Week 6 Chemo

Cade is doing great! I've been drinking up these precious, normal life days in all their fullness. It's amazing how this whole experience has increased our capacity to feel joy. In every sense, we are more aware and alive to the gift of life.

We are still completely amazed at how unscathed he was by this past five day treatment. We are praying fervently that all of the treatment went straight to all the cancer, and his healthy cells stay healthy. Thank you for praying with us. 

Cade has a chemo infusion tomorrow at 12 pm EST. As always, the chemo prayer points we initially wrote are here. Below are some verses we prayed last week over Cade throughout his infusions, and ones we will also be praying tomorrow. 

1. Please pray that this chemo would be a tool in God's hands. Psalm 119:91: "All things are your servants."

I love this simple verse. When I read it last week I got excited. God is just SO in control of everything. Even in the crazy book of Job, the devil has to report to God. Nothing is out of His control. In Proverbs it talks about how even hearts are like rivers in the hand of God, and he turns them whichever He wants to. I want to be ALWAYS impressed by the bigness of God, and the authority He has over all things. Including chemo. He is not contained to rules or our expectations or medicine's properties or the body's reactions. He has the ultimate trump card over it all. I am asking that this chemo would be His servant, His vehicle, for destroying every cancerous cell. 

2. Please pray for the road of chemo for Cade to be easy. I literally keep praying that he would "skate" through each week. Isaiah 57:14: "And it will be said: 'Build up, build up, prepare the road! Remove every obstruction from my people's way." 

We need every tumor, every obstruction to Cade's health removed. We need the road ahead of us to be  built up, to be prepared in every way for Cade to walk it with the least amount of resistance and weakening as possible. 

I have this picture in my head of God confiscating every single aspect of this thing, almost like He grabbed the chess board, and now He is using every single piece of it to bring Him the MOST glory- to get the MOST people to know His heart, and His kindness. I see Him as the most trustworthy steward of our lives- He does not waste a single moment. I am asking that God absorb every blow for Cade, and for some reason the phrase on my heart is "skate through it". I am terrible at ice skating, but I do have some vague memories of how when you get the hang of it, you end up really enjoying what otherwise was really uncomfortable, sometimes painful, and always chilling. I am praying Cade learns how to skate through these treatments- where they do exactly what they should and NOTHING they shouldn't.

3.  Please pray for breakthrough while we are at clinic for every single child there. Pray that we are literally ambassadors of the hope of Jesus to whoever we meet and talk to while we are there. 2 Corinthians 5:18 says, "And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” 

Last week I took some brave friends and we got to pray for every single room that was filled that day, and every nurse, and every doctor from our tiny little cubicle corner. We prayed that every single child would LIVE. That not one more child would die from cancer who visits Riley. We asked that the healing presence of Jesus would walk through the entire unit and into every room and that each kid would touch His robe, each parent or grandparent or loved one would feel infused with hope and life, and that every impossiblity would BOW at the name of Jesus.

Please pray that we get to be encouragements to other families. We want to give away the hope we have been given, and even practically to help other families who might not have the amazing friends and support we have. There are so many families walking through this, and people who are hungry for hope. Good thing God is actually called the God of hope. HE COMES! He loves to show up through His people- as Chad and I have first hand experienced recently through so many of you who have loved on us. 

Here are some verses we've been meditating on this week: 

1. "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Luke 12:32

Aside from the very amazing implications of what the KINGDOM even is, I am totally okay with being called a "little flock" in God's eyes. This verse is Jesus talking to the crowds. He understood their fear. He understands mine. And I can just picture Him saying this to me. I keep thinking about that verse in Psalm 131, "My eyes are not haughty, nor my eyes lifted up, I do not concern myself with matters too high, or too lofty for me, but I have stilled and quieted myself like a weaned child with its mother. Like a weaned child with its mother is my soul within me." In that past few weeks, I have periodically felt the deepest peace of my life. It usually comes when I realize just how much I do not know, and how much I cannot control. But my Father knows. He saw this. He owns this. He is not limited like me. 

It is God's pleasure to give us the kingdom. I am not twisting His arm or begging like an orphan. He is so pleased, it makes Him so happy to give us the kingdom. And the kingdom of heaven, as Romans 14 says, is "righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit." And when Jesus came proclaiming the kingdom, one of the most rudimentary and elementary ways He did it was through healing. Simple seeing peoples' needs and meeting it. 

2. "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; for you are of more value than many sparrows." Matthew 10:29-31

Dad hung up bird feeders right outside of our kitchen window over Thanksgiving, and every day we watch the birds come and eat. It's become part of our day to note which new birds are there, which ones are revisiting. I have noticed as it's gotten absurdly cold that the littlest birds now have a nice fluffy coat of down on their underbellies. It wasn't there a few weeks ago, but now that we are in the negatives, soft little extra feathers are sticking out. As I was washing the dishes and watching them I thought, "If God can make sure these birds get the feathers they need to endure some cold January days, I can trust Him to take care of my Cade." This verse is just confirmation of that thought. Yep. Cade's on God's mind a lot more than those birds. And I believe He is equipping Cade with just what he needs to weather this storm. Praise God. 

3. Matthew 9:36 "When He saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." 

I asked God for a mental hug before bed last night. I felt a little soul-sore. You know that feeling? Like a little bit bruised and tender in a certain place, and in need of something. I looked down at my phone to the Bible app and saw a verse I had highlighted earlier that morning- Matthew 9:36. I read it and got choked up. I looked up some of the original words and here is what I found:

Jesus saw the crowds: this word can be translated "see with the eyes, or with the mind, perceive and know, become acquainted with by experience, to be aware, to pay heed to". Whatever situation we are in, Jesus sees us. Like really sees us, even in a crowd. 

He has compassion on them: this is an awesome word "splagchnizomai" and it means to be moved 'as to one's bowels', or be moved with compassion, the bowels were thought to be the seat of pity and love.  I had a few days over this process where I was so moved by this whole thing I literally felt bent over with it. It hit me in my core. It was hard to straighten up. When I read this word, I picture Jesus seeing us, perceiving all of our burdens, and feeling that same gut-wrench. He feels for us. He feels with us. I keep thinking of how Melissa Helser says Jesus came to swallow up our loneliness. We will never face a situation alone. Jesus hung on the cross, and He endured total separation from the Father on our behalf so we would NEVER feel it again. He is so WITH us. He couldn't get any closer. 

They were harassed and helpless: these could be my favorite part of the verse. 

Harassed comes from a word that means "to skin, flay, to rend, mangle, to vex, trouble, annoy, to give one's self trouble, trouble one's self." I am sure y'all can relate, but half of my battle is my own freaking head and fears. I feel like in the middle of an awesome day I trouble myself by replaying fears, words, stringing thoughts together that lead nowhere. And yet, in that mess, Jesus sees me. He has compassion on me, even when I'm the one torturing my own mind. Praise the Lord. 

Helpless means "to cast, throw down, to set down with the suggestion of haste and want of care, to fling, to throw down to the ground." Nothing prepares you for news like this. And so many of you are walking through hard things, where you felt, or were tempted to feel, cast aside. Thrown down. Suddenly and hastily forgotten and discarded. Suddenly uncared for. What a Father, who knows when we feel this way and lets us know HE NEVER DISCARDS US. Isaiah 49:15-16 says, "Can a woman forget her child or have not compassion on the son of her womb? Surely, she may forget but I will not forget you. BEHOLD, I HAVE ENGRAVED YOU ON THE PALMS OF MY HANDS". 

In a moment, perceptive Jesus saw all this in the crowd. Maybe he discerned every single situation and thought. I just know last night, this verse laid my heart open. And I felt that hug I so desperately needed. Especially when I remembered it didn't just end there. 

"Like sheep without a shepherd."

We have a Good Shepherd. He lays down His life for the sheep. He goes before His sheep. He speaks to them. He lets us go in and out and find pasture. He came that we would have LIFE, and life abundantly. 

"He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees and the wolf snatches

He cares for all of us that choose to call Him our shepherd. I love how John 10 even says the hired hand doesn't love the sheep because he doesn't own them. Jesus owns my life. He can do whatever He wants with it- and I know He is a safe place to entrust it because He sees so much in one glance. He knows how to lead me. 

And Cade is part of that fold too. Jesus cares for Cade. 

 Isaiah 40:11 says, "He tends His flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to His heart, He gently leads those that have young."

Thank you for praying!