who used his God-given talent and designed these with Sue in mind,  and for Katie K. who has offered to handle mailing out orders as they come in!

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    ORDER HERE

    These are a quality Hanes 99% cotton classic cut T shirt in a light ash gray available in sizes S-3X. (We are still awaiting the shipment of ladies cut pink shirts  and will post them as soon as they arrive.) 

    Over the years as I’ve travelled and worked with Sue, I have often heard her thanking Him “for my very breath” as she says, and that prayer of her lips continues even today as we have become more aware of that precious breathing process with the difficulties accompanying Lung Cancer.  

    Did you know an adult unconsciously takes a natural breath approximately 15 times a minute?  With 1440 minutes in a 24 hour day, that is almost 22,000 breaths every day, day after day after day, every breath inspired by God Himself. 

    With this in mind the verse from Job 33 was chosen to be featured on the front of the shirt. Echoing ancient Job in the Bible, Sue also firmly believes that all trials comes from the hand of God, and knows that He will sustain her through this latest affliction. She understands that the Enemy has to go to our Father to ask permission to afflict His servants.  (Job 1:9-11,,  Luke 22. 31,32) Her prayer is that she will be faithful and continue to praise Him and thank Him for every breath, for He is her Breath-Giver!

    I think that the shirt captures that thought very well and encourages us to remember Him in all things, even the unconscious act of breathing.

    With your purchase you are letting Sue know that her ministry of Encouraging People In Christ and glorifying Him continues even though she cannot leave her home at this time to proclaim His Name!

    Thank you so much for all your prayers and your love over these difficult months as it has meant a lot to both of us!

    Deborah

    If you, your friends, church or group get these shirts, can you do me a favor and post a picture on the Facebook page so I can see it? Wouldn’t it be something if we could beat the Guinness Book of World Records with the most T-shirts worn for encouragement and support??!!??!! 

    I am forever grateful for you and your love and prayers. You are upholding me as God reaches down and picks me up. I truly have been blessed as I understand life a little more deeper and richer. 

    Because of Him I BREATHE!    Sue

  • Victory

    Victory

    Yesterday I endured my first physical therapy session on the long road to recovery and I am regaining some strength from my setback of the diagnosis of this Stage 4 lung cancer. The hour long therapy of raising my arms and stretching my toes while sitting in my recliner wore me out and I felt like an Olympian training for The Big Race.
    It’s hard to imagine that three months have gone by.  In that time I was on my death bed and the Palliative Care team came to talk about staying comfortable during my final days. I did not realize that with the rapid reaccumulating of the fluid in my lungs that they were expecting me to live for only four to six months! Deb commented recently, “You were dying, Sue, and all the doctors and nurses felt so bad for you.”
    Little did those doctors realize that my days and months are in God’s hand and that God isn’t finished with me! He stopped the fluids from building up in my lungs.  The draining treatment has gone from daily to every three days and now we are at once a week and there is not even a drop! If this continues, prayerfully they will remove that chest drainage tube once and for all.
    My physical therapist, Victor, is starting me at the very beginning  with focusing on breathing exercises to expand my lungs and stretching muscles I haven’t used for months. I’m also walking short distances with my walker and getting steadier each day.  It’s a far cry from the Hospital Chaplain explaining how to receive help from Hospice!
    I am not only growing stronger but also I am not having any side affects with the chemo pills other than food tastes bad. But I do love my protein shakes and orange sherbet!
    So many, many people are storming heaven for me to be totally healed of the cancer and I truly believe that we will experience the answer to all of these prayers.
    Today, as I forge forward doing my physical therapy excercises,  I am also beginning to think about my next book. The journey that I am on right now is giving me some tremendous thoughts and reflections to bring to book form.
    Even though we are not at WaterBrooks for the summer, or on the road with speaking appointments, several other things are keeping us busy with the ministry and I am excited for each and every moment that God gives me breath to accomplish His purpose.
    The I Breathe t-shirts will be available on the 18th of August for anyone who wants to help support my battle with lung cancer. We will be sending out an announcement soon on how you can order one.  The Scripture verse on them is from Job 33:4  The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.
    Filming is back on the schedule with the producer coming to interview me for the up and coming documentary on my life and ministry. By Gods grace and power we are moving forward with the dreams He has given and building them into realities.
    Remember the blog I wrote about my 70th year? I remember pondering that it would be an incredible year because God has always used the number seven in my lifetime as a very special number. Boy, was I right! I was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer for my 70th birthday and furthermore have seen the handiwork of the Lord in ways I have never seen before in my life.  Already just in the first three months of my 70th year, it has been one I could never have fathomed… a matter of life and death!!!
    And I am giving thanks  for all the great and mighty things He has done in my life, all that He is doing, and all that He has yet do!
     Victor, my Physical Therapist constantly reminds me, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!!  Philippians 4:14
    But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:57
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    Victor coaching me with my excercises using the same cane I carried on the last episode of Sue Thomas FBEYE when I announced to the world that I had MS.
  • Lesson from the Water of Life

    Lesson from the Water of Life

    Last time I wrote that the phone kept ringing and ringing… but now it has become flooded with texts of pray-ers and well-wishers that have joined my battle with the Stage 4 lung cancer.
    Sixty five days have passed since I received that terrible word of Cancer. It would change my life as I had known it and now I face the daily battle of simply living moment by moment, breath by breath.
    I recently have learned a very important lesson during this short span of affliction. I can really feel miserable and I do mean miserable. If I give my mind over to what I am physically feeling, thoughts run rampant and everything spirals downhill including my breathing. I have learned that I feel alot better when I am working on ministry work instead of allowing my mind to wallow in how I feel.
    I experienced it today as I wrote my prayer update for friends but I first felt it when I was at the hospital last Friday evening doing an outpatient CAT scan of my lungs.
    I may have already shared that the Cat scan and Pet Scan are the most difficult tests for me as I cannot lay flat on my back due to my lung issue and I cannot extend my neck back due to my MS. Much prayer to get me in the right position for the duration of these tests!
    For days I had been dreading this scheduled Cat scan and my mind was obsessed with fears. But the test went so quickly, and God gave me a huge blessing as we were leaving and passing through the atrium area under the steps. There lay the most exquisite and serene waterpool that had water bubbling over stones and across the gray slate and my mind went immediately to building WaterBrooks.  I immediately thought,” We must have this in the main lodge lobby to greet the people.” It would reflect the theme, ‘As the deer pants for the waterbrooks, so my soul pants for you, O God’. Psalm 42
    Instantly that one moment released in me the ability to dream again of the future and to continue to build WaterBrooks, a refuge where the silence is never broken and where prayer continues without ceasing! In that moment by the flowing water, I no longer thought about the cancer inside of me but had a renewed vision of what He has given me.
    What I want to embrace from now on is this; to live an abundant life, set my mind upon the Lord in all ways and in all things!
    May you also Choose Life, my friend, in all of your thoughts and it will surely be of help and surprise you when having miserable and discouraging days.
    Another lesson from a day with cancer.
    Sue

    As the deer pants for the WaterBrooks,so pants my soul for You, O God.  My soul thirsts for God, for the Living God…The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; and His song will be with me in the night, a prayer to the God of my life.  Psalm 42

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  • The Phone is Ringing…

    The Phone is Ringing…

    656928ac91bce33a048f90b89beb5b55The phone is ringing off the hook just as it used to do for booking my speaking appointments around the world. I so love speaking and proclaiming the love and forgiveness of our Incredible Father and His Son Christ Jesus. The phone keeps ringing for a different reason now. All kinds of appointments such as with my neurologist for my MS, the scheduling of an MRI of my brain, the thoracic surgeon for my lungs to be drained, my oncologist who told me I have Stage 4 of lung cancer that has spread to my pelvic bones, spine and who knows where else.

    The Lord has taken me to the rural villages of India, to Japan to witness to a deaf survivor of the atomic bomb at Nagasaki, to the maxium security state penitentiaries, into every domination of the Christian faith as well as a Jewish synagogue. I have proclaimed Him on the hospital floors when I had a stroke, to the PT department as I recovered, shared with the Cardiologist who implanted my pacemaker as well as the staff in the cardiac unit. Then my Lord sent me to witness to the lung department when a mistake was made during the implanting of the pacemaker and they punctured my lung.

    Yes, the Lord keeps ringing that phone with appointments to proclaim Him and this time it appears to reach the deepest of the dark deep with cancer.

    Yes, it’s been a shock and I am not happy about it as it is just when my Board of Directors of Sue Thomas Ministries gave the approval to move forward with the documentary of the ministry… of my life and of the Vermont land that holds the Refuge for Prayer at Waterbrooks.

    I have had a full week to digest this news and have experienced two very strong emotions. First, to reach as many as I meet and to show them Jesus that they be encouraged by knowing and following Him with their whole heart. Second, Father, let it not be cancer of the brain so that I will not forget you or not be able to proclaim you!

    Yes, I can truly say “Thy Will Be Done.”because. Why? Because His Will is the best for me as He knows all of my tommorows and His plans are not to harm me but that I might prosper. ( Jeremiah 29:11) Yes, I believe every single word in the Bible is true for me. It’s not a history book but every word written yesterday is the same today and will be the same Tomorrow. There is nothing new under the sun.(Ecclesiastes 1:9) .

    I have been thinking about this word… FIGHT. I will fight this Stage 4 cancer battle but I think that sounds so hard, wearying and exhausting. Instead I am going to say I am going to LIVE this Stage 4 cancer and live it to the hilt every single second as I love Him and proclaim Him to whoever He sends my way! I am praying for wisdom as to the treatments that I should take thus knowing the people who He wants to reach with His love and encouragement.

    I choose to live and not fight thus I will not lose energy but have a joy in every thing I do. I will LIVE life by the food I eat (5 pounds of carrots juice each day) through the oncologist ordered immunotherapy treatments (my body is too weak to endure chemo). I believe that God created the human body in a way that it can heal itself with God’s foods and with His joy. My journey of life is one totally of the spirit, mind and body where the Blessed Trinity is the core. I have life and will not fight this new challenge but embrace it as it was entrusted to me by God to bring glory and honor to Him! How unworthy am I to be a partaker in His suffering! How I thank Him, simply by living and proclaiming all the great and mighty things He has done!

    My focus right now is on the documentary of WaterBrooks and of my life. The work has already begun. I would love for you to be a part of this documentary that can be passed on from generation to generation. If you would like to invest in life by helping to create this documentary please write your tax deductible check to Sue Thomas Ministries with “notation” DOCUMENTARY and mail to Sue Thomas Ministries 320 North Bayshore Drive Columbiana Ohio 44408.

    It is my prayer that I will live to see it’s completion

    and make sure it’s all about Christ in every word, deed and action and that He will receive all the glory and honor and praise!

    Bless you, my friends, and live life to the hilt with me today!

    Sue and Deb