6:53 pm:

It has been a tough day. It started out with a phone call from Nathan while I was still asleep this morning, and subsequently, a torrent of tears while the boys piled into my bed with their concern.

Her potassium is very low and her kidneys are not doing their job correctly still. She has had a very large amount of potassium given through her IV and still her number continues to drop. She is completely out of it and has slept almost non-stop for six days. She wakes only when made to, and then only half way, otherwise she wakes only to vomit. She will have an MRI in the morning to see if there is tumor regrowth that could be causing pressure and inducing vomiting. She is completely neutropenic right now.

And here is where I remind myself again of Dr. Bowers’ warning; “You will be imploring us to stop at the end of this 12 weeks, it’s that difficult.”

Chemo is not for the faint of heart, and I am having to grow some really thick skin watching my baby girl suffer like she is. I have taken comfort in the reminder that God is ministering to her little-bity self in a way that I can’t even see or understand. I know He is intimately involved and near to her in her pain. He knows what it is to suffer through no wrong of His own.
I arrived at the hospital about an hour ago. We had a good school day and just as we were studying the different reasons birds have “calls” in science, a couple of birds started calling to each other right outside our  front door. We went to investigate and even though we never saw the actual birds, we found their nest and delighted in the moment. It was a beautiful day and squirrels were hopping through our yard, the sky stretched out wide and everything felt so alive. I took a moment to marvel at creation and all the life going on around us, and I felt a surge of hope course through me. I don’t know how to explain it, but I was encouraged by His creation, that life still goes on, that He keeps all of this going by His design. How much more does He invest Himself in Phoebe whom He knit together in the secret places, fashioning her in His image and for His glory? He loves her so.

Right now she is having a blood transfusion. These have become a welcome event because she seems to feel so much better afterward. She had to have another IV placed in her foot today for the transfusion because they can not stop her IV fluids through her port. She has to receive potassium around the clock right now as well as nutrition, so they had to start a whole new IV for the blood to run through for 4 hours. Now we will receive potassium reports and electrolyte balance reports along with the every 4 hour sodium update.

Last night before I went to sleep, I was led to a few verses in 2nd Corinthians Ch.1;  Paul is writing to the church at Corinth along with Timothy and he starts out by talking about comfort.

Vs.4-7 “He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with His comfort through Christ. Even when we are weighed down with troubles, it is for your comfort and salvation! For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer. We are confident that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in the comfort God gives us.”

If God can use, or is using, this time of suffering in our lives to somehow speak to others or comfort them, hallelujah! We were created by Him and for Him and I pray that it will be so. We long ago surrendered our rights to our lives and I am so thankful for that hard reckoning in past years. I can not imagine having to do that now for the first time in the midst of this crisis. I am also thankful for hours and years of training and study about the nature and character of God through our YWAM training. I stand on those truths now more than ever.

In this part of Corinthians Paul goes on to talk about the trouble they experienced in Asia as they ministered there, and these are the words that resonated with me so well; Vs. 8b-10) “We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead. And He did rescue us from mortal danger, and He will rescue us again. We have placed our confidence in Him, and He will continue to rescue us.”

We rely only on God who raises the dead…He will continue to rescue us. Amen.

Pray for potassium,kidney function, lucidity, an immune system that will ROAR back into action, healing for damaged cells, the death of cancer.