Wednesday, May 4

Overcome?

"For whatever overcomes a person, to that he is enslaved." 2 Peter 2:19b


I've been wondering lately if I am not somehow being more "overcome" by the situation of my sickness than I should be. I can't help when I am on chemo how horrible I feel, or how sick I get, but I can control the fact that I am getting chemo. We've said before (see yesterday's post for a link to my first day of chemo where I quote a friend) that God has given gifted men and women the intelligence to create chemo and treat the sickness in me, but I find myself wondering if the whole situation has made me something of a chemo "addict"?

People lived and died by the grace of God before chemo, people live and die in third world countries without chemo. People are miraculously healed in places where they don't have chemo. We've been praying for four years that God would heal me. Maybe I need to do something else. These desires and passions I have to be doing something else, to follow the dreams I have, maybe that is what God is calling me to do. Maybe this chemo has reached a point where it has overcome me and I am depending not on God for rescue and redemption, but in chemicals. Maybe they have been obfuscating God's voice in my life.

What if I am being asked to step out in faith that God will take care of me as long as I pursue the dreams and the mission He has set before me. Because, as I wrote about yesterday, THAT is where I want to be. Not here.

And of course, doubts cling to my mind: "What are you crazy? The thing you are most afraid of in the world will happen if you do that! [Slow death by tumor] You're here in Houston, there are solutions here, experts that 'know' what they are doing. You're safe here. Do you really want to do something like like to Lisa?"

I remember the last time I was faced with something like this... it was a lot less "life and deathy" then this time around. The question was, "Do we move to Colorado and pursue a life there despite my recent "recovery" from cancer?" We did though. We left the families, the friends, the cities we knew and moved to a place we didn't know to pursue a job that I have always wanted to pursue. It was exciting, it was challenging on many levels, we were learning and we were growing. We were pretty sure that we were where we needed to be. And then I got sick again. Now we've made this move to Houston to try and find a permeant solution to my sickness.

Where do I draw the line? When does the desire in me to be pursuing the things I have been gifted in simply outweigh the weekly unknown of drugs, scans and doctors? No offense to those that are older in the crowd, but without this cancer I might be looking at another forty to fifty years of life to do what I'm excited about. A lot of the cancer patients I see tend to be at the end of this spectrum. All ready at 70 or 80 the fight is part of retirement. That isn't me. I haven't done and I have this fire in me to DO the things God has laid on my heart, this cancer I consider evil because of that hindrance.

Yesterday I was telling a nurse about where the tumors were and I got an image in my mind of a snake with an open mouth behind my heart, his body coiled around my throat/ trachea area and his tail dangling down behind my right ribs. This is how I am going to visualize them, and they need to die.

A lot of questions, retrospection, and not a lot of answers. I guess I need prayers, and honestly I also would be interested to hear what you think of this ramble.  


~B.
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2 comments:

  1. As Dad and I walk the path we've been given, I'm learning what is the hardest is just to know what to do. (Sell the house? Not sell the house? Stay in the Seattle area? Start looking for work in another part of the country?) There are a lot of questions without a lot of clear answers. But are we fighting just to keep the waters calm in life? (Not an option YOU have at all!) Sometimes I think if we just had a word from heaven that told us exactly what to do, it would make it SO much easier. But then...would we have the courage to move on it? I marvel at Abraham. Packing up his son and the wood for the sacrifice and heading out. Amazing, amazing faith.

    May God give you and Lisa the courage and strength to do whatever He calls you to do. May you know His direction in your lives.

    Love,
    Mom

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  2. Living in the moment, day by day without a big vision of our future is pretty much counter culture. And when a person has the kinds of desires, interests, talents and skills that you have it must be additionally difficult to accept that apparently right now God isn't interested in using them...at least not in a way that you're thinking.

    Where you are right now is in Houston, in the hands of some of the best doctors in the world, back and forth in some of the worst traffic in the country, having your system flooded with poison month after month designed to keep you alive. It isn't pretty. But it's clear that it's the plan. You could take yourself out of the doctor's hands and you'd still be in God's. And I believe there's a plan that's bigger than where we are and what we do. But where you are right now is clear, and what you are called to do also seems clear.

    In your last post you talked about your heroes being on the other side of trials. I know you know this, but may I remind you that these heroes are no more holy, no more sanctified, no more justified, no more loved or used by God than you and Lisa. I firmly believe that being in God's will is not what we are doing, it is who we are becoming. You are being perfected and it is ugly. You are suffering the consequences of a fallen world. It's a horror. We can only hope and pray that when this is over, you will shine as pure gold. And then those desires, talents and skills will be exactly what you'll need for the rest of your life in His hands.

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