Your Dying Spouse 500 - Lord, Make Me An Instrument {FMF}

Well, we made it. Five hundred posts on dying.

It's going downhill faster now; more pain, and I can barely walk, and sometimes can barely move without weeping.

I didn't think I'd get this far - and nor did my doctor - but there's a reason, and here it is, to the best of my reckoning.

Pancreatic cancer has taken much, but it's brought a gift, that hardest Grace.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

God, the pain is offered to You, to use as You will.

Where there is hatred, let me bring love.

Love is what binds us together, and refines the unbearable as a lens for Your Heart.

Where there is offense, let me bring pardon.

I can't hold grudges any more. Let it go.

Where there is discord, let me bring union.

Our differences are so small in the face of enormous fears, and far greater Graces.

Where there is error, let me bring truth.

The truth is that we have to live for one another and for God, as He died for us. That's the deal.

Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.

We really can walk through the darkest nights with only a single candle of faith. Just walk with me; I'll hold your hand, and I won't let go.

Where there is despair, let me bring hope.

Despair can never win, if we take the hands outstretched to us, and extend ours to others, in hope. Our linked hands are a bridge across the abyss.

Where there is darkness, let me bring your light.

Always wanted to be a lighthouse. Barb loves 'em.

Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.

Sadness IS, in the deepest pit, the darkest valley, but there is joy in living for our friends, and for our greatest Friend.

O Master, let me not seek as much
to be consoled as to console,

I am failing, and things fall apart, but I will reach out and dry your tears, as mine have been dried.

to be understood as to understand,

From the edge of life, I can look back and see that good intentions did not pave the road to hell, but smoothed the road to Heaven.

to be loved as to love,

And my heart is breaking with the love that bursts out, for love is all we carry to the Throne of Grace.

for it is in giving that one receives,

It was never about what I could accomplish, but about holding the lamp for others, in love.

it is in self-forgetting that one finds,

My legacy is myself, poured out as libation, and holding nothing back.

it is in pardoning that one is pardoned,

I ask the forgiveness of those I have hated, and the pardon of those who wronged me, for in my anger I brought out their worst.

it is in dying that one is raised to eternal life.

I am ready.

Amen.

I'll bet you expected to hear a musical setting for St. Francis' Prayer...and I originally planned to have one here...but, you know, it's really time to rock out.

So here's Honest Men, by ELO Part 2, led by Bev Bevan, and including members of the original Electric Light Orchestra after that signature band went dormant. Bevan got permission from Jeff Lynne to carry on, and I think you'll agree...they preserved the sound and spirit!

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley, the canine waif from Afghanistan, whom WE helped save, has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 499 - All I Need Is A Miracle

I could sure use a miracle.

As I write this, worse is going into even WORSE, and if there were trouble lights, they would all be red; not blinking, but steady.

But I figure God knows I need a miracle. So I'm not going to bug Him about one.

Instead, I'll keep my mind and heart and life open for its arrival. I'll keep the faith, the hope, and the optimism of possibility alive.

And even if it doesn't come, that's not a bad way to live.

Over to Mike And The Mechanics, with (of course) All I Need Is A Miracle.

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 497 - Not Thinking About Heaven

Wow...entry number 497 in this series...and it comes just after 498...

Don't know what's more amazing, that I've survived this long or that I screwed up the order like that.

A couple of days ago there was a sermon on Trinity Broadcasting by Robert Jeffers, on what we can expect in Heaven.

Barb was curious that I didn't want to watch. I mean, the likelihood is that I'll be going soon...why would I not want to know that balm to which my aching heart and body could look forward?

I told her that I'd find out soon enough, but that's not the whole reason.

The big thing is sorrow...because I really do love my life here. And I'm sad to be leaving.

Yes, it hurts to breathe, and to move, and now bones are fracturing under normal use, which really can't be good.

Yes, food is all unappetizing, and sleep doesn't come, just eerie dozes with weird dreams, like playing golf with a chimpanzee, and being Tom Clancy's chauffeur.

And pain. Did I mention that? As I type this I want to scream. It hurts so damned much.

But in spite of all that, I don't want to go. I want to continue praying for Barbara, and to see her grow professionally and personally.

I want to take care of my dogs, who have taken such good care of me by providing laughs and warm furry hugs.

I want to watch my friends from cyberspace develop their writing skills, and climb that hard mountain of success.

I want to be here for them.

And for me. Sure there are tears, but a smile through the tears counts for something, yeah? I'd like to think, something big.

Heaven's probably a pretty swell place.

But it's not my place. Not yet.

Music from the Alan Parsons Project, with Closer To Heaven. It's a lovely song; please give it a listen.

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.

Your Dying Spouse 498 - The Three-Foot World.{FMF}

So people sometimes say...heck, even Barbara sometimes says..."I don't know how you do it."

With cancer taking over body and life...how do you do it?

It's pretty easy, really. I just take the next step, and the furthest ahead I look is the next cigar. (Cigars help a lot in fighting pain and nausea. Plus, they make me feel Churchillian.)

If I looked at the map that lies before me, of more pain and more debility and more fatigue and what I am coming to see will be a really painfully nasty death, I'd fold.

 "...if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee." - Friedrich Nietzsche

In rock climbing, it's called the Three-Foot World. Your life depends on what's within three feet of you. Anything else, the climb above and the long fall below...they're irrelevant.

So today isn't even the key. It's that next cigar, on the other side of taking care of the dogs, and taking care of the laundry, and taking care of Barbara (a joy!), and participating in the blogosphere.

You can get through a lot of pain in anticipation of tobacco, and a chance to rest.

Or whatever. If I could still drink coffee, it would be coffee.

Or...far better...Glenlivet. But that is a part of another story.

The harder question is why. I hope for a miracle, but the prospect laid out before me is both bleak and grim, and that should be where despair lives.

I haven't left the property since the 2016 election, when I voted. It doesn't look like I'll be leaving again. Well, once more, geddit?

And it's getting so much worse; walking is hard (and a just-broken foot...I mean, REALLY?...doesn't help), eating is an ordeal, I haven't slept in a few nights...yeah, whine, whine, whine.

But despair doesn't live here. Maybe I'm delusional.

Nah. To be delusional, you have to be pretty smart, have an imagination. People who know and love me say, kindly, that I'm dumber than a box of rocks.

Someone very dear has said that when she watches Guardians Of The Galaxy, this scene reminds her, irresistibly, of me...

I've said that service is a large part of the reason, being able to help Barbara and the dogs, and to give encouragement to my friends. And that's true, but it doesn't go far enough.

Why, when I'm feeling up to it, do I still work on a novel I'll never finish, or build parts for an aeroplane I'll never fly?

It's that Three Foot World, again.

It's the process that's important; it took me a long time to learn this. I will never see the destination after which I chased, but no matter. The destination was a metaphor.

I now now that the destination I sought was God, in everything I did. In fighting, in flying, in life.

And I'm already there.

Over to John Fogerty, with Lodi.

Please pardon my slow response to comments. I do my best, and your comments are really precious to me. Barb is answering many of them now. I'm running on fumes, if you don't mind a macho metaphor.

I'm grateful for the energy to have written this. I'm so glad Barbara's stepped in for many of my posts. I'm really not doing well at all.

Thanks to Carol Ashby, Blessed Are The Pure Of Heart is back on Kindle, and will be available in paperback soon.

Friends are everything. I couldn't have done it.

Marley update... been moved to a sanctuary, and Bay County will revise their 'dangerous dog' codes.

WE MADE A DIFFERENCE!

And marley has a Facebook page! Please drop by to see how happy he is today.

If you can, please do leave a comment. I am trying to answer all, and I am failing, but please know this - I read and treasure each one.

Below are my recent releases on Kindle -please excuse their presence in the body of the blog. I haven't the energy to get them up as 'buttons' in the sidebar. You can click on the covers to go to the Amazon links.