October 28, 2009
Cells Calming Down (Specifics of Treatment)
We are beginning the fourth week after surgery and my surgeon and oncologist say I am healing very well. I have been able to get two tubes out which was a wonderful relief. The right side is still producing more fluid than my body could absorb so they will stay in (for another week or so. My main struggle here is that they do not want to start radiation until two weeks after my tubes come out so it looks like I will not be done before Christmas with all my treatment. Let’s hope for being done before the new year!!!! I found out today that some women have tubes in for three months so I am thankful that will probably not be the case for me as the levels continue to go down. My activity is still limited and will be even for a few weeks after the tubes come out as they want me to resume slowly as fluid can still build up. We met our radiologist and like him very much. He thinks it might be OK for me to swim during radiation which would be a real blessing for me, even if all I can do is jog in the pool it is a great stress reliever for me.
My mom left last Tuesday and my dear friend Janet (Auntie Janet or JB) who is an oncology nurse, came that night and spent five days with us. We met at Multnomah, have been friends for 26 years and she fits right into our family very well. So God has provided some very personal and professional care for us during recovery.
Tim was sick the week before with the flu and seems to have had a relapse starting Sunday night which I am trying not to panic about. Having him be compromised has added to my sense of vulnerability. It has simply been a season of much trial but we feel very blessed by God at the same time.
Before the Face of God (Personal Meditations)
O, Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty;
Nor do I involve myself in great matters,
Or in things too difficult for me.
Surely I have composed and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child rests against his mother,
My soul is like a weaned child within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
From this time forth and forever.
I am memorizing and meditating on Psalm 131. In my forced inactivity I have become aware of much inward “noise”, most of which is not very pleasant. I am so thankful God is committed to our sanctification and growth and in his mercy is shutting me up to be faced with my own heart and attitudes which are not conformed to Him. Mainly I am confessing pride which is at the root of discontent. It is amazing to me how many times I respond to challenging circumstances thinking I know what is best for me and questioning God’s goodness and wisdom. This Psalm has been a quiet place to rest my soul and to pray that God would make it a reality in my heart. How wonderful to be able to get to the place of being like a contented and weaned child even in the midst of unsettling circumstances.
I have been blessed with many great books, one of which is Brave New Family by G.K. Chesterton. His series of essays on Men, Women, Children, Sex, Divorce and the Family contain lucid insights on the sacredness of the family as God ordained it and the modern attacks on it. In one of his essays titled “The True Victorian Hypocrisy” he gave me tools to battle with in my current situation and spoke to a subject dear to my heart; education.
“ The most essential educational product is Imagination. It is a wandering and even wild Imagination that all schools should chiefly instruct all school-children. For Imagination will teach them how to live a quiet and humdrum life.
This simple truth is now much neglected both by the fashionable and the old-fashioned. The way to make people contented is to make them creative, not to make them barren. I have no desire to lock people up in the parlour or the pantry, or deny them excursions and excitements. But it is strictly true that the larger is their Imagination, the less they will mind being locked up in the parlour; or, for that matter, in the coal-cellar. The child who can see the pictures in the fire will need less to see the pictures on the film. The man who can make up stories about the next-door neighbour will be the less dependent upon the next day’s newspaper. So long as the minds of the poor were perpetually stirred and enlivened by ghost-stories, fairy-stories and legends of wild and wonderful things, they remained comparatively contented; possibly too contented, but still contented. The moment modern science and instruction stopped all these things, we had a Labour Question and the huge discontent of today. Both for good and evil, but especially for good, it is Imagination that keeps people quiet.
On the other hand dull people always want excitement. Three quarters of the real luxury or prodigality or profligacy, that is complained of just now, is due to the dullness of people who cannot imagine anything they do not experience. They are so miserably and dismally stupid that they actually have to do things. They are so poor in spirit that they have to have things. They have to have a flying-machine fitted up with every luxury, because they cannot send their souls up while flying a kite. They have to be in a racing car in order to believe that it really races. If this principle of the inner life were understood, we might today restore the sanity of civilization; and especially the poetry of the home.”
Thank you G.K. for showing me the wonderful opportunity this period of my life is giving me to recapture my imagination, to spend an hour gazing into the fire and making up stories, to listen to the Narnia stories on tape, to make up rhymes, to imagine what heaven is going to be like, to picture all the people I know as stars shining in the sky as I pray for them, to use my imagination, not to worry, but to create.
Please join me in Praise and Thanksgiving
*Praise God for His faithful, intimate, personal care
*Praise God for sustaining us by His Word and His Spirit
*Thank you to all who have provided meals, help and who have prayed so faithfully
*Please pray that God would allow good health to reign in our home again for Tim, the boys and myself
*Please pray that we will continue to make God;s word and prayer priorities in our lives as we resume our normal responsibilities
*Please pray for continued healing from surgery, for contentment with the schedule for radiation and for stamina during radiation
*Please pray that faith, hope, love and joy would reign in our hearts
Cells Calming Down (Specifics of Treatment)
We are beginning the fourth week after surgery and my surgeon and oncologist say I am healing very well. I have been able to get two tubes out which was a wonderful relief. The right side is still producing more fluid than my body could absorb so they will stay in (for another week or so. My main struggle here is that they do not want to start radiation until two weeks after my tubes come out so it looks like I will not be done before Christmas with all my treatment. Let’s hope for being done before the new year!!!! I found out today that some women have tubes in for three months so I am thankful that will probably not be the case for me as the levels continue to go down. My activity is still limited and will be even for a few weeks after the tubes come out as they want me to resume slowly as fluid can still build up. We met our radiologist and like him very much. He thinks it might be OK for me to swim during radiation which would be a real blessing for me, even if all I can do is jog in the pool it is a great stress reliever for me.
My mom left last Tuesday and my dear friend Janet (Auntie Janet or JB) who is an oncology nurse, came that night and spent five days with us. We met at Multnomah, have been friends for 26 years and she fits right into our family very well. So God has provided some very personal and professional care for us during recovery.
Tim was sick the week before with the flu and seems to have had a relapse starting Sunday night which I am trying not to panic about. Having him be compromised has added to my sense of vulnerability. It has simply been a season of much trial but we feel very blessed by God at the same time.
Before the Face of God (Personal Meditations)
O, Lord, my heart is not proud, nor my eyes haughty;
Nor do I involve myself in great matters,
Or in things too difficult for me.
Surely I have composed and quieted my soul;
Like a weaned child rests against his mother,
My soul is like a weaned child within me.
O Israel, hope in the Lord
From this time forth and forever.
I am memorizing and meditating on Psalm 131. In my forced inactivity I have become aware of much inward “noise”, most of which is not very pleasant. I am so thankful God is committed to our sanctification and growth and in his mercy is shutting me up to be faced with my own heart and attitudes which are not conformed to Him. Mainly I am confessing pride which is at the root of discontent. It is amazing to me how many times I respond to challenging circumstances thinking I know what is best for me and questioning God’s goodness and wisdom. This Psalm has been a quiet place to rest my soul and to pray that God would make it a reality in my heart. How wonderful to be able to get to the place of being like a contented and weaned child even in the midst of unsettling circumstances.
I have been blessed with many great books, one of which is Brave New Family by G.K. Chesterton. His series of essays on Men, Women, Children, Sex, Divorce and the Family contain lucid insights on the sacredness of the family as God ordained it and the modern attacks on it. In one of his essays titled “The True Victorian Hypocrisy” he gave me tools to battle with in my current situation and spoke to a subject dear to my heart; education.
“ The most essential educational product is Imagination. It is a wandering and even wild Imagination that all schools should chiefly instruct all school-children. For Imagination will teach them how to live a quiet and humdrum life.
This simple truth is now much neglected both by the fashionable and the old-fashioned. The way to make people contented is to make them creative, not to make them barren. I have no desire to lock people up in the parlour or the pantry, or deny them excursions and excitements. But it is strictly true that the larger is their Imagination, the less they will mind being locked up in the parlour; or, for that matter, in the coal-cellar. The child who can see the pictures in the fire will need less to see the pictures on the film. The man who can make up stories about the next-door neighbour will be the less dependent upon the next day’s newspaper. So long as the minds of the poor were perpetually stirred and enlivened by ghost-stories, fairy-stories and legends of wild and wonderful things, they remained comparatively contented; possibly too contented, but still contented. The moment modern science and instruction stopped all these things, we had a Labour Question and the huge discontent of today. Both for good and evil, but especially for good, it is Imagination that keeps people quiet.
On the other hand dull people always want excitement. Three quarters of the real luxury or prodigality or profligacy, that is complained of just now, is due to the dullness of people who cannot imagine anything they do not experience. They are so miserably and dismally stupid that they actually have to do things. They are so poor in spirit that they have to have things. They have to have a flying-machine fitted up with every luxury, because they cannot send their souls up while flying a kite. They have to be in a racing car in order to believe that it really races. If this principle of the inner life were understood, we might today restore the sanity of civilization; and especially the poetry of the home.”
Thank you G.K. for showing me the wonderful opportunity this period of my life is giving me to recapture my imagination, to spend an hour gazing into the fire and making up stories, to listen to the Narnia stories on tape, to make up rhymes, to imagine what heaven is going to be like, to picture all the people I know as stars shining in the sky as I pray for them, to use my imagination, not to worry, but to create.
Please join me in Praise and Thanksgiving
*Praise God for His faithful, intimate, personal care
*Praise God for sustaining us by His Word and His Spirit
*Thank you to all who have provided meals, help and who have prayed so faithfully
*Please pray that God would allow good health to reign in our home again for Tim, the boys and myself
*Please pray that we will continue to make God;s word and prayer priorities in our lives as we resume our normal responsibilities
*Please pray for continued healing from surgery, for contentment with the schedule for radiation and for stamina during radiation
*Please pray that faith, hope, love and joy would reign in our hearts
That was a beautiful expression of your practicing the words you teach. You are using your recovery time for His purposes. You are blessed with a creative imagination! ~Always praying & growing in my humdrum life. :)
ReplyDeleteIn His Joy, ~Katrina
Hi dear one!
ReplyDeleteI continue to bring you and your family before the throne of grace. May God's peace continue to surround you as you rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
Much love to you!!
julie
Sorry to hear about Tim's relapse. Today your reflection encouraged me to look at my total ability to sit in a comfy chair with a book or some yarn or a cat on my lap for hours on end day after day and see that maybe it isn't a sign of being boring and dull after all but of contentment and a great imagination! : ) I like the sound of that better. Perhaps even in this there is a middle road though, huh? : )
ReplyDeletePS Remembering you all in my prayers.....hoping the Lord will be willing to accomodate your desire to have treatment done by the new year but trusting in His timing and plan most of all. You are so dear to me, Leslie. XO
ReplyDelete