Remind me to enjoy this week. The weather is turning from summer to fall with mornings that are great. We still need rain awful bad but maybe someday. It's homecoming week in our school. This means there are lots of activities prior to the big game on Friday. Today was another day to try out the jogging thing. It feels like my muscles are starting from zero on that. I promise to take it slow but my hope is it comes back at some point. This is also my last week prior to the last round of chemo. Let me confess that just the thought of another time of the drugs almost makes me feel ill. Going through all of that trauma seems to lose its purpose once you are declared healthy. I will persevere through it with the hope for a remission that lasts many years.

I will avoid whining but the major issue for me in therapy will always be the steroids. You do not need worry about me using steroids as a tool to develop muscle. The roller coaster of that is just not worth the expense. Thursday or Friday of next week will be in the midst of the full onslaught of the medication. Nothing will taste good at that point. My mouth will have all of the response of a tin can to food. Following that is the physical crash when the prescription runs out. That usually takes another few days to balance out. I tell people that I can understand how Dr. Jekyll felt in the story. He would drink an elixir which brought out the bad side of his personality. That is a good analogy to steroids. It turns me into Mr. Hyde.

There is nothing pleasant about having your outlook on life turned upside down. Being controlled by outside forces is never healthy. This is true for us in every area of our life. Far too often we can allow other stuff to make us into people God never intended us to be. I see this all the time even in those who are believers. Emotionally we can be manipulated by unresolved hurts in our past. Our parents, friends and even other believers often become a source for those wounds. We carry them around with us until they are healed by divine measures. You may not even be aware of the damage in your life. Just know that if it exists that your personality will be shaped by it. We can be spiritually damaged by false ideas or even the effects of the previous hurts. I wonder how many people who had awful or absent fathers carry that experience over to the spiritual side of life? Could it be that guilt from past failures disconnects the goodness of grace? The examples could on on but maybe you get the point.

Paul writes many times in his letters about believers who struggle with that dark side of life. I think he does this from personal experience along with divine inspiration. He knew what catastrophe might occur should he not stay close to God. In the book of Romans he will spell out a theology of getting past that selfish tendency of humanity. His words to the congregation in Corinth are set in the laboratory of real life ugliness. There are times when Paul's words are tender to those acquainted with failure. Scripture also records those occasions when he takes a firm stance against behavior that falls short of a divine standard. His best advice to us will be to stay close to the origin of faith. His sole desire is to be faithful to the God who was faithful to him. Paul never loses sight of the cross with all of its mysterious wonder.

You can trust God with your hurts regardless of the source. Remember that there is a divine purpose for your life. When you give God your baggage then you will be ready for His blessing. My hope is that you experience that in all of its glory.

Bro. Trey