Nelson proves to be realistic about his future, knowing he could live through his cancer but also die from it. And there’s only one place he chooses to go with this uncertainty.
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August 23, 2022
Health-wise I’m doing better, but there is still lots of neck pain for some reason. It’s hard to tell where these sicknesses come from, but they seem lined up one after another.
Fighting Cancer is also fighting many other smaller problems. It lasts for a long time and goes on and on. You have to pray for stamina, because starting out good is not good enough. You need to keep going until it’s over. You’re either cured and cancer-free or one day it kills you.
Something called Sepsis almost killed me a couple months ago. Got this infection in my lung and after draining the fluid build-up, this gnarly infection appeared and sent me to the ICU.
It took about 15 people working all at once to pull me back from the gates of death. I was right there and didn’t even know it until after. I wonder what that would be like, to be unconscious and to die without realizing it and then wake up in the afterlife and suddenly realize, “Oh, I must have died.”
This is what it’s like now. I wonder what all those people in the hospital are doing and saying to each other. What about my family? What are they doing and saying?
Thank you Lord, for saving me that day and for giving me the wisdom to come here to Minnesota instead of staying in Hawaii. Thank you for helping us to leave there and sell off all our stuff, without having to make a trip back.
There are so many chances to see you working in this season, because it’s so hard and we need so much help. When someone is “fat, happy, and comfortable,” it’s harder to believe in you, Lord. But during these seasons, we see you financially, health-wise, and in other ways, too.
In that way, I’m thankful for this season, but I wouldn’t wish it on my enemy or choose to go through it. I guess for whatever reason, you decided it was time for us to have this trouble come on us like a storm. And here we are dealing with it, weathering it out until it either kills me or we’re still standing after you decide it’s over. Your ways are higher than mine, like it says:
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8-9)
There’s a verse that says something like, “Say the word, and I’ll be healed.” but I can’t find it. Either way, the word of the Lord is the verdict. He says it, and it happens. If he doesn’t authorize it, then it won’t. That’s all the more reason to pray to you Lord and ask for deliverance, instead of going any other route. You, Lord, are the one who issues the order:
“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth. It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10-11)
There’s a description of your word, Lord. You say it, and it happens.
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“The word of the Lord is living…. and active.” (Hebrews 4:12)