Medical and Bill Recovery

After years of working toward and believing for healing we are back to the start with an unclear diagnosis and have reached our financial end.

Let me first introduce us, we are the Thomas Family: Phil, Bracey, Ellie, Charlotte and Josiah. We love the Lord fiercely, each other unconditionally, and know we all have a purpose on this earth and for the Kingdom of God. Phil uses his exuberant personality and love of kids to instill his passion for physical wellness in the next generation as an elementary physical education teacher. Bracey is a Marriage and Family Therapist with a heart to be a vessel of Gods healing to His kingdom. She loves seeing people set free and walking in more joy, peace, and connection. They both also work together to bring healing to marriages struggling with unhealthy sexual behaviors. Ellie is a freshman in high school and has such a sweet spirit and tenderness to hear from the Lord. Charlotte is in third grade and full of life, she plays hard and loves harder. Josiah is our baby, in second grade, and can melt any heart he wants to! We love adventure, being together, animals, and most of all our people.

We have been through a series of unfortunate events over the last few years. The start of 2020 felt promising and hope filled. I had just finished my masters degree in 2019 and had three jobs in the mental health field that I loved. We were finally not only making ends meet financially, we were feeling secure. Philip was finishing up his teaching degree and life was feeling so exciting. As we all experienced the significant shift of hopefulness to Covid doom all my jobs were lost. We were still hopeful in the Lords provision and thankful for a break and lots of family time. We experience so much emotional and spiritual healing during those times. We soon felt the Lord calling us out of security to Franklin, TN where my husband got his first teaching job, I was even able to find a great supervisor to work toward my license in Marriage and Family Therapy. We moved in June 2020 and quickly found community in church and school. I started my private practice as a therapist and was blessed to grow quickly. We were excited for all God was doing and feeling so excited about all our answered prayers. Unfortunately things started declining in the fall. I started feeling abnormally weak and fatigued with some digestive issues. I thought it was recovering from years of stress in grad school but it continued to progress in 2021. I went to my primary care provider and we began searching for answers. By September of 2021 I was significantly worse, they decided to remove my gall bladder because it was inflamed which ended up not helping at all. We also were looking to buy a home in the midst of a crazy market and kept coming up empty. I was getting to the point of being unable to exercise because of I did I would be too weak to walk on my own after. None of the tests my doctor ran or specialists he sent me to were giving us any answers. In February 2022 I cleaned my house to host a superbowl party and have yet nearly two years later regained my energy or strength without being on steroids. In March one test finally came back with what we hoped was an answer. My ANA test was positive and there was family history of lupus. Maybe that was the answer?! I began treatment on steroids and immediately began feeling better! We were sad at the lifelong diagnosis but so relieved to have an answer. We continued to pray and believe for healing however God wanted to give it. I spent 6 months on steroids, gaining 65lbs, and my diagnosis got upgraded to Rheumatoid Arthritis in the fall of 2022. I have been on 4 different medications to treat and continued to get worse. I missed months of work unable to get out of bed or with medical procedures. As a small business owner if I didn’t work I didn’t get paid but I couldn’t even walk on my own, much less drive. Also in the fall of 2022 our rental was being sold and one of our home offers was accepted and we finally got a house with the added blessing of being close to dear friends! Our sweet home came with lots of issues and we have worked and waited to try and fix them a little at a time with the help of our families. I continued to get worse and tried hard to keep working so we could pay our bills but it was getting harder and harder. Finally we reached a point where the doctors here were just not getting it so we decided to go to Mayo Clinic. I finally went in October 2023 and discovered my diagnosis was likely wrong the entire time. We were excited to get new direction but sad to have wasted two years and thousands of dollars on tests that got us nowhere. Through all of this we have had to pay for medical appts with credit and struggled to make ends meet when I couldn’t work. We have tried hard to be faithful in the hard seasons just as we would be in the good. We applied for various helps (disability, housing help, mortgage modifications) as advised by financial counselors. We waited and waited for decisions to be made getting further and further behind only to recently be told we don’t qualify for help. We also have a lot of mold in our home that is likely contributing to these health issues but no ability to fix them without funding. We are trusting and pleading with the Lord for provision to get caught up and continue to pay for more medical tests to get a real answer. We are hopeful for healing, direction, and provision. We know God has a way and plan even if we can’t see it. If you feel led would you consider helping us meet our financial goal and/or please join us in prayer for healing and financial provision? We want to get caught up and get better but we need to help to do it!