When Will The Trials End? (Keeping it Real!)



Update - Our 1 1/2 year old kitty, Sweet Tea, died from Hypertropic Cardiomyopthia, a genetic heart condition that we were unaware he had. I was again in disbelief that we were being hit with more calamity.

I woke up 01/23 with excruciating pain. My I.C. has flared again and I have begun instillation treatments for 6 wks. Instills are where medication (Elmiron) and steroids are put directly in to your bladder. This is supposed to help after the 4th treatment or so. I have only had 2, and it takes the edge off the pain until I have to urinate. Then it becomes unbearable again. My urologist has put me on Elmiron, but it takes 4-6mo. to start to see any results. Meanwhile the side effects aren't exactly "fun". I am on what seems like a gazillion medications now. I remember that just a month and a half ago a doctor had commented on how amazed he was with the fact that with all of my medical "problems" I was only on 2 meds. Now I have own one of those enormous pill organizers :(

As I wrote 2 posts ago, this form of suffering is very taxing, and I struggle with frequent bouts of utter despair. My feeble human mind can't understand "WHY?" this is happening again, and especially at a time like this! The amount of stress my situation puts on my husband makes me fear his cancer will reoccur. I try to hide my sobbing from the pain, as to not upset my family, but I fail miserably. I have cried more in the last week than I probably did as a newborn. I hate that my boys have to see me this way. Getting through one day is an accomplishment.I cling to all the blessings these past months have brought and to my memories of a happy time. Today, while lying in bed, God blessed me to be able to do one subject with the boys. It takes me back to when Kamden was a baby, and the all the ways I had to learn how to cope.


I make it a point to be transparent in my blog, so I must include that after a particularly awful 2 days I had to have my husband hide my pain pills (which don't work very well, by the way) because the overwhelming need to escape the pain was so great. I have had to force myself read God's Word - I fear my heart will grow hard if I don't. Bitterness can creep in so easily, and that is something I don't want to happen! Psalm 73:26 says, "My health may fail, and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart; He is mine forever."

I want more than anything to get back to teaching, cooking, cleaning & caring for my boys. For now though, I am confined to my bed, along with hanging out in my tub filled with piping hot water A LOT to try and ease the pain. I struggle to see that any good could possibly come from THIS, but THIS is where God has me. I set small goals like getting through one hour of pain at at time. I hate that I am in too much pain to even have a friend come over to visit. I miss my friends, and opportunities to fellowship with other families, but life continues to go on with or without me. I wonder how long this will last.....

Please pray that God would heal my body from pain, and that A's cancer would not reoccur. The pathology report came back saying there was no cancer found in the bone, but there was Perineurval cancer. Cancer of the nerves gives me an unsettled feeling. Anthony chose not to have radiation right now (made the decision before I got sick) but we will re-evaluate after his next MRI in March. We had started eating a "Raw" diet, but since I haven't been able to cook etc....that has been put on hold. I feel terribly about this, but sometimes circumstances plain interfere with plans.

We are always confident......for we live by believing and not seeing. ~ 2 Cor.5:6-7

Dont' Waste Your Cancer - 10 Steps by John Piper


While watching Wretched (one of our most favorite TV shows!)last night, the host showed these 10 steps written by John Piper on the eve of his prostate cancer surgery. He put into words the very things we have felt about out cancer journey since Oct. 09. It was refreshing to hear, and inspired us even more to do all that we can to use this to bring GOD glory! I was just going to list the 10 steps for the sake of space on the blog, but it was all just too good to edit it out. Share this with your family and friends and remember these steps can apply to anything - a lost job, a broken marriage, a prodigal child, Interstitial Cystitis for 14 yrs. (in my case;) Well, you get the idea! There is a note from Anthony on the bottom.


1. YOU WILL WASTE YOUR CANCER IF YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IT IS DESIGNED FOR YOU BY GOD.

It will not do to say that God only uses our cancer but does not design it. What God permits, he permits for a reason. And that reason is his design. If God foresees molecular developments becoming cancer, he can stop it or not. If he does not, he has a purpose. Since he is infinitely wise, it is right to call this purpose a design. Satan is real and causes many pleasures and pains. But he is not ultimate. So when he strikes Job with boils (Job 2:7), Job attributes it ultimately to God (2:10) and the inspired writer agrees: “They . . . comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him” (Job 42:11). If you don’t believe your cancer is designed for you by God, you will waste it.


2. YOU WILL WASTE YOUR CANCER IF YOU BELIEVE IT IS A CURSE AND NOT A GIFT.

“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). “There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel” (Numbers 23:23). “The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).

The blessing comes in what God does for us, with us, through us. He brings his great and merciful redemption onto the stage of the curse. Your cancer, in itself, is one of those 10,000 ‘shadows of death’ (Psalm 23:4) that come upon each of us: all the threats, losses, pains, incompletion, disappointment, evils. But in his beloved children, our Father works a most kind good through our most grievous losses: sometimes healing and restoring the body (temporarily, until the resurrection of the dead to eternal life), always sustaining and teaching us that we might know and love him more simply. In the testing ground of evils, your faith becomes deep and real, and your love becomes purposeful and wise: James 1:2-5, 1 Peter 1:3-9, Romans 5:1-5, Romans 8:18-39.

3. YOU WILL WASTE YOUR CANCER IF YOU SEEK COMFORT FROM YOUR ODDS RATHER THAN FROM GOD.

The design of God in your cancer is not to train you in the rationalistic, human calculation of odds. The world gets comfort from their odds. Not Christians. Some count their chariots (percentages of survival) and some count their horses (side effects of treatment), but we trust in the name of the Lord our God (Psalm 20:7). God’s design is clear from 2 Corinthians 1:9, “We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” The aim of God in your cancer (among a thousand other good things) is to knock props out from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on him.


4. YOU WILL WASTE YOUR CANCER IF YOU REFUSE TO THINK ABOUT DEATH.

We will all die, if Jesus postpones his return. Not to think about what it will be like to leave this life and meet God is folly.Ecclesiastes 7:2 says, “It is better to go to the house of mourning [a funeral] than to go to the house of feasting, for this is the end of all mankind, and the living will lay it to heart.” How can you lay it to heart if you won’t think about it? Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” Numbering your days means thinking about how few there are and that they will end. How will you get a heart of wisdom if you refuse to think about this? What a waste, if we do not think about death.


5. YOU WILL WASTE YOUR CANCER IF YOU THINK THAT “BEATING” CANCER MEANS STAYING ALIVE RATHER THAN CHERISHING CHRIST.

Satan’s and God’s designs in your cancer are not the same. Satan designs to destroy your love for Christ. God designs to deepen your love for Christ. Cancer does not win if you die. It wins if you fail to cherish Christ. God’s design is to wean you off the breast of the world and feast you on the sufficiency of Christ. It is meant to help you say and feel, “I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” And to know that therefore, “To live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 3:8; 1:21).


6. YOU WILL WASTE YOUR CANCER IF YOU SPEND TOO MUCH TIME READING ABOUT CANCER AND NOT ENOUGH TIME READING ABOUT GOD.

It is not wrong to know about cancer. Ignorance is not a virtue. But the lure to know more and more and the lack of zeal to know God more and more is symptomatic of unbelief. Cancer is meant to waken us to the reality of God. It is meant to put feeling and force behind the command, “Let us know; let us press on to know the Lord” (Hosea 6:3). It is meant to waken us to the truth ofDaniel 11:32, “The people who know their God shall stand firm and take action.” It is meant to make unshakable, indestructible oak trees out of us: “His delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers” (Psalm 1:2). What a waste of cancer if we read day and night about cancer and not about God.


7. YOU WILL WASTE YOUR CANCER IF YOU LET IT DRIVE YOU INTO SOLITUDE INSTEAD OF DEEPEN YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH MANIFEST AFFECTION.

When Epaphroditus brought the gifts to Paul sent by the Philippian church he became ill and almost died. Paul tells the Philippians, “He has been longing for you all and has been distressed because you heard that he was ill” (Philippians 2:26-27). What an amazing response! It does not say they were distressed that he was ill, but that he was distressed because they heard he was ill. That is the kind of heart God is aiming to create with cancer: a deeply affectionate, caring heart for people. Don’t waste your cancer by retreating into yourself.


8. YOU WILL WASTE YOUR CANCER IF YOU GRIEVE AS THOSE WHO HAVE NO HOPE.

Paul used this phrase in relation to those whose loved ones had died: “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). There is a grief at death. Even for the believer who dies, there is temporary loss—loss of body, and loss of loved ones here, and loss of earthly ministry. But the grief is different—it is permeated with hope. “We would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord” (2 Corinthians 5:8). Don’t waste your cancer grieving as those who don’t have this hope.


9. YOU WILL WASTE YOUR CANCER IF YOU TREAT SIN AS CASUALLY AS BEFORE.

Are your besetting sins as attractive as they were before you had cancer? If so you are wasting your cancer. Cancer is designed to destroy the appetite for sin. Pride, greed, lust, hatred, unforgiveness, impatience, laziness, procrastination—all these are the adversaries that cancer is meant to attack. Don’t just think of battling against cancer. Also think of battling with cancer. All these things are worse enemies than cancer. Don’t waste the power of cancer to crush these foes. Let the presence of eternity make the sins of time look as futile as they really are. “What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself?” (Luke 9:25).


10. YOU WILL WASTE YOUR CANCER IF YOU FAIL TO USE IT AS A MEANS OF WITNESS TO THE TRUTH AND GLORY OF CHRIST.

Christians are never anywhere by divine accident. There are reasons for why we wind up where we do. Consider what Jesus said about painful, unplanned circumstances: “They will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake. This will be your opportunity to bear witness” (Luke 21:12 -13). So it is with cancer. This will be an opportunity to bear witness. Christ is infinitely worthy. Here is a golden opportunity to show that he is worth more than life. Don’t waste it.


Remember you are not left alone. You will have the help you need. “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19).

~Life is even deeper to me now than before. I pray that I don't waste my life on trivial things and use it more for the glory of God. I'm so blessed. -A