Chemo teaching clinic

First, I must tell you how very much we appreciate each of you praying for us. I can often feel your prayers for me. It is as if I am being lifted up and sustained by them. What an amazing gift you are. Just last night I reminded one of my daughters that many, many people were praying for her too. Our God is a loving and gracious God and one of the ways He is manifesting His grace to us is through your prayers and the many encourageing words you have left on this blog. Thank you.

I guess I would describe the chemo clinic as having several blessings and encouragements interspersed throughout a difficult hour and a half. The greatest blessing was finding out that the nurse who oversees the chemo and will be caring for me, helping to tweek my treatment to make it as comfortable as possible and is really compassionate and wonderfully committed to the care of her patients, is a Christian. She goes to St. Mathews Church, please be praying for her too, her name is Kathleen. She is truly a gift from the Lord to us and I am sure to many.

She went through all of the drugs I will be taking during chemo and all of their side effects (though, of course, we are still praying that healing will come and I will not have to go through this). Another blessing is how far they have come with finding various drugs to conteract the negative side effects of the chemotherapy. As the various side effects were discussed, the counter measures were also discussed which helped. Overall though, I have to say that it was pretty overwhelming. Ron sat beside me, both of us taking notes, and prayed for me the whole time. I felt like crying several times. Yesterday was a hard day emotionally, I had a good cry in the afternoon, which helped. My Auntie Allene called last night too and reminded me of God's grace and that there will be a day when this will all be just a memory, that helped too.

I am reminded of the story that Corrie ten Boom tells of taking a train ride with her father, her Daddy always gave her the ticket just as she needed to get on the train and not before. I know that today I do not have the grace to go through chemo, but I know that if I have to walk that road, Jesus will be with me and there will be grace for me to take that journey. My heavenly Father knows just what I need and provides it just when I need it.