My hope is to get to bed early tonight. The alarm clock will sound around 6:00 am tomorrow morning. I have an appointment to have my port surgically removed at the hospital. One last reminder of my journey through cancer should be gone by lunch. Mine was implanted back in June so chemo would flow directly into places where it was needed. A wrist band wraps around my right hand to let medical people know there is such a device within me. I guess it would be bad to zap me with electricity with a port buried inside. My youngest knows that dad will be having it removed tomorrow. He seems to be ok with that. I also think that he knows the port is something that most people do not have. Now he will get to stare at my scar from all of this.

Being in remission is still a strange adjustment to me. Part of me just wants to move on as if nothing happened. The other side of me knows that is impossible. I do notice that some people around me are already past this. Maybe this is a good thing. I really don't know since this was my first experience with life or death disease. Moving on is easy on some levels yet still very difficult in others. I wonder if we are really supposed to just slide into life as it was. One of my lessons is that nothing can ever be the same. We wrote on this before so being redundant is a danger here. My one hope is that this past summer will change me for the better. God knows I want improvement for whatever years are left.

Maybe it is a good thing to not just go along as if nothing happened. There were some things learned during this time for a reason. Perhaps even my personality can take a turn for the better. I would like to smile and laugh more. I would even like having a greater sensitivity to other people. One of the temptations in ministry is to become so numbed by crisis that you learn to go on autopilot. One thing that would be good for me is to be tougher when doing church stuff. My personality tends to lean toward the avoiding of hurt feelings in others. This is not all bad but it can be a problem. Tough is not nearly the same thing as being mean. We have enough mean people to go around in our world. The list could go on and on but you probably get the idea by now.

God does work in mysterious ways on occasion. At times my wish is for Him to not be quite so mysterious. But we can still grow in unlimited ways if we turn our heart to Him. His grace is never dependent on conditions. Scripture is just as profound in times good or bad. Praying in the dark hours will build a depth for when you reach the light. We will probably endure some scars along the way but we can also know what each one teaches us. Let's not forget either the scars or the lessons they bring.

Bro. Trey