Here I (Scott) am only 2 plus years removed from treatment for a non-hodgkin's lymphoma cancer that I was first treated for in 2011. A routine monitoring test has shown that it has come back again and now I face the likely hood of a far more involved treatment like a stem cell transplant.
On the day I was informed over the phone of their medical findings my initial response was a numbness. I was shocked. I felt healthy after all, or at least like I thought a 51 year old should feel. I had been told prior and since that I look healthy. We had thought and hoped we were on the road to a long remission.
I called my wife and that is when the emotions really set in. They overflowed when I walked in the door that morning. That day I read my devotional after lunch and the key verse was "Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?". I felt humbled in my plight.
Yet still in my conversations with God I prayed;
Lord why me, why again, do my children deserve this much uncertainty due to 15 plus years of health challenges in Elizabeth and my life. Have we not been faithful Lord God. I am tired, a weary soldier. I don't know what more I have in the tank. It feels Lord like you wanted me to be an elder only months ago. Before that I felt your leading in becoming a business owner. Both were not without much soul searching and prayer. Do I not know your voice? I thought I was being obedient to your callings. So help me understand why me, why now. Lord why do the wicked seem unharmed. Why do they seem to prosper?
And yet Lord your spirit brings to mind that I have been oh so blessed and leaned so much through hardship. Your word reminds me that I am an underserving sinner saved by Grace. I cry out in my time of need and distress and yet you know so much more pain. You gave your son for sinful mankind like me. He was brutally crucified. You offer the Holy Spirit to do life with me. I am humbled, I know all this but in my distress, my moments of anger and emotional anguish I still cry out. I need you, yet you seem afar. My life seems to be spinning crazily. I just want you to say it will all be ok, that my family will be ok, that I will enjoy health. These are my inward focused cries Lord.
Show me your purpose in this. Speak to me I plead, I want to be used by you. I don't want this to be for nothing. I know trial and I know the emptiness I have felt when looking inward rather than upward during trials. I am week but you are strong. Show your strength and might illustrated in your word. I have seen it too first hand many times. May you somehow use my small story as part of your grand story. Make my paths straight Lord. Please make something of this despite my weak faith. Increase my faith Lord.
I love you Lord
Amen
I have chosen to blog again for several reasons. I am a quiet muller and blogging is a way for me to express, to get what's inside out. But I don't want to fall into previous traps where I craved so much affirmation in times of difficulty. I want my motives to be pure. I pray that God will keep my thoughts focused as Philippians 4:8 reads, on whatever is true, noble and pure. Satan thrives when he sees a weakness, but I pray he will not have a foot hold in my thoughts. He is a master at being devious and he wants nothing more than to foil what God wants to do in this chapter of my life.
So I pray to God that he will take my story and work into it according to his purpose. I do believe in healing but as John 14:14 encourages "ask any thing in His name (according to his purpose) and He will do it. I want to live, but I am being asked to leave that up to Him, to put Him first. I love my brothers and sisters in Christ and I ask you to pray for my family, that somehow some way He can use us.
I have an appointment on April 7 that will tell me more about next steps.
God has impressed on me to be thankful, that when I am focusing inward, to look upward instead. I am thankful that if I have to go through this therapy that it is now verses during the limitations of the pandemic. I am grateful that my kids are older. My gratitude is overflowing with the loving support from my extended family and church family
Blessings,
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