Your Dying Spouse 516 - In Cancer I Found Health {FMF}

Boy, that title sounds stupid, yeah?

How do you find health in pancreatic cancer and non-Hodgkins lymphoma?

The dude is delusional.

Well, maybe, but I would not have mise this for the world.

This process has been the best teacher for which I might have asked; I have learned, ere the end, that Christianity is not a part of life.

It's life.

Long ago, I thought that if I was terminally ill, I would be in despair. All those things I wanted to do, that now will be left undone! Al that I thought I had, taken from me!

All the meaning I had assigned to life, shattered.

But it's not that way at all, and it's not me that;s making the difference.

As I fall there are strong Arms holding me up, and a Voice that is as loud as thunder, and as gentle as a spring breeze, saying You can keep going.

And thus cometh the strength, to walk down to the shop and do a bit...a tiny bit...of welding, and feeling the satisfaction of molten metal as a gift to my beloved Lord.

Of ever-shortening blog posts, that...I hope!..carry the message, you're not alone, God really does care, and Christ will hold you up.

Of prayers for my dear wife, and the privilege of listening to her as she talks about work, and of letting God speak through me, to help her find her way through the thickets of the temporal.

And to encourage her to find friends that will support her when I'm gone, and to find a good, Godly man to love, so she won't be alone with memories.

I can let her go on, without jealousy.

Of the care for my dogs, who have made themselves more independent, working in cooperation to create a harmonious dog-party of life, and who are showing that I can trust them to love one another, and not fight.

I would not have missed this for the world.

Music is from For King And Country, with Shoulders.

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 515 - Everything's Alright

This will have to be short. Screaming in the  night, and the day was worse. Way worse.

It's so hard for so many people close to me to understand.

I don't mind this. Dying isn't a tragedy.

Everything's alright.

The pain serves a higher purpose; life is Christ, and death is gain, and the process is the opportunity to witness to Christ's love and grace

What love and mercy?

The love that holds me up to find bright sparkles of joy in each day, the antics of the dogs, and the lights of sunrise and sunset, and the stars overhead.

And the grace of being able to rest, when it's too horrible to go on, in an Endurance that doesn't come from me.

Won't you be OK with this, too?

The world will turn without me tonight.

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 514 - Are Bucket Lists Un-Christian?

It seems that everyone has a bucket list these days, a list of things they want to do before they die.

Having goals is good, yeah, but I'm wondering if this goes a bit too far.

The implicit message in the bucket list is 'do this while you can, because you won't have the chance again', and that either ignores the possibility of an afterlife, or at best makes it kind of bleak, a place of sitting around playing harps, and longing for the good ol' days back on Earth.

It makes heaven a place of lack, and that seems to me to be rather ungrateful-in-advance.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to visit the Grand Canyon or go parasailing or see the Louvre; worthy goals all. But to want to store up experiences...it just seems like hedging one's bets.

"Of course I'm a Christian, and I believe I'll be spending eternity with God, but I'd like to take along these memories..."

In case I get bored with God...right?

What do you think?

Here's John Denver, with Looking For Space.

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 513 - The Road And The Reward {FMF}

What a horrible morning - chest pain (not angina, but similar in character) and gut pain, and it was just so hard to breathe...and impossible to move.

Cancer sucks.

But move I had to, because any position I assumed was intolerable after a few minutes.

Besides, I had to get to the dunny. Several times.

And I am not dismayed; when I was able to force myself to keep on my feet, I picked up the tools to create a temporal future I will likely not see.

It isn't about achievement. It isn't about accomplishment.

It's about process.

The road is the reward, and the journey is the destination.

And yes, sometimes the journey can break your heart. It did mine, on Labour Day.

Can pain be the reward? Can sorrow be the destination?

There's Someone we can ask, who took the pain for our sins and the sorrow for our salvation.

I think He'd say, "Yes."

I think He'd say, "I did it for Love."

The road we're on leads to a Place, and you can walk with a Person who will mend the most shattered heart, if you'll let Him.

RIP Yoda, the sweetest Pit who ever lived and the mirror of my heart.

I'll see you soon.

Music from Johnny Mathis, with Hands Of Time from the film Brian's Song. Might want to have tissue handy; I needed it.

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 512 - Losing A Pal

RIP Yoda, my beloved little boy, a buckskin Pit, always so gentle and kind, always ready for a game or a cuddle.

He preferred cuddles.

I found him at the pound, on the day he was to be killed. He was playing with two young children, in the fading light of that last afternoon.

The staff waived the adoption fee. They said, "Get him out of here!"

It was a wonderful decade, after that.

Wait a while, my friend, and I will follow you.

Soon.

Looking forward to it.

Cancer's taken my hope. You can live without hope. But this, this broke my heart.

Music from Melissa Manchester, with Through The Eyes Of Love.

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.