Our Provider

June 6, 2018
 

I wrote a post the same day as my last post to update you all on my situation.  However, the events of this last week has had me thinking along different lines.  Our family lost 2 people dear to us.  On Tuesday, I got word that Mr. Cavender had passed away and on Thursday, my good friend Mrs. W passed away.  Our family was blessed in different ways by each of these friends. This is a very sloppy post.  I have not had time to process everything and get my thoughts together.

Both Pat and Sydney worked for Mr. Cavender on his personal ranches.  They had close daily contact with him.  Sydney ate lunch with him at least once a week.  He adored Sydney and was always bragging about her to someone.  Although, they both are still working on the ranches while, Mr. Cavender’s family decide what their plans are for the ranches, it will never be the same without Mr. Cavender.  He was a go-getter.  Always excited about getting work done.  Excited about selling a place and buying a new one.  He was a very likeable, funny and generous man who will be greatly missed by our family.  

Mrs. W was a sweet lady who loved well.  And she was well loved in return.  She knew everybody’s name.  Whether you were the post master, a clerk in the grocery store or a nurse she had recently met, she learned and remembered your name. She loved to bake and share her goodies with others.  She loved to celebrate life. She taught me much about living…what she had done well and what she wished she could change.  And she also taught me about dying.  It was my privilege to spend time with her over the past several years.

When your husband and daughter’s jobs are at risk, it’s easy to be anxious.  It’s easy to think that Mr. Cavender was our provider and that without him we will not be provided for in all the ways that he provided for us.  Pat and Sydney were compensated in many more ways than just a salary.  And it will never be the same without him.  

But God reminded me of the job Pat had before he began working for Mr. Cavender.  It was a great job, close to home with many perks.  When that boss died, he stayed on working for the trust.  Eventually, he was sued by the boss’s widow (the lawsuit was dropped after several years) and was let go by the trust.   

At that time, I thought it was such a loss and no job could replace that job.  But I was wrong.  God provided the job with Mr. Cavender and then provided Sydney with a job, too.  But not just a job, but a relationship and mentorship with Mr. Cavender.  It will always be remembered as a wonderful time in her life and our lives.  Sydney was married on one of Mr. Cavender’s ranches.  

It is amazing how God works in our lives.  The lawsuit against Pat caused him to lose his job, and that caused him to go to work for Mr. Cavender, which in turn enabled Sydney to work for and get to know and learn from an amazing man. I have often told her she should thank God that C.S. sued her dad. It is one of those times, that in hindsight, we can see how God worked something bad together for good.

I realized that Pat’s previous job and current job, and Sydney’s job are gifts from God.  God was being good and generous to our family through Mr. Cavender.  God was providing for our family through Mr. Cavender.  And although Mr. Cavender is gone…God is not!  He will continue to be good and gracious and generous to us through whomever He chooses.  Man is not our provider.  God is our Provider.  So, although we will dearly miss those through which He has provided, we can be certain that He will continue to provide for us.

I am looking forward to what God has in store for us next!

Greatest Intervention Ever

It’s been over a month since I’ve written.  So, I reviewed my journal to see some of what God has been doing in that time.  A prayer on April 15 was, “So many people need Your intervention in their/our lives.  We are doomed to destruction without You. Please intervene!”

I was surprised that what I prayed then, was echoed in my prayer this morning. “So many continue to desperately need You.” I then listed the people and families I am praying for. “We all desperately need You and Your intervention in our lives! Thank You that You choose to intervene in human lives.”

There are so many families going through such difficult and tragic circumstances.  This has been heavy on my heart for a while now. Pain and suffering and death and loss seem to punctuate this life.  I am confident that in the end, ALL will be redeemed, ALL pain and suffering will be over for those who are in Christ.  But I want to see some redemption, some conflict resolution, some of Your wonders in the “land of the living,” as David called it. (Psalm 27:13) I want to see it now!

In reviewing my journal, I was able to find glimpses of God’s goodness in the midst of all the hurt and pain in many lives.

~A wife and mother in ICU on life support suddenly pulled through.

~Several made it through successful surgeries and are healing.

~God revealed truth to a Judge so that he had mercy on a young man and his case was dismissed.

~I rode a horse for the first time since surgery and was able to “help” pen cows.

~A mother/grandmother completed cancer treatment and was declared cancer free!

~A friend was protected from a surgery that would have been more damaging to her condition.

~My son was provided for by good friends who took care of him, accompanied and stayed with him in the ER (5 ½ hours away from home) from 1:00 am to after 4:00 am in the morning and brought him home.

~A mom was reconciled to her daughter and granddaughter after almost 2 years of estrangement.

~For the first time in over 60 days, a teenage girl was able to sleep through the night without being interrupted by excruciating pain!

~The mom on life support, held her newborn grandson a little over a month after she was miraculously revived.

I am so thankful for the way we can see that God has worked in each of these individual's and families' lives!  But I am also thankful for the ways God is working in every person’s on my prayer list lives, even when we can’t clearly see His work from this vantage point. And even though we may never understand His plan this side of heaven.

Jesus Calling on May 8, says, “Do not long for the absence of problems in your life.  That is an unrealistic goal. Do not seek your heaven on earth.”  And although I should not (but often do) expect heaven on earth, I am so thankful that God is still at work on this earth, intervening in the lives of people whether I can see it or not.

But the greatest intervention ever performed by God was when He sent Jesus into this world to live a perfect life and to become the perfect sacrifice for our sins.  Because of Jesus death on the cross and His resurrection, those of us who accept Him as our Lord and Savior, have Him to walk step by step with us through every circumstance of this life.  And we have the hope of heaven, where we will spend eternity with Him without evil or pain or suffering or death or loss.  All of our experiences will be completely redeemed.  Because of Jesus, I can not only endure, but actually enjoy this time on earth with all its valleys and mountains.

My greatest prayer for all of those on my prayer list and for their families and for all of you reading this and for your families is that each of you would experience a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.  If you choose not to, you will not only experience some hell on earth, but you will also experience hell for eternity. But God made a way for you to escape hell, because He loves you, wants a relationship with you and doesn't want you to suffer eternally. My greatest prayer is that you would accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior so you can experience Him and His goodness, not only here on earth, but also for eternity in heaven.  If you are not sure if you will go to heaven when you die, please watch these short videos or contact me so you can be sure. 

 “This side of heaven we do indeed get to see revelations of His resurrection power.  This dusty orb suspended in the universe just between heaven and hell bears in its air the flecks of them both.  I do not doubt you have tasted hell on the tip of your tongue, but you have also tasted heaven.”               

Beth Moore, Audacious,  

B&H Publishing Group, pp 150, 157

Interrupting Joy

Joy. That is the word God gave me for this year. I was really excited to have that word.  I thought it meant that I would like the circumstances (i.e., no chemo, no radiation) and joy would be the result.    I didn’t want the “consider it all joy when you face various trials” (James 1:2) kind of joy or “for the joy that was set before Him, He endured the cross,” kind of joy. (Hebrews 12:2) I wanted and was expecting the easy kind of joy. But it looks like the kind of joy I’m getting is the kind for which I have to fight.

The last few weeks have been rough. After my 4^th chemo, (the last of the Adriamycin/Cytoxin combo!  Woohoo!) I ended up with blood clots in my neck and arm on the side of the port and a hemoglobin low enough they wanted to give me a blood transfusion. I wasn’t ready for a transfusion, so I chose to wait from Wednesday (when I got results of the previous day’s blood work) to Tuesday to have the blood work done again.  The chemo kills any cells that divide quickly.  That’s why my white blood cells and red blood cells are decreased. Hemoglobin is the measure of the amount of oxygen that your red blood cells can carry.  As hemoglobin decreases, the amount of oxygen your blood is able to carry to your organs and muscles decreases.  This causes your heart rate to increase to try to get more oxygen to your tissues.

 

Last Tuesday, chemo was canceled. Instead, we needed to find out if I needed a blood transfusion and to find out if my port was still accessible and functional.  Hemoglobin increased from 7.7 to 8.7!  Praise the Lord! Transfusions are usually given when the hemoglobin is less than 8.  I went for a CT scan with contrast to make sure the port was still able to be used for chemo treatments.  And praise God, it was.  

Instead of the 4^th chemo stealing the usual 3 days from me, this time it took more than 2 weeks.  So, in a text to a friend, I wrote, “I am so ready to be done with this!”  She is also experiencing some prolonged health problems and I texted, “And I know you are ready to be done, too!”  It would have been so easy for her to agree with me and begin to talk about the negative things she and I were experiencing.  Instead, she chose to encourage me and to cause me to think with a new perspective.

Another friend posted this verse on Facebook.  “In this world you will have trouble.” John 16:33 It seems like I have come across this verse quite a bit in the past several months.  And every time I hear or see it, I think, “That ain’t no lie!”  As I’ve told you before, I know many, many people who are having trouble (And trouble is an understatement!) in their lives. I don’t think I’d want to trade places with any of them. More and more, this world just seems so filled with trouble.  It would be so easy to get discouraged and depressed.  But we can’t forget the rest of the verse. “But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  These are the words of Jesus. And they ain’t no lie, either!

Also, I came across this phrase twice this week from 2 different sources.  “God wastes nothing.”  He does not allow things in my life that can’t be used for good. If there is pain or difficulty in my life, it does have a purpose. 

As, I contemplated these things and other things that I know to be true about God, I was reminded that the process is part of the plan.  The process of waiting and enduring and trusting Him through every circumstance that I don’t want or understand, is producing something.  In me.  In others.

It feels like my life has been put on hold.  Like time is being wasted with me doing nothing but laying around trying to survive. Like I am missing out on so many things.  Like my body is falling apart. But His ways are not my ways and His thoughts are not my thoughts.

I must remember that God has set times for everything.  Whether it’s the 9 months it takes for a baby to develop in it’s mother’s womb.  Or the time it takes for a seed to sprout, grow and produce fruit.  Or the time it takes for bread to bake.  If we get impatient in the middle of the process and induce the baby’s birth or pull up the seed to see if it’s sprouting or take the bread out of the oven before it is done, then we end up with a mess.  Instead of the joy of a healthy baby, we end up with a baby with a multitude of medical problems. Instead of the joy of a fresh tomato, we get a dirty, possibly sprouted seed.  Instead of the joy of fresh baked bread slathered with butter, we get gooey dough that doesn’t taste good at all.  The process of time in each instance is for the purpose of full development and the joy that comes along with it.

Will I be happy when I am through with chemo and every other treatment that this cancer requires?  You better believe it!  And I will celebrate!  But until that time, I will preach to myself, that God is doing something to develop me and others in the process of all that comes with cancer treatment.  Do I really want to interrupt whatever it is God is doing in my life and in the lives of others affected by this?  At times the answer would be “yes,” but when I am able to think clearly, the answer would always be an emphatic, “NO!”  If I’ve got to go through this and if my family and friends have to go through this, then I want us to receive the fullness of joy that being fully developed through this will bring.  For the joy that is coming (Hebrews 12:2), I will endure these cancer treatments and the side effects it brings.  I will ask God to help me consider it all joy because His Word promises that the testing of my faith produces perseverance.  And that perseverance must finish it’s work so that I can be mature and complete lacking nothing. (James1:2-4) And that’s not something I want to interrupt!

Notes I had written in my Bible by James 1:2-4

“Count it all joy”

“If you can’t make it go away, will you decide to make it count?”

“Will you allow your pain to be transformative?”

I’m not sure who these came from.  I wish I had written it down so I could give credit to whom it is due.

Will You Trust Me?

I’ve been pondering a conversation I recently had with a friend.  She was telling me about the anxiety she is having with her firstborn just getting a driver’s license.  It quickly brought to mind the anxiety and worry that I experienced when my firstborn got his driver’s license.  I remember the first several times he would drive and how I spent the whole time that he was gone pleading with God for protection.  When he drove to Texarkana, the prayers and fervency increased.  I told my friend that over time, it would get easier.  Not that she should ever quit praying for protection when her child was driving, but that she wouldn’t be praying constantly for it.  She would learn to trust God with her child in this new way.  I like to call it a calm, quiet, confident trust in God.

I mentioned something to her about thinking life is a series of circumstances in which we have to trust God in something new or learn to trust Him more.  As I think back over my life, I believe this to be true.

Will you trust Me with your marriage difficulties?

Will you trust Me with provision when I ask you to quit your job and homeschool? 

Will you trust Me with your children as they venture out on their own?  When they start driving? When they get in a wreck and drive after that? When they start making their own decisions?  When you don’t agree with their decisions?

Will you trust Me with sickness? Cancer?

Will you trust Me when your life doesn’t look anything like you thought it would?

In each of these circumstances, I have wrestled with God until I could say, “Yes, I will trust You. Even in this.”  And as circumstances change, I have to continue to wrestle with Him until I come to the point that I still trust Him. 

I searched the internet for the definition of the word, trust.  This is what I found. Used as a verb: believe in the reliability, truth, ability or strength of. Some examples of trust: allow someone to have, use or look after someone or something of importance with confidence; to commit to the safekeeping of; place reliance on luck, fate or something else over which one has little control.

It’s in these areas where I feel I have little to no control that my trust in God is tested.  Control is something I like.  But control may be just an illusion.  I just think I have control.  But God is the One in complete control.  I think I’m in control until these things I have no control over happen.  

Back to the definition of trust.  Is God someone I can believe in His reliability? His Truth? His ability? His strength? Can I be confident in His ability to look after my marriage? My children? My family? My friends? Our health? Our futures?  Can I place these things in His care and believe He can and will keep them safe? Can I fully rely on Him when something is completely out of my control?

The answer is overwhelmingly, YES! But is trusting Him always easy?  For me, it is not.  That is why it is so important for me to be in God’s Word as much as possible.  I learned today in Bible study that there are 8000 promises in God’s Word.  He doesn’t place these promises in our hands…but He does place them in our reach.  We have to reach out and take hold of them.  So as I am in His Word, I find these promises that apply to my circumstance and to the best of my ability I take hold of them, receive them and apply them to my life with the help of His Spirit.  When my feelings don’t line up with God’s Truth, I have to remind myself of that Truth.  I have to remember that Truth always trumps feelings.  I have to preach Truth to myself.  I have to let others preach Truth to me.  And eventually, as I struggle through all of this with God, I am able to say, “I trust You,” and when I finally come to that conclusion, peace rushes in and comforts and assures me.

This past week peace was the focus of our Bible study.  

Philippians 4:6-7 promises that if instead of worrying, I will pray about everything with thanksgiving and let my requests be made known to God, His peace, which surpasses every thought (and I can think all kinds of things, for me it’s usually the worst case scenario) WILL GUARD my heart and my mind.

Colossians 3:15 commands me to let the peace of Jesus to control my heart and to be thankful.

Isaiah 26:3-4 promises that He WILL KEEP me in perfect peace if I stay focused on Him (not my circumstances) and if I trust in Him.  And it promises that I CAN TRUST Him forever (in every circumstance) because He is an everlasting rock.

And Isaiah 30:15 promises salvation through repentance and rest. And strength through quietness and trust.  But it also reminds us that sometimes we refuse to have any salvation or strength. I refuse it because I think I can work to make salvation happen. Whether it is salvation of souls, the salvation of a relationship or the salvation of a circumstance… I can somehow think it all relies on me and I will strive and manipulate and strain to make things work out how I want them to work out.  When what I need to do, is ask God if there is anything I need to repent of, are there any actions He wants me to take and as I pray with thanksgiving to His miracle working power to save and rest in His ability to do so, salvation comes.  I can rest even though God often asks me to act, because I realize that I can act and leave the result up to Him.  I can rest because I’m not acting for a result… I am acting out of obedience to God. I refuse to have strength because I choose to trust myself instead of God.  Instead of quietly and confidently trusting Him, I wear myself out trying to make things happen that only God can make happen.  I could have strength but instead I am worn out and discouraged.

We can see through all of these verses that peace is related to trust and gratitude in a Father who is completely trustworthy and completely good.  He is working something out that I can’t even begin to imagine.  One day when I get to heaven and I am able to see my life and the lives of my family and friends from His perspective, I will be overwhelmed with amazement of the awesome stories of love and redemption that He has written.  And I will say, “Truly, You do indeed do ALL things well!”  Oh, for the faith to proclaim that before I see it!

There is much pain and disappointment in this life.  I am constantly being reminded of the pain of this life.  Death of an only child.  Cancer or severe head trauma in children. Severed family relationships. Sickness of all kinds…some incurable. These are things that are occurring not only in my community, but in every community across this earth. Praise God this life is not all there is!

I have completed my 2^nd chemo treatment.  Chemo weeks are rough.  I am trying to figure out how to be honest about how I feel without sounding like I am complaining.  How to be honest AND grateful. I would appreciate any feedback on how to do that.

My hair started falling out in handfuls this past week, so I got Hayden to shave my head.  Losing my hair was harder than I thought it would be.  I am working on not being self-conscious.  I am working on not avoiding people or avoiding eye contact.  I am working on accepting people’s compliments.  I am asking God to help me be comfortable with this, so that other’s can be comfortable when they are with me.

After the first chemo treatment my white blood cell count plummeted.  I had to avoid people for several days and take antibiotics for a week.  Also, my potassium was elevated last Monday when they did blood work.  I am praying that these things will normalize and that God will protect my health and my organs. 

I continue to be overwhelmed by the kindness and goodness and love of God shown through His people.  Thank you for your prayers, your gifts, your hugs, your concern, your cards, your calls, your texts. I am blessed beyond measure and praying that God will continually increase profits to your accounts because of your generosity to me and my family.

The Bible study referenced above is The Armor of God by Priscilla Shirer.  It should be a required study for all Christians.  https://www.lifeway.com/en/product/the-armor-of-god-bible-study-book-P005727075

Addendum: Got a call on Wednesday that my white blood cell count fell to the same level as after the first treatment.  This time they have not called to prescribe antibiotics which I don’t won’t to be on anyway.  So I will be avoiding crowds and shopping until after my next appointment on Tuesday. Please pray that I will not get sick and that if it is God’s will for me to have chemo on Tuesday that the white blood cell count will return to normal.