It's almost over. There is one treatment left to go. There will still be a few more months of cancer related tests and appointments, of course. And the port will have to be flushed every six weeks until they decide to remove it. But after the first week in November, my cancer treatment will officially be over.
Looking back, it hardly seems possible that it has been more than a year since that moment when my doctor got that worried look on her face while doing my breast exam. It also seems hard to believe that that moment was truly the worst one of the whole journey. That instant when the whole world seemed to stop and my stomach dipped uneasily as I realized she'd found something she didn't like. That single split second when my mind leapt forward to the idea of cancer.
I know we're all different. From our individual personalities to our faith - or lack thereof - to our specific cancers and the treatments they require. Compared to so many others, I think I got off easy. I did not need a mastectomy. The cancer, while aggressive, was confined to that single tumor, making a lumpectomy the best option. My chemo was potent, but relatively short in duration. (Only 4 treatments of the worst stuff compared to others who've needed far more.) Eight total chemo treatments and six or so weeks of radiation just seemed to fly by.
When I look back, it's actually kind of hard to remember just how difficult it was. The pain could be intense at times. And the radiation left me feeling like a severely overcooked slab of meat, complete with blisters and peeling skin. There is still soreness. My breast varies from being mildly sore like an overworked muscle to being so sensitive that washing it in the shower is uncomfortable. It feels different than the other one. And while the Herceptin that I've been getting for the past year carries only one real side effect, it's a serious one. Potential heart failure at any point down the road. So that's something we'll have to keep an eye on. But all in all, I still count myself as having been profoundly blessed. Because I know I had it easy.
I think that's one of biggest keys to getting through the treatment. We have to keep in mind that it could always, ALWAYS, be so much worse. Worse for me would be if it were someone other than myself. Because one of the things I have realized is that I find it profoundly easier to be the patient than to be the caregiver. Not because I dislike caring for others, but because it absolutely breaks my heart to see those I love in pain. I'm a fixer, I guess. Sadly, cancer isn't something that can be hugged or loved away. Plus, I have no fear at all of dying. Losing those I love, however, is something I abhor.
Caring for and loving a cancer patient was infinitely more difficult for me than actually being the patient myself. Seeing what cancer did to my sister and mother-in-law hurt me in ways my own cancer couldn't begin to. I would gladly take on every illness of those I love just to keep them from having to go through it.
Which brings up another issue. My darling hubby has been diagnosed with type II diabetes. I have suspected it for a while and could kick myself for not forcing him to get tested sooner. It took his eyesight going haywire for him to finally admit something was wrong. Sure enough, his A1C test revealed that, at least for the past few months, his blood glucose levels have been hovering somewhere around 300! No wonder his eyesight went crazy. Funny thing is, it actually got better. A lot better. He's been on diabetes medication for about a month now and his eyesight is returning to normal, though it is still not back to where it was before.
He's a good patient, once he's actually convinced that there's a problem. He watches what he eats and was testing all the time until he got a handle on how certain foods effect his levels. I don't know if he's where he ultimately needs to be with his medication dosage, but he's come a long way from the high 200s and low 300s he was testing at in the beginning.
Ultimately, I see this as just another thing to be thankful for. Because God saw fit to give him a symptom he couldn't ignore. Because he's now being treated and is losing weight to boot. (Now, if I could just do the same. [sigh]) I'm almost finished with my treatment, he's easing into a new job, and life is incredibly good. I wake up every day thinking about how blessed we are.
So, I suggest that anyone out there who is struggling to find the good in their cancer battle might want to simply be thankful that it is them in the battle instead of their spouse, parents, siblings, or children. That's what I am most thankful for.
Abby
Monday, October 17, 2011
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Squirrel!
We don't have children. This has not kept us from watching and enjoying several "children's" movies, however. These days studios that have traditionally always produced movies strictly for children are injecting expressions and moments into their children's films that are intended to be picked up by more mature audience members. They decided to do this so that the parents who are by necessity watching these movies with their children - hopefully in the theater when they are first released - will not be bored out of their minds. The problem is that sometimes, these "adult moments" are just a bit too overt. At least, I feel that way. There have been a few times that we were watching something obviously targeted to children that had a scene that was just too suggestive for my comfort. If I had children, I would be disturbed to have them watching it. I don't know what would be worse, having them understand some of the things that are meant to "go over their heads" or having them start asking, "What does that mean, Mommy?"
Anyway, despite the fact that we don't have kids, we have seen and in fact own quite a few movies that were made for kids. Hubby and I still quote lines from "Finding Nemo." That movie was so cute. And many of the other movies like it were funny and cute, too. But this post is about a different Disney/Pixar movie. "Up!" came out in 2009 and like so many of the Disney-Pixar movies that have come before it, was a hit. And also like all it's Pixar predecessors, "Up!" was filled with quotable moments. One quote from this movie stands out far and above all the others, however. If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. Just as a reminder, here is the quote I'm referring to.
As one commenter on another site said, "Who could have guessed that one word could be so epic?" And epic it is. Since the time we saw this movie, shouts of "squirrel!" have been a common part of our family vocabulary. It's become a bit of a game to see who can shout it first when we see a squirrel while driving down the road - or anywhere else for that matter. But while the scenes and the basis of the quote are obviously founded in the reality that most dogs lose all thought of whatever they were doing when a squirrel catches their eye. the meaning goes far beyond this simple truth. And so "squirrel!" has come to mean more than the literal appearance of the furry little critters known for hoarding nuts. "Squirrel!" is a ubiquitous term referring to any instance where our train of thought or focus is inexplicably broken or snatched away by some transitory thought or event.
My husband has even taken to using the term "squirrelled" to refer to these moments. IE, "I was going into the bedroom but then I squirrelled and forgot what I was doing." He has especially used the reference in recent weeks because of an event that could have no other - or better - explanation than "squirrel!"
A few weeks ago, he drove my car to work because his truck had been acting funny the day before. He always calls me when he gets to work, to let me know he got there safely. This day was no different. I answered the phone. He said, "I'm here...... I wrecked your car." You'd have to know my husband to imagine how casually he said this. He has a devastating sense of sarcasm, which he thankfully reins in with me, but he's also capable of being incredibly deadpan sometimes so that it's often difficult to tell when he's being serious and when he's being sarcastic or joking. Even after 24 years together, I sometimes still have trouble telling when he's being serious. So for a moment I thought, "He's kidding." I think I probably said as much. Then he launched into his explanation of what had happened. I won't go into it because it was a rambling and breathless account that made little to no sense at the time. He forgets, sometimes, that I don't know everything he knows. Meaning he sometimes talks about situations or people or things, especially from his work, like I actually have personal knowledge of them. Which I don't. Not most of them, anyway. This event was no different. He was talking about a light and didn't seem to hear me when I asked him, "what light?" Then he mentioned that he looked down at the radio to turn it down and that's when it happened. He hit the cement base for a lamp post in the parking lot. The lamp post itself was apparently already gone, thanks to a semi truck at some point in the past. He hit this thing with the right front of my car and literally tore the bumper off. He made quite an issue of not understanding how it could have done so much damage considering how slow he was going and where he hit.
The long and short of it is, he was distracted first by this light on the building - which I finally later managed to get him to explain was in fact a light he was supposed to make sure was either turned off or on (still not clear on that part). He was trying to figure out if it was on or not. Then he jumped from that to the radio as he thought to turn it down so that he could call me to let me know he was there. And somewhere amid all that, he collided with the lamp post base. Later, he summed it up very succinctly by saying he "squirrelled." Since then, the term has become even more prevalent in our conversation. (My car has been fixed now, and looks better than it has in years. A blessing for sure.)
I've seen tee shirts that deal with this phenomena of sudden loss of focus by poking fun at how easily we are sometimes distracted by something "shiny."
And I own a shirt that pokes fun at the loss of focus associated with chemotherapy, called "Chemonesia" by the very creative designer of the shirt. Having experienced this firsthand, I can attest to how difficult it was to keep my train of thought, even while speaking. There were times that I would literally lose what I was saying in the middle of saying it. Thankfully, that seems to have stopped along with the chemo.
The point is, we are prone to being easily distracted, especially by fleeting thoughts and objects that flash like a mirror in the sun so that they immediately snag our attention. (This post is itself a testament to my own issues with difficulty maintaining my focus. I started it two days ago!)
Generally, these little distractions that pop up are harmless. They come and go, catching our focus for a moment or two, then we go right on with whatever we were doing. (Just like the dogs from "Up!") But sometimes, those distractions rob us of something important. They can interrupt our peace, intrude upon on times of prayer and meditation on the Word, and disrupt our thoughts when we're on the verge of gaining enlightenment. I've had this happen to me. I'll be reading my Bible, talking to the Lord, or listening to a sermon that's stomping all over my toes and suddenly, "squirrel!" Something completely random will pop into my head, or some flicker of movement or flash of light will jerk my attention away. Sometimes I can shake it off and get right back to where I was. But sometimes whatever I was on the verge of grasping is simply lost. The question arises, is this a tactic of the devil or a failing within myself?
I'm not a proponent of blaming everything on Satan. He's out there and he certainly does his best to get in our way whenever he can. But doesn't the Bible teach us that we are the ones with the power? That we can drive him away with the mere mention of the name of Christ? That if we make the effort to resist him, he will flee from us? Then why is it that we so often try to blame him for the problems in our spiritual lives?
I think that perhaps we are the ones failing to resist his lures. We let our minds wander when we should have them wholly focused on God. We place less importance upon our devotion and worship than upon the fleeting things of this life. We let thoughts about spouses, children, work, and countless other things, both large and small, intrude upon the time we ought to be wholly devoting to God.
Fortunately for us, God is utterly faithful. He tolerates our finite little minds wandering all over the place while He is trying to talk to us. He gently draws our attention back to Him when we've let it drift off to something else. He waits patiently for us to chase the squirrels that catch our eyes, and remains right there for us to come back to once we're finished with the chase. God's amazing, like that. I only wish I could do a better job of ignoring the squirrels. Because I hate thinking that I might miss out on something magnificent that God is trying to reveal to me simply because I couldn't stop myself from thinking about the laundry that I need to do or the grocery list or something else equally unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps it is like any other skill. Focus needs to be exercised and practiced to be strong. And that's where I fail so often. I don't practice like I should. I don't devote enough time to focus on the things of God. If I did, maybe the squirrels would be easier to ignore.
Right now, I'm trying desperately to ignore the intrusion of a desire to go scrounge up something to eat. [sigh] I'm hungry and that's just not easy to ignore. Nor is my dog, who is apparently needing to go out. (He doesn't bark or whine at me. He just won't sit or lay still for any length of time. And when he really gets desperate, he chomps his teeth at me.) Then there's the washing machine that dinged a while ago, letting me know I need to toss the sheets into the dryer if I want to sleep in my bed tonight. Oh, and there's the reminder I have programmed into my iPad that nags me until I finally get up and go change the bag in my litter robot. (Have I posted about this thing? It's amazing. Only has to be emptied every several days and by empty I mean take out the sack that collects the "waste" and put in a new bag. Takes all of two minutes. Thank You, Lord, for technological advances!) [sigh, again] My stomach is rumbling. Doggone it!
Oh, well. Might as well get up and deal with all the distractions. Then maybe I'll be able to focus on reading my Bible without - squirrel!
Anyway, despite the fact that we don't have kids, we have seen and in fact own quite a few movies that were made for kids. Hubby and I still quote lines from "Finding Nemo." That movie was so cute. And many of the other movies like it were funny and cute, too. But this post is about a different Disney/Pixar movie. "Up!" came out in 2009 and like so many of the Disney-Pixar movies that have come before it, was a hit. And also like all it's Pixar predecessors, "Up!" was filled with quotable moments. One quote from this movie stands out far and above all the others, however. If you haven't seen the movie, I highly recommend it. Just as a reminder, here is the quote I'm referring to.
As one commenter on another site said, "Who could have guessed that one word could be so epic?" And epic it is. Since the time we saw this movie, shouts of "squirrel!" have been a common part of our family vocabulary. It's become a bit of a game to see who can shout it first when we see a squirrel while driving down the road - or anywhere else for that matter. But while the scenes and the basis of the quote are obviously founded in the reality that most dogs lose all thought of whatever they were doing when a squirrel catches their eye. the meaning goes far beyond this simple truth. And so "squirrel!" has come to mean more than the literal appearance of the furry little critters known for hoarding nuts. "Squirrel!" is a ubiquitous term referring to any instance where our train of thought or focus is inexplicably broken or snatched away by some transitory thought or event.
My husband has even taken to using the term "squirrelled" to refer to these moments. IE, "I was going into the bedroom but then I squirrelled and forgot what I was doing." He has especially used the reference in recent weeks because of an event that could have no other - or better - explanation than "squirrel!"
A few weeks ago, he drove my car to work because his truck had been acting funny the day before. He always calls me when he gets to work, to let me know he got there safely. This day was no different. I answered the phone. He said, "I'm here...... I wrecked your car." You'd have to know my husband to imagine how casually he said this. He has a devastating sense of sarcasm, which he thankfully reins in with me, but he's also capable of being incredibly deadpan sometimes so that it's often difficult to tell when he's being serious and when he's being sarcastic or joking. Even after 24 years together, I sometimes still have trouble telling when he's being serious. So for a moment I thought, "He's kidding." I think I probably said as much. Then he launched into his explanation of what had happened. I won't go into it because it was a rambling and breathless account that made little to no sense at the time. He forgets, sometimes, that I don't know everything he knows. Meaning he sometimes talks about situations or people or things, especially from his work, like I actually have personal knowledge of them. Which I don't. Not most of them, anyway. This event was no different. He was talking about a light and didn't seem to hear me when I asked him, "what light?" Then he mentioned that he looked down at the radio to turn it down and that's when it happened. He hit the cement base for a lamp post in the parking lot. The lamp post itself was apparently already gone, thanks to a semi truck at some point in the past. He hit this thing with the right front of my car and literally tore the bumper off. He made quite an issue of not understanding how it could have done so much damage considering how slow he was going and where he hit.
The long and short of it is, he was distracted first by this light on the building - which I finally later managed to get him to explain was in fact a light he was supposed to make sure was either turned off or on (still not clear on that part). He was trying to figure out if it was on or not. Then he jumped from that to the radio as he thought to turn it down so that he could call me to let me know he was there. And somewhere amid all that, he collided with the lamp post base. Later, he summed it up very succinctly by saying he "squirrelled." Since then, the term has become even more prevalent in our conversation. (My car has been fixed now, and looks better than it has in years. A blessing for sure.)
I've seen tee shirts that deal with this phenomena of sudden loss of focus by poking fun at how easily we are sometimes distracted by something "shiny."
And I own a shirt that pokes fun at the loss of focus associated with chemotherapy, called "Chemonesia" by the very creative designer of the shirt. Having experienced this firsthand, I can attest to how difficult it was to keep my train of thought, even while speaking. There were times that I would literally lose what I was saying in the middle of saying it. Thankfully, that seems to have stopped along with the chemo.
The point is, we are prone to being easily distracted, especially by fleeting thoughts and objects that flash like a mirror in the sun so that they immediately snag our attention. (This post is itself a testament to my own issues with difficulty maintaining my focus. I started it two days ago!)
Generally, these little distractions that pop up are harmless. They come and go, catching our focus for a moment or two, then we go right on with whatever we were doing. (Just like the dogs from "Up!") But sometimes, those distractions rob us of something important. They can interrupt our peace, intrude upon on times of prayer and meditation on the Word, and disrupt our thoughts when we're on the verge of gaining enlightenment. I've had this happen to me. I'll be reading my Bible, talking to the Lord, or listening to a sermon that's stomping all over my toes and suddenly, "squirrel!" Something completely random will pop into my head, or some flicker of movement or flash of light will jerk my attention away. Sometimes I can shake it off and get right back to where I was. But sometimes whatever I was on the verge of grasping is simply lost. The question arises, is this a tactic of the devil or a failing within myself?
I'm not a proponent of blaming everything on Satan. He's out there and he certainly does his best to get in our way whenever he can. But doesn't the Bible teach us that we are the ones with the power? That we can drive him away with the mere mention of the name of Christ? That if we make the effort to resist him, he will flee from us? Then why is it that we so often try to blame him for the problems in our spiritual lives?
I think that perhaps we are the ones failing to resist his lures. We let our minds wander when we should have them wholly focused on God. We place less importance upon our devotion and worship than upon the fleeting things of this life. We let thoughts about spouses, children, work, and countless other things, both large and small, intrude upon the time we ought to be wholly devoting to God.
Fortunately for us, God is utterly faithful. He tolerates our finite little minds wandering all over the place while He is trying to talk to us. He gently draws our attention back to Him when we've let it drift off to something else. He waits patiently for us to chase the squirrels that catch our eyes, and remains right there for us to come back to once we're finished with the chase. God's amazing, like that. I only wish I could do a better job of ignoring the squirrels. Because I hate thinking that I might miss out on something magnificent that God is trying to reveal to me simply because I couldn't stop myself from thinking about the laundry that I need to do or the grocery list or something else equally unimportant in the grand scheme of things. Perhaps it is like any other skill. Focus needs to be exercised and practiced to be strong. And that's where I fail so often. I don't practice like I should. I don't devote enough time to focus on the things of God. If I did, maybe the squirrels would be easier to ignore.
Right now, I'm trying desperately to ignore the intrusion of a desire to go scrounge up something to eat. [sigh] I'm hungry and that's just not easy to ignore. Nor is my dog, who is apparently needing to go out. (He doesn't bark or whine at me. He just won't sit or lay still for any length of time. And when he really gets desperate, he chomps his teeth at me.) Then there's the washing machine that dinged a while ago, letting me know I need to toss the sheets into the dryer if I want to sleep in my bed tonight. Oh, and there's the reminder I have programmed into my iPad that nags me until I finally get up and go change the bag in my litter robot. (Have I posted about this thing? It's amazing. Only has to be emptied every several days and by empty I mean take out the sack that collects the "waste" and put in a new bag. Takes all of two minutes. Thank You, Lord, for technological advances!) [sigh, again] My stomach is rumbling. Doggone it!
Oh, well. Might as well get up and deal with all the distractions. Then maybe I'll be able to focus on reading my Bible without - squirrel!
Monday, August 1, 2011
It's Baaack... (Not the cancer!)
You know, I've gotten a lot of comments since my diagnosis about how wonderful my attitude was. Several folks along the way have commented on how awesome it was that I was not only able to maintain my sense of humor, but to also use it frequently in relation to the many varied issues that come up with cancer treatment. (I make no claims to be a comedian, but I have seen quite a few people crack up at my response to some of the things that have come along.) Apparently, one of my most popular sentiments relating to cancer is a t-shirt I designed on Zazzle that says, "I beat cancer and all I got was this lousy t-shirt!" "One more MRI and I'll stick to the fridge!" has also been popular. Then, of course, there was the infamous "lint roller" trick to dealing with those last stubborn head hairs that just didn't want to let go. I can't take credit for the original idea. It was actually a trick someone on the Cancer Survivors Network mentioned. Still, if using a sticky tape lint roller on one's head isn't utterly absurd, then I just don't know what is.
Anyway, a lot of people seemed to be impressed by my attitude. Frankly, it came solely from my utter trust that God was in control. I mean, what's the point in getting all worked up over something that we cannot do anything about? It's cancer. Throwing a temper tantrum won't do a single thing to help it. Being furious that it came knocking at your door won't do anything but make you and everyone around you miserable. Cancer (along with countless other illnesses and troublesome issues that come up in our daily lives) is no one's "fault." Being mad about it just makes it harder to deal with. Plus, if you believe much of the current data, a good, "positive" attitude actually helps us heal faster. My point? It wasn't really so much me having a positive attitude as it was me flat out trusting God.
I should interject here that my faith and trust did not just wipe out all my natural concern about the situation and about what the future holds. I mean, I'm human. The moment my Dr. got that frown on her face while doing my breast exam and started focusing on that one spot sent a shock wave through me that I will never forget. We all dread hearing that word. CANCER. It's one of the major health terrors of the past several generations. But, I can honestly say I never panicked. I can't ever really remember even "breaking down." There were a few (and I stress few) tears, just moments when the enormity of the situation kind of overwhelmed me. Ultimately though, I just sat back and let God lead the journey. I was on the path and there was no point trying to find a shortcut, a trail off the the path, or balking like a stubborn donkey and forcing God to drag me forward. It simply was what it was and forward was the only way through it.
Yikes! This is not where I planned to go with this post! Funny how that happens.
I did my best to find the humor in all the absurd situations a cancer patient can find themselves in. It is my nature to seek out humor and to use it to help me cope with difficult situations. I just can't help myself. Then again, I can't help but notice that God has seen fit to place me into a LOT of situations throughout my life that, even if they weren't at all funny at the time, would wind up being some of the most hilarious moments of my life when I look back.
Case in point: And I mention this because it just came up a few days ago in response to something posted on Facebook by one of my favorite comedians, Chonda Pierce. Here's what she posted:
Have I mentioned that my husband is a genius? Literally. He was tested in school. He has an understanding of and appreciation for mathematics and physics that I will never, ever be able to match. And I'm no slouch in the intelligence department, either. Yet, though he is perfectly capable of grasping the finer points of the inner workings of space and time and things like singularities and string theory, he cannot seem to wrap his brain around the fact that one does not need highly flammable fluids like kerosene, gas, or lighter fluid to start a fire.
So, many years ago, (before I'd fully grasped his utter incapability when it came to fire) we were living in a home we rented. We had bought a wood stove from his parents when they decided to switch from wood to oil heat. Our rental home had a large living room and large kitchen that shared a good sized open doorway. There was a location just inside the kitchen area that was meant to hold a wood stove. We did use kerosene heaters to heat the house when it wasn't too cold, but once winter set in fully, we switched to the wood.
Anyone who's ever had a wood stove will be aware that they generally have two settings. Hotter than lava and off. We literally had times when that thing would be going that we'd open the front door - in the dead of an Indiana winter - to try to cool the house off a bit. (I'm smiling now as I look back on this. We laugh all the time about the joys of having a wood stove. Despite the sometimes tedious difficulty of regulating the temperature, there is just nothing quite as warm and comfortable as wood heat.)
I did not grow up with a wood stove, per se. We did have a fireplace, however, and somewhere along the way my brilliant mother decided to purchase an insert for it. This was, essentially, a wood stove that was designed to fit into the space of the fireplace. It was sealed up like a wood stove, meaning it had gaskets around the doors and a damper and various air vents to regulate the air flow and thus the rate of burn. It also had a nifty blower system that forced the hot air from the cavity around the insert out into the room. Now we lived in Mississippi, not exactly known for it's frigid winters, but that wood stove saved my parents a lot of money on the utility bill in the winter. And it was how and where I learned how to build a fire using novel things like newspaper and kindling. (No kerosene or gas.) The wood stove my husband and I had was merely a significantly larger version of that fireplace insert. I started it regularly with no difficulty at all.
Another feature of wood stoves is that, so long as they are sealed up nicely, you can bank them at night when you go to bed and there will still be plenty of coals waiting for you the next morning. Generally, all you have to do is rake those coals a bit to get them a little air, then toss some smaller logs on them so that it starts burning actively again, then you can fill that puppy up with some big hunks of wood to keep it going for hours. This is all contingent upon making sure there's plenty of wood in the stove the night before, however, and on making sure you almost completely close all the vents so that it doesn't get too much air and burn too fast. Make that mistake and you wake up to a cold stove that has to be completely re-lit. Apparently, that's what happened one cold morning.
We had a water bed at the time. We were too cheap to buy one of those fancy dresser drawer stands for it, so had the base that consisted of nothing more than a simple frame to support the bed. This meant the bed was fairly low to the floor. Which was fine. We were both a lot younger then and had no trouble getting in or out of the thing. I shudder to think what that would be like these days! So, Hubby gets up before me. I don't even remember him getting out of bed. My first memory that morning was coming slowly awake and frowning as an odd smell hit my nose. While I was sniffing, trying to figure out what it was, I heard his voice right beside my head. He was calling my name in a soft voice, gently waking me. I opened my eyes to find him kneeling beside the bed, his face mere inches from mine. His first words when my eyes opened? "Honey, do I still have any eyebrows?"
Yeah, that was right about the time that my sleepy brain kicked into gear and figured out what that smell was. Burnt hair. (You need to realize that my husband is one of those truly hairy men. He had a full beard in something like eighth grade and has only shaved that beard off completely like once in the more than 2 decades that we've known each other.) Needless to say, his words brought me fully awake. He did still have eyebrows, though all his facial hair was a bit singed. It seems that he'd gotten up to find the stove too cold to fire up by just tossing wood into it. So, in his profoundly brilliant and logical mind, he came up with the notion of pouring kerosene on the wood before putting it into the stove to light. It lit just fine, then promptly went right back out as soon as all the kerosene burned off the surface of the wood. Apparently, his next logical leap was to determine that it must have been getting too much air, making it burn too fast. If he could just repeat the procedure with the door shut, then it would burn slower and thus actually catch the wood on fire. The problem, of course, was how to actually start the fire with the door closed. Clearly this is a logistical problem. So he put some kerosene into a mason jar he'd taken from the kitchen. He poured some of it over the wood INSIDE the stove, put a bit more kerosene in the jar, then got himself ready. He first tossed a match into the stove, which lit the kerosene. Then he took the jar of kerosene and flung its contents into the stove with the intention of slamming the door closed right behind it.
I wish I could convey my expression via these typewritten words. This all happened somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty years ago and I am still torn between the desire to laugh myself senseless and to smack him with the nearest heavy object. Needless to say, his plan did not work. Though he has a complete understanding of the laws of thermodynamics, he was incapable of applying those in any practical way, it seems. Because the result of his "plan" was a massive fireball that came shooting out the door he was, of course, kneeling right in front of while trying to slam it shut. He said he was quite sure it shot well into the living room. Fortunately the only flammable thing in its path was him. (Excuse me for a moment while I pause to laugh again.)
Okay, I'm back. He was unharmed by this stunt. His hair, while singed, was not truly burned and returned to normal quite quickly. I did, however, have to get up and start the stove, since all his kerosene had burned off again and there was still no actual fire in the stove. This was the first moment I realized that fire and my genius husband did not mix. There have been other incidents through the years. The most serious being the "brush fire" he started on a windy day on the hillside down below our barn, in a place where our water hose would not reach. I wanted to call the fire department right off the bat but he insisted he had it under control. The milk jug he was running back and forth between the fire and the end of the water hose would work just fine. (Head shaking at the memory.) I watched him for a few minutes, then decided when the fire hit the first cedar tree and sent flames forty or so feet into the hair that it was time to dial 911. I was halfway to the house when I heard him yell for me to call the fire department. They came and put it out pretty quickly, before it could reach our house and just about the same time that it jumped the road below us and tried to spread into the valley. (Funny as this story is to look back on, it wasn't at all funny at the time and would not have been even remotely amusing if it had indeed spread into the valley below our home. People live there. Lives could have been lost and property certainly would have been because there are no such things as fire hydrants out here. They had to use a tanker truck. They would have had nowhere near enough water to douse a fire that big. Thank You, Lord, for sparing us all that disaster!)
My beloved husband, whom I adore with all my heart, put the blame for that fire on me! He and his brother-in-law, who'd taken part in the starting of the blaze, stood there with the firemen after they'd put it out and explained how they'd told me and his sister that it was too windy to start a fire but that we'd insisted. He was being facetious, but my husband's sarcasm is often difficult for others to grasp. I have always doubted that the firemen realized he was making a joke. Anyway, for a few years after that, we were recognized around town as "the people who'd had the fire on the ridge." Literally, we would walk into the local grocery store and while checking out, the cashier would say, "Oh, you're the people who had that fire out on the ridge." Ah, life in a small town.
Suffice it to say, that was the day we instigated new rules in our family. Hubby is no longer allowed to start any fires unless he's under my direct supervision. He has been flatly forbidden from ever, under any circumstances, using flammable liquids like gas, kerosene, or lighter fluid to start any fires. There have been a few instances, however, when he has ignored these rules. Or at the very least, skirted them. This series of shots was taken last year on an outing to a state park.
We had the dogs with us, so I did not realize what he was doing because I was taking pictures of them. Then I turned around and the first image is what I saw. The charcoal had already been lit, but wasn't going fast enough for him. Of course I felt I ought to snap a picture of it, seeing as it might be the last good shot I would get of my husband. I was yelling at him to put the lighter fluid down as I took the shot, though. You can see in the second shot that he wisely backed away from the conflagration, ever mindful of the singed facial hair of his past. And that look on his face in the last shot is his typical reaction to being caught doing something he knows very well that he should not be doing. Even as I was shooting the pictures, I was reminding him of his history with fire. God bless him, he just doesn't ever learn.
So, maybe a good part of my sense of humor is a result of my husband's sense of humor. We do laugh at and with each other quite a bit. I mean, it is a common occurrence for us to laugh so hard we get tears in our eyes. Often those laughs are due to something absurd one of us has done or said. Long story short: God blessed us by giving us both senses of humor that the other appreciates for the most part. I do so wish God would just see fit to gift my husband with a bit of wisdom when it comes to fire, though. Barring that, I simply pray that God will continue to protect him from his own idiocy. Lord knows I love that man to death.
Sigh. (Now I'm feeling all sappy and love struck.) There's a reason or the wild swings in emotion, though.
Getting chemotherapy has a lot of effects on the body. One of the major ones for a woman is that it sends us into medically induced menopause. That means we get all the joys of hot flashes and such for the duration of treatment. Those hot flashes were brutal. I lost track of how many times I literally thought I was going to up and melt. But, hey, it came with some up sides, too. Primarily, no menstrual cycles.
Not to get too graphic, but my menstrual cycles have never been what I'd call normal. They started kinda late and hit with a vengeance that literally had me wishing I would just die. I can remember being in what I can only describe as agony. Laying in the middle of my bed in a fetal position, praying it would just stop. I remember being at school once when I was in so much pain that any touch on my body, even on my arm, hurt. My mother, whom I flat out adored and respected, did not grasp just how bad it was. She was of the "if you aren't running a fever and/or throwing up, you aren't sick" mindset and so I went to school in spite of the pain. You've got to understand that this was before the days of the internet where we could research something on a whim. And frankly, she was from the country and the notion was that women have been having menstrual cycles since the dawn of time and they got through it just fine. I do remember more than one person making the joke that if I thought menstrual cramps were bad, then I'd never make it through child birth.
All joking aside, I quite literally cannot imagine labor pains being much worse. I don't blame my mother for not taking it seriously. I don't remember how seriously I complained about it. I know for a fact that it wasn't something I'd ever mentioned to a doctor. I just remember that it was a nightmare. An unpredictable nightmare, since it didn't come on any sort of schedule or remotely reliable cycle. Anyway, I was 18 when I started taking birth control pills. I had no idea at that time that the pills could and would impact my periods. I was beyond pleasantly surprised when I found that they not only became regular, but that the pain not only became easily manageable, but often didn't manifest at all. It was years later that I learned, either from a doctor or from my own research on the internet that the hormones in birth control pills were designed to regulate the hormones within our bodies that trigger menstrual cycles. Not only that, but the pills were often prescribed specifically to help women with cycles like mine. Who knew?
So I stayed on the pill continuously from the time I was 18 until last year when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 39. It was last fall when my oncologist told me I had to not only stop taking the pill but that I would never be able to take it again. I don't mind telling you that I hated hearing that. But, the consequences of that fact weren't of immediate concern. The chemo brought on temporary menopause, which in turn meant no periods. For months now, when doctors asked me when I had my last period, I've been telling them October of 2010.
I saw my OB/GYN in June and we talked about when and if my periods would come back. I was very encouraged when she told me that it could easily be months or even years. Possibly maybe never. I was desperately hoping it would be never. Because without the pill, I feared I would be facing the agony I remembered from my teen years. She said that it wouldn't necessarily be so. But even if it was, there were things besides hormones like the pill that we could do. Still, I really hoped it wouldn't be an issue.
Then, day before yesterday, I got the gift of my period for the first time in 9 months. In all seriousness, it scares me more than the cancer did. I know that sounds insane, but it's the truth. I just cannot stress how horrible my periods were before I started taking the pill. And it's not like I feel comfortable telling everyone who asks how I'm doing that I'm fine, except for the cramps. LOL
I got up and went to church yesterday morning, but then came home after Sunday school because I could feel the pain getting worse in spite of the ibuprofen I'd started taking the day before. It didn't get too bad. As I told my hubby when he asked me how I was feeling that evening, "I'm not wishing I was dead, yet." So that's something to be grateful for. They're worse, today, though. Still nothing like what I remember, but I can't help worrying that they'll get there eventually. If not this month, then the next time, or the time after that. I did research about it yesterday when I got home from church and learned that doctors recommend taking ibuprofen or Aleve or the like before the pain starts and on a regular schedule for a few days whether there's real pain or not. I've been doing that since Saturday afternoon.
It's crazy to be more afraid of menstrual cramps than cancer. It's crazy for any child of God to be afraid of anything. But somewhere deep inside me there is a teenage girl who remembers being curled up on her bed, crying and praying for the pain to stop. Lord, help me, I don't know if I can take it again. So, while I would never realistically wish to go through chemo again, I do miss the benefit I got of not having to worry about a monthly agony.
In the long run, my menstrual cycle is no different than the cancer. It's beyond my control. I can't stop it or fix it or wish it away. If the pain gets just as bad or even worse than what I remember, there's not one thing I can do to change it. I'll seek a doctor's help if that turns out to be the case, but it will be up to God alone whether that doctor's suggestions have any impact. The thing about the cancer is, it didn't really hurt. Oh, there was pain here and there, days of discomfort, difficulties like hair loss and nausea and that nasty taste in my mouth. There was the exhaustion and the hot flashes, the difficulty concentrating. But somehow, it never truly scared me. Maybe because I saw it all as temporary. It would come and it would go. The treatment would work or it wouldn't. Either way, I wasn't in true pain. This, however, is different. I not only hurt, I potentially might hurt A LOT. And I could very well be facing years of hurting badly on a monthly basis.
Funny how some things scare us more than others. (There's my utterly irrational fear of spiders as a prime example, but we'll just leave that for another day.) While I am a bit of whiner, and I certainly do not enjoy pain, I do in reality have a fairly high tolerance for it. Or perhaps it's better described as a resignation to enduring it when there's simply no other choice. Still, I am praying for God's mercy and intervention in this situation. If I'm on the cusp or revisiting the terrible pain of my adolescence, then I pray God will help me endure it with grace. Lord knows I'll need Him. I need Him every moment of every day.
And now, I'm going to go lay down for a little while. Maybe I'll drag out the heating pad, since the stuff I read yesterday said it can help. The ibuprofen isn't working as well today. But laying down will give me a chance to get ahead on my bible reading. (I'm still doing the 90 days through the bible thing.) I have been not only staying caught up on my reading, but I frequently read ahead, sometimes even a full day ahead. It just gets kind of hard to stop right in the middle of the story, even when I know how the story's going to end. :)
See, there's always an upside. Always something positive to be found if we will just look hard enough!
Anyway, a lot of people seemed to be impressed by my attitude. Frankly, it came solely from my utter trust that God was in control. I mean, what's the point in getting all worked up over something that we cannot do anything about? It's cancer. Throwing a temper tantrum won't do a single thing to help it. Being furious that it came knocking at your door won't do anything but make you and everyone around you miserable. Cancer (along with countless other illnesses and troublesome issues that come up in our daily lives) is no one's "fault." Being mad about it just makes it harder to deal with. Plus, if you believe much of the current data, a good, "positive" attitude actually helps us heal faster. My point? It wasn't really so much me having a positive attitude as it was me flat out trusting God.
I should interject here that my faith and trust did not just wipe out all my natural concern about the situation and about what the future holds. I mean, I'm human. The moment my Dr. got that frown on her face while doing my breast exam and started focusing on that one spot sent a shock wave through me that I will never forget. We all dread hearing that word. CANCER. It's one of the major health terrors of the past several generations. But, I can honestly say I never panicked. I can't ever really remember even "breaking down." There were a few (and I stress few) tears, just moments when the enormity of the situation kind of overwhelmed me. Ultimately though, I just sat back and let God lead the journey. I was on the path and there was no point trying to find a shortcut, a trail off the the path, or balking like a stubborn donkey and forcing God to drag me forward. It simply was what it was and forward was the only way through it.
Yikes! This is not where I planned to go with this post! Funny how that happens.
I did my best to find the humor in all the absurd situations a cancer patient can find themselves in. It is my nature to seek out humor and to use it to help me cope with difficult situations. I just can't help myself. Then again, I can't help but notice that God has seen fit to place me into a LOT of situations throughout my life that, even if they weren't at all funny at the time, would wind up being some of the most hilarious moments of my life when I look back.
Case in point: And I mention this because it just came up a few days ago in response to something posted on Facebook by one of my favorite comedians, Chonda Pierce. Here's what she posted:
Yeah, I have absolutely NO idea what her husband was doing on a boat with a chainsaw. I mean, try as I might, I simply cannot come up with a reasonable scenario where this would make any kind of sense. But then, as I replied to her, I also have a husband who has not been gifted with what I consider to be a "normal" measure of common sense. While my darling husband has never had any serious mishaps with power tools, he does have a rather dubious history with fire. I should point out that he grew up in a home with a wood stove. He ought to be more than capable of grasping not only how one works, but the utter lunacy of, say, throwing kerosene into one that is already lit!
Have I mentioned that my husband is a genius? Literally. He was tested in school. He has an understanding of and appreciation for mathematics and physics that I will never, ever be able to match. And I'm no slouch in the intelligence department, either. Yet, though he is perfectly capable of grasping the finer points of the inner workings of space and time and things like singularities and string theory, he cannot seem to wrap his brain around the fact that one does not need highly flammable fluids like kerosene, gas, or lighter fluid to start a fire.
So, many years ago, (before I'd fully grasped his utter incapability when it came to fire) we were living in a home we rented. We had bought a wood stove from his parents when they decided to switch from wood to oil heat. Our rental home had a large living room and large kitchen that shared a good sized open doorway. There was a location just inside the kitchen area that was meant to hold a wood stove. We did use kerosene heaters to heat the house when it wasn't too cold, but once winter set in fully, we switched to the wood.
Anyone who's ever had a wood stove will be aware that they generally have two settings. Hotter than lava and off. We literally had times when that thing would be going that we'd open the front door - in the dead of an Indiana winter - to try to cool the house off a bit. (I'm smiling now as I look back on this. We laugh all the time about the joys of having a wood stove. Despite the sometimes tedious difficulty of regulating the temperature, there is just nothing quite as warm and comfortable as wood heat.)
I did not grow up with a wood stove, per se. We did have a fireplace, however, and somewhere along the way my brilliant mother decided to purchase an insert for it. This was, essentially, a wood stove that was designed to fit into the space of the fireplace. It was sealed up like a wood stove, meaning it had gaskets around the doors and a damper and various air vents to regulate the air flow and thus the rate of burn. It also had a nifty blower system that forced the hot air from the cavity around the insert out into the room. Now we lived in Mississippi, not exactly known for it's frigid winters, but that wood stove saved my parents a lot of money on the utility bill in the winter. And it was how and where I learned how to build a fire using novel things like newspaper and kindling. (No kerosene or gas.) The wood stove my husband and I had was merely a significantly larger version of that fireplace insert. I started it regularly with no difficulty at all.
Another feature of wood stoves is that, so long as they are sealed up nicely, you can bank them at night when you go to bed and there will still be plenty of coals waiting for you the next morning. Generally, all you have to do is rake those coals a bit to get them a little air, then toss some smaller logs on them so that it starts burning actively again, then you can fill that puppy up with some big hunks of wood to keep it going for hours. This is all contingent upon making sure there's plenty of wood in the stove the night before, however, and on making sure you almost completely close all the vents so that it doesn't get too much air and burn too fast. Make that mistake and you wake up to a cold stove that has to be completely re-lit. Apparently, that's what happened one cold morning.
We had a water bed at the time. We were too cheap to buy one of those fancy dresser drawer stands for it, so had the base that consisted of nothing more than a simple frame to support the bed. This meant the bed was fairly low to the floor. Which was fine. We were both a lot younger then and had no trouble getting in or out of the thing. I shudder to think what that would be like these days! So, Hubby gets up before me. I don't even remember him getting out of bed. My first memory that morning was coming slowly awake and frowning as an odd smell hit my nose. While I was sniffing, trying to figure out what it was, I heard his voice right beside my head. He was calling my name in a soft voice, gently waking me. I opened my eyes to find him kneeling beside the bed, his face mere inches from mine. His first words when my eyes opened? "Honey, do I still have any eyebrows?"
Yeah, that was right about the time that my sleepy brain kicked into gear and figured out what that smell was. Burnt hair. (You need to realize that my husband is one of those truly hairy men. He had a full beard in something like eighth grade and has only shaved that beard off completely like once in the more than 2 decades that we've known each other.) Needless to say, his words brought me fully awake. He did still have eyebrows, though all his facial hair was a bit singed. It seems that he'd gotten up to find the stove too cold to fire up by just tossing wood into it. So, in his profoundly brilliant and logical mind, he came up with the notion of pouring kerosene on the wood before putting it into the stove to light. It lit just fine, then promptly went right back out as soon as all the kerosene burned off the surface of the wood. Apparently, his next logical leap was to determine that it must have been getting too much air, making it burn too fast. If he could just repeat the procedure with the door shut, then it would burn slower and thus actually catch the wood on fire. The problem, of course, was how to actually start the fire with the door closed. Clearly this is a logistical problem. So he put some kerosene into a mason jar he'd taken from the kitchen. He poured some of it over the wood INSIDE the stove, put a bit more kerosene in the jar, then got himself ready. He first tossed a match into the stove, which lit the kerosene. Then he took the jar of kerosene and flung its contents into the stove with the intention of slamming the door closed right behind it.
I wish I could convey my expression via these typewritten words. This all happened somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty years ago and I am still torn between the desire to laugh myself senseless and to smack him with the nearest heavy object. Needless to say, his plan did not work. Though he has a complete understanding of the laws of thermodynamics, he was incapable of applying those in any practical way, it seems. Because the result of his "plan" was a massive fireball that came shooting out the door he was, of course, kneeling right in front of while trying to slam it shut. He said he was quite sure it shot well into the living room. Fortunately the only flammable thing in its path was him. (Excuse me for a moment while I pause to laugh again.)
Okay, I'm back. He was unharmed by this stunt. His hair, while singed, was not truly burned and returned to normal quite quickly. I did, however, have to get up and start the stove, since all his kerosene had burned off again and there was still no actual fire in the stove. This was the first moment I realized that fire and my genius husband did not mix. There have been other incidents through the years. The most serious being the "brush fire" he started on a windy day on the hillside down below our barn, in a place where our water hose would not reach. I wanted to call the fire department right off the bat but he insisted he had it under control. The milk jug he was running back and forth between the fire and the end of the water hose would work just fine. (Head shaking at the memory.) I watched him for a few minutes, then decided when the fire hit the first cedar tree and sent flames forty or so feet into the hair that it was time to dial 911. I was halfway to the house when I heard him yell for me to call the fire department. They came and put it out pretty quickly, before it could reach our house and just about the same time that it jumped the road below us and tried to spread into the valley. (Funny as this story is to look back on, it wasn't at all funny at the time and would not have been even remotely amusing if it had indeed spread into the valley below our home. People live there. Lives could have been lost and property certainly would have been because there are no such things as fire hydrants out here. They had to use a tanker truck. They would have had nowhere near enough water to douse a fire that big. Thank You, Lord, for sparing us all that disaster!)
My beloved husband, whom I adore with all my heart, put the blame for that fire on me! He and his brother-in-law, who'd taken part in the starting of the blaze, stood there with the firemen after they'd put it out and explained how they'd told me and his sister that it was too windy to start a fire but that we'd insisted. He was being facetious, but my husband's sarcasm is often difficult for others to grasp. I have always doubted that the firemen realized he was making a joke. Anyway, for a few years after that, we were recognized around town as "the people who'd had the fire on the ridge." Literally, we would walk into the local grocery store and while checking out, the cashier would say, "Oh, you're the people who had that fire out on the ridge." Ah, life in a small town.
Suffice it to say, that was the day we instigated new rules in our family. Hubby is no longer allowed to start any fires unless he's under my direct supervision. He has been flatly forbidden from ever, under any circumstances, using flammable liquids like gas, kerosene, or lighter fluid to start any fires. There have been a few instances, however, when he has ignored these rules. Or at the very least, skirted them. This series of shots was taken last year on an outing to a state park.
So, maybe a good part of my sense of humor is a result of my husband's sense of humor. We do laugh at and with each other quite a bit. I mean, it is a common occurrence for us to laugh so hard we get tears in our eyes. Often those laughs are due to something absurd one of us has done or said. Long story short: God blessed us by giving us both senses of humor that the other appreciates for the most part. I do so wish God would just see fit to gift my husband with a bit of wisdom when it comes to fire, though. Barring that, I simply pray that God will continue to protect him from his own idiocy. Lord knows I love that man to death.
Sigh. (Now I'm feeling all sappy and love struck.) There's a reason or the wild swings in emotion, though.
Getting chemotherapy has a lot of effects on the body. One of the major ones for a woman is that it sends us into medically induced menopause. That means we get all the joys of hot flashes and such for the duration of treatment. Those hot flashes were brutal. I lost track of how many times I literally thought I was going to up and melt. But, hey, it came with some up sides, too. Primarily, no menstrual cycles.
Not to get too graphic, but my menstrual cycles have never been what I'd call normal. They started kinda late and hit with a vengeance that literally had me wishing I would just die. I can remember being in what I can only describe as agony. Laying in the middle of my bed in a fetal position, praying it would just stop. I remember being at school once when I was in so much pain that any touch on my body, even on my arm, hurt. My mother, whom I flat out adored and respected, did not grasp just how bad it was. She was of the "if you aren't running a fever and/or throwing up, you aren't sick" mindset and so I went to school in spite of the pain. You've got to understand that this was before the days of the internet where we could research something on a whim. And frankly, she was from the country and the notion was that women have been having menstrual cycles since the dawn of time and they got through it just fine. I do remember more than one person making the joke that if I thought menstrual cramps were bad, then I'd never make it through child birth.
All joking aside, I quite literally cannot imagine labor pains being much worse. I don't blame my mother for not taking it seriously. I don't remember how seriously I complained about it. I know for a fact that it wasn't something I'd ever mentioned to a doctor. I just remember that it was a nightmare. An unpredictable nightmare, since it didn't come on any sort of schedule or remotely reliable cycle. Anyway, I was 18 when I started taking birth control pills. I had no idea at that time that the pills could and would impact my periods. I was beyond pleasantly surprised when I found that they not only became regular, but that the pain not only became easily manageable, but often didn't manifest at all. It was years later that I learned, either from a doctor or from my own research on the internet that the hormones in birth control pills were designed to regulate the hormones within our bodies that trigger menstrual cycles. Not only that, but the pills were often prescribed specifically to help women with cycles like mine. Who knew?
So I stayed on the pill continuously from the time I was 18 until last year when I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 39. It was last fall when my oncologist told me I had to not only stop taking the pill but that I would never be able to take it again. I don't mind telling you that I hated hearing that. But, the consequences of that fact weren't of immediate concern. The chemo brought on temporary menopause, which in turn meant no periods. For months now, when doctors asked me when I had my last period, I've been telling them October of 2010.
I saw my OB/GYN in June and we talked about when and if my periods would come back. I was very encouraged when she told me that it could easily be months or even years. Possibly maybe never. I was desperately hoping it would be never. Because without the pill, I feared I would be facing the agony I remembered from my teen years. She said that it wouldn't necessarily be so. But even if it was, there were things besides hormones like the pill that we could do. Still, I really hoped it wouldn't be an issue.
Then, day before yesterday, I got the gift of my period for the first time in 9 months. In all seriousness, it scares me more than the cancer did. I know that sounds insane, but it's the truth. I just cannot stress how horrible my periods were before I started taking the pill. And it's not like I feel comfortable telling everyone who asks how I'm doing that I'm fine, except for the cramps. LOL
I got up and went to church yesterday morning, but then came home after Sunday school because I could feel the pain getting worse in spite of the ibuprofen I'd started taking the day before. It didn't get too bad. As I told my hubby when he asked me how I was feeling that evening, "I'm not wishing I was dead, yet." So that's something to be grateful for. They're worse, today, though. Still nothing like what I remember, but I can't help worrying that they'll get there eventually. If not this month, then the next time, or the time after that. I did research about it yesterday when I got home from church and learned that doctors recommend taking ibuprofen or Aleve or the like before the pain starts and on a regular schedule for a few days whether there's real pain or not. I've been doing that since Saturday afternoon.
It's crazy to be more afraid of menstrual cramps than cancer. It's crazy for any child of God to be afraid of anything. But somewhere deep inside me there is a teenage girl who remembers being curled up on her bed, crying and praying for the pain to stop. Lord, help me, I don't know if I can take it again. So, while I would never realistically wish to go through chemo again, I do miss the benefit I got of not having to worry about a monthly agony.
In the long run, my menstrual cycle is no different than the cancer. It's beyond my control. I can't stop it or fix it or wish it away. If the pain gets just as bad or even worse than what I remember, there's not one thing I can do to change it. I'll seek a doctor's help if that turns out to be the case, but it will be up to God alone whether that doctor's suggestions have any impact. The thing about the cancer is, it didn't really hurt. Oh, there was pain here and there, days of discomfort, difficulties like hair loss and nausea and that nasty taste in my mouth. There was the exhaustion and the hot flashes, the difficulty concentrating. But somehow, it never truly scared me. Maybe because I saw it all as temporary. It would come and it would go. The treatment would work or it wouldn't. Either way, I wasn't in true pain. This, however, is different. I not only hurt, I potentially might hurt A LOT. And I could very well be facing years of hurting badly on a monthly basis.
Funny how some things scare us more than others. (There's my utterly irrational fear of spiders as a prime example, but we'll just leave that for another day.) While I am a bit of whiner, and I certainly do not enjoy pain, I do in reality have a fairly high tolerance for it. Or perhaps it's better described as a resignation to enduring it when there's simply no other choice. Still, I am praying for God's mercy and intervention in this situation. If I'm on the cusp or revisiting the terrible pain of my adolescence, then I pray God will help me endure it with grace. Lord knows I'll need Him. I need Him every moment of every day.
And now, I'm going to go lay down for a little while. Maybe I'll drag out the heating pad, since the stuff I read yesterday said it can help. The ibuprofen isn't working as well today. But laying down will give me a chance to get ahead on my bible reading. (I'm still doing the 90 days through the bible thing.) I have been not only staying caught up on my reading, but I frequently read ahead, sometimes even a full day ahead. It just gets kind of hard to stop right in the middle of the story, even when I know how the story's going to end. :)
See, there's always an upside. Always something positive to be found if we will just look hard enough!
Friday, July 22, 2011
Day Two...
Today's reading: Job chapters 6-20
Job's getting just a little bit whinny. Then again, with all the things his "friends" are saying to him, who can blame him? I can't help but notice, though, that Job is ascribing attributes to God that are less about Who God is than about how hopeless Job is feeling. For instance:
When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the calamity of the innocent. The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; he covers the faces of its judges—if it is not he, who then is it? Job 9:23-24
Sound familiar? How many times have you heard people in grief "blame" God for the failings of this fallen world? After 9/11, how many people accused God of not caring, of "allowing" it to happen when He could have stopped it? When we're facing tragedies that are so great they overwhelm us, we often want someone to blame and the larger the scope of the tragedy, the higher up the ladder we go when looking for a culprit. In mind-boggling tragedies like 9/11, or hurricane Katrina, or the earthquake and tsunami that devastated Japan, we can't seem to help looking to God and questioning why He would let so many suffer and die. But we need to remember that God isn't sitting up there plotting ways to cause us pain. Tragedies happen because this world is fallen. Sin exists and pain and suffering and grief are direct results of that fact. All tragedies are not the result of personal sin, but merely a byproduct of the fallen state of this world. God cannot be blamed for that.
Here's another verse that jumped out at me.For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both. Job 9:32-33
The KJV uses the word, "daysman" for arbiter. Another translation I read uses mediator. Immediately the first thought that popped into my head was 1 Timothy 2:5: For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,
Job's complaining that there is no mediator to stand between him and God and reconcile whatever problem God has with him. Wow. Praise God that we have a Mediator, that Jesus Christ makes intercession for us with God!
You just have to love Zophar the Naamathite. He is the very picture of a good Christian today! What's his response to Job's troubles and grief and hopelessness?
For you say, 'My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God’s eyes.' But oh, that God would speak and open his lips to you, and that he would tell you the secrets of wisdom! For he is manifold in understanding. Know then that God exacts of you less than your guilt deserves. Job 11:4-6
Boy, if that doesn't sound like a "good" Christian, I don't know what does. You know, obviously Job deserved what he was getting. In fact, ol' Zophar is quick to let Job know that he undoubtedly deserved a lot worse than what he was getting!
How many times have you found yourself sitting in judgment over someone else's misfortune? Not that God doesn't punish. He most certainly does. He corrects His children when they need it. But I find myself consistently amazed by how many Christians claim to know the mind and purpose of God. They look at tragedy and declare, like Zophar, that it must be "deserved" or it wouldn't be happening. Sticking with my earlier theme of major disasters, I know plenty of people who said 9/11, Katrina, and even the earthquake and tsunami in Japan were God's judgment on those affected. I saw some make the same claim about the tornado that ripped through the heart of Joplin, Missouri.
Amazing how many Christians seem to have a direct line into the heart and mind of God. They know these tragic events were His judgment, not merely evidence of the fallen state of this universe. Same thing with disease. I've lost count of how many times I've heard a fellow Christian say, usually with more than a hint of haughtiness, that the reason someone is sick is because they just weren't living their life right before God.
My point here isn't that global, national, local or personal tragedies are never God's judgment. Sodom and Gomorrah were wiped of the face of the planet in spectacular fashion as a direct warning to the fact that God can, will, and does exact judgement upon people and places that deliberately turn their backs on Him. Yet, even in that instance, God said that He would have spared the cities if there had been just 10 righteous men left within them. It speaks volumes that even that small number could not be found. But I have to ask, do you seriously believe that of all the people who died, or who lost loved ones or their homes in tragedies like 9/11 or Katrina or Japan or Joplin, not even 10 of them could be called righteous in God's eyes. Or maybe we're just assuming that 10 was an arbitrary number and God really wouldn't have stood by it? Or maybe it's changed somewhere along the way? Or just maybe, like what Job is going through, it is meant as a test for the righteous, an opportunity for them to bring glory and honor to God by remaining true to Him in the midst of their tragedy.
In short, I can't help but feel that while the Bible tells us that we will judge all things, it also warns us not to be judgmental of others. It warns us to have compassion on those who are suffering. And if there's one thing I think gets in the way of a vast number of Christians both growing in the Lord and being effective in serving Him, as well as in witnessing to others about Him, it's pride and arrogance. Every single time a Christian points a finger at those suffering in some tragedy and says, "yep, that's God's judgment right there," it hardens one more heart against God. It leads one more person to say, "If that's what it means to be a Christian, then I don't want any part of that 'Holier than thou' attitude." We really need to be careful how we not only treat others, but how we speak to and about them. The Bible says very plainly that we are recognized as Christians by our love; love for each other, and love for all men. First: Love God. Second: Love others as you love yourself. It's very simple. Yet we seem to have a lot of trouble being as kind-hearted, forgiving, encouraging, and loving to others as we are with ourselves. That's a real shame.
On a somewhat lighter note, I absolutely adore Job's sarcasm in Job 12:2-3: No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you. But I have understanding as well as you; I am not inferior to you: yea, who knoweth not such things as these?
Basically, "well aren't you just a pack of know-it-alls? I guess when you die, all wisdom will die with you! Well, I know a few things, too - and you're no better than I am! Who doesn't know the things you've been saying?" Priceless. I love that the Bible isn't just staid words, but that it's alive with feeling and emotion, just like we are.
The rest of today's reading is more tit for tat between Job and his 3 "friends," Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. I couldn't help but notice that keep calling each other windbags. Funny how typical that is. One uses an insult and their opponent promptly turns it around and uses it on them in return. Don't we all do the same thing when we let our tongues get away from us?
This trio of men keep talking about how the wicked will fall, how they will be judged by God, implying not so subtly that Job is being judged and must therefore be wicked. And poor Job just keeps on asserting his innocence and asking them why they're so determined to tear him down even further when he's already at rock bottom. He wants to know why they aren't there to lift him up, to encourage him, to offer their support as he wades through this nightmare of grief.
One thing I started wondering was what Job would have done if they hadn't shown up, though. He starts off feeling pretty doggone sorry for himself. That's still there and it's completely understandable given his circumstances. But he's talking about how much he just wants to die, how God's out to get him for no reason at all and he'd have been better of if he'd died in his mother's womb. As a person who's battled clinical depression my entire adult life, I can certainly sympathize with his feelings. I've been there myself. And while Job's pals aren't doing anything at all to support him, they are making him focus a little less on feeling sorry for himself.
Job winds up chapter 19 with this: (verse 25) For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And verses 28-29: If you say, 'How we will pursue him!' and, 'The root of the matter is found in him,' be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment.
An indictment against them for blaming Job for all the troubles that had befallen him and a warning that they are the ones who ought to be worried about being judged for their self-righteous attitudes.
I guess my biggest take away from these chapters is a reminder to stay humble when faced with the tragedy or troubles of others. While it is our job to represent God, to spread His Word and to lead others to His salvation, it would benefit us all to remember that, though not a Biblical verse, this old adage is still very true and pertinent: You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. If we want to draw others to God, to be the kinds of Christians that make non-believers stand up and say, "I want what they've got," we have to be loving people. Not condoners of sin, or so afraid of being disliked or misunderstood that we refuse to confront sin no matter how heinous it might be, but people who are wise enough to seek God's guidance in every word we speak. We can confront sin without being confrontational. We just have to be willing to swallow our personal pride and our need to "one-up" whomever we are confronting, and let God guide us in how we speak and act. Because it isn't our actions or words that will lead anyone to Christ, it is His love shining through us that will draw them in.
Lord, please help me to bind my wayward tongue, to rein it in when it would speak rashly or with anything less than Your great love. Remind me to be humble, to seek Your will and Your guidance before jumping into any conversation, especially when it involves another person's grief or pain. Remind me that no matter how long I have known You or served You, I do not know Your holy mind or the breadth or scope of Your great plan for anyone's life, including my own. Forgive me for being arrogant and thinking that I can "shame" others into being who and what I believe they ought to be. Please let me be a beacon for the immeasurable depth of Your love, demonstrated by the death of Christ on the cross for all mankind. Amen.
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Day One...
Well, today was day one in our efforts to read through the Bible in 90 days. Our reading was Genesis chapters 1-11 and Job chapters 1-5. Following our SOAP formula, I'm supposed to pick out a verse that stood out or spoke to me. There were a couple of them.
First, Genesis 1:1 always gets me. "In the beginning, God..." There is just so much power and meaning in those four little words. They are the foundation of the entire Bible, the basis of all our faith. In the beginning, God: was, existed, created the entire universe, saw the time when His own Son would become the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world, saw me, knew me, and loved me. He was the Alpha and the Omega even before the beginning! It makes logical sense for the Bible to begin with the account of the creation of the world, but more than that, I think there's even greater meaning to why the Bible begins with those first four words. Because without "In the beginning, God..." nothing else matters at all.
I just love those words. I love the incredible promise contained within them. Praise the Lord that God was there even before the beginning!
The other verse that caught my attention was Job 1:22: "In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong." For the sake of clarification, here is the "this" verse 22 refers to:
Now there was a day when his sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, and there came a messenger to Job and said, "The oxen were plowing and the donkeys feeding beside them, and the Sabeans fell upon them and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you." While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "The fire of God fell from heaven and burned up the sheep and the servants and consumed them, and I alone have escaped to tell you." While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "The Chaldeans formed three groups and made a raid on the camels and took them and struck down the servants with the edge of the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you." While he was yet speaking, there came another and said, "Your sons and daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother's house, and behold, a great wind came across the wilderness and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell upon the young people, and they are dead, and I alone have escaped to tell you." Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord. Job 1:13-21 (ESV)So, Job lost all his livestock and all his children on the same day, one report of bad news coming right on the heels of the last one and what did he do? He grieved, certainly. He tore his clothes and shaved his head in agony. But then he fell on the ground and worshiped God! He didn't get mad at God. He didn't blame God. He didn't stomp his feet and shout to the heavens, demanding to know why so much grief had been poured over him. He simply worshiped God. He immediately recognized and vocalized the truth that God is the source of all our blessings and it is in His hands how long we are allowed to keep them. Though the words are not said here, I can only believe that Job knew and believed with all his heart that "for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose." Romans 8:28 (ESV)
I wish I could say I've had that kind of trust and faith all my life. I haven't. I spent a lot of years after the death of my mother being miffed that God had taken her from me. I wanted to know why. And even after I finally found peace with that, I have had moments when I again found myself questioning God's wisdom and reasoning. Losing people we love is never easy. Even when we know they've made professions of salvation, when we believe they are gone to be in the presence of the Lord, letting go is always painful for us. The years have taught me to trust God, to rely on His strength to carry me through the hard times. Still, though I have learned to trust Him, I don't know that I could be as devoted as Job was if I lost as much as he did.
All of us who have been Christians for a while know Job's story. We know it got even worse after this, but that he remained faithful through it all, and that in the end, his faithfulness was greatly rewarded. There are all kinds of lessons to be learned from Job, which is precisely why God chose to include his story in the Bible. But I wonder how many of us really try to put ourselves in his place? How many of us take the time to try to imagine how overwhelming his grief must have been. I'm not a mother. I can't conceive of what it would be like to lose a child. But I have friends who have lost children. I know that no matter how many years pass, they still grieve for that child. No matter how many other children they have, there is always a place that cannot be filled. So imagine not losing one child, but losing 10 at one time. All your children just... gone. I imagine the loss of his livestock - which was substantial - didn't hold a candle to the loss of his children.
Now, try to imagine how you would react. Do you think you would praise God? Do you think you could? Could you utter the words, "blessed be the name of the Lord?" Or do you think you'd get stuck thinking about how unfair it was? Do you think you'd wind up looking at God and demanding that He explain just why He would allow you to suffer such intense pain?
Lord, I pray that you would give me strength and courage. That you would shore up my trust in You and erase any doubts that might still linger. Fill me with Your grace and wisdom so that I can face whatever comes with peace in my heart and praises for You on my lips. Amen.
God is so GOOD!!!
Monday, July 18, 2011
Dedication...
Okay. For those of you who don't know me personally, I'm a procrastinator. My mother used to tell me all the time that Procrastination should have been my middle name. I am always thinking of things I need to do or ought to do or even just want to do yet actually doing them is often a serious problem for me. I'm a crafty kind of person and really enjoy doing a lot of different things, which just adds to my collection of UFOs. (UnFinished Objects) I'm a pack rat because I'm forever looking at things and thinking, "Oh, I would love to make one of those," or, "I just know I can use that sometime for something." A great case in point is the countless patterns I have for various projects, from purses to miscellaneous jewelry to cross stitch. I collect patterns like I collect fabric. (Yes, it's an addiction. No, I have not sought professional help for it.)
Along with all my craft stuff, I also collect books. I am an avid reader. I got it from my mother, who was a heavy reader herself. Some of my earliest memories are of her reading to me. I had a "Bible Stories for Kids" book that was well worn. But there were a lot of fairy tales, too. And as I got older, a whole host of other books. Then I started reading for myself and the library became one of my favorite places in the world. We had this book case that sat in our hallway. It held our World Book Encyclopedias - my source for all sorts of in formation in the days before we all had access to the internet and it's infinite supply of "knowledge." Along with the encyclopedias, though, was an extensive collection of books I'd picked up through the years. From my earliest days of reading right through high school. My mother was a teacher's assistant and she used my books as her own personal library when she was looking for something new to read to her class of 2nd graders.
These days, I still collect books. I still have my "Bible Stories for Kids" as well as the fairy tales my mother read to me when I was a child. I've added a few others in my adult years, including the complete "Lord of the Rings" series as well as the Narnia books - both gifts from my husband because he knows how much I love to read. There was a time when I had literally hundreds of miscellaneous books that I'd picked up through the years, though I have since gotten rid of the vast majority of them in the interest of reducing clutter. Most of them went to Goodwill or the library. I still have plenty of books on hand, though. Including a rather large assortment of Bibles. I have my children's Bible. It has a cutesy cover and several illustrations of some of the major highlights. I have the Bible a boyfriend got me when I made it to my teens and that kids Bible just became a little absurd for me to carry. I have the Bible my mother carried most of her life and the one my father bought her to replace it. I have my father's Bible, complete with "autographs" of visiting preachers inside the inner cover.
In addition to all these "old" Bibles, I have a number of "new" ones. My husband and I have identical study Bibles that were given to us by our former church. (Amusingly, we actually have four of these Bibles because my husband has worn his first one out to the point that entire sections of it have fallen out. He still insists on using it to read from morning and night, though. His new one is his "go to church" Bible.) Then there are my parallel Bibles, one of which I used to take to church with me on a regular basis. I have a very small Bible that I carried in my purse for a while since I read somewhere that it was a good way to get in some extra reading time. It could be pulled out while waiting at a doctor's office or at the mechanic or wherever. These days my Bible is a program on my iPad. Just yesterday I was showing it off at church. That thing has been one of the best things in the world for me and I love it. I use it every single day for countless things from my Bible to checking email to my calender and my medical history. It has been a great blessing and also holds dozens of ebooks. Now I can take my "library" with me wherever I go.
Along with my Bibles are my collection of song books. I've got old ones and new ones, several old hymnals, and an entire satchel full of sheet music and song lyrics. (Music is about as much an obsession as reading,) I have enough cookbooks to open my own restaurant and cook a different recipe every meal of every day for the rest of my life without having to repeat anything. I've also amassed an impressive number of "For Dummies" books. And, last but not least, is my significant collection of Bible studies and other Christian literature.
I'm a big Beth Moore fan and have several of her books. I love the idea of Bible studies so I have several of them. Some in book form. Some individual studies I've downloaded from the internet. Some entire series that I have saved on my computer or bookmarked in my browser or otherwise made note of for some eventual day when I decide to make the time to do them. Needless to say, they number about the same as the recipes. I could never do them all. Yet I still collect them.
The sad reality is, I don't do them because I'm always finding something else to do. My attention span seems to be unfortunately short. It has always tended to wander a bit, but going through the chemo didn't help matters any. During the height of the treatment, I could barely keep my mind focused for more than a minute on anything at all. I bought a shirt that makes light of that particular side effect.
It's a lot better than it was, but I still catch myself having trouble keeping my focus sometimes. Anyway, all these Bible studies and books and Bibles are just sitting around, waiting for me to get myself in gear and put them to good use. I just need to commit myself. Which brings me to the real point of this post.
I mentioned my husband's Bible which he reads each morning and evening. He's gone through the entire Bible like this a few times now. I've been a Christian since my teens and know my way around my Bible fairly well. I've got a lot of various verses locked away in my head, mostly from so many years of being in church and hearing them read. Memorization has never been my strong suit. I can and have done it, but only in small spurts. Likewise, regular dedication to reading my Bible is one of my serious failings.
It isn't that I don't want to or that I don't like to or that I don't think it's important. I do. I'm always amazed at the way God can take a verse or a passage we've read a dozen times and reveal some new aspect of it on that thirteenth - or even fiftieth - time through. And there's no doubt at all that consistent reading and study of God's Word is important, even necessary. But like so many other things in my life, I just keep putting it off until "tomorrow." In all my years as a child of God, one thing I have never committed myself to is a front to back reading of His Word. I feel like that's something I really need to do.
Now, let me quantify that by saying that I don't put much stock in reading "by rote." It's kinda like repeating the same words of a prayer over and over and over again as a matter of tradition. Like countless other Christians, I know The Lord's Prayer by heart. I don't "pray" it as a matter of routine, however. I don't think that's why it was given to us. In fact, Jesus warned directly against "vain repetition" right before He gave us His prayer.
As I said, I've never done a cover to cover reading of the Bible. I read verses and chapters and passages more or less at random, or as part of a Bible study or a church service or when looking for something in particular. It's possible that through this approach I have managed to read every verse in the Bible at some point or another, but it isn't quite the same as a deliberate, dedicated devotion to ensuring that I have read them all. Moreover, that I haven't just read them, but that I've taken the time to consider what they have to tell me.
I mentioned in my last post that I am a part of an online community of Christians called Worthy Christian Forums. I love the site and have learned a lot since I joined it over a year ago. I have also "met" some wonderful Christians there. It's an awesome representation of the body of Christ, in that we are all so different, from different places both geographically and spiritually. Meaning we have members ranging from "babes in Christ" to "elders" who can offer tremendous wisdom from a lifetime of walking with the Lord. We have comedians who keep us all laughing and theologians who make us all think. And there are the encouragers, members who lift us when we're down or prod us to dedicate ourselves more faithfully to God. One of these members started a thread several weeks ago asking the administers and moderators at Worthy if some sort of group could be started that would be dedicated to reading through the Bible chronologically in 90 days. After some back and forth with one of our mods, she started up a new thread spreading the word about the project.
She started a group on Facebook called Chronological Bible in 90 Days. There are 28 of us who have joined that group so far. Presumably all of us are committing to at least doing the reading, though the goal is to do more than that. We read, yes, but we are planning to also post our progress in SOAP format.
Most of the time I'm excited about it and looking forward to the challenge. Then I have days like today when I wake up with a migraine and have to force myself to sit down and write the post I've been planning to do about this project for a while now. Days like this aren't particularly conducive to "growing in grace and knowledge of the Lord." I'm tired, hurting, and irritable. I'd rather be asleep, where I can get away from the pain in my head, even for a little while. But once our project starts, I won't be able to ignore it or put it off. Because what's the point of making the commitment if I'm not determined to stick with it even when I don't feel like it?
The truth is, I need this. I need to immerse myself in God's Word, to dig into it and see what He has to tell me. Yesterday in church our pastor confessed that lately he hasn't been feeling excited about reading the Bible. (He's the kind of man who has no problem at all admitting that he isn't perfect, which is one of the reasons we love him.) He flat out said it wasn't God's fault, that God's Word had not lost any of its power or meaning, but that he was the one to blame. Because God never moves, He never pushes us away or withdraws from us. We are the ones who move away from Him.
It's tempting to sit here and say that I need to get myself back in the "mood" to be devoted to God. That I need to "get my head and/or heart right" before I try to undertake something as big as reading through the Bible in 90 days. But that's a lie. What I need is to just get myself into God's Word. I need to start reading, to dive in head first and trust God to do the rest. I need to make a commitment and refuse to back away from it. I need dedication, to make a promise to God that I will be there, that I will meet Him every single day with my heart and mind open to whatever He has to teach me. So that's what I'm doing.
Starting this coming Thursday, July 21, our little group will begin our journey through the Bible. If you're up for the challenge, join us. Don't let anyone, including yourself, tell you that you can't do it. Don't let the problems and busyness of day to day life keep you from making a commitment to do something big. Whether it's this Bible reading project or some other thing God's called you to do that you keep putting off.
Life never stops. It doesn't slow down or give vacations or time off. I have a treatment on Thursday. I'll be tired and scattered. I won't feel like doing anything at all, much less something that's going to require me to actually focus and pay serious attention. But I refuse to surrender to that voice in the back of my head that keeps trying to tell me that I can't do it. That I shouldn't have committed myself to this. Christie, the woman who started the whole thing, has just found out that she's going to be facing a trip to visit her daughter for the birth of a grand child, as well as a completely unexpected move from Las Vegas to Texas, all right in the middle of our 90 days. You think she isn't tempted to call it all off? Think she hasn't had a few moments when she thought, "Gee, Lord, I was trying to do something for You, here. You could have held off on all the big events until afterwards!" Want to know what she ultimately said, though?
Life is hectic. We have countless distractions, both unavoidable and those we allow to creep in. But nothing can overshadow God if we refuse to allow it to do so. Nothing: no trial, no trouble, no emotion, no physical pain or weakness, no character flaw. God is the conqueror of all our failings, if we will allow Him to be. As one of my favorite songs says, "God will take away your pain if you choose to let it go." It doesn't just apply to pain. It applies to any and all obstacles to our walk with Him. It's all about our willingness to "let go and let God." We can do all things through Christ. Not on our own. So I'm going to be relying on God to keep me going as I do this.
If you would, please keep us in your prayers as we embark on this effort. We'll all be facing our own obstacles as we go through this reading schedule. We'll need God's strength to stay faithful to our commitment. And like I said, if there's something you're feeling led to do, don't let anything get in your way. God deserves our devotion and dedication. Remember that every time we put off answering His call, we are telling Him that He's just not as important as whatever it is we're choosing to do instead.
Along with all my craft stuff, I also collect books. I am an avid reader. I got it from my mother, who was a heavy reader herself. Some of my earliest memories are of her reading to me. I had a "Bible Stories for Kids" book that was well worn. But there were a lot of fairy tales, too. And as I got older, a whole host of other books. Then I started reading for myself and the library became one of my favorite places in the world. We had this book case that sat in our hallway. It held our World Book Encyclopedias - my source for all sorts of in formation in the days before we all had access to the internet and it's infinite supply of "knowledge." Along with the encyclopedias, though, was an extensive collection of books I'd picked up through the years. From my earliest days of reading right through high school. My mother was a teacher's assistant and she used my books as her own personal library when she was looking for something new to read to her class of 2nd graders.
These days, I still collect books. I still have my "Bible Stories for Kids" as well as the fairy tales my mother read to me when I was a child. I've added a few others in my adult years, including the complete "Lord of the Rings" series as well as the Narnia books - both gifts from my husband because he knows how much I love to read. There was a time when I had literally hundreds of miscellaneous books that I'd picked up through the years, though I have since gotten rid of the vast majority of them in the interest of reducing clutter. Most of them went to Goodwill or the library. I still have plenty of books on hand, though. Including a rather large assortment of Bibles. I have my children's Bible. It has a cutesy cover and several illustrations of some of the major highlights. I have the Bible a boyfriend got me when I made it to my teens and that kids Bible just became a little absurd for me to carry. I have the Bible my mother carried most of her life and the one my father bought her to replace it. I have my father's Bible, complete with "autographs" of visiting preachers inside the inner cover.
In addition to all these "old" Bibles, I have a number of "new" ones. My husband and I have identical study Bibles that were given to us by our former church. (Amusingly, we actually have four of these Bibles because my husband has worn his first one out to the point that entire sections of it have fallen out. He still insists on using it to read from morning and night, though. His new one is his "go to church" Bible.) Then there are my parallel Bibles, one of which I used to take to church with me on a regular basis. I have a very small Bible that I carried in my purse for a while since I read somewhere that it was a good way to get in some extra reading time. It could be pulled out while waiting at a doctor's office or at the mechanic or wherever. These days my Bible is a program on my iPad. Just yesterday I was showing it off at church. That thing has been one of the best things in the world for me and I love it. I use it every single day for countless things from my Bible to checking email to my calender and my medical history. It has been a great blessing and also holds dozens of ebooks. Now I can take my "library" with me wherever I go.
Along with my Bibles are my collection of song books. I've got old ones and new ones, several old hymnals, and an entire satchel full of sheet music and song lyrics. (Music is about as much an obsession as reading,) I have enough cookbooks to open my own restaurant and cook a different recipe every meal of every day for the rest of my life without having to repeat anything. I've also amassed an impressive number of "For Dummies" books. And, last but not least, is my significant collection of Bible studies and other Christian literature.
I'm a big Beth Moore fan and have several of her books. I love the idea of Bible studies so I have several of them. Some in book form. Some individual studies I've downloaded from the internet. Some entire series that I have saved on my computer or bookmarked in my browser or otherwise made note of for some eventual day when I decide to make the time to do them. Needless to say, they number about the same as the recipes. I could never do them all. Yet I still collect them.
The sad reality is, I don't do them because I'm always finding something else to do. My attention span seems to be unfortunately short. It has always tended to wander a bit, but going through the chemo didn't help matters any. During the height of the treatment, I could barely keep my mind focused for more than a minute on anything at all. I bought a shirt that makes light of that particular side effect.
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I mentioned my husband's Bible which he reads each morning and evening. He's gone through the entire Bible like this a few times now. I've been a Christian since my teens and know my way around my Bible fairly well. I've got a lot of various verses locked away in my head, mostly from so many years of being in church and hearing them read. Memorization has never been my strong suit. I can and have done it, but only in small spurts. Likewise, regular dedication to reading my Bible is one of my serious failings.
It isn't that I don't want to or that I don't like to or that I don't think it's important. I do. I'm always amazed at the way God can take a verse or a passage we've read a dozen times and reveal some new aspect of it on that thirteenth - or even fiftieth - time through. And there's no doubt at all that consistent reading and study of God's Word is important, even necessary. But like so many other things in my life, I just keep putting it off until "tomorrow." In all my years as a child of God, one thing I have never committed myself to is a front to back reading of His Word. I feel like that's something I really need to do.
Now, let me quantify that by saying that I don't put much stock in reading "by rote." It's kinda like repeating the same words of a prayer over and over and over again as a matter of tradition. Like countless other Christians, I know The Lord's Prayer by heart. I don't "pray" it as a matter of routine, however. I don't think that's why it was given to us. In fact, Jesus warned directly against "vain repetition" right before He gave us His prayer.
But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Matthew 6:7 (KJV)Too often I think cover to cover reading of the Bible winds up being a bit like routine repetition of The Lord's Prayer. It loses it's meaning through excessive repeating. This isn't to say that reading the Bible front to back is a fruitless exercise, but it has to be done for the right reason and with the right "heart." Otherwise it's a vain exercise, just like the prayer. I don't think God likes it when we turn our worship of Him into an exercise we can "do in our sleep." That just sucks all the depth and real meaning right out of it.
As I said, I've never done a cover to cover reading of the Bible. I read verses and chapters and passages more or less at random, or as part of a Bible study or a church service or when looking for something in particular. It's possible that through this approach I have managed to read every verse in the Bible at some point or another, but it isn't quite the same as a deliberate, dedicated devotion to ensuring that I have read them all. Moreover, that I haven't just read them, but that I've taken the time to consider what they have to tell me.
I mentioned in my last post that I am a part of an online community of Christians called Worthy Christian Forums. I love the site and have learned a lot since I joined it over a year ago. I have also "met" some wonderful Christians there. It's an awesome representation of the body of Christ, in that we are all so different, from different places both geographically and spiritually. Meaning we have members ranging from "babes in Christ" to "elders" who can offer tremendous wisdom from a lifetime of walking with the Lord. We have comedians who keep us all laughing and theologians who make us all think. And there are the encouragers, members who lift us when we're down or prod us to dedicate ourselves more faithfully to God. One of these members started a thread several weeks ago asking the administers and moderators at Worthy if some sort of group could be started that would be dedicated to reading through the Bible chronologically in 90 days. After some back and forth with one of our mods, she started up a new thread spreading the word about the project.
She started a group on Facebook called Chronological Bible in 90 Days. There are 28 of us who have joined that group so far. Presumably all of us are committing to at least doing the reading, though the goal is to do more than that. We read, yes, but we are planning to also post our progress in SOAP format.
S = a scripture or passage that really stood out to you that dayMy first thought when I read about her idea was, "cool." Then it was, "wow, 90 days?" Then came, "Yeah, I can't even make myself read a single verse every day." Which immediately led to me thinking that I ought to be ashamed of that and that God certainly deserved more than what I was giving Him. So I jumped into the fray and committed myself to participating.
O = your observation about the scripture's context
A = how you can apply this passage to your life
P= a simple prayer to wrap things up.
Most of the time I'm excited about it and looking forward to the challenge. Then I have days like today when I wake up with a migraine and have to force myself to sit down and write the post I've been planning to do about this project for a while now. Days like this aren't particularly conducive to "growing in grace and knowledge of the Lord." I'm tired, hurting, and irritable. I'd rather be asleep, where I can get away from the pain in my head, even for a little while. But once our project starts, I won't be able to ignore it or put it off. Because what's the point of making the commitment if I'm not determined to stick with it even when I don't feel like it?
The truth is, I need this. I need to immerse myself in God's Word, to dig into it and see what He has to tell me. Yesterday in church our pastor confessed that lately he hasn't been feeling excited about reading the Bible. (He's the kind of man who has no problem at all admitting that he isn't perfect, which is one of the reasons we love him.) He flat out said it wasn't God's fault, that God's Word had not lost any of its power or meaning, but that he was the one to blame. Because God never moves, He never pushes us away or withdraws from us. We are the ones who move away from Him.
It's tempting to sit here and say that I need to get myself back in the "mood" to be devoted to God. That I need to "get my head and/or heart right" before I try to undertake something as big as reading through the Bible in 90 days. But that's a lie. What I need is to just get myself into God's Word. I need to start reading, to dive in head first and trust God to do the rest. I need to make a commitment and refuse to back away from it. I need dedication, to make a promise to God that I will be there, that I will meet Him every single day with my heart and mind open to whatever He has to teach me. So that's what I'm doing.
Starting this coming Thursday, July 21, our little group will begin our journey through the Bible. If you're up for the challenge, join us. Don't let anyone, including yourself, tell you that you can't do it. Don't let the problems and busyness of day to day life keep you from making a commitment to do something big. Whether it's this Bible reading project or some other thing God's called you to do that you keep putting off.
Life never stops. It doesn't slow down or give vacations or time off. I have a treatment on Thursday. I'll be tired and scattered. I won't feel like doing anything at all, much less something that's going to require me to actually focus and pay serious attention. But I refuse to surrender to that voice in the back of my head that keeps trying to tell me that I can't do it. That I shouldn't have committed myself to this. Christie, the woman who started the whole thing, has just found out that she's going to be facing a trip to visit her daughter for the birth of a grand child, as well as a completely unexpected move from Las Vegas to Texas, all right in the middle of our 90 days. You think she isn't tempted to call it all off? Think she hasn't had a few moments when she thought, "Gee, Lord, I was trying to do something for You, here. You could have held off on all the big events until afterwards!" Want to know what she ultimately said, though?
i was starting to feel overwhelmed, because of the florida trip for the birth of my grandson in the middle of this 90 day schedule. so what does God do? he drops a cross-country move into the mix, and then whispers that i'm going to NEED this much time in His word every day to keep my sanity! (Posted on the group wall on Facebook.)Man, I love that! I love that despite the craziness of it all, she can see God's hand at work in her life. And that's why I'm doing it. Why I'm committed in spite of my heavy leanings toward procrastination. I want to make this promise to God, I want to set my mind on Him, on His Word, on a determination to stick to it no matter what comes my way. I want to remind myself that the only way I can do anything at all is by relying on Him to get me through it. I want to take a leap of faith and trust that He will help me focus and stay faithful.
Life is hectic. We have countless distractions, both unavoidable and those we allow to creep in. But nothing can overshadow God if we refuse to allow it to do so. Nothing: no trial, no trouble, no emotion, no physical pain or weakness, no character flaw. God is the conqueror of all our failings, if we will allow Him to be. As one of my favorite songs says, "God will take away your pain if you choose to let it go." It doesn't just apply to pain. It applies to any and all obstacles to our walk with Him. It's all about our willingness to "let go and let God." We can do all things through Christ. Not on our own. So I'm going to be relying on God to keep me going as I do this.
If you would, please keep us in your prayers as we embark on this effort. We'll all be facing our own obstacles as we go through this reading schedule. We'll need God's strength to stay faithful to our commitment. And like I said, if there's something you're feeling led to do, don't let anything get in your way. God deserves our devotion and dedication. Remember that every time we put off answering His call, we are telling Him that He's just not as important as whatever it is we're choosing to do instead.
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