Friends For The Journey

And for her birthday we have special activities planned… we are leaving at 9:30 am to go to Baptist Hospital to see our dear oncologist, Dr. Wang, who is becoming a real friend, and for Debbie to get her every-three-weeks chemotherapy treatment. On the way home, we may stop somewhere for a bite to eat or a dessert. And then tonight, our kids are coming over to eat a meal with us, and to celebrate with coconut cream pie – Debbie’s favorite.

This morning, after I wished her a happy birthday, and wished her many more (something we do not take lightly), she read Psalm 45 to me:

My heart bursts its banks, spilling beauty and goodness.
I pour it out in a poem to the king,

We are very, very happy. Cancer has almost been a blessings, in the many ways that we have grown and matured through this crisis and learned to enjoy each other and enjoy each day.

Tony Snow, a former newsman and press secretary who recently died with cancer, expressed it better than any one I know in an article in Christianity Today.

Click here to read the whole article

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/july/25.30.html

Cancer’s Unexpected Blessings
When you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things change.
Tony Snow | posted 7/20/2007 02:30PM

Blessings arrive in unexpected packages—in my case, cancer.

Those of us with potentially fatal diseases—and there are millions in America today—find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God’s will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence What It All Means, Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.

What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don’t know much, but we know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place—in the hollow of God’s hand.