Monday, November 17, 2008

Overheard at the table

Riley: Sam you need to finish your eggs.
Sam: Me don't want to.
Riley: But Sam there are starving children who would love to eat those eat, like in Haiti,
El Salvador .......Michigan.

Friday, November 14, 2008

Here we go again...

John's cancer is back.
He will spend the next month completely off of his medicine- which will make him get more and more tired. The week before Christmas we will have to go to Columbia for 4 days where he will be tested, poked and scaned- followed by swallowing a radioactive iodine pill which will burn any thyroid tissue in his body. His throat will feel like it has a sever sunburn. This pill is so potent that he will have to spend the following 4 days in isolation, so as to not harm me or the kids. There is a possibility that he will have to have another surgery. There is the possibility that it has already spread to his soft tissue- like his lungs or brain.

I want to tell you that everything is going to be fine and that we are all holding up great- but the reality is we are sick of this crap. My husband has felt bad everyday for the last 2 1/2 years. If we are going to do something in the evening- he will need a nap in the afternoon. And that is how he feels when he IS being medicated. But now for the next month he can't have any of his medicine. Which will not only make him tired, but also impatient, grumpy, forgetful, scared and sometimes just downright mean.

I feel like there is a 2 year old inside me wanting to get out and throw a fit on the floor and scream that "I don't want to do this". I don't want our holidays to be like this. I don't want to worry again. I don't want to have to take up more of the slack. I don't want to see him be so wore out. I don't want to see him forget mid-sentence what he was talking about. I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS!

But for some reason this is what God is asking of me now. I wonder if there was a lesson in this the last time around, and I didn't learn it well enough. Is God using John's sickness to show me something. To break me of something, or to build me up for something. Or is this just a concequence of a sinful world. Yesterday I woke up feeling excited about the holidays, and the fun stuff I have planned for the kids. And tonight I go to bed feeling so weighted down. This just doesn't feel like my life- like I shouldn't have a husband with cancer, or I shouldn't have to think about radioactive pills, or daily pukings or I shouldn't have to plan no-salt meals for my crazily picky husband.

And through all of this I will think of the Casting Crows song- Praise you in this Storm- because I do serve a powerful Lord who sees my tears and hears my prayers. And I have to keep telling myself that "all things work together for the good of those who love Him".

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
Though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,I will be joyful in God my Savior.
The Sovereign LORD is my strength;
he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,
he enables me to go on the heights…”
-Habakkuk 3:17