In the Palm of His hand

I was talking to my sister on the way to the Cancer Center about some new ideas I have of how He wants to use me in & through this cancer journey He’s taken me on. She was asking how I was doing with the side effects & I was sharing how it’s a little unsettling to think I’m feeling so tender, tight & tired by the end of 8–10 days of treatment  when my doctor said the effects will peak toward the end of the 33 days. I was sharing how I’m trying to filter my feelings against what I know to be true of God’s unchanging character. He is good, He is faithful, He is able, He is loving.  He knows me perfectly, loves me amazingly & works powerfully on my behalf. The whole of His holiness and who He is utterly beyond my comprehension & wholly worthy of my complete trust with my life, my health, my treatment & the outcome. She encouraged me with the reminder that He has a plan & a purpose with each step & every detail to teach more about Him, strengthen my faith, draw me closer, confirm my heart and mind to His...& use me do to that in the lives of those He puts me in contact with through this! 

As I lay on the table to get my daily dose of radiation, I was praying & asking God what He wanted to show me.  I had this picture of being still (...& knowing that He is God, a good God! Psalm 46:10. I can’t  move a muscle other than breathing...”He’s the air that I breathe”!), resting fully in Him as He holds me in the palm of His hand (even on a hard, flat table😊)

I had my weekly meeting with doc today and she was encouraged how good my skin looked and encouraged me with the fact that some of the long teen side effects I was concerned about were possible but quite rare. Lord, Your will be done!

More encouraging news- I got a call from my regular oncologist that my liver ultrasound was unchanged from April and unconcerning.  They still identified the small growth as a harmless hemangioma.

 A Liturgy for Seasons of Uncertainty 

     by Douglas McKelvey

In the midst of whatever follows, O Lord,

let me meet your mercies anew,

and anew, and anew.

In the midst of my dismay, fix my eyes again

and again upon your eternal promises.

How this ends – that is up to you.

If the next news is favorable, I will

praise you for the ongoing gift of life.

If tomorrow’s tidings are worse, still

will I proclaim your goodness, my

heart anchored ever more firmly in the 

eternal joys you have set before me.

And when, whether days or decades from

now, you finally bid me rise and follow you

across the last valley, I will rejoice

in your faithfulness even there.

Especially there –

praying Thy will be done,

and trusting by faith that it will be done.

That it is being done. Even now.

Even in this disquiet.

I am utterly yours, O Christ.

In the midst of this uncertainty,

I abandon myself again to you, the author

and the object of all my truest hopes.

Amen.