Thank You for a Great Year!
Thank You for Praying for My Health
First, I want to thank you for praying for me during the past two years of Long Covid and reactivated Lyme Disease. In September of this year, I finally began improving. I am not back 100%, but the trajectory at least changed a few months ago. In November and December, I have continued to make gains. (Prior to December, even mild physical activity threw my body into a tailspin.)
Answered prayers for my health mean an exciting year of ministry for Shades of Grace next year! We are bursting with open doors and opportunities!
I will share more in the coming weeks about how you can be praying as we obey the Lord and step out in faith in these new endeavors.
Thank You for Helping Hurting People
Countless lives were changed this year because of your generosity and prayers! You have given people hope in the midst of their suffering.
You brought the life-changing Word of God to men and women who desperately needed a touch from the Lord.
You showed them that God promised to carry them through any affliction. And you provided the means through which God infused them with His life — with His hope, His strength, His Truth, and His peace.
On behalf of those around the world enduring trials, thank you.
But our work is not done…
More People Facing Trials Are Crying Out for Help
People With Chronic Illness…
One in five adults who had Covid-19 still has symptoms. This chronic illness is called Long Covid. It is estimated that four million Americans are likely out of work due to Long Covid illness.
One in five adults… Imagine the number of people whose lives came to an abrupt halt — who are reeling from the trauma of a broken body and the sudden absence of income…
And this is just those suffering from Long Covid. Diseases like Lyme Disease are more prevalent now. When I was diagnosed over 25 years ago, the CDC estimated there were a little more than 16,000 cases a year (the CDC admitted its estimates were low, by as much as a factor of ten).
From 2007 to 2021, there was a 357% increase in Lyme Disease cases in the United States. According to the CDC, there are now 476,000 people diagnosed and treated for Lyme Disease annually. The incidence of Lyme in the U.S. is six times the annual incidence of HIV and about one and a half times the incidence of breast cancer. For many Lyme patients like me, covid reactivated their Lyme infections; manageable symptoms became debilitating.
Add multiple sclerosis … cancer … ALS … autoimmune diseases … And the number of people in the world battling illness is mind-blowing.
As you know, the pandemic resulted in decreases and delays in identifying new cancers and delivering treatment. (Screenings for breast cancer were down 85% in April of 2020. Colon cancer screenings were down 75% and prostate screenings were down 74%.) This left people facing more advanced stages of cancer than they would have apart from the pandemic.
Just enduring the symptoms of an illness can be enough to drive someone to despair — certainly to the end of their endurance. (Some people with Long Covid have tragically committed suicide.)
But when the illness also means an inability to work, the absence of income in addition to bodily suffering causes an eclipse of hope… and for some, an eclipse of faith. They cannot bring themselves to expect anything good from God.
This is where you come in! With your gift to Shades of Grace, you’re pushing the darkness aside, exposing God’s loving heart and powerful hand at work in their circumstances.
People At Risk of Death…
Suicide rates in the U.S. rose 4% in 2021 over the previous year. Among 15- to 24-year-olds, suicides increased 8%.
America is experiencing an escalating national mental health crisis worsened by the pandemic.
The pandemic also led to an increased number of people abusing drugs and dying from overdoses.
There were more than 99,000 drug overdose deaths in the United States in the first year of the pandemic — an increase of nearly 30% from the year before.
People Reeling From Pandemic Trauma…
No one escaped the pandemic without suffering loss of some kind. The world changed for each one of us. We lost a precious loved one, lost our job, lost our business, lost our career trajectory, lost our personal health, or watched helplessly as our kids lost years of development and education.
Grief must be processed, not denied. Millions of people around the world need the loving embrace of Christ as they process their post-pandemic grief. They need the assurance, the foundation, the comfort of God’s word for their wounded soul.
People Experiencing Life’s Trials…
This Christmas, it was impossible to ignore the dramatic contrast between the beauty and joy of the season and the unfathomable pain in so many people’s lives.
My heart ached for the families who buried loved ones this year… who were traumatized by violent crime … who had no homes in which to gather over the holidays due to natural disasters….
I thought of the teenager battling addiction … the father in the final stages of cancer … the woman whose husband died in a tragic accident … the patient suffering from debilitating, chronic illness … the young man with clinical depression.
Now—more than ever—hurting men and women need to be encouraged with God’s Word and His promise to carry them through any affliction. They need someone to share God’s comfort with them.
Your Partnership Comforts the Hurting
The wonder of this Christmas season is that the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us! (John 1:14)
And it is the Word of God that comforts the hurting:
“This is my comfort and consolation in my affliction: that Your word has revived me and given me life” (Psalm 119:50).
Day in and day out, your partnership brings this comfort to people enduring indescribable affliction.
Giving People Hope in Their Suffering
That’s what Shades of Grace was founded to do — bring God’s comfort, the Living and written Word, to those who are hurting. And with your continued support that’s what we’re going to keep doing.
Shades of Grace is a faith-based organization supported by friends like you who want to give people hope in the midst of their suffering. We’re grateful for those who support this work through generous gifts, both large and small. All donations are secure and your information will not be shared with other parties.
When you give to Shades of Grace, you are sharing God’s comfort with lost and hurting people who need Christ. Through your support, you are bringing the life-changing Word of God to someone who desperately needs a touch from the Lord.
Your Year-End Gift Will Reach Hurting People
- Men and women battling chronic illness and the hopelessness it fosters…
- People who are addicted to substances and haven’t yet experienced Christ’s chain-breaking power…
- Those considering suicide who’ve had an eclipse of hope and faith…
- Men and women experiencing life’s trials…
Your year-end gift will help us reach these hurting people with God’s life-changing word!
- You can reach those who are sick with God’s promise to revive them and give them life through His word.
- You can reach those who are addicted with God’s promise to free them from every enslavement (1 Cor. 6:12).
- You can reach those surrendering to despair with God’s promise to give them a future and a hope (Jer. 29:11, Prov. 23:18).
- You can reach those buckled under a load of grief and wrap them in Christ’s loving embrace. You can give them God’s comfort for their wounded soul…
Your gift allows us to reach men and women in the midst of their tests and trials — and point them to Christ!
Help Us Start the Year Ready
Friend, just as I am bold in presenting the hope of God’s Word to others, I am bold in asking for your help today.
With the New Year upon us and so many people in need of a fresh touch from God, will you please consider helping us start the year off right — ready to help them?
In fact, our year-end need is $60,000. Would you take a minute right now to:
- Pray for God’s provision for our year-end need.
- Give as He prompts.
With your year-end gift of $50, $100, $200 or more, we’ll finish the year strong and reach thousands more lives with the comfort of God’s Word in 2023… touching people in desperate need of hope and encouragement.
What friends like you can provide by year’s end will determine how much we can do together in the coming year to impact lives for Christ.
Thank You!
Thank you for your prayers and gifts, which send the light and comfort of God’s Word to the corners of the earth:
“In the beginning was the Word…In him was life, and that life was the light of men” (John 1:1,4).
May God bless you richly in the coming year!
Thanking God for You,
P.S. Your online donation must be made by 11:59 p.m. on December 31st to be eligible for a 2022 tax deduction. Mailed gifts must be post-marked in December to be considered tax-deductible for 2022 (bear in mind that there will be no postal service Saturday, December 31).
Disclosure of Material Connection: Some of the links in the post above are “affiliate links.” This means if you click on the link and purchase the item, Shades of Grace will receive an affiliate commission. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will add value to my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
“Natalie Grace Nichols is experiencing God’s grace and freely expressing it. My wife, Betty, and I thank God for the ministry of Jesus through Natalie.”
“I’m so thankful that God is raising up women like Natalie for a new generation, providing biblically balanced teaching, encouragement, and comfort for people who are enduring life’s trials.”
