Cancer patients learn to ride the roller coaster but never lose hope that tomorrow will be a better day. In this journal entry Nelson is feeling good with very little pain, enjoying an “up” day.
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September 23, 2022
Went to our first small group here in Rochester last night. They do a full 2 hours: ice breaker, introductions, highs and lows for the week, the scripture reading and discussion, then split up guys and girls for a whole hour.
This morning, I’m soooo grateful for feeling good. Almost every morning, I sit here before dawn and journal. Most of the mornings I feel so bad, I’m popping Advil with my head down or a blanket on, trying to pull out of a hole. Neck pain or nausea or both. But today, there is almost no pain at all!
Yesterday, we found out that the chemo meds are working!!! The Cancer is shrinking. There was so much less of it on the scan, and I’m so thankful for that. Lord, thank you for that progress.
Yesterday we also found out we are almost all the way to being qualified to buying a house—on our own without help from anyone else. No co-signer. That was the prayer, Lord, only you and us. No arm of man or Egypt to get it through.
Thank you for encouraging us to keep trying. I’m so happy, and it shows what you can do for a couple of ywam-ers who don’t have any official incomes, really. But you are getting it done for us. We might even live for almost nothing as a result of this. How cool is that?!
Thank you for my health today, for the house, and for our little family who goes along here day after day making baby steps toward you with our arms open.
We have no idea what we’re doing. We have no real money. We don’t even have a realtor. But you have made this possible. Thank you for Luke and for Mom, for Astrid and Ralph, for Annso and how she has all this stamina and a great attitude to keep on trucking, even when I don’t feel good enough to do it on my own.
Thank you for our Honda Pilot and how you make even little dreams like that come true. For our Cichlid fish and how they are thriving, and the giant fish tank we have in this apartment and how these represent something non-work, non-cancer-related, that we were able to do on the side.
Thank you for the cool weather and the fall colors that are coming into view. Thank you for our little apartment that has served us so well this past 6 months.
Thank you for how well the lease has lined up with us leaving and moving into town, for how close our place is to the Mayo clinic, for the fact that it has 2 lots, that Annso has such a heart and vision for the house and wants to drive-by often and dream about what we’ll do with it.
(…to be continued)
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“I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving.” (Psalm 116:17)