A time of musing……….
I have so many thoughts in my heart that I want to share with others. I’m not going to call for my editor to make this document grammar perfect. I’m just going to muse at this keyboard and prayerfully share what fills my heart at this moment of my life.
It has been a month since I was diagnosed with bladder cancer…stage 3. Yesterday I heard the doctor say that the cancer is invasive into the muscle wall—not contained in the bladder. I will have a CT scan done in a couple of days to see if the cancer has spread to other organs.
With my medical maladies chemotherapy and radiation are not options for me. If the cancer is in other organ(s) surgery to remove the bladder is also not an option. God has given me peace that this kind of surgery is not an option regardless of the results of the CT scan. Many years ago God began speaking to me about the growing lack of dignity in dying…options for quality of last days and not quantity of last days. So, for quality of however many days God has for me on earth I have changed my diet to organic and am working with a nutritionist as I, and many other people, intercede in prayer.
Since having Bulbar Polio at age 6 I have had to live my life depending on God for my very breath…since breathing is essential to life. Thirty-five years ago I learned that taking Prednisone had caused me to become a diabetic. So, I’ve had to live my life depending on God to keep me from the debilitating adverse affects of that disease. And God/Jehovah-rapha…He has kept me from, and many times healed me from, all manner of infections and complications. I love and praise Him!
All that to say that this new trial in my life is really no different for me to deal with than the last 62 years. God is in control of all of our days…which are numbered. I have always said that regardless of what a Christian has wrong with them that they aren’t going to die until their appointed number of days are up. I know, and probably all of us know, saints of God who were given months to live and lived for many, many years.
Friends often call me to express their sorrow and I pray that God will continue to allow me to speak hope to them…and not hear me sorrow for this trial in my life or disappointment in my Abba Father. For I do have a song in my heart that I want to ‘sing’ every day until I see Jesus:
“He only is my rock and my salvation (deliverance, health, help, salvation); he is my defence (refuge); I shall not be greatly moved…. My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation (thing that I long for) is from him.” He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved (waver, slip, shake, fall). In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Trust (be confident or sure; be bold; confident, sure, secure; to hope) in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.” Psalm 62:2;5-8 (Words in parenthesis are definitions from the Strong’s Concordance.)
God is so Awesome, loving, mighty, and in control of all. I have encouraged so many people over the last thirty years to get to really know WHO God is and not just WHAT God does for us. I have pleaded with people to study the names of Almighty God to get to know His character and His heart. To live in this world without this understanding…I cannot imagine how confusing or hard this would make each day.
I have no fear for God will heal me perfectly. I can say that without reservation because his name is Jehovah-rapha…the God Who heals His children. Healing is His name and His character and He can never change. Each of His children have this assurance…God will heal them. Where He chooses to heal them will be according to His divine and perfect will: On earth or in Heaven. My responsibility is to live each day abiding in Him and looking for opportunities to make a difference in the lives of other people…to glorify God each day I have breath.
Psalm 94:17-19 “Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in
silence. When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O LORD, held me up. In the multitude of my thoughts within me thy comforts (compassion, solace) delight my soul.”
