Week Five Chemo

Merry Christmas!

We have had a really wonderful Christmas as a family, and Cade has been refusing naps, zooming cars around the floor, tackling Chad, and full of exuberant and boyish joy. We are incredibly, deeply thankful. He has been keeping all his food down, eating copious amounts of pancakes (that I snuck a lot of flax, juice plus protein powder, and whole milk into), and bananas and peanut butter. I'm praying for him to get good and fat and happy in the coming months.

Cade finished radiation therapy last Friday, and several friends met us at 7 am that morning, with a motorized car with a gigantic bow on it for Cade to ride down the hallway to his last treatment. He rang the bell, did great, and woke up grumpy as usual. We are thankful that radiation is behind us, and that the last week of it (which was supposed to be the worst) actually turned out to be the best week of all the treatments. Cade had energy, ate tons, goofed around, and thrived. Wow. Thank you for praying. You can view videos of Cade's joyful final morning on my instagram by clicking here.

This week we start another large round of chemo, where we go five days to clinic. We are so thankful we get to come home every night, and we are anticipating meeting the kindness of God this week for Cade.


Here are some specific prayer points to include with the Chemo prayer points I posted earlier here. Now, you might look at some of these and be like, Charis, you're kind of grasping at Biblical straws here. I agree. But I'm actually quite certain these little straws have been hand-picked for me by the Holy Spirit.

I started thinking yesterday how NUTS it is that God made (according to Google) 30 MILLION SPECIES of insects in the world, but then decided to give us ONE Bible for us to refer to our entire lives, in every nation, in every continent, with only 66 books inside of it. And some of those books are repeat stories. So when I am in this situation and I'm encouraged by the story of Joshua and Caleb and Joseph and Job and Daniel and Peter and Mary and Martha and Lazarus, it might seem crazy. Surely, our stories can't possibly relate. First century, and pre-century characters and my 2017, chemotherapy prayer points can't really crossover.  But I'm finding more and more every day just how incredibly relevant stories in the Bible are for our exact situation. And for yours. And I am guessing God rigged the system so that every single person on the planet can be infinitely encouraged, challenged, directed, and guided by the words inside of that one Bible. If God thought 30 million species of insects wasn't ridiculous, then I am guessing giving us this one Bible must be perfectly sufficient in His eyes. So I'm gonna search through it and find every single encouragement I can because I'm a complete glutton for God's encouragement and I'm not ashamed of it.

1. I was thrilled this morning when the Lord led me to this passage in the amplified version, I was so encouraged by it and found in it direction for how to pray for Cade this week, so please join me in praying these verses over him:  Isaiah 54: 14-15, 17

And all your [spiritual] sons will be disciples [of the Lord],

And great will be the well-being of your sons.

“You will be firmly established in righteousness:

You will be far from [even the thought of] oppression, for you will not fear,

And from terror, for it will not come near you.

“If anyone fiercely attacks you it will not be from Me.

Whoever attacks you will fall because of you...

No weapon that is formed against you will succeed;

And every tongue that rises against you in judgment you will condemn.

This [peace, righteousness, security, and triumph over opposition] is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,

And this is their vindication from Me,” says the Lord.

The word for well-being in verse 14 is the Hebrew word shalowm: peace, contentment, soundness in body, health and prosperity. 

And the word vindication in the last verse had me pretty excited. After listening to Bob Sorge's message I linked in the food for thought post, Chad and I have been (even jokingly) finding lots of little things that we are calling "restitution" for Cade. We've been praying that God would not only vindicate Cade, but that Cade would inherit a double portion of life and youth and vitality for every single day that he has to walk this journey. If you want some spiritual ammunition for this kind of thinking, you HAVE to listen to that message. It's a game changer and it stems from the parable of the persistent widow and the unrighteous judge. I've been praying her words, "Give me justice from my adversary", and I feel like that parable and that message gave my heart a new tactical approach to prayer. BOOM. God's the best spiritual warfarer out there, and HE LOVES SHARING HIS TRICKS WITH HIS KIDS. 

2. Please pray that Cade can continue to eat and do normal life this week without feeling nauseous. Nurses were already pretty encouraged he didn't get sick after his first big round, (most of the sickness came from radiation) and we are praying we keep being a sign and a wonder to everyone around us just by his resiliency. We are praying he would be an anomaly, thriving even in chemo treatments. For some reason, I've been praying he'd be like Daniel and his three friends in Daniel 1:

But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine, and he asked the chief official for permission not to defile himself this way. Now God had caused the official to show favor and compassion to Daniel, but the official told Daniel, “I am afraid of my lord the king, who has assigned your food and drink. Why should he see you looking worse than the other young men your age? The king would then have my head because of you.”

Daniel then said to the guard whom the chief official had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days: Give us nothing but vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then compare our appearance with that of the young men who eat the royal food, and treat your servants in accordance with what you see.” So he agreed to this and tested them for ten days.

At the end of the ten days they looked healthier and better nourished than any of the young men who ate the royal food.

3. Please pray that Cade benefits from every single cancer-killing effect of these chemos and that he experiences NONE of the side effects. Hearing loss, heart damage, infertility, other kinds of cancers like leukemia, jaw pain, neuropathy, seizures, damage to other internal organs, etc. The list of side effects of chemo is just absurd. When I was looking at his bald head the other day, I thought, gosh chemo is strong. And then I felt the Lord's encouragement, "It's got to be strong to kill the cancer." And I suddenly felt a little better. Please pray that Chad and I will not view this chemo and this week through the lens of "victim", where chemo is poisoning our son, but that we would see it as the only option God has made available, and one we can believe God will personally direct and point to where it needs to go. I am so grateful that God is PRECISE and ACCURATE. Job 26:7-14 talks about how accurately God hung earth, how all of creation speaks of His perfect measuring and direction- and we are praying that the God who decided the distance between Earth and the Sun and set boundaries for the sea, will also accurately guide any chemo to where it needs to go, 

"He spreads out the northern skies over empty space;

he suspends the earth over nothing.

He wraps up the waters in his clouds,

yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.

He covers the face of the full moon,

spreading his clouds over it.

He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters

for a boundary between light and darkness.

The pillars of the heavens quake,

aghast at his rebuke.

By his power he churned up the sea;

by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces.

By his breath the skies became fair;

his hand pierced the gliding serpent.

And these are but the outer fringe of his works;

how faint the whisper we hear of him!

Who then can understand the thunder of his power?”

4. Please pray that Cade would experience the favor and protection of God this week. We have been praying Psalm 91 over Cade already, but specifically this week we want to pray it in faith again over him: 

For he will rescue you from every trap

    and protect you from deadly disease.

 He will cover you with his feathers.

    He will shelter you with his wings.

    His faithful promises are your armor and protection.

Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night,

    nor the arrow that flies in the day.

Do not dread the disease that stalks in darkness,

    nor the disaster that strikes at midday.

 Though a thousand fall at your side,

    though ten thousand are dying around you,

    these evils will not touch you.

5. Please pray for every single lung tumor to shrink and disappear in Cade's body and for any cancer cells that can't be seen in a scan that still are floating around to be killed QUICKLY. Isaiah 51:14-16 says,

Soon all you captives will be released!

    Imprisonment, starvation, and death will not be your fate!

 For I am the Lord your God,

    who stirs up the sea, causing its waves to roar.

    My name is the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.

 And I have put my words in your mouth

    and hidden you safely in my hand.

I stretched out the sky like a canopy

    and laid the foundations of the earth.

I am the one who says to Israel,

    ‘You are my people!’”

Thank you for praying with us. I am praying for all of you, that together we will walk deeper with the Lord this year. I am praying that as you take time to think of us, pray for us, and walk with us even from a distance, you will be refreshed, encouraged and strengthened in your lives. I know so many of you are walking through hard things, and I am also aware many trials can't be publicized like ours is, and you have prayer needs that can't be emailed out all over. I am praying that the God who sees would see your exact situation and needs and meet them. Thank you for standing with us, I am praying as we encounter God's goodness and faithfulness to Cade, it would cause a ripple effect in the kingdom for all of you as well.