August 22, 2009
Cells Behaving Badly (Specifics of Treatment)
My fifth chemo went off without a big hitch except my port was flipped again. This doesn’t seem to present a big problem as I only have one more chemo! Yea! My dear mother is here for this one and has been a huge help. Margaret and Tim were with me too and we all had a nice visit. I have been to see the reconstructive surgeon and did not find the pictures too encouraging but the Lord has provided some dear women who have had the same procedure I am going to have and they are thrilled with the results. So Lord willing, I will have my last chemo on September 8th after a week at Yellowstone with Tim and the two younger boys. We are going to have an ultrasound to see if they can see any tumor activity after all this chemo. It will not change our treatment plan but Tim thinks it will be good information. Surgery for a double mastectomy is scheduled for Oct. 5th and then I will start radiation as soon as I am healed up enough.
Before the Face of God (Personal Meditations)
God continues to use His word and the writing of Christians young and old to encourage me for the battle. We had a rich and relaxing week at Priest Lake enjoying variable weather but lots of together time and wonderful conversation. I was listening to The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis on tape and one chapter in particular really ministered to me. In the book Screwtape, one of Satan’s chief tempters is coaching his nephew Wormwood in how to tempt a Christian and get him away from “The Enemy” who is Christ. Although I am not sure about all of C. S. Lewis’ theology his insights into human nature and God’s ways with man are stunning. Here is an excerpt of the chapter which helped me have hope in my “trough” experience.
“As long as he lives on earth, periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.
To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now, it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than the peaks; some of His special favorites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else.
The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself, creatures whose life, on its miniature scale will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over…….
And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He choose and at any moment. But you now see that the irresistible and the indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (As His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigate degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo….
Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs-to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best.
Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”
A few quotes from “The Loveliness of Christ” by Samuel Rutherford
*Grace witherith without adversity. The devil is but God’s master fencer, to teach us to handle our weapons.
*I think the sense of our wants, when withal we have a restlessness and a sort of spiritual impatience under them, and can make a din, because we want him whom our soul loveth, is that which maketh an open door for Christ; and when we think we are going backward, because we feel deadness, we are going forward; for the more sense the more life, and no sense argueth no life.
*I see grace growth best in winter
Please join me in Prayer and Thanksgiving
*Praise God for making this SUCH a fruitful summer in the Lord. In our weakness He has shown Himself to be our strong tower and has produced a harvest of righteousness.
*Praise God for keeping me from any secondary infections so far
*Thank God for the help of so many family and friends. May He bless each one with joy in their service?
*Thank God that the gospel is going out through the books my chemo nurse is giving to patients
*Please pray that God will encourage me in the “trough” times when I do not sense His presence or nearness. Pray that I will obey with a grateful heart.
*Please pray that I can grieve appropriately as I face surgery but not become morbid or introspective.
*Please pray as I begin a book study on Biblical Femininity with some ladies at church. Pray that God will build us up to image Him correctly in a culture with much gender confusion.
*Please pray for Joel as he begins his sophomore year at Grove City that He will manage his time well, take dominion over his studies and follow Christ closely.
*Please pray for Spencer and Eric that they will put Christ first as they get back to school and that they will want to conquer each subject and bring it under the Lordship of Christ.
*Please pray for Tim and me as we face adjustments after the surgery. Pray for strength and joy and love and patience.
Cells Behaving Badly (Specifics of Treatment)
My fifth chemo went off without a big hitch except my port was flipped again. This doesn’t seem to present a big problem as I only have one more chemo! Yea! My dear mother is here for this one and has been a huge help. Margaret and Tim were with me too and we all had a nice visit. I have been to see the reconstructive surgeon and did not find the pictures too encouraging but the Lord has provided some dear women who have had the same procedure I am going to have and they are thrilled with the results. So Lord willing, I will have my last chemo on September 8th after a week at Yellowstone with Tim and the two younger boys. We are going to have an ultrasound to see if they can see any tumor activity after all this chemo. It will not change our treatment plan but Tim thinks it will be good information. Surgery for a double mastectomy is scheduled for Oct. 5th and then I will start radiation as soon as I am healed up enough.
Before the Face of God (Personal Meditations)
God continues to use His word and the writing of Christians young and old to encourage me for the battle. We had a rich and relaxing week at Priest Lake enjoying variable weather but lots of together time and wonderful conversation. I was listening to The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis on tape and one chapter in particular really ministered to me. In the book Screwtape, one of Satan’s chief tempters is coaching his nephew Wormwood in how to tempt a Christian and get him away from “The Enemy” who is Christ. Although I am not sure about all of C. S. Lewis’ theology his insights into human nature and God’s ways with man are stunning. Here is an excerpt of the chapter which helped me have hope in my “trough” experience.
“As long as he lives on earth, periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.
To decide what the best use of it is, you must ask what use the Enemy wants to make of it, and then do the opposite. Now, it may surprise you to learn that in His efforts to get permanent possession of a soul, He relies on the troughs even more than the peaks; some of His special favorites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else.
The reason is this. To us a human is primarily food; our aim is the absorption of its will into ours, the increase of our own area of selfhood at its expense. But the obedience which the Enemy demands of men is quite a different thing. One must face the fact that all the talk about His love for men, and His service being perfect freedom, is not mere propaganda, but an appalling truth. He really does want to fill the universe with a lot of loathsome little replicas of Himself, creatures whose life, on its miniature scale will be qualitatively like His own, not because He has absorbed them but because their wills freely conform to His. We want cattle who can finally become food; He wants servants who can finally become sons. We want to suck in, He wants to give out. We are empty and would be filled; He is full and flows over…….
And that is where the troughs come in. You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree He choose and at any moment. But you now see that the irresistible and the indisputable are the two weapons which the very nature of His scheme forbids Him to use. Merely to override a human will (As His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigate degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo….
Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs-to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best.
Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”
A few quotes from “The Loveliness of Christ” by Samuel Rutherford
*Grace witherith without adversity. The devil is but God’s master fencer, to teach us to handle our weapons.
*I think the sense of our wants, when withal we have a restlessness and a sort of spiritual impatience under them, and can make a din, because we want him whom our soul loveth, is that which maketh an open door for Christ; and when we think we are going backward, because we feel deadness, we are going forward; for the more sense the more life, and no sense argueth no life.
*I see grace growth best in winter
Please join me in Prayer and Thanksgiving
*Praise God for making this SUCH a fruitful summer in the Lord. In our weakness He has shown Himself to be our strong tower and has produced a harvest of righteousness.
*Praise God for keeping me from any secondary infections so far
*Thank God for the help of so many family and friends. May He bless each one with joy in their service?
*Thank God that the gospel is going out through the books my chemo nurse is giving to patients
*Please pray that God will encourage me in the “trough” times when I do not sense His presence or nearness. Pray that I will obey with a grateful heart.
*Please pray that I can grieve appropriately as I face surgery but not become morbid or introspective.
*Please pray as I begin a book study on Biblical Femininity with some ladies at church. Pray that God will build us up to image Him correctly in a culture with much gender confusion.
*Please pray for Joel as he begins his sophomore year at Grove City that He will manage his time well, take dominion over his studies and follow Christ closely.
*Please pray for Spencer and Eric that they will put Christ first as they get back to school and that they will want to conquer each subject and bring it under the Lordship of Christ.
*Please pray for Tim and me as we face adjustments after the surgery. Pray for strength and joy and love and patience.
