March 15, 2010,
Cells Calming Down (specifics of treatment)
Well I am nearing the two month mark since I ended treatment. In so many ways my mind is mercifully free of many memories of all the discomfort and agony of the last grueling weeks. I daily enjoy my good appetite, energy to swim and walk, energy (yet not always good motivation!) to do most of my household tasks , and opportunities for some ministry and travel. We visited the surgeon and made a date for reconstruction for the end of October 2010. He made it very clear he did not want to cut through any scars so no hysterectomy for now. I am working with a nutritionist, trying to develop a good healthy diet for life and that is a lot of fun. My biggest battle now is with continued discomfort in my chest but it looks like God has answered that problem too in a most amazing way! I have been seeing a physical therapist for range of motion exercises and for lymphodema prevention. She has been wonderful but it was not addressing the tightness I continue to feel in my chest. Margaret was at a dinner party and met a woman who is a physical therapist in town, is a Christian, has had a mastectomy and reconstruction and who is a part of a program at St. Luke’s specializing in working with scar tissue in post mastectomy patients!!! I have contacted her and will see her next week. St. Luke’s is out of network for our insurance so prayer is needed for our discernment in how to pay for it and how many sessions I will need. We could also use prayer for the reconstructive surgery as that surgeon is out of network. We have applied for a gap exception since he is the only one in the area who does this procedure. He just happens to be the best!

Before the Face of God (Personal Meditations)
Blows that hurt cleanse away evil, as do stripes the inner depths of the heart Proverbs 27:20

I wish I could say that I have had the peace and rest of heart you would expect at the end of treatment. But God is faithful. He is wrestling me down to the ground daily, helping me see the hidden idolatries of my heart. The wilderness I have been in is partly the result of me clinging tenaciously to some longstanding idols. I will think I have victory, only to fall the next day. He is a jealous God who wants all of our affection and He knows that ultimately only He can satisfy. I have such a strong desire to do things as a group or to be validated by other people yet many times we need to stand alone in our battle against the world, the flesh and the devil. He still ministers to me daily through His saints but this battle for my heart is one only I can wage. Pray that I will have more continuous victory for His honor and glory!
Tim and I and the boys are taking a Sunday School class based on the book How People Change by Paul David Tripp. Here are a few excerpts that have been helpful:
“What is the goal of this change? It is more than a better marriage, well-adjusted children, professional success, or freedom from a few nagging sins. God’s goal is that we would actually become like him. He doesn’t just want you to escape the fires of hell-though we praise God that through Christ you can! His goal is to free us from the slavery to sin, our bondage to self, and our functional idolatry, so that we actually take on his character!”

“The Centrality of the Heart as revealed in the Ten Commandments. The first three commands focus on what or whom you worship. They command us to make the one true god our God, and condemn making a god of anything else. The order of the commands is important because the commands begin by focusing on our heart tendency toward idolatry. Deuteronomy 6:4-5 is key here: these two verses capture the essence of the first commands. Its all about worship.”
“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our god, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.”
“The reason we fail to keep commands 4-6 is because we have failed to keep the first three. If you break commands 1-3 you will break commands 4-10. Your sinful responses to life grow out of a heart that has defected to worship something else.”

OUR HOPE!
“No matter what you struggle with now, no matter how successful or stuck you see yourself to be, no matter how young or how old you are in your faith, no matter if you are a man or a woman, a boy or a girl, if you are Christ’s child, there is hope for you! It is not based on who you are or what you know. Your hope is Jesus! He lives in you and because of that you have a reason to feast each new day. You no longer live, but Christ lives in you! I welcome you to a lifestyle of celebrating just what that means.”

Please join me in Thanksgiving and Supplication
*Praise god for his faithful and relentless love which pursues us constantly
*Praise God for physical, spiritual and emotional healing
*Please pray that I will be totally healed of cancer of the body
*Please pray that we will worship God with our whole heart and minds and that He will continue to show us idols in our lives and by His power cast them down
*Please pray that I will patiently wait on God and not get ahead of Him as I take back responsibilities
*Please pray for Joel as he travels to Chicago March 27th-April 3rd for inner city ministry with a college outreach group, for Tim who travels to Michigan the weekend of March27th to see his mom, for Spencer as he starts spring baseball and for the continued healthy growth of baby Dowers!

February 14th, 2010
Cells calming down (Post Treatment update)
I finished radiation on January 20th barely crawling through the last days. My darling daughter wrote me a note every day the last eight days, leaving them with the nurse. I would start crying every time. She wisely encouraged me to think of one person each day that I was doing it for and that really helped me get through. It is hard to describe the numbing fatigue and dark depression and the sheer willpower it took to continue getting my red and raw skin burnt but God gave me the will to finish. I pray that all the treatment will keep me cancer free forever!
The Lord has been good to bring me some great resources for trying to eat a healthy anti-cancer diet. I am making small changes weekly and having fun trying to add some new superfoods to my diet. I am able to exercise most days, swimming or walking and am still seeing a physical therapist to get my range of motion back. I love the medical community in Spokane and am so thankful for all my excellent care givers.
I am slowly gaining my strength and energy back, taking it one day at a time. Each week I notice some improvement but many people say it took them a year to fully recover their energy. My dear mom has been here since Christmas and will leave Wednesday. We are going to California for February break to see my Dad and look at schools for Spencer. When I get back in March I will work to take back all my responsibilities and balance activities according to my energy. I am so thankful for such a supportive, loving husband and family and friends!
We will see the reconstructive surgeon on Friday. Our next big decisions are 1. Whether to have a preventative hysterectomy or not and when 2. When and if to do reconstructive surgery (A ten hour operation!) 3. Whether to commit to going to Europe this summer with Spencer’s class!! (It is hard for me to tell what my energy will be and I would like Tim to go but it may not be wise with his job schedule)

Before the Face of God (Personal Meditations)
As the intense crisis time passes it is interesting to look back and realize there are aspects of the time of affliction that I don’t want to lose. My hunger for God and His word has increased and His word truly has become my joy and delight. Christ has become my treasure and my longing for Heaven is deep. I long to live each day in light of eternity and to maintain my focus on God and His priorities. I do not want to “get ahead of God” as I seek to take back activities and responsibilities. I feel a tension between wanting lots of solitude and meditation time yet wanting to spend time with people and wanting to be fruitful. I still am experiencing a sense of being in an emotional desert and have very little emotional energy. For me the time since surgery has been like post traumatic stress syndrome from which I am slowly recovering. I visited with Nancy Wilson when we went to Moscow to play basketball. She gave me a wonderful word picture for this time. She told me to just be like soil in which God’s seeds have been faithfully planted. I need to just wait and receive the sun (His word and the daily mercies and blessings He has for me) and the rain (The grief that still surfaces and ongoing sense of brokenness) and trust Him for the fruit that He will bring in his time.
I am enjoying reading the last four chapters of Job to increase my sense of the fear of the Lord. This verse has been an anchor for my soul “I know that You can do all things; no plan of Yours can be thwarted” Job 42:2
I am also enjoying reading some books by Henri Nouwen. His exhortations in “Life of the Beloved” have been good food for the soul. “The change of which I speak is the change from living life as a painful test to prove that you deserve to be loved, to living it as an unceasing “Yes” to the truth of that belovedness”. As always during affliction our hearts are revealed to us and I have seen much striving in my life trying to prove that I am worth being loved. I am praying for the freedom to know and act out of the truth that I am the beloved of God.

Please Join me in Prayer and Thanksgiving
*Thank God for lifesaving medical treatments and understanding of nutrition and it’s role in healing and health
*Thank God for the help of my mom and the support of friends and family.
*Thank God for the hope of full recovery from cancer
* Thank God for the hope of COMPLETE recovery in heaven!
*Please pray for emotional recovery and for renewed energy
*Please pray for a good balance of trusting God and being a good steward of my body
*Please pray for wisdom as I take back daily responsibilities and activities

“Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Relent, O Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on your servants. Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen trouble. May your deeds be shown to your servants, your splendor to their children. May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us-yes, establish the work of our hands.” Psalm 90:12-17

January 9th, 2010,
Cells being radiated (Specifics of Treatment)
I am praising God for His perfect timing. I was so frustrated that my tubes were not coming out sooner but if I would have started radiation a week earlier I would have hit this awful and dark “wall” I have hit this week, during Christmas week. It is amazing how the cumulative effect of radiation can affect some people. I went to a cancer support group the other night. Two women there said radiation was the hardest part of their treatment. One woman said she could not finish the course. It made me feel a bit better as I am finding this week very dark and difficult. I have no inner resources left and it seems to me that all I have done is fight only to be knocked down and totally depleted. It is a battle with no glory and seemingly no redemptive purpose. There does not seem to be any reward at the end probably because I am not sure if I will remain cancer free or not. In life many times we have to patiently endure but there is some sort of reward at the end. I cannot see the reward of my battle right now. I am reminded of all the heroes of faith in Hebrews chapter 11 who did not receive the reward of their faith until they entered eternity. I simply need to trust that God knows what He is doing even though I cannot see it.
It has also been a hard week because we have had quite a bit of petty crime in our neighborhood. I witnessed three guys parked in front of our house at 3 am on Monday morning, saw them run away, heard an alarm go off and saw them run back to their car and speed off. We have had car and garage break-ins all week. Also last week someone posted a comment on my blog and it was in code. I foolishly opened it and it was pornographic. The effects of the curse are all around and within me and I need to fight to remember that even though I am battling the curse, God is FOR me!
We did have a beautiful day today. To celebrate Joel’s 20th birthday we went to Coeur D’Alene to watch the bald eagles who congregate this time of year and witnessed 10 or more of these majestic creatures, flying, diving and perching on the tops of trees. We then dined at Wolf Lodge where they feature 32 ounce steaks! Charlie and Margaret and Grandma Cathy joined us and it was a memorable day. I did experience a sense of joy today and my soul was refreshed by being in the midst of God’s creation. I am praying that after radiation is over I will regain an inner sense of well-being.

Before the Face of God (Personal Meditations)
I was encouraged by this daily reading in Joel’s new devotional. It is a compilation of different Puritan authors and is called “Voices From the Past: Puritan Devotional Readings”. I was comforted by the thought that human nature is the same through the ages and our struggles are similar to the Puritan greats whom I have always admired.

HALLOWED BE YOUR NAME
Matthew 6:9
There is in each of us an envy; O how hard a matter it is to rejoice in the gifts, graces, and labours of others, and be content in circumstances, when God casts us by as unworthy, and uses others to glorify his name! We are troubled if others glorify God, and not us, or more than us, or if they are more holy, more useful, or more serious; self will not yield to this. Now by putting up this prayer to God, we leave it to him to choose the instrument that he will employ. We should be content to be abased and obscure provided Christ is honored and exalted. Many times we must be content, not only to be active instruments but passive objects of his glory. If god will glorify himself by our poverty or our disgrace, our pain and sickness, we must be content. We need to deal with God seriously about this matter that we may submit to the Lord’s will as Jesus:”Save me from this hour; but for this cause came I unto this hour: Father, glorify thy name” (John 12:27-28). This was the humble submission of Christ Jesus, and it should be in us. The martyrs were contented to be bound to the stake, if that way God might use them for his glory. “My earnest expectation and hope…Christ…exalted in my body, whether by life or by death” (Phil 1:20). We need to deal with God that we may have the end, and leave the means to his own choosing; that God may be glorified in our condition, whatever it is. If he wills for us to be rich and full, that he might be glorified in our bounty; if he wills for us to be poor and low, that he may be glorified in our labour; if he will have us sick, that he may be glorified in our pain; if he will have us live, that he may be glorified in our lives ; if he will have us die, that he may be glorified in our deaths (Rom 14:8)

Thomas Manton (works 1:77)

Please join me in Praise and Prayer
*Praise God for His perfect timing
*Praise God for the love and support of so many people
*Please pray that God will renew my strength and joy and in the meantime I will trust Him that he is working His good will in my life
*Please continue to pray for my healing
*Please pray for wisdom for Tim and I as we make decisions after treatment about which estrogen blocking drug to take, whether to have a hysterectomy or not and when to do reconstructive surgery. Pray that we will just take one decision at a time and trust God to guide and lead us.

January 3, 2010
Cells Being Radiated (Specifics of Treatment)
WHEW! God has graciously upheld me through a wonderful, joyful, whirlwind of a Christmas season. I was able to keep up with all the usual holiday activities and it was one of our best Christmases. Some highlights were seeing Spencer and Eric sing in an a capella quartet for The Oaks Christmas program and receive a standing ovation. This was the fruit of my efforts to encourage Eric out of his comfort zone and the goal I have that each of my children will have a creative outlet. He has had the hardest time deciding what he wanted to pursue so he told me to “just choose something”. This summer while going through chemo I had quite a few boys come and go trying out the choir. The four boys who have stuck with it have melded their voices together and sounded great. Little did we know that the week after they sang there would be a singing competition on TV featuring all a Capella choirs. Our guys are on the cutting edge of “cool”! My thanks to Kent Young who has taught our boys that singing is a manly activity!!
We also enjoyed our annual Jesus birthday party with four other families whose kids all grew up with our kids. It is so inspiring to see how so many of the kids are following the Lord and pursuing such interesting paths. Joel missed it this year as he was still taking finals on December 22nd! YIKES! He arrived home in time for Christmas Eve and a ten hour celebration with Charlie and Margaret. We had such fun visiting, eating, watching “Joyeux Noel” and playing our new addictive game “Settlers of Catan”. God gave me the energy to cook up a storm and we enjoyed a sumptuous leg of lamb, homemade rolls, homemade chocolate e’clairs, peppermint pie, homemade cinnamon rolls and our traditional prime rib with the Dionne’s on Christmas night. I got four days off from radiation over Christmas and three days for New Years.
My skin is becoming quite red and feels very tight and uncomfortable. It is hard to imagine that it can take thirteen more days of this but it is nice to have the end in sight. God has allowed me to give out the cancer book to two people at radiation so the gospel is being spread!
I am so thankful for my physical therapy which has helped me get my range of motion back in my arms and is keeping me from developing scar tissue. I have just begun to experience the heavy fatigue so am looking forward to being back in a school routine. My dear mother is here again and is helping me keep on top of the housework.

Before the Face of God (Personal Meditations)
God has continued to teach me to take my thoughts captive and to treasure Christ above all other things or relationships. Someone has rightly said “God is our only circumstance”. I was challenged by one author who is a cancer survivor who pointed out how easy it is for us to put our trust in things that God has never promised yet to distrust Him and His word where he gives us so many sure promises. I realized how faithful he is to bring about circumstances which reveal our own hearts to us and to continue to draw us back to the only sure source of security and comfort in this world. I heard about an acquaintance who spent a week thinking her daughter might have lymphoma yet it turned out she didn’t. Her comment was that she was amazed that her faith failed her during that week and she was a wreck. I think God was graciously showing her that her faith was possibly misplaced and I pray that He will continue to shepherd her to place her faith in His sure promises to her and her children.
Tim and I enjoy using Table Talk as a daily devotional we go through with the boys. This month the theme is “Anxiety and the Sovereignty of God”. There are some great articles and I wanted to share some excerpts.

From Paul David Tripp’s article “Thinking biblically about worry”

“Many of us live with a huge gap between the theological confidence that we celebrate on Sunday and the street-level fear, worry and anxiety that accompanies us the rest of the week”

“Everyday, somehow, someway, the brokenness of your world will press in on you. It will be this way until you cross over to the other side….the difficulties of life in this fallen world are the occasion of our worry, but not the cause…..As a result of sin, no longer do we attach our inner peace to a God who is the definition of wisdom, power, and love and who will never ever change. No, without realizing what we have done, we begin to look for identity, meaning and purpose, and our inner sense of well-being horizontally. We look to the broken and ever changing situations and relationships of this fallen world for our purpose and our inner rest. Things that were not designed to give us peace and over which we have no control become our replacement messiahs.”

“I am deeply persuaded that real, lasting personal rest of heart is never to be found in ease of circumstances. Even in the best of situations in this fallen world your heart will be able to find reasons to worry. Inner rest of soul and lasting peace of heart are only ever found when Jesus and His kingdom are your highest and deepest treasure. When you place your identity in His never-changing hands, when you find your meaning and purpose in the unstoppable work of His kingdom, and when you place your inner sense of well-being on the sure foundation of His promise to meet your every need, you will be able to rest even when the situations and relationships around you are broken.”

From Ed Welch’s article “Peace that passes all understanding”

“We will have hardships in life, of that there is no doubt. Scripture does not offer a kingdom that spares us from pain. The King does promise, however, that He will be with us in every trial and will give us all the manna we need so that we can know Him better, trust Him, live for Him, and be increasingly transformed to look more like Jesus no matter what the wilderness of life might throw at us.”

“Essential to this battle with fear and anxiety is the gift of humility. It fits perfectly, doesn’t it? In our anxiety we are usually concerned about things we love. We want control. We want to take matters into our own hands, to protect our future, but we are finding that it is impossible to manage all possible contingencies. We want to protect our kingdom. Find anxiety and you often find that your agenda is more important to you than God’s. You might find that you adopt your own interpretation of God’s world rather than submit to God’s clear words about His power, love and care.”
And so in the new year I am praying that I and my dear ones will learn to treasure Christ more and more and to put our trust where the only true security in life lies. May these scriptures inspire us to pray that God will give us all the peace that passes understanding, whatever our circumstances.

Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of god so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on hi, because he cares for you. (1 Peter 5:6-7)

“In peace I will both lie down and sleep’ for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety” (Psalm 4:8)

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, nor let it be fearful.” (John 14:27)

Please join me in Prayer and Thanksgiving
*Praise God that He is Immanuel “God with us”
*Praise God that He gives us grace when we need it
*Thank God for His sustaining grace to us through the holidays and radiation
*Please pray for my burned and tightening skin and discomfort. Pray that I will not confuse the emotional effects of pain and discomfort with a lack of peace.
*Please pray that God will continue to give sweet fellowship in our family as Joel is home
*Please pray for my stamina and wisdom to rest when needed through the busy basketball season
*Please pray that God will take all cancer cells from my body and help me to know what I need to be doing to remain healthy (i.e. diet, exercise, sleep etc.)
*Please pray for Tim and me as we parent our boys, that we will have wisdom and be a blessing to them as they are to us.