I sure know how to excuse my own failures, but that no longer helps here.
Cancer's unsympathetic. It doesn't care about the reasons I have to fail.
Sometimes you just have to make an excuse to keep going, and to win.
There's more to be said, but not enough of me to say it, right now. Just being here with this is a win.
When
everything is coming loose
and
you can’t see where to begin,
you
must come up with an excuse,
a
good excuse to win.
There
are many ways to quit,
some
honourable exits, too,
but
the honour is the worst of it,
and
that bill is coming due.
No
need to think outside the box,
you’re
locked in, come what may.
Just
pay heed to the big dumb ox
whose
endurance rules the day.
The
yoke may not be easy, or light,
but
while you live, you’re in the fight.
Music from Christopher Cross, with Ride Like The Wind.
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.
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.
Annnd...I'm bleeding from places that really should not bleed, breathing off the top of my lungs, and swellings along my neck and collarbones (UGLY!) make it hard to swallow anything more than a cold drink.
I don't do discouragement, but if I did, well.
Some kind of different plan would really be good right now. I can feel my mind darting, looking for avenues of escape...like trying to make deals with God:
God, if you heal me enough to go back to church, I promise I won't wear beach shorts there!
OK, maybe not that one.
Really, at this point it's more, "Please turn the avalanche aside...I don't want to face it."
But I guess I'm in good company. Jesus wanted out as well.
And God said no.
Is He saying No to me, too? Or does my assumption and acceptance of a No make it impossible for Him to eliver the healing He wants to give, as many pastors would say, or at least imply?
In other words, does this acceptance tie God's hands, as my de facto rejection of His Power?
Am I sabotaging my own healing?
It's not, I think, a vain question. After all...
And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you. (Matt. 17:20)
Is my faith too small? In my acceptance of the dreadful, have I handed God a box of too-short drywall screws that simply can't hold the boards together? (Yes, I use drywall screws rather than wood screws.)
Bobby Schuller recently preached that we'd all prefer to have someone praying for us who would demand that God get the healing done, rather than a blandly pious, "Oh, Lord, we ask that our brother be healed, if it be Thy will..."
But I'm cut from the latter cloth; I hold with the understated request, and does this doom me?
It' an open quetion. I don't know the answer, but I do figure that God sometimes says No, and that it's not about our fervor, but about our trust.
But I may be wrong, and I would welcome y'all's cutting loose in the comments. Don't hold back.
I am really trying to figure this out, and I need your help. No kidding; I am hurting bad, and really need to try to understand this, even if the answer's what I don't want to hear.
He knew the fate that must befall,
yet He looked for an escape,
a chance to pass the bitter gall
that He'd been born to take.
In that place of olive-pressing
His blood was forced through skin,
in its scarlet, clear-expressing
the flames that roared within.
He asked with all His Holy Heart,
falling prostrate from the kneel;
rebuffed, He rose to play his part,
crushed the serpent with His heel.
Face your future, resolute,
and may unto you His Grace impute.
Music from Glen Campbell, with Rhinestone Cowboy.
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.
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.
When I started writing, I always maintained that I wanted to honour Christ, but a secret sly side of me wanted Him to honour me.
Something like an apple for the teacher.
Things are different now. Really bad things are happening in my body (as is, I need a couple of ice-cold drinks to reduce the lymph-node swelling in my neck long enough to let me try to eat).
And the tumour I tore is bleeding, and not stopping.
I don't care about my honour.
All I need is a hand to get Home.
I wonder if He laughed inside
when He heard from John and James,
who wanted, both to sit beside
His throne, with honoured names.
Did He giggle at the competition
that did from the others spring?
The point that they were truly missing,
the purpose behind the whole darn thing.
The road to Earth's salvation
would be washed in the Lamb's own blood,
and not in their worst imagination
could the Apostles foresee the flood.
Whose chair's where is a world-conceit;
floor's good for me, at His feet.
Music from Soul Asylum, with Runaway Train, a really lovely ballad.
I was doing some fairly easy stretches - gotta stay limber and agile, especially when a fall can be dangerous - when there was a suddenly violently sharp pain in a lump under the left side of my ribcage.
Time to pray for healing, and luckily I just saw a rather well-heeled TV preacher...
They say that there are special ways
to pray for mercy, grace and healing,
special words and turns of phrase
that God will find appealing.
They will send you a DVD
if you love-gift some cash-leaven,
and on it you will find the key
to unlock the vaults of Heaven.
I wonder if God likes these folks,
or thinks they're on a trip,
making the holy seem like jokes,
and is He makin' Hisself a whip?
I'll save my money, hit my knees,
close my eyes, and..."Daddy, PLEASE!"
Music from Swing Out Sister, with The Waiting Game, a charming song and really fun video. Close to the end there's a quick cameo of some Japanese schoolchildren, foreshadowing the happy fact that Swing Out Sister is immensely popular, these days, in Japan.
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.
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.
Survive the next hour, until I've run out of hours. Do what's needed, and every moment's thought or action is bent on survival...what I write, what I read, what I watch, what I eat, how I think, what I say.
There's no room for sorrow or existential angst; pain has made living an end in itself. (And yes, it's probably made me a bore to be around!)
It's different for Barbara, and that's the most distressing part of this gig. She has to take it, her worry, her sorrow, her pity...and there's just not much she can do.
She would take away the tumours if she could, but that's in God's hands, not hers.
She knows that the only palliative care would be drugs I won't touch (been there!) at a cost we can't afford. And she feels helpless.
And she knows that one day she'll have to go on without me, for even legends have to die.
I do what I can, in encouraging her to develop frindships and a church community and a rhythm of life that will be sustaining when I'm gone.
I hope it will help.
I wish you did not have to see
the toll that cancer's taking;
it's much harder, than for me;
and I see your heart is breaking.
My goal is to remain alive,
and I have a privileged focus,
but how, my dear, can you thrive
in your helpless weeping locus?
You want to help, but can't repair
what God has for us ordained;
all left to you is bleak despair;
will this ever be explained?
God's my rock, to see me through,
but can He, will He, comfort you?
Music from the Bee Gees (one of Barb's avourite bands) with the ironically fitting Stain' Alive.
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.
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.
