More thoughts on Prayer

Centering prayer, which encourages a person to quiet the mind and be still before God, has profound implications for everyday life. Most people treat prayer like it’s not practical. Silence before God messes with your head. I’ve been practicing it now for awhile and it’s not easy. The difficulty has to do with giving up the normal patterns of thought and action and ultimately control. We make decisions so often we fail to realize these decisions go through some kind of process. The process may be some kind of autopilot response, but we make decisions often and we make them quickly.  If your car breaks down, you call your favorite mechanic and schedule the repair. If this has happened too often, you start looking for a new car. All these decisions have more to do with finances, stress, materialism, comfort and convenience than they do with God. You may pray about your car situation, but why? Do you expect God to tell you whether you should fix the old one or buy a new one? We pray, first of all, because our faith in God motivates us to include God. We call him Lord of our life and therefore, we must seek His leadership. If prayer is not practical and we really don’t expect any clear advice, then we are praying only as a token or acknowledgement that God is important to us. I have found that silence before God changes everything. I can’t come with my normal stuff because I’m conscientiously quieting my mind and trying to be present to God. This practice of quieting the mind and holding back the thoughts, passions, ideas and plans, strengthens my ability to do the same during the rest of the day. I find when stressful situations arise during the day, I have a better ability to hold them back rather than react with stress or anxiety. I’m better at keeping the stresses of the world at arm’s length. This is profoundly practical. Most health problems are due to stress. If I can be less stressed, I can be healthier. Being able to be calm when things turn stressful also allows me to use all my mental resources. If I give into to stress, I act out of fear which cripples and suffocates the rest of my brain. All of this comes from silent prayer but I haven’t even mentioned the most important element.

God is present in prayer. God knows what I need and he has all the resources of the Kingdom and creation at his disposal. The best part of prayer for me, is the change in perspective. I leave my perspective at the door and sit down before God, listening, waiting, seeking the Lord. I try never to say, “if God speaks” or “if God shows up.” God is present and God speaks into every heart. I say instead, “if I show up” or “if I can be quiet enough to hear.” When I show up and when I listen, I have a new perspective. I have more faith that God is in our midst. In tragedy, I know God weeps and works to move us toward love. My worldly perspective wants to get an answer about my problem from God. What I receive is the perspective of God’s unfailing love. I learn how small my problem is and how narrow my vision is. God leads me to a place more generous and loving than I would have found alone. God unravels my world and replaces it with a vision of His Kingdom. This happens every time I show up and I listen. There’s nothing more practical than God’s will being done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Prayer – Day 3

My decision to blog through Lent as I commit to 40 days of centering prayer, has dramatically affected my silence before God. Now, my normal attempt to be silent and centered before the Lord, has become an exercise in what to write. Don’t get me wrong, I love sharing my thoughts. It helps me experience God’s purpose for my life. But, that purpose must grow out of the priority of communion with God. If I can’t be quite and fully listen, what would be worth sharing? Jesus spent time before his father, sometimes all night, in order to be prepared for God’s plan for the coming day or days. I must learn from his example. Therefore, I shall end my commitment to Lenten blogging, with apologies, until I am assured it is our heavenly Father’s will and timing. I pray you will have a blessed and fruitful Lent.

– your brother in Christ

Prayer – Day 2

I’m not the kind of person who likes to lay out in the sun. I don’t like sitting still for one thing. I keep thinking of things I could be doing. After a long, long winter, I’ve been fantasizing about laying out in the sun. I’m sure my body and mind need some sun rays. I think I’m desperate enough to actually stay put for at least 30 minutes. Can prayer be similar? Could prayer be like soaking up the sun? Prayer is confused with asking God for help and for stuff, but it’s really just spending time with God. Spending time with God in prayer is a challenge though. Is God near and personal or is God holy, distant and unapproachable? How do you spend time with God when you can’t figure out what, who, he/she is? (Since this is a short devotional, I’ll skip the history of God’s self revelation through creation, history, Scripture and finally, perfectly through Jesus) God has revealed himself and made himself knowable. But, I want to focus on God’s presence as near and far; Holy and personal; Unapproachable and present in you.

The sun is also unapproachable! Yet, I will go out in the sun when the temperature climbs about 60 degrees from where it is today and enjoy the sun’s very personable, near, warmth. Everything that is in the sun affects me personally. It is near, warm, comforting and life giving. It is also distant, unapproachable and brighter than my eyes can handle. Spending time in the presence of God is to experience all that God has to offer on a close and personal level. The difficulty comes when you realize that true prayer or true faith accepts and loves God in God’s fullness. I would rather just think of God as close and friendly. True prayer pulls me towards God’s fullness. God, who is my friend, spoke everything into existence by his word. God hears my prayer and yours too. How can God be close and personal to all? How can God speak everything into existence and be my friend? Prayer helps us avoid answering such questions. You don’t need to understand nuclear fusion to enjoy the sunshine. You don’t need an advanced degree in geology to enjoy the Grand Canyon. Prayer offers the fullness of God’s presence. Bask in it! Bask in all God’s greatness. No sunscreen needed!

Prayer thoughts on Day 1

Today begins the 40 day observance of Lent. For our congregation in Northern Michigan, that means a 40 day commitment to prayer. We have 35 people signed up and most will be using a book titled, “40 Days to a Closer Walk with God” by J. David Muyskens. I’ve already been through the book once several months ago. This morning, as I began my commitment for Lent, I thought I would also commit to blogging about prayer as we go through this journey together. As always, my ability to keep to a schedule worries me about committing to any regular writing, but my hope is to try to write something short everyday. I won’t be sharing my personal prayer experiences, but just the ideas that form after those experiences. I’m only doing so in the hope it may help others who seek God through prayer.

Today’s thoughts! Prayer, particularly silent centering prayer, reveals a human problem. The problem is our ability to think of God and perceive God in our mind. God is real and present when we pray, but waiting in silence for God’s presence can reveal a lack of faith. Is God really there? Being silent reveals how much we have created a perception of God in our mind. As long as we pray words to God, we don’t realize we may be praying to our idea of God rather than the real deal. The same thing happens with people we love. We eventually fight because we misunderstand some behavior. We misunderstand because we formed a false perception of the person without knowing we did it. When that person fails to live up to our perception of them, we react. If we press on and learn who they truly are, we love them more. They are always more lovable in reality than they are in our head.

Silence before God reveals the same problem. As soon as we shut up and even stop, or slow our thinking, we have a hard time finding God. Our faith somehow slipped from true faith in a real God to belief in something we created in our head. Don’t worry though! Jesus said we only need faith as small as a mustard seed (They are really small). Centering prayer, with it’s method of being almost silent, is a way of discovering the problem. This discovery can motivate us to press on with our mind held back and our ideas of God disrespected so we may rediscover God. You and I cannot hold any satisfactory ideas of God in our mind. They all fall short. God is real, alive and present, but not in our thoughts of him. Press on through ideas, thoughts and concepts of God into the Holy of Holies of the Heart where God is fully present. The heart does not need words or rational thought to reach out and love God. We also don’t need to understand or fully grasp God’s love for us. We just need to welcome it like a big mysterious hug.

 

The Idea of Ideas

I believe in ideas. Don’t get me wrong! I believe in God and I believe faith connects me to the creator of everything, but when I talk about God, I can only share experiences and ideas. When I speak of God, I speak as a human being about God. I use words and thoughts I’ve arranged. Therefore, I speak of ideas. God is not an idea, but my understanding of him is an idea. Plato believed the realization of “ideas” was the highest purpose of human beings. Rather than try to teach philosophy, I’ll share a quote from Socrates that will be my focus for this post.  “Strong minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, weak minds discuss people.” I love the wisdom contained in this thought and I try to live my life accordingly. I don’t use the proverb to judge others, I follow it as a way of reducing stress.

Most of the things that cause me stress, involve the necessity for people to judge others. It’s completely normal and a colossal waste of time and energy. I’m not talking about a person’s ability to judge a stranger at the door. I’m referring to conversations about people that lead to conclusions about their behavior, decisions, intent and worth.  For me, this human desire to judge others, leads to the biggest problems of our world. If we learn to focus on “Ideas” rather than people, we would exercise our minds and gain all kinds of wisdom. For example, the current administration has focused on changing our national healthcare plan. The hundreds of Facebook posts I’ve read ignore the “Idea” of healthcare and only judge the people in public office. I read posts because I want to learn about healthcare. I want to decide for myself if healthcare should be a right or a privilege and I’m concerned about how to pay for national healthcare. The problem for me is that most people don’t want to talk about healthcare. People only want to spread hatred and judgment. Shame on me for seeking answers on Facebook, but I want to listen to cultural opinions in order to have a sense of what might be best. In case you are wondering, I’ve asked the same healthcare questions for many administrations.

My bottom-line here is to recommend moving from an emotional rant about hating a person, to the more difficult path of being human. What I mean by “being human” involves our brains. The huge part of our brain, which separates us from most other animals, is the hardest part to access when we are threatened. The lower part of our brain is the same as a snake. When we feel threatened, that part of our brain takes over and we do stupid stuff to save our own lives. “Bite first, ask questions later.” This reaction is very useful if you are actually in danger, but the problem is being able to discern authentic danger. This reaction is so powerful, it overwhelms our ability to access the huge human part of the brain. That’s why it takes more work to act like a human. I highly recommend training yourself to think about the “reason” or “idea” behind your anger. Do you remember having arguments in grade school? They included yelling hateful comments that made no sense. “I hate you because you’re an idiot.” “No I’m not! You are! And you’re ugly.” Children haven’t developed their ability to use their big, human, compassionate, problem solving brains. Hopefully, we adults have. If not, we need to learn to access the ideas behind our anger and talk about them with respect. That can only happen if we work through the anger and find the cause. We all know the wisdom in taking a deep breath or counting to a billion. Your brain needs time and oxygen to re-establish your humanness after a snake fight. Don’t we all think of the perfect thing to say after time has passed? Answers come to humans eventually but not to snakes.  Our big human brains can handle big problems but we must be willing to do the work.

If you are skeptical of the “Ideas” vs “People” focus, try a test run next time you gather socially with friends. Listen to the conversation and you’ll observe how people start talking about an event and it leads to talking about people. Even if the conversation is complimentary about people, it will eventually change to judgment and what is known as gossip. That will be your chance to test the theory. Instead of continuing the judgment or arguing a different judgment, ask a question about the idea. For example, if the conversation digresses from remembering a concert to comments about someone’s jealousy, you can ask, “can anyone relate to jealousy? If no one offers, tell your own story of jealousy. Talk about jealousy as a human problem related to loving someone. It will defuse the personal judgment and offer a group encounter with the idea of Love and Jealousy. Jesus did this with a woman caught in adultery. The religious leaders brought her to Jesus to test him because the law demanded she be stoned. At first, Jesus writes in the sand. I can only guess this was his way of taking a deep breath and counting to ten. He had every right to be angry at religious leaders who grab some poor woman who they knew to be a sinner. It’s not too far of a stretch to assume they had a lustful connection to the woman but Jesus writes in the sand. When asked again about his judgment, he turns the personal attack into an idea. He followed the law by implying that she will be stoned but that the one without sin cast the first stone. He changed the dynamics of a personal attack into the idea of universal sin. He diverted the judgment of one into the judgment of self for all. Everyone, including me, dropped their stone. The woman ended up most blessed by what happened. She experienced the condemnation of societal judgment and the blessing of Jesus’ judgment, “go and sin no more.” Jesus offered her life instead of death.

In the movie “Jerry Maguire,” Dorothy is listening to her women’s group complain about men as if they were the enemy and she interrupts with, “but I love the enemy.” She risks sharing a beautiful idea. Her comment turned the gossip upside-down and prepared those women for a moment of intense, awkward, gut-wrenching, honesty that demonstrated the power of loving the enemy. That scene is one of the greatest in movie history for its romance but changing the atmosphere from judgment to love opened the door for Jerry’s monumental attempt at love. Watch the movie again and learn to risk flipping conversations upside-down. I also hope you notice one of the women in the group says, “this is the best talking group I’ve ever been in.” Ideas are contagious and love is the most. Let’s work hard at being human.

Tough Decision

It’s been awhile since I’ve written and that’s the way I wanted it. I wanted to be back to normal. Well, you don’t always get what you want (thanks Rolling Stones). I’ve been on maintenance treatments for Lymphoma for almost a year. The drug is Rituxan and I have an infusion every other month. It is supposed to be for two years. My oncologist has encouraged me to go the full two years because it will provide the best opportunity for repressing the progression of cancer. She assures me it will return but treatments will prolong it’s return. The drug is well tolerated by most people but there are side effects. I had some swelling in my legs and sinus issues from day one. Those issues have progressed and the last two doses produced a significant period of fatigue. Things were bad enough this last round I decided to take a harder line with the doctor. I read several studies and articles about my condition and treatment and learned a lot. First of all, my response to the medication, as far as it’s effect on the lymphoma, was a home run or Complete Response. I also discovered that my chances of survival are very high whether or not I do the maintenance treatments. Those treatments only effect the time of progression. But, the percentages associated with completing the treatments or skipping the treatments were relatively close. 75% of people who did maintenance had no progression in 3 years. 58% of people who did not have maintenance had no progression in 3 years. The numbers change somewhat after 6 years but the trend is clear to me. Maintenance helps limit the cancer’s progression but not radically and I’ve completed half the treatments. This brings me to my decision. The doctor agrees that my effects are due to the Rituxan and they will get worse. Therefore, I will not be a happy camper these next several months and nobody knows how bad it will get by this time next year. All this information leads me to consider my quality of life. Since the lymphoma took at least 8 years to progress to the point of concern, I guess it will take at least that long again. I know it’s guess work but that’s all I have. I could have had lymphoma for much longer than 8 years too. It’s a slow growing cancer. Anyway, I’m about to turn 53 and I’d rather feel healthy now than healthy 10 years from now. I’m not saying anything against those people in their 60’s, but I expect healthy at 53 to be different than healthy at 63. I also feel confident that my body responds well to the treatment and 8-10 years from now I’ll be ready to go after it again. I’ve made my decision to stop treatment and thought you might want to know. I will now look forward to the slow recovery back to my new normal. That will include cycling, swimming, water skiing, golfing and lots of walking. I can’t wait.

I also hope to start writing more. I have so many ideas in my head and I love trying to sort them out for myself and for the benefit of others. I just can’t decide whether to dive into writing a book or just discipline myself to blogging regularly. If you have any advice or insight, please don’t hesitate to respond.

The Peace of Christ be with you !

Finally!

I’m finally through the chemo treatments and looking forward to a period of…I’m not sure, but hoping for something normal. I had a P.E.T. scan and the results were negative as expected. That means there’s no cancer activity. I began my maintenance treatments yesterday which is only the Rituxan. I was very anxious about it because I had told everyone that the treatments were over and yet my calendar had “Infusion” listed on the same day it has every month. I showed up for a doctors consult before the infusion and I started getting nauseous like I did with every treatment. My doctor told me there wouldn’t be any side effects with the Rituxan because it only targets the cancer cells. Of course, she was right and I feel fine other than the effects of the steroids they also give. I couldn’t even think about sleeping until about 3:30 a.m. last night. The maintenance treatments will be every 8 weeks for two years. After that, I’ll be waiting and wondering when it will relapse. The doctor has no idea but she says years. She was very clear that it will return but nobody knows how long. Though that’s not good news, it is good to have it stated clearly. I like to see things coming rather than be caught off guard.

Speaking of getting caught off guard, I injured my back a couple of weeks ago. I was moving a light chair and I slipped a disc. It hurt so bad I couldn’t even get in the car to go the hospital. The ambulance took me to the hospital and after more steroids and pain meds, I spent the next week on the couch. Fortunately, I was able to be on the couch at our family cabin. I had planned on water skiing for the first time in 3 years but that is now on hold.

That’s my update! Since the treatments are not problematic and they are further in between, I probably won’t be blogging much. It’s hard just writing what I have the last month. Therefore, this is a good time to say, thank you! Thank you for your attention to my rambling thoughts and ideas of life and God. Thank you for your prayers and cards and notes. I’d certainly rather not have gone through this but you all have made the journey an eye-opening experience. I talk about love and preach about love and try to live accordingly but there’s nothing like experiencing love. Thanks for the experience. The Lord bless you and keep you: The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you: The Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and give you peace.

 

Blogging on Steroids

I just finished my last infusion which comes with the usual dose of steroids. I woke up this morning 2 1/2 hours before the alarm and my mind was busy working out all the theological concerns of the world. Since steroid use in sports is considered cheating, I’m wondering if writing on steroids is also questionable. Anyway, you can be the judge of that.

I’m drinking close to 3 liters of water a day and riding my bike more all trying to rid my body of these chemicals. The day before treatment I probably felt the best I’ve felt for a long time. Lots of water and exercise seems to agree with me and I look forward to keeping it up. Though this is the last treatment, there will be maintenance treatments with Rituxan for two years. Rituxan has minimal side effects and therefore shouldn’t be too much of a problem. I have to admit the news of the maintenance knocked me down a few notches. I guess the first stage of denial still has lingering effects. I didn’t expect to have to keep my port or keep having treatments. Some people keep their port for ten years which wasn’t news I wanted to hear. Wrestling with that disappointment causes me to remember that I do have Lymphoma and this is the best course of action and I’m fortunate to have great care. I guess I was hopeful to just end this and put the whole thing behind me. Cancer is just one of the many ways we learn that we can’t always get what we want.

It’s great news that I’m finally done with treatments but nothing really compares to the good news of becoming a grandfather. Mallory gave birth to Darla Grace on Tuesday, June 21 at 10:31pm. Darla was 6lbs 11oz. Mallory had a C Section after 31 hours of labor and so her recovery is longer but Darla and Mallory are healthy and happy. Grandpa doesn’t have to do much but I get a lot of joy out just sitting and staring.  

Theology on Steroids

One of the difficult aspects of writing a blog is that you can’t cover a topic adequately. I wrote earlier about my way of handling God’s involvement in my cancer. I talked about three possibilities. Cancer is a part of the human condition and I’m just a statistic. God caused the cancer for some reason. God allowed the cancer for some greater purpose. I talked about how I treat it like I’m a statistic rather than trying to figure out what God is up to. The problem with stating that, is the thought that I don’t acknowledge God’s involvement. But that’s not the case. I think God is very active in my situation and journey. I just know that God’s ways are not my ways and his thoughts are not my thoughts. I can’t possibly understand God’s reasons for doing things. This leads me to a very important theory I have about Christianity.

There’s no doubt that faith is central to the following Christ. We claim a faith that cannot be proven rationally even though we live and operate in a rational world. Our faith that a man rose from the dead and is, in fact, God in the flesh, does not fit a rational world. C. S. Lewis might argue my claim but I’m sticking with it. Actually, the bible says faith is “the evidence of things unseen” (Hebrews 11:1). In other words, our faith is the only evidence that exists. There’s no proof other than our faith. In my opinion, the pressure of believing something that’s unbelievable causes us to “fill in the blanks.” We offer rational explanations for some of the things we believe. Cancer is a good example. If we assume that God is causing it or in some way up to something, then we are able to make sense of what happens. There are lessons and opportunities for spiritual growth when facing cancer and therefore our assumptions about God’s involvement can be neatly communicated to others. The problem is we really don’t know what God is doing. I know it’s possible that God clearly tells you what he is doing but that brings up another huge biblical issue. Prophecy is the highest spiritual gift offered through the Holy Spirit’s presence. Prophecy is the ability to hear God’s voice and speak God’s direct word to others.  It’s so important, the penalty for being a false prophet is death (in the Old Testament). Without writing pages of support for my thinking, I’ll just say that hearing God’s direct word is the greatest possible relationship and the hardest for human beings. All of that just means that we must be very cautious about claiming that God directly speaks to us. I’m not trying to discourage anyone because it is the highest of all pursuits. I believe I’ve heard God’s direct voice. The words I heard transformed my life and set my life on my present course. I’ve also made big mistakes and misunderstood things I heard. Here’s one quick lesson. People who claim to hear God’s voice must ask themselves and God if God told them to tell others. God spoke to me in prayer and he said, “Feed my sheep.” Those were the same words Jesus spoke to Peter. Those words developed into my becoming a pastor. It took more than those words but the motivation was there. But, God didn’t say, “feed my sheep and tell everyone I told you to.” Do you see the difference? We cannot remove our human interpretation and our lousy communication methods. We can take a word from the Lord and turn it into what I call the God card. If God tells me my wife should be an interior designer and I tell her God told me that, I’ve played the God card. I’m no longer accountable for what I say to her. I’ve made God accountable for what I said. My wife would feel trapped because God spoke to me and not her, but she is supposed to obey. In my example, remember God said “my wife should be an interior designer” but he didn’t say, “you need to convince her” or “you need to tell her I said so.” There’s a big difference between God telling us something wonderful and our need to tell others what God said. We need to DO what God says when we are convinced it’s from God but telling others is our own way of covering our butt. So, if God tells you why you have cancer, then praise the Lord, but don’t try to make a rational case to others about what God is up to. You will undoubtedly embellish with your own interpretation.

Here’s a clearer way to state my theory. When we fill in the blanks by assuming what God is doing, we are adding rational explanations to our faith.  When we offer our conclusions to others, we are asking them to believe in a God we’ve just explained. Faith in God should not be dependent on the outcome of any situation, in my opinion. If i were to die from lymphoma, did God mess up? Did I mess up? Did some of you neglect to pray for me? Who knows? God is still good and faithful and loving and mysterious. If I’m cured, I will certainly praise God and thank him for his care. I will also thank him for doctors who have gifts from God. I will thank him for inventions from doctors who may not even acknowledge God. I will give God all the credit but I won’t tell you that God did this and that and the other. I won’t pretend that I know why everything happened and how God pulled all the strings. I won’t do that because I would undoubtedly be wrong in some way and my explanation would make perfect sense to me, but it would not be true to God’s character.

I’ve been reading Ecclesiastes and it’s a hard book. Solomon seems to have written it and he basically says that everything is vanity. Though I’ve had a hard time following his thinking because it doesn’t fit with New Testament thought, I think he is saying that we are wasting our time trying to figure out the meaning of our lives. It’s the same thing as trying to figure out what God is up to. Good people die young and evil people thrive. All the evidence we collect about life adds up to nadda. We can’t make any claims to why stuff happens. Humans can’t leave that kind of mystery go. We have to make sense of it. I will continue to try and make sense of it, but I will try not to confuse my conclusions with claims about God. As rational as we humans are, we still make claims about God that make no sense. We say that our sins are forgiven in Jesus Christ but then some people say God gave them cancer to punish them for sin. Some Christians say God uses a terrorist to kill gay people in a bar to punish them for their lifestyle and they claim this God is a loving God. That’s not rational. I think we need to practice extreme humility when making claims about God. If we explain all the reasons we believe, then we are actually hoping our explanations will convince others to believe. We’re hoping others will believe us when we should be hoping they believe God. Faith, in my opinion, is best demonstrated when you and I follow God when we don’t have all the answers. Faith becomes the evidence of things unseen when we follow without explanation. When God reveals himself through our faith, people will see right past us and behold God as he truly is, rather than the image we have created.

So, I don’t know what God is up to with my lymphoma. I don’t want to come up with a scenario that demonstrates I have the inside track to knowing God’s will and when my explanation plays out, I can say, “I told you so.” I want to be ever surprised by what God actually accomplishes through this journey. I want to be in awe along with all of you at what God is doing. It’s always a wonderful, mysterious surprise. Can you image coming into the Kingdom of God and standing on your soap box yelling to everyone, “I told you so!” NO! that makes no sense. We will all be in awe! None of us have ever adequately described God or accurately interpreted his plan. But, by his grace, we’ve been given enough to trust him with our lives. We have enough for faith. 

Endure Until the End

I’m sorry I haven’t written anything for awhile. It’s mostly because I haven’t had the energy, especially emotional energy, to write. I received my fifth treatment 2 weeks ago and everything seemed to be normal, which is yucky for the following weekend. This time was worse though as far as the time it took recover. I went back to work on Tuesday but only worked a half day. Wednesday was the same and I didn’t put in a full day until Thursday and Friday. Of course, being fatigued longer caused me to think the world was coming to an end and I thought I would never get through all these treatments, but I’m a classic over-reactor. So, Sunday night (2 weeks after treatment) I started feeling improvement and have felt pretty good since.

Many people have tried to encourage me by reminding me that the end is in sight. They were right, but the reminder came when I was pretty low and I could not imagine being sick for almost two months. It felt like a long time to be sick. That all passed when I started feeling better (I’m fickle) and now I’m finally looking forward to having my last treatment. I’m looking forward to getting sick, missing work, laying on the couch for a holiday weekend and then recovering sometime around July 10th. That may sound sarcastic, but I’m looking forward to it because I know what’s coming, I know what to expect and then it’s all over. Sometime in July, I will start getting better and I will get better and better and by the Fall, I may start working out in order to try out for the Detroit Pistons. Ok! I’ll settle for being able to jog or ride a bike without leaving a note to help others find my body in case of an emergency. I’m just trying to say that I now know I can endure all this until the end.

Thank you to all who pray, write and send positive thoughts my way. It’s very humbling to need help, but this journey, so far, has opened my eyes to how much I truly need. I need space-age metal in both my hips in order to walk normal. I need a relatively new drug called Rituxan or I would be asking all my philosophical questions to Jesus face to face. I need a medication that costs $10,000 a shot in order to boost the production of my white blood cells. I need prayer. I need friends. I really really need my family. I don’t know why I didn’t understand this before but I get it now. Thanks for the support. I hope I’m able to step up for you when and if it is needed.

That’s all for now but I’ll write soon because I have more cancer treatment induced thoughts on God and faith. If I don’t share them, my sleep begins to suffer.

Good Enough

I’ve never been good at small talk and when someone asks me how I’m doing, I know they probably don’t want the long answer. I’ve learned to say, “good enough.” This month’s treatment has been somewhat of an improvement. The “yuck” was basically Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Then Sunday evening someone flicked the switch and I was normal. By normal, I mean that I feel like myself but I get fatigued doing just about anything. That’s why I say that I’m good enough. There are people going through much worse chemo and treatments and I feel fortunate to be relatively good. A couple of treatments ago I felt a rush of energy and it seemed like I had taken some kind of drug. The oncologist said that when your body starts making white blood cells in order to make up for the chemo, you’ll feel euphoric. This treatment was followed by a shot to induce the production of white blood cells. Sunday night I started feeling that rush and energy and quick recovery from the yuck.  My next treatment will be May 31 and June 1. I will have one more in July and then it’s time to strive for normal normal. I’m told it will take a  couple of months to overcome all the effects of chemo. I have a ridiculous obsession with Summer and I’m trying not to feel cheated. Maybe I’ll take a 2 week vacation in Florida once I’m normal normal.

There are side effects that I haven’t mentioned because they seemed minor early on, but each treatment gets worse. Now I have a constant metallic taste in my mouth. It gets worse each month. I have to drink a lot of water but water is the worst because there’s no flavor to cover the bad taste. I’ve learned to eat foods that are very spicy and flavorful and for some reason I can’t eat Subway. I know that’s weird but Subway was my most regular lunch and now I can’t stand the thought of it.  Pizza still tastes great and my fresh ground coffee still covers the metal for a brief but magical moment every morning.

The other side effect has to do with my skin’s inability to fight infection. I stopped shaving a week ago because I would get little sores that became very problematic. I found a topical antibiotic cream that had to be applied 5-6 times a day in order to heal the infections. Most times it took close to 2 weeks to heal. My doctor said she could give me an antibiotic if I thought I needed it.

Not much deeper

I usually include theological aspects of my journey and they can be really long but I’m tired and I have to get ready to preach tomorrow. I’ll just say for now that I have enjoyed writing. I’ve always wanted to write books but it didn’t come easy. In fact, writing has always been excruciating. I had a hard time in High School and college wasn’t much better. I really struggled at Princeton and I didn’t finish my Doctorate at Austin Seminary partly because writing is so hard for me. Well, I can now say that something good has come from this battle with lymphoma. I’m going to write a book. I’ve felt God’s call to write for a long time, but now I’m finally ready.  I’m not ready to say that God gave me lymphoma in order to get me to write, but I’m thankful for the experience and it definitely put me in the right mindset. God’s ways are mysterious but He can be trusted to bring about good for those who love Him. I want to trust that God brings about good but I know His “good” is different than mine. I try to prepare myself for the fact that God’s “good” probably has little to do with good health, good weather, good treasure or good long life. God’s good has to do with knowing love. It has to do with knowing that my sin has been forgiven. Most of all, it’s good to know God is with me and not against me. That kind of good can be cherished even when health fails or misfortune comes. Paul sang hymns after he had been beaten and chained in prison. He eventually died after being in imprisoned for years. Loving God carries no guarantees that life will turn out the way we want it to. In fact, loving God entails a desire for God’s purpose and outcome rather than our own anyway. Right? I think so.