On May 12th last year I started chemo for the cancer I have, Waldenstrom Macroglobulinemia. I had no idea how it was going to impact me. The first infusion was two days, 3 hours on the 12th and 5 hours on the 13th.
On the evening of the 13th my diaphragm began to spasm. It was like having hiccups on steroids, which I had both days. They calmed down by 10 PM but started back up again at 12:30 the morning of the 14th. They kept me awake until 5 AM.
In my journal the evening of the 14th I recorded a passage that had really encouraged me, 2 Corinthians 12:7 – 10 (here @ Bible Gateway). I was struck yet again by Paul’s attitude. He was well content with weakness, with insults, with distress, with persecutions, with difficulties, for it made him dependent on Christ.
As mentioned in my last post part of my Quiet time for the past year or so has been to read and reflect on one of the entries in The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers & Devotions (VOV). This is what I read the morning of the 15th.
The voyage is long, the waves high, the storms pitiless, but my helm is held steady, thy word secures safe passage, thy grace wafts me on ward, my haven is guaranteed. (VOV, Voyage, page 202 - 203)
Those words reminded me of what Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 12:7 – 10 (here @ Bible Gateway). However, that is not what was the greatest comfort. I started reading VOV because of a conversation I had with one of the small group leaders in our church. He mentioned that the men in his group spent some time looking at it and discussing some of the entries.
Out of curiosity, I got a copy and a few weeks later incorporated it into my time with God. That was months before May 15, 2020. Yet the timing of this sentence was perfect. What stunned me, and I should know better by now, was the Lord using an off hand comment by a Christian brother months before, to supply encouragement to me when I was in need.
Psalm 139 (here @ Bible Gateway) tells us that He knows our path in detail, He encloses us behind and before and lays His hand on us. He knows what I need before I need it and supplies it just in time.
Further, this morning before I started my time with Him, I prayed that He would meet me and in our time together, He would through His Spirit increase my love for Him. But this morning nothing really stood out in what I read. As I am writing this, I am overwhelmed with His love and care for me. He answered the prayer in His own time.
His grace and kindness are overwhelmingly abundant.
Praise be to our Father for preparing you and walking along side you, Mike. Your example of trusting God also continues to inspire. Praying with you.
ReplyDeleteThank you Konstantin, you are very kind.
DeleteNothing I could add to that. Great and true words. You remain in my prayers.
ReplyDeleteThanks Brian.
DeletePenetrating words from someone who has deeply and Biblically processed his own pain, but has a shepherd's heart as well. Thank you for your honesty and transparency with helping us with issues we all face in the world until God takes us to Himself.
ReplyDeleteSix years and nine days almost to the hour as I write this (but who is counting....) my family and I released our precious mother in law, mother and soul-mate and lover for over 35 years into the gentle arms of the One she loved even better than all of us (which was a lot!). Some friends counseled obliquely that "I will get over it," but somehow it hasn't gone that way. I miss her every day, generally all day. Perhaps I had come to rely on her too much. I'll leave that to counselors and therapists. All I know is that something is missing that used to be in my soul.
I can (and do regularly) thank the Lord for her, and for taking her when He did. I recognize that there was significant suffering ahead for her. No suffering now.... I also understand (very imperfectly, I'm sure), an eternal lesson or two. The Bible has become more real and relevant than ever I knew. I cant' wait to get into it, and revel in the fresh relevance of God's word - in history and especially in His people, including me. There is a new comfort and "realness" somehow. I have learned to weep, sometimes gently but other times deeply and wrenchingly - not just for my pain but for others, both believers in pain or deep challenges, and also at times for the lost around me. And I have confronted in a new way areas of sin in my life that I was unwilling to admit, even to myself, before.
Am I able to give thanks for her absence? For her sake, yes. I never say "I lost my wife...." I haven't lost her, I know exactly where she is. One day I will get there also. Would I take her back, absolutely not! Not where she is. Would I like to? Am I holding onto something I shouldn't?
I don't know the answer to that; I am thankful He is sovereign, and that He is in control, that He loves me and does the best for me, and that one day I will see Him, and her, again. That is the eternal truth!