Let's Do That, Shall We?

November is just around the corner, our kids are back in school after two weeks off of school, we have internet access again, our car is running after a short hiatus, and I am getting our life back on track.  Once I get out from under the mountain of laundry and school projects (vocabulary hats! leaf collection! pajama day!), I will post a more general update as well as James's final post in his current series. In the meantime, I listened to the first in J.D. Greear's sermon series, "Multiply." This portion really struck me, for obvious reasons. I hope you're as encouraged by it as I was.

Becoming a Christ-follower means viewing everything in your life as something given to you by God as something to be multiplied for His kingdom...I don’t care who you are, God has put things in your life that He intends for you to multiply...if God has put pain in your life, God intends for you to multiply the blessing that comes through that pain by turning it into testimony of God’s goodness and His faithfulness in the time of trial. You see what it means to be a Christ-follower is you say, “God, if you give me prosperity, I’ll leverage that prosperity for the advance of your Kingdom. And if you give me pain, then I’ll turn my pain into a testimony of Your goodness and faithfulness in the worst situations in life.”

Life with Cancer (Part Three)

Alright, so I have fallen behind in posting James's thoughts. My sincere apologies! If you want to catch up, you can read Part 1 here, and Part 2 here. 

Naturally I divide my cancer journey into two parts: Stage 3 and Stage 4. In Stage 3, between two minor surgeries, aggressive chemo, radiation treatment, pneumonia, running several times to the ER, daily hours upon hours of coughing...I spent a great amount of time dealing with physical things, like pain, exhaustion, side effects. However, by the grace of the Lord, I was able to spend hours of time daily studying my Bible. At the same time I was able to read almost 20 books on topics such as the holiness of God, preaching, prayer, suffering, etc. I had the chance to listen to a lot of great sermons. I also managed practicing guitar and taking my kids out to play. Thus my daily schedule was very predictable. I was able to mix the physical exertion and mental work together.

Yet a careful reader might have noticed that to this point I have not mentioned about prayer. The truth is that my prayer is often so short compared with a day, that I am embarrassed to mention it. A poor prayer life did not happen just lately, it is the epitome of my 15 years of Christian living. I always love reading my Bible, but when it comes to prayer, as JD Greear once said, “If you want to embarrass a Christian, just ask how often he prays.” This is very true of me. I often found my prayer life is just dry, boring, and short. It sounds hard to believe, coming out from a pastor’s mouth, but it is the brutal truth. It does not negate my efforts of working in the field, but the method and focus certainly is wrong. The disciples were wondering why they were not able to cast out certain demons, so they privately asked Jesus the “secret” solution. And Jesus replied to them,” This kind can come out only by prayer.” (Mark 9: 28-29). It is surprise to us how the disciples would do that, yet is it not even more unfathomable that we would use our own weapons instead of the power of the Holy Spirit to rob souls from Satan’s world?  

The situation being at Stage 4 completely changed my prayer life. There are two big differences between life at Stage 3 of cancer and Stage 4. In my life with Stage 4 I have spent more time on Bible studying and meditation instead of just reading and gaining knowledge. I spend more time listening to the Bible while shooting hoops or walking. In place of reading more books, I pray.

And God again arranges the perfect time for me to achieve my goal. For some reason, Stage 4 chemo drugs often keep me awake. During these three plus months, my average sleep has not being more than 4 hours per day (including daily naps). I often can get up at two or three o'clock to study and pray. Surprisingly, even with so little sleep, when I come to study and pray I always have the energy to do it. It reminds me of Daniel, although he only ate vegetables and drank water, he looked healthier and better nourished than the young men who ate the royal food.  And strangely, from the first time I really started to call on the Lord to now I have not had one instance of boring, dry prayer. The length of prayer is getting longer and longer. The frequency of prayer is increasing more and more.  I have never known prayer to be so rich, joyful and sweet.

A good example is that one morning as I lay prostrate in front of the Lord (this is the first time of my life ever), He reminds of the verse I just read in Psalm 65:4 “Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!” This verse tells me that only the people blessed by God have the chance to worship Him, to adore Him. Only the people God chooses to draw near can really come to His holy temple and bow down. And this is the only place our longings can be met, where we can be truly satisfied. All these can happen, yet the only reason is because His mercy has extended to us.

The inspiration changes my prayer. The very action of bowing down to pray is a blessing from God. Without God’s mercy, we would never be able to come to Him, let alone worship Him. Prayer is supposed to be a privilege not a burden, or a responsibility, or something we as Christians are supposed to do. The truth is that all godly men and women in history are first and most of all pray-ers. The more we know God, the more we experience God, and the closer we walk with God, then the deeper we like to bow in front of the living God. The deeper we bow, the more we trust have; the more we trust, the more we bow more deeply and more frequently.

The Results Are In...

Hello Everyone - thank you for praying us through yesterday! I am relieved to tell you that the results from James's PET scan are very, very good. Dr. Gupta, ever the effusive one, said, "It's a beautiful scan, really."

*the lymphatic tumors in James's chest and the one in his hip are not growing and are "better" and "clearer." I think I heard "smaller" too...
*the tumors are up-taking less dye, which means that their metabolism is slowing, which means they aren't (as) rapidly dividing, which means...their imminent death, maybe.
*there are no new tumors, which, really, is just a huge relief. James's chemo brain is really just a sleep-deprived chemo brain...not a brain tumor. And his left hip hurts from time to time, not because of a new tumor, but because he favors that leg over his tumor-affected right one.

Whew.



Whew.


Maybe we should have a group exhale. Ready? (Wheeeeeeeeeeeew.)

With this great (!) news, though, comes one of the biggest BUTs in our lives.

BUT - James does not get to stop chemo. Because the chemo regimen is working, it is now considered to be something like "maintenance chemo." The doctor explained it to us like a diabetic, who always needs insulin. I am thinking it is like someone in renal failure in need of weekly dialysis.

Thus, as long as James can handle the chemo, we keep at it. Three weeks on, one week off. Three weeks on, one week off. "This is a marathon," Dr. Gupta told us. Three weeks on, one week off.

I wish you all could have seen my face when he told us this.

Dr. Gupta did tell us that if things were looking good, and James was feeling good, we could take a break.

"What is that, like weeks, months?" I asked.

"Weeks.  A few weeks," came the reply.

So...you all can keep praying! Continue to pray for the miraculous. It won't be long, and we'll be entering a realm beyond any doctor's expertise. Most Stage 4 lung cancer patients live weeks or maybe months past their diagnosis. Ever so slim a chance to make it a year. That's what happens when you're 80 and you've smoked your whole life. So of course a weekly chemo regimen that keeps you alive a few more months makes all the sense in the world.

But what to do with the 40 year old who is otherwise incredibly healthy? And what does treatment look like if God healed James, and all his scans started to run clean? (God has already miraculously sustained his life past the "normal" and "average.")

We don't know.

They don't know.

So we do, for now, what we do to treat everyone else.

Three weeks on, one week off....

I'm sure there's a prayer request in there somewhere, but I am not sure where it begins and ends. Thank you -- thank you -- for continuing to remember us.

You are loved!
--james & kristen

Hope

In a few hours, James and I will be receiving results from his latest PET scan. Over the past several days as we have anticipated the scan, had the scan, and in the waiting for the results, it is easy to get the feeling that your very life depends on the results. Will it show the chemo has worked to beat back the cancer, at least for now? Maybe we'll find out that James's tumors are, at least, not growing, giving us a bit more time. Or will the test reveal a body ridden with cancer, tumors mercilessly multiplying as they seek to take a life?

At the very least, I suppose you can be thankful for PET scans, since it removes a lot of the guess work.

But these days while I have found myself, yes, very truly thankful for the tests, I have also been pondering hope. It's a little word, but when you are living under the sentence of death those four letters start to carry so much weight.

Hope.

"The feeling that what is wanted can be had, or that events will turn out for the best."

Is that our hope? We want more days, more time. We want health, and healing. And we, of course, hope for the best. Maybe we'll be one of the lucky ones, the ones who cheated death through the sheer mercy of God and the thousands of prayers offered up by hundreds of loved ones. We hope the scan is amazingly clear. Or at least clearer.

We hope.


Loved ones, that is not our hope.

Jeremiah, born in one of the most tumultuous times of his nation's history, lived a life surrounded by suffering. Nearly every sermon he preached was rejected. He was a total failure vocationally, yet he could not change jobs, or keep his mouth shut. So he kept on preaching which only led to more trouble. He was imprisoned, maligned, smacked around, and even thrown in a well to die. And that's just his life. He watched his own countrymen attacked, killed, maimed, and taken prisoner at the hands of a foreign enemy. He lived among children with swollen bellies and hollow eyes, starving for life. His own neighbors starved to death, and he helplessly watched as dogs fought over the carcasses. He saw the temple, where once the very presence of God had been, be reduced to rubble. Not a single stone remained on top of another one. The beauty, the splendor, the glory of Israel was gone. Ground to dust.

God had left.

So where was hope?

"The feeling that what is wanted can be had, or that events will turn out for the best."

In Jeremiah's day, there were many who had hope. They earnestly believed that God would be gracious to them, that the foreign invaders would show mercy, and that God would once again make Israel a great nation, it's splendor and wealth returned to its former glory. God is faithful to Israel, they said. We won't suffer. Sure, it looks bad, but God will make it turn out for the best. They had such strong hope, in fact, that they despised Jeremiah for his gloomy messages to the contrary.

Hope.

Such a little word. But so much power.

So where was Jeremiah's hope? In the midst of the rubble, the ruin, the heart ache, the disaster. In the days when his prayers went no further than the ceiling, his very soul being strangled by pain. In the season where, at best, God Himself seemed to be rejecting him, or at worst, was out for his very life, Jeremiah wrote some of the most comforting words in all of Scripture.

But this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

His mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

"The Lord is my portion," says my soul,

"therefore I will hope in him."

Hope.

Our hope is not in the scan, dear friends. Our hope is not in better days ahead, or even more of them. Our hope is in the living God, the LORD. The God of Angel Armies. Yahweh. The God whose love has no limit. The God who pours new mercy into our lives each and every day we open our eyes. The faithful God who upholds us by the very words of His mouth. We have thrown our lot in with Him - He is our portion - and so, we hope.

Go have a great day - we'll post results when we can. 

xox

~james & kristen

Living With Cancer (Part 2)

Here's the next installment from James. If you missed the first post, you can catch up here. I hope to post the next one later on this week. As a reminder, you can sign up to receive all blog postings from us via your email. Check out the sidebar on the right. 

We are serving a real and living God.  As 1 Corinthians 10: 13 says, “…And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted [the Greek also means “tested “] beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” During this whole journey, Scripture has been my greatest if not my only source of hope, guidance, comfort, encouragement, joy, etc.

Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction that your promise gives me life (Psalm 119:49-50)

If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished in my affliction. I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life. (Psalm 119:92-93)

I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commandment is exceedingly broad (Psalm 119:96).

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:7).

Scripture’s promises and God’s peace has been so real and great to us, from the day we received the diagnosis up until now, neither my wife nor I ever lost one night of sleep or missed one meal because of stress.

As a matter of fact, while my cancer was at stage 3B, as desperately as I want to be cancer free, I also had boldness to pray to God to take me to stage 4. I prayed to God, if it brings Him greater glory, if it is good for my soul, to allow it – of course under the condition that he would spare my life.

For patients and doctors between stage three and stage four of cancer there are magnificent differences. At stage three I have a greater percentage of survival. At stage four, it is totally different. When you search the internet, almost without exception all doctors would say stage 4 is incurable. Because by stage four, the cancer has metastasized and is systemic to the whole body.

As long as doctors have hope, patients will have hope too, the hope of human hands. If I was cured from stage three, in the future I will always have room to question if it is really God who healed me. Now, if I am cured, I can say that it was truly God who healed me and willed me to live. To God, if he chooses to let me to live in the land of the living, percentage of survival means nothing. Stage three and four means nothing, 0.00001% is more than enough to let me remain alive.

I want God to convince me, not just theologically, but whole heatedly, that there are no other gods except Him, and He is my only Hope. The reason I am praying so is because I want to renew my spiritual life, strengthen it.

           

I have been a Christian since March 3, 2000. In fifteen years of walking with God, I have had some great years of growing spiritually. My life compared with before I know the Lord to now is totally unrecognizable. God has certainly changed my world upside down. In Chinese culture, to be a religious leader is never something you would take pride in, unless you can have tremendous earthly gain from it. People view religious leaders as the leader of the elderly, the weak, the fool, the uneducated. And the fact I am willing to serve the Lord among unbelieving people with this title is a proof of God’s work in me. However, my faith journey plateaus a lot, which often frustrates me, wears me out, and bothers me deeply.

As every follower of Christ, we all want to change and grow. We are eager to live a life that is pleasing and honoring God. But quite often we find out that we are powerless to change, and don’t know how to change. We would certainly have no guts to pray to God that He would use some harsh situation like cancer to change us. Instead we pray as hard as we can to stay away from it. Now whether I am willing or not, I am in. To suffer cancer is a harsh, miserable, extremely painful thing. If the Lord allows it to happen to us, it’s God’s will. I want to be benefit from this trial maximally instead of just going through. I do not want to like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bits and bridle, or it will not stay near you (Psalm 32:9). I pray that God will spare my life, and I pray that He would use this time of suffering to allow me to follow after Him with my whole heart.

All good things come from above. I have been deeply grateful to the Lord for giving me peace to pray to experience stage four of cancer. God has been greatly honored and has blessed this prayer. 

75

As of this week, James is now 75% of the way done with chemo.

Three-fourths.

Nine out of twelve.

Only three more to go.

We are getting there, friends! 

Sometimes, when life feels like a slow plod, when your calling has been reduced to "persevere," when there's physical pain and repeated prayers for mercy, maybe the best we can do is count down towards the finish. 

And yet, there is more. There's always more. There's prayer, and conversations, and drawing pictures of Bible stories while gathered around the kitchen table. There's lunches to be made, backpacks to be slung (either onto a shoulder or onto the floor), and pets to feed. Spelling words, timed tests, leaf collections, and Team Umizoomi. And laundry. There's always laundry.  (We applaud you, laundry, for your unrelenting faithfulness to accumulate!) Milkshakes, paints, tub toys, and bed time stories. Drugs that work, caffeinated coffee, and Shapiro's desserts. (Sigh.) Cards in the mail, meals with friends, and the kindness of strangers. And some days, there's even a parade where, if you're Lydia, you put on a rainbow clown wig and throw candy in the streets.

In the last analysis, all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace.

~Frederick Buechner 

The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness;

When Israel sought for rest, the Lord appeared to him from far away.

I have loved you with an everlasting love;

Therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you.

~Jeremiah 31:2-3

These are our days of surviving the sword and finding instead His grace, love, and faithfulness. We seek rest and find (instead) that His very presence fills our lives. So we do more than plod. We sing, we laugh, we turn our eyes towards heaven, and we give thanks.