\n<\/p>\n
Dannah Gresh:<\/span> Can you give thanks when it seems impossible? David and Ciara Dierking had to answer that question.<\/p>\n David Dierking: <\/span>We were told very early on that there was a good chance that Ciara might lose limbs.\u00a0I could see her fingertips start turning black and then I could see it going up her arm.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ciara Dierking:<\/span>\u00a0I don’t deserve good health; I don’t deserve an easy life; I don’t deserve any of it. I’ve done nothing to deserve anything that God has given me. He has been more than gracious in what He has given to me.<\/p>\n Dannah: <\/span>This is Revive Our Hearts <\/em>with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Choosing Gratitude, <\/em>for Monday, November 24, 2025. I\u2019m Dannah Gresh.<\/p>\n Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: <\/span>My pastor\u2019s wife sent me a social media post that took my breath away, and I\u2019ve never forgotten it! A man from South Carolina named David Dierking posted it.<\/p>\n At the time, David\u2019s wife, Ciara, was in the hospital in intensive care and on life support. My pastor\u2019s wife wrote, \u201cIt looks like she may recover, but they\u2019re having to take part of her hand off\u2014something about her fingers turning black due to lack of circulation.\u201d<\/p>\n Well, that text proved to be an understatement. The doctors ended up needing to do much more than take off part of Ciara\u2019s hand. Over these months, she has suffered extreme loss that is difficult to even imagine!<\/p>\n But as I watched this family go from one challenge to another, watching them record this on social media to share it with others, through it all they kept displaying a heart of amazing gratitude! There\u2019s so much more to the story that has transpired since that first social media post.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, we\u2019re going to start at the beginning and hear the story today and tomorrow. Whatever you may be going through today, believe it or not, you can choose gratitude!<\/strong> I hope you\u2019ll set aside whatever you\u2019re doing and listen to this precious example of giving thanks in all circumstances!<\/p>\n Dannah: <\/span>When David and Ciara Dierking were first married, they had certain expectations about the way they hoped life would unfold.<\/p>\n Ciara Dierking: <\/span>I had planned on an easy, happy, comfortable life.\u00a0<\/p>\n David Dierking: <\/span>When we got married it was just all excitement. You just picture your marriage is going to be the perfect marriage.<\/p>\n Ciara: <\/span>Neat and tidy! I love my home to be neat and clean, and my family to be healthy. I despise sickness!<\/p>\n Dannah: <\/span>They had two boys, Jackson and Colton . . .<\/p>\n Ciara: <\/span>Which was an adventure! They are fun and loud and a bit wild, so that was a little bit more crazy than the story I had thought of for myself. But we really just enjoyed doing all kinds of things together\u2014hikes and being outdoors. Yeah, I think I pictured a pretty easy-going life.<\/p>\n David: <\/span>You don\u2019t really think at that time about the difficult things that you might have to go through, and what those marriage vows might mean.<\/strong><\/p>\n Ciara: <\/span>I was really blessed to grow up in a Christian family. I was in church every time the doors were open and Vacation Bible School and summer camps. I think I kind of had maybe a little bit of entitlement or a thought that I had deserved to be saved because I was just a very good person. I was kind of a people pleaser. I think in some way I felt like I was deserving to be saved.\u00a0<\/p>\n Probably just a couple of years ago I realized just how undeserving anybody is to be saved, and how much of a gift of grace it is from God that He would choose me to be saved. It was not anything good that I had done at all!<\/strong><\/p>\n I feel like that was maybe the time I was truly saved, or maybe just something that the Lord opened my eyes to more clearly. What we deserve is God\u2019s cup of wrath, and what we\u2019ve been given . . . Even if He gave us nothing else beyond just not giving us the wrath, He has given us so many blessings: Christ, and even just in our lives, health, and food and family. Just the real fact that none of us deserve to be saved really was something that stuck with me.<\/p>\n Dannah: <\/span>In 2023, the Dierkings were visiting David\u2019s family in Pennsylvania. On the day after Christmas, their three-year-old son Colton became ill.<\/p>\n David: <\/span>When Colton gets sick, he gets grumpy. So I just figured, \u201cHe\u2019s not feeling well, he\u2019s being grumpy.\u201d He was complaining.<\/p>\n Ciara: <\/span>His neck was hurting. He didn\u2019t really have much of an appetite. He was just very tired and sleepy.<\/p>\n David: <\/span>He was lying on the couch and I went to lift him, and he just cried out like he was in a lot of pain. Then I realized it was more than just him being sick. Ciara took Colton to the Emergency Room.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ciara: <\/span>They, thankfully, were able to get us in very quickly and were able to get him admitted and on some strong antibiotics.<\/p>\n David: <\/span>It took them awhile to figure out what was wrong with him.<\/p>\n Ciara: <\/span>They were able to figure out that he had Coronavirus, as well as strep, and that he had some abscesses on his neck that were pressing against his spinal cord, so it was causing a lot of pain for him.\u00a0<\/p>\n David stayed at the hospital with Colton, because at that point I was not feeling very well. I decided to go back to my in-laws and rest overnight and the next day while David stayed with Colton.<\/p>\n David: <\/span>I didn\u2019t know how long I was going to be there; I thought it would be just a couple hours for them to figure out what was wrong and then they would send us home. It ended up being overnight. Ciara and I were texting back and forth, but it was all about Colton. There were a few mentions about her not feeling well, but it was mostly concern about Colton.<\/p>\n Ciara: <\/span>I really wasn\u2019t thinking about my own symptoms very much, to be honest. Any mom would know that moms don\u2019t really take sick days.<\/p>\n David: <\/span>I was there with him for the next two days.<\/p>\n Ciara: <\/span>I developed a really bad cough pretty much out of the blue. It just came on out of nowhere. During that following night, I knew that something was definitely wrong. I was having a hard time taking a deep breath, and it felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest!<\/p>\n David: <\/span>That morning I sent her a text to ask if she was going to Urgent Care or straight to the Emergency Room, and she responded, \u201cI\u2019m not even sure if I can make it!\u201d My mom ended up driving her to the Emergency Room.<\/p>\n Ciara: <\/span>They pretty quickly put me on oxygen and called David to come down from Colton\u2019s room, to let him know that I was sick.<\/p>\n David: <\/span>I came down to be with her, and already the room was just completely full of doctors and nurses. A nurse came over to me immediately, and she said, \u201cI just want to make sure you know just how serious this is! If I were to write this on a scale of 1\u201310, she would be a \u201810,\u2019 sick<\/strong>. I could tell from her voice that she was scared for Ciara, but I had no idea just how bad it was!<\/p>\n Ciara: <\/span>I mean, to us, we were young and healthy. I kind of thought, Does that mean I\u2019m spending the night? What does that mean?<\/em> They admitted me.<\/p>\n David: <\/span>She was diagnosed with influenza B and Group A strep, and she had really bad pneumonia.<\/p>\n Ciara: <\/span>They realized that the oxygen wasn\u2019t staying in my lungs.<\/strong> It was actually going out through holes into my stomach, so they needed to put me to sleep to put a tube down my throat. I just remember before going to sleep, I was just asking for a drink of water. I had no idea that it would be like five more months until I was able to actually have a drink of water again!<\/strong><\/p>\n David: <\/span>When we got up to the ICU, a doctor came and started talking to me. I just remember him saying, \u201cI trust by now that you\u2019ve read between the lines,\u201d and I hadn\u2019t until that point! I was like, \u201cRead between the lines?\u201d I looked over and the chaplain was in the room, and I was like, \u201cOkay, it\u2019s that serious!\u201d<\/p>\n The doctor told me, \u201cIf you have any family that\u2019s able to make it, I would strongly recommend that they would start making plans to travel.\u201d<\/strong> Her family pretty much immediately started driving up. I had family that came all the way from Texas to be with us.\u00a0<\/p>\n We had a meeting with one of the main doctors, and he just laid everything out in front of us. He said, \u201cThe next twelve hours are going to be the most critical. Right now she\u2019s on a downward path, things are going to keep getting worse.\u201d<\/p>\n He said, \u201cUnless we see things start to plateau, there\u2019s nothing we can do. Medically speaking, we\u2019ve done everything we can do.<\/strong> She\u2019s on full life support. There\u2019s nothing more medically that we can do for her.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the doctors even said, \u201cAt this point, you\u2019re going to need to pray for a miracle!\u201d We were all sitting around a conference table, and when the doctor left, my mom just led us in prayer. She just started praying.\u00a0<\/p>\n She got through, and my oldest brother started praying. He got about three words in, and he just broke down! At that point all my brothers started crying. We just had a whole room of family that was just in tears.<\/strong><\/p>\n Growing up with seven brothers, it\u2019s something we just didn\u2019t do. We did not cry growing up. I\u2019d never seen any of my brothers cry, and that\u2019s a memory that\u2019s going to stick with me forever.<\/strong> We were just all heartbroken, we couldn\u2019t believe it!<\/p>\n I would go between Colton\u2019s room and her room. They said, \u201cWe want to transfer him to Hershey Medical because they have an ICU there for children,\u201d and the hospital Colton was in didn\u2019t have that.<\/p>\n They said, \u201cJust seeing where things are going\u2014especially with your wife\u2014we want to make sure he\u2019s in a place where, if anything would go really poorly, he would have access to that.\u201d So then he was transferred to Hershey, which was about forty minutes from where Ciara was at. For about a month, I was driving back and forth between the two hospitals.<\/strong><\/p>\n Everything that Ciara was going through, I felt like that was my highest priority. I knew that Colton\u2019s situation wasn\u2019t as serious, and we had family that was staying with him and watching him. But at the same time I felt guilt for not spending more time with him. I tried to get over there as much as I could.<\/p>\n But then when I was with him, I was leaving behind a wife that . . . it was hour by hour with her, you just didn\u2019t know. I didn\u2019t know when I left her if that would be the end. It was like that for a good while.<\/p>\n I would leave and I would get a call, saying, \u201cShe\u2019s had a pneumothorax, and her lungs have collapsed.\u201d It almost got to the point where it was kind of expected that something was going to go wrong. I would get a call like that and rush back to the hospital.<\/p>\n At what point do you just ignore your kids, because this stuff was just happening nonstop? Yeah, I was torn between who to be with and when<\/strong>. I was in the hospital with Ciara the most; I spent every night there.\u00a0<\/p>\n I would try to visit Colton during the day, but it wasn\u2019t every day. They eventually decided to do surgery, and once they did the second surgery, it was a night and day difference with him. When they did that second surgery, he was just bouncing on the bed, running around.<\/p>\n Dannah:<\/span>\u00a0David\u2019s mom wanted to help, and began cleaning up some of the family\u2019s things. She discovered the book Ciara had been reading when she went into the hospital. It was Choosing Gratitude<\/em> by Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.<\/p>\n Ciara had been taking notes and underlining.<\/p>\n Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth (Portion Read):<\/span> When we offer thanksgiving to God, we see God in a bigger light ourselves, and we show others how big God is!<\/strong><\/p>\n David: <\/span>My mom put out a post about what Ciara was reading, surprised at the way the Lord had led in Ciara\u2019s life leading up to this point, even in what she was reading.<\/p>\n Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth (Portion Read):<\/span> Thanksgiving produces the peace of God in our hearts. If you want to have the peace of God ruling and reigning in your heart, you need to cultivate the attitude of gratitude!<\/strong><\/p>\n