Tuesday at home

Yesterday morning, Amanda had physical and occupational therapy, and once again I managed to schedule it during the time she is on the low side of her counts and feels yucky.  Despite that,she received another positive report.  Amanda continues to improve and get stronger on her left side.  What a huge praise.  After therapy, we came home and she rested for a couple of hours before we went to feed at ROCK.  It was very low-key, but she enjoyed her time there as always.  Today is a day with nothing planned, and that is a good thing since she is not feeling well.  I think tomorrow will be another day of resting, me doing a lot guessing on when and how much to push and of course, her highlight of the day will be ROCK and Romeo.  

This past Sunday, for the first time in a long time, our entire family was able to attend morning and evening services.  I find that I now worship on a different level.  The words in the music and sermons are more alive to me than ever before as my heart is raw and open before God.  There is something about being in community and worshiping together that is incredibly uplifting and encouraging and can’t be accomplished any way else.   With Amanda starting chemo this week, she and I will miss this coming Sunday, but you can be sure that I will listen to the sermons on our church website and still worship, even though it will be in our home.  

I am still in a place that every day, and lately it seems like every hour, I have to constantly remind myself that God is in this.  God has a purpose and a plan for what we are going through.  While it is painful and simply exhausting, my need for total dependency on God becomes more evident each day.  I know without a doubt there is no way I can function within this journey on my own ability.  

2 Corinthians 4:6-9

For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.

Then in verse 16 - 18:

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

I often look back at how we lived before Amanda’s diagnosis.  Our family was traveling down the path of becoming involved in missions overseas.  We were growing in our faith here in our home.  I went through each day and took so much for granted.  There is that part of me that wants to go back to the way it used to be.  But when you have been radically taken to the point where you realize you really have no control, when you experience being hard pressed but not crushed, then you are forever changed.  There is no going back.  How we allow it to change us is the question.  So my focus daily is to not lose heart; to find hope and joy in each day; to soak up the laughter and the tears; fix my eyes on the eternal and to understand that His mercy is new each morning so I must do my best not to worry about the future.  That is so much easier to say than to do.    

 “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”

2 Corinthians 12:7-10

Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.  But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.