Nelson wonders if he’ll be alive long enough to get gray hair, so he asks God for more time. And as always, the purchase of the house is a healthy distraction for an unhealthy young man.

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September 10, 2022

“Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he; I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.” (Isaiah 46:4)

I’ll take it, because lately it didn’t seem like I’d make it into the grey hair period of life at all. This morning, I feel so bad with this neck pain they can’t figure out and general pain in my hips and joints for no good reason. It doesn’t seem like I’m getting better at all. But I’ll take a promise like that.

God will sustain me, he will carry me, then sustain again and rescue me. “For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5)

Thank you Lord for those encouraging verses. Your word is true and strong. You are faithful. Here in these dark, morning times, you feel present. You feel closer than when I feel different in the afternoon. I lean on you to get me through this time.

I have no idea how long this will last. I have no idea if the suffering will end when I die or before that. Sometimes it’s hard not to know how long. I saw a little line written on the wall at the hospital yesterday that said. “Fighting since Sept.2007,” and I thought, wow. You really can fight it out with this stuff.

It’s a death sentence when you get the diagnosis, and then every day is a gift, even though you feel like crap lots of the time. I pray for the strength to fight, Lord. When we are weak, then you show your power and strength.

We are buying a house right now in the midst of this. Thank you for that, Lord. We are still doing things. Thank you that I was able to get a fish tank and set it up and make it beautiful and have Cichlids in it right now that I can look at.

Thank you for little Will, who we are raising right now. Thank you for my power-house wife who takes care of all of us through this ordeal. You give me so much, and I am thankful for each person. Thank you for Ralph and Astrid.

Thank you that Tom agreed to move out of the downstairs apartment. Nov. 1, as I asked. I pray you would bless him in some way for being a nice guy, and that anything that’s been taken from him for being nice would be returned to him without his own effort.

I pray you would introduce yourself to him personally in some way. He seems like such a nice guy when I talked to him yesterday. Thank you for the success I met with yesterday in those areas.

I pray we can find the 1099s on this computer somehow, maybe Annso can find them. I pray we get the loan. Thank you for the call yesterday from Sofie, the broker to help us with it.

Thank you for the introduction from Bates [Klaus] to Mike. Thank you that we have an insurance guy here, and I can get various kinds of insurance here in Minnesota, thanks to [cousin] Luke.

I pray today can be a pain free day and that I can make steps to recover today instead of steps backward. Thank you for the amount of work Annso puts into my recovery. She is a saint and personifies the Proverbs 31 wife and much of the rest of scripture through this time.

Annso proves the vows she took on August 26, 2017, when we married and they said, “through sickness and health, till death do us part” for sure. Thank you for leading me to her and not to anyone else. She is a saint, and we were meant to be together.

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“This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24)

Nelson acknowledges God as the worker of wonders and miracles, asking for one for himself.

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September 9, 2022

I am so grateful to you, Lord, for bringing me to this place. You have almost done a massive miracle and given us this triplex house, and without any conventional income, you have performed a miracle there. I’m so grateful.

I sit here with all this pain, and I fear what it could mean, and will I end up at the ER again? Will it kill me in a year or two, even though I’m giving it all I’ve got? But you have me in your hand, Lord, even if you kill me, so I’m trying not to be afraid.

It’s up to you if Annso and Will are left without a husband and father. I sure am doing everything I can. I pray you give me more life and at least enough to raise him up and send him off into the world. That would be amazing, to get another 20 years.

You did it for Hezekiah. You can do it for me too. Why not? You have done one miracle after another in my life and saved me plenty of times. Why not one more? I’m only 49. I’m not ready to be done. Amen.

It’s crazy how you can have something hit you like you never imagined and only feared in a distant kind of way, that changes your life (or maybe even ends it) forever. Getting Cancer like I did, totally out of the blue, is a pretty heavy test.

It’s a test not to envy others who are healthy and feel good all day long, who don’t feel tired all the time, who, even at 70 years of age, probably feel better than I do most of the time—who can lift and carry things, walk up stairs as fast as they can handle, and don’t have to worry about winding up going to the ER for any random reason.

You just have to boot those thoughts right when they come to you, and try to persuade yourself that you are worthy of this test and that at some point, it will be over.

5:30 pm

 Annso, Astrid, and the Baby Boy are shopping while I work on the house loan application. They want lots of info, 1099s, proof that I didn’t know the seller before this purchase came into existence, and form after form I sign. It’s a lot of work, but Josh told me it was like a part time job, getting his house. I hope it will be worth it in the long run.

I talked to one of the tenants, Tom, and he agreed to be out November 1, which is a great thing for us, meaning we can leave at the end of this lease here at Heritage Manor [apt. complex].

It seems like God is helping us a lot, and it looks like we might actually get the loan, which would mean we will actually buy this house. And that is another miracle for sure. Thank you Lord, in advance for that. I never thought it would be possible for us to buy a house, much less in the condition I am in right now.

It seems like every Friday I am working on something like this loan and then the bankers and lawyers all shut down. It’s funny. Maybe just coincidence. We keep marching forward, signing things and proving other things until this thing is over.

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“You are the God who works wonders. You have made known your might.” (Psalm 77:14)

Though Nelson is coping with increasing pain, he’s still hopeful that God “will end this sickness” at some point.

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September 9, 2022

“I will exalt you, Lord, for you lifted me out of the depths and did not let my enemies gloat over me. Lord my God, I called to you for help, and you healed me. You, Lord, brought me up from the realm of the dead; you spared me from going down to the pit. Sing the praises of the Lord, you his faithful people; praise his holy name. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” (Psalm 30:1-5)

Sitting at our little kitchen apartment table in Rochester this morning at 5:22 am. It’s one of my favorite times of the day, other than that little morning period with Annso. But on the other hand, my body hurts so bad it’s crazy.

I have such pain in my neck, chest, and a few other places if I move around. Headache. Just pain everywhere. They can’t quite figure it out. I don’t have any pain meds that work on it.

I thought Morphine was the Big Mac Daddy pain med that took care of everything, but I was wrong. I take a couple 30 mg pills a day and there’s really no effect on this, whatever this is. Advil works better, honestly. I thought about maybe going back to the Oxy family, because at the beginning of this whole thing, I was able to manage the pain much better with those.

Anyway, I found this verse today, and I love it. I have to believe that God is a part of this. I don’t know why he would do this to me or allow it to happen, if I’m supposed to learn a lesson or something, but I’m trying to just pray that he will have mercy and end it at some point.

Meeting with the doctors and trying to figure everything out works to some extent, but mostly not. God does it in the end. Lord, you have brought me out of the pit before, and you can do it again. You did it with drinking. I just celebrated 16 years sober, which is a miracle and a direct answer to prayer. I am so grateful to you, Lord.

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“Your faith is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold—though your faith is far more precious than mere gold.” (1 Peter 1:7)