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. 

Living With Cancer (Part 1)

For quite some time, James has been wanting to post to the blog here as most of you are not on the Chinese WeChat, and even if you were, your Chinese still seems to be lagging (teehee)...all his sleepless nights have given him a lot of time to write, so you all will be hearing from James for the next few days. I hope you enjoy hearing first hand from the patient. A window into how one Christian has gone through suffering...

My wife Kristen has been posting a lot of our cancer journey on her blog, but my job has mostly been devoted to informing my Chinese friends in Chinese. Not surprisingly, a lot of people have come to ask me how I am doing. They want to hear from me in person how I am really doing. My Indian oncologist always wants to know. At the last doctor visit, my Jewish radiologist was wondering how I have been processing - implicitly, he is asking since I have received the death sentence, that my cancer has metastasized to incurable stage four, how am I dealing with things. And I know these questions concern all my Christian sisters and brothers who have been faithfully praying for me. I would like to take this opportunity to share with you my cancer journey of this year.   

            

No doubt, going through cancer and fighting against it is a huge, painful project. It challenges you physically, emotionally, and spiritually. The seriousness and severity of cancer instantly turned me into a professional patient. A job that indicates someone as weak, incapable, even a burden; it does not build me up in any way. When a whole family’s life is spinning around this weak, uncertain vessel, the ups and downs of life is almost certain. The constant physical pain is unavoidable, the worry for the family increases as the symptoms change, the uncertainty of your future prevents you even to dare to dream. A normal life with a future has never been so far away; now it seems to the point of almost impossible to reach. When you pass through a dark tunnel long enough, you realize that light is never so precious to you, and you are so eager to see it again, but not knowing when or if you ever will. 

            

Where is hope, how can we experience joy? What can really comfort us under this kind of circumstance? Doctor’s skill? Money? Career? Success? Comforting words from people? It is a time of trial and a test to faith. It can be a nightmare, catastrophe, total disaster.

           

The morning of the 20th of August 2014. I was waiting for my biopsy result from Kunming. A cough had been the only symptom, and it was bad. In fact, it was so bad that morning, I strained my back. (In Chinese we say that disasters never come alone.) I hardly could move, laying on the couch, so I picked up my Bible and started reading. As I read to Isaiah 43:1, it says “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” I feel so strongly that the Lord is speaking to me that I was both deeply comforted and overwhelmed. I immediately felt that the Lord is telling me that the result is not going be good, but He is telling me not be afraid, because I belong to Him, and He will be with me as the rest of Scripture says (Isaiah 43:1-3), “But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you…”

The result turns out to be that I have cancer. But a lot of times hospitals in China are not trustworthy at both the ethical and the skill level. We quickly set an appointment, and went to a well known international hospital for more tests in Thailand. On the morning of the 30th, before we heading out to get my final results, while waiting, I turned on my iPad, and the daily verse attracted my attention. The verse comes from 2 Samuel 12 :13 "Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die.” As I saw the verse, “you are not going to die,” I feel like Nathan is just standing next to me and telling me that I am not going to die. Though we did not yet know the seriousness of the situation - I did not know I was going to be facing death - I knew it was going to be very hard. Yet from that verse, I knew that God's grace would carry us through.

In retrospect, as we started receiving results from different doctors I realized how timely that verse was to me. Without it I really cannot imagine how I can face all the reports coming from the doctors. Every result is like they are giving me the death sentence, each time in a new way. The seriousness of my situation came in stages, as each doctor delivered worse news than the one before. But each time no matter how serious it sounded, I always felt like Nathan was standing right next to me and telling me that I was not going to die. The doctor’s results count for nothing. The protection and the presence of God is so true and real, that I felt the whole situation is completely under God’s control; because He foreknew this was going to happen, and He is telling me ahead. Those who trust in the Lord are truly like Psalm 112:7 promised: He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the Lord.

of thinning eyebrows and rising suns

Hi Friends - not much to report around here but since our silence apparently makes people a little worried for us, I thought I'd just give a brief update. 

James completed dose #7 of chemo last Wednesday. We are thankful that James's body holds up so well to chemo. Other than his bald head, people might not otherwise know that he is undergoing treatment...though this time around I noticed that even his eyebrows have thinned out considerably.  I hope they hold on until the bitter end. Ha! 

Dr. Gupta runs blood work on James each week he's in chemo, and his "numbers" continue to be very good, meaning that all things considered, he's not much at risk for infection, anemia, or bleeding out. Whew. And last week, Dr. Gupta reduced the steroid that James has been on, which meant James was able to get a bit more sleep this week. Wonderful blessings. Additionally, James continues to notice a decrease in pain, which surely is a sign that the chemo is "working." We always hasten to add, though, that this chemo is not exactly seen as a cure - it may work on the remaining tumors, to reduce their size or even eliminate them, but apart from God's miraculous healing, James's chances of survival are quite slim. (Cheery, I know...sorry! Welcome to our world...)

However - As James is handling things so well, and as the sun continues to rise each day, we find ourselves settling in to this "new normal." We've adopted the attitude of "You might be dying, but you're not dying today." We have today. (Isn't that all any of us have, really?) We continue to be strengthened and encouraged by your prayers, and face each day with tremendous hope and confidence. We believe that God is at work, and we are trusting that James will be healed. We continue - as I know you do - to plead before God for life, for completely restored health. Naturally, we are longing for the day when this season is behind us - at the same time, we know that God is working good things as we learn to wait on Him and persevere.


[As an aside, we know many of you have been praying specifically for James's family - some events are unfolding in our absence that indicate the Spirit moving in their hearts. Please keep praying for them, that His work would not be hindered, and that Light would shine in the darkness.]

A date to keep in mind - on October 9th James will have a PET scan. Who knows what will be revealed! We will likely get the results October 14th. Of course we'll let you know...

Thankful for you all...
james & kristen

My Heart Exhults

We head back in to chemo tomorrow - up for another three doses, round 3 of 4. In the meantime, we've been busy with plowing ahead on ministry projects (Amazing to see it all come together, and...yowza); meeting our new small group leaders (Are we really getting to do this?! Yeah!); and working with my dad as he scored us a free playground and swing set for the girls (Wow, God is good! And, go Grandpa!). Here "we" are this last weekend on the swings...yes, that's a chicken coop as the backdrop, because - free chickens.

Blessed be the Lord!

For He has heard the voice of my pleas for mercy.

The Lord is my strength and my shield;

In Him my heart trusts, and I am helped;

My heart exults,

And with my song I give thanks to Him. 

                                    ~Psalm 28:6-7

Half Way!

Note - I wrote the following post late last night, and then, since it was midnight & nothing good happens after 11pm, I held off until I could see it again. (Also, despite comments below about James getting sleep...in the end he only slept for 1.5 hours last night. Ouch.)
________________________

Hi friends...today marks the official "half way mark" for James's chemo. Six down, six to go. Whew.

James is doing really well. Last week the drug-induced sleeplessness was really getting to him (because it gave him headaches), but these last two days he was blessed with good sleep - and even now, as I write here in bed, he is dozing off next to me. (I should also add that whenever I have told anyone about James's lack of sleep - so they can pray about it - he is quick to add that he quite enjoys getting up at 4a.m. Apparently his prayer life has never been better, so he is not complaining about his wonky sleep schedule.) (Which just goes to show you how much better James is than me - give me so much as two days with no sleep, and I'm ready to punch somebody's lights out.)

Other praises - James's blood numbers are really good. (Seriously! They look like someone who is not going through chemo.) He is also not in much pain, all things considered. He is currently not taking any pain meds and is managing just fine. 

There was no mention today of a "let's check on your cancer scan," so we assume it will be later this month, presumably after dose 9. However, I suppose it is possible - given James's minimal pain - that they hold off doing one altogether until he finishes. Who knows! 

James just in general seems really good. Chemo working? God at work? Let's hope so...

We continue to be upheld by your prayers - we both have been given tremendous peace in the midst of this. I continue to be amazed that I have not lost so much as one hour of sleep since James's cancer recurrence. It would be quite understandable if I was lying awake at night, panic stricken about what might happen. That simply hasn't happened, and that, my friends, is a testimony of the power of God, working through your prayers.

People have asked us what they can specifically pray for...here's a short list...

*pray for miraculous healing. We are asking that it be the kind of healing where even the doctors struggle to explain it apart from God. 

*pray for God to miraculously strengthen, heal, and protect James's bones. Sometimes, it feels like there's a fracture. Pain is deceptive and never gives a complete story, but we already "know" that his bones are "permanently" damaged from the tumor. Pray that God rewrites the diagnosis. Pray that James will once again run and jump and out-pace the high school boys. (Hey! Go big or go home!)

*pray for healing for James's lungs. He still coughs, though he's better than he was, and he's best when on steroids. When I pray for this, I am always reminded of the verse in Psalms that says God's Spirit renews the face of the earth. Pray for "renewal" of his lung tissue. 

*pray for strength to persevere. I imagine you all get tired of praying....we get tired of the diagnosis. But I thought today about how good it's going to feel - just plain good - when we get past the finish line on this, together. Those who stick it out are going to have a lot to celebrate! And it will be all the sweeter for all the times we (all) wanted to give up, but didn't. Seeing God's answers will be so glorious for those who continued to petition, wait, and believe in faith. 

*were about to launch into some things - in faith - through our church. I've taken on a biggish (short-term) project in the kids ministry, and James signed up for a counseling class. We're also looking into joining a small group. We would love the opportunity to do that! None of these are huge commitments...but life has seemed tentative, our future completely uncertain, and, well...cancer is just plain hard to plan around! We have come to see that God is very much in the details...might the details of our life work in a way to allow for us to serve, learn, grow, and connect! 

*last, but not least, pray for grace for the hard days. It's not always rainbows and lollipops around here (though your chance of getting a lollipop over here is surprisingly high...).  Increasingly, we find ourselves thankful for all that God is doing, and all that He has done through this season...we need His grace to cover us on the days when there's pain, or tears, or frustrations, weakness, or deep sorrow. 

Wow. It's late. 

And this is long.

Goodnight, dear friends!

--kristen