Thanksgiving Eve 2014.  Here we are for yet another evening in the hospital in Dallas.  I never spent a holiday cooped up in such a place.  There were a few times when I made visits to people but never once did I have a reservation.  It really is a not so bad experience so far.  No doubt it helps that my disease is in remission and that the treatment is going well as it draws to a close.  There are others on my floor who are in far worse shape than myself so there is that to keep in mind.  I can really be thankful for my stay rather than let it bring me down.

I wrap up the treatment phase of the journey tomorrow.  The last chemo therapies will be behind me with the healthy time around the corner.  Saturday is the occasion for receiving the stem cells we collected last week.  They will be infused into my body in what is often called a second birthday around here.  Doctors will monitor me for a few days as they adjust life giving medicines within me.  It very well may be that within two weeks or less that my life takes on its new normal.  The goal of all of this is a cure for this type of cancer so it never returns again.  That sounds so unreal yet all of the science says it is also very much possible.  The power of medicine and faith coming into union as a whole is far beyond amazing.  One can only hope this will someday be not a rare thing but a given each day.  There really is no reason for the two approaches to not be in harmony.

I am thankful on this evening for each of these ongoing discoveries.  We have breakthroughs each and every day in the scientific field.  Medicine keeps moving forward though we really are in the early stages of so much that can be revealed.  My opinion is that our God desires us to make such steps as He shows us what the human body is capable of doing.  We are so incredibly created that it would leave us breathless to begin to understand all of our wonder.  What scientists often refer to as great studies just may often be God giving us a peek of what He knew all along.  It is easy for us to be so stubborn in our education we are blinded to that reality.  When we open our eyes it is to find out He waited for us to have the humility to see God in reality and truth.

It is also wise to carry along a maturing faith that is beyond panic and does not let speculation run rampant as we move along.  We tend to accept too often limits that God did not ever place on our faith.  People tell us miracles are impossible or way too common on the other extreme.  Our intercession lowers to the level of wishes without a reality to ground us in truth.  Not everyone gets the really big or miraculous stuff to come through their life.  But neither do any of us have to live devoid of the divine while facing any daily obstacle to come our way.  Never let your faith dwindle down to the level of the world around you.  You might have to claw and fight your way to keep your trust but it will always be worth it.  What you gain in drawing near to God never is an empty endeavor.  You may find it is not an escape from science or medicine but that it reminds you of God's greatness above what man knows or considers.  Each day brings new miracles by God's hand or as He guides into fresh truth about His world.  One or the other can change your life in ways beyond imagination.  My hope is you never need to learn this by difficult ways but that you learn it somehow by His grace.

Bro. Trey

Does praying really work in today's world?  It is a fitting question given all of the new skeptics that are out there.  You may not notice as much as I do how many writers or opinion makers are downplaying the role of faith, prayer and the miraculous in these times.  Books, articles, and interviews are in abundance in telling us who believe that we are stupid for pursuing this course.  Science is becoming the new religion of the masses.  The elite tell us that this world is all there is and ever will be.  Not even Isaac Newton took his theory to that extreme.  I saw a book the other night at the store that discusses how harmful religion can be to a materialistic and unspiritual world.  We are to look to science to have all of the answers now when they cannot answer the most basic questions of life.

What are we to do when faced with such hostility? That is only one aspect of the issue.  We need some resolution just for our own peace of mind.  The problems we face such as cancer lead to so many different troubles that we can be overtaken by them.  Can we pray when our emotions are so stirred we cannot feel nor see our say to God?  Doctors and the like can tend to be hopeless in their conversations with patients.  This one I know about all too well.  There are some great physicians out there who do understand faith but there are a few that see no further than their charts.  We can wind up letting the words of our healer to keep us from seeing beyond the moment.  Then we have moments when the physical interferes with our ability to focus on the Father.  It can be confusing and a reality that our pain blocks our trust in God.  Grief limits our heart in openness to Him.  It sure sounds like we often face more obstacles to praying than we have help.

I find that far too much of my own thinking is limited to the here and now without a dynamic concept of the bigness of God.  Maybe this happened years ago when my honest desire was to be able to answer the deep questions both by faith and also with a concrete explanation to others.  My heart was in the right place but my gut says it caused some drift spiritually.  There was still a belief in God, praying, and miracles but there was also a bit of a loss of that wondrous mystery of the divine.   Such an admission is not easy and may shock you a little but it is honest.  It is much like how so many of us get caught up in the daily stuff of life until we forget that greatness of God in our journey.  The faith just seems distant and somehow shrouded in the gloom of our reality.  It happens to many of us along the way.  The key is knowing it does not have to remain that way.

Praying does work.  I know because of my last three months of diagnosis, treatment, and now going into a stem cell transplant.  My disease came back with a vengeance in its attempt to kill me.  Here is when my guard was let down to pray with any and all who would allow it.  What was an aggressive cancer gave way to praying and to the medicine.  This did not happen by accident but by the prayers of people.  I let people put oil on me, some were quiet prayers and some were on the noisy side.  Mostly my approach was to silently agree with those words as well as pray for those who interceded for me.  My times of scripture reading became not just about the information but also about what was God saying.  My mind is still slowly changing to adjust to such an effort.  But my conclusion is miracles happen even if rare and often unexpected.

Remember that the very word miracle means we do not take it for granted.  We are never asked to trust solely for the miracle but by the words of God.  My discovery is there are small miracles of all sizes as we go through life.  God's timing often takes us by surprise as we pray.  We are called to believe that this world is not at all the end of life.  The scientist may be noble in effort but lacks in any capacity to help us with the real questions of life.  Life only means what we can see and feel in the material world in that view.  How depressing is that?  I read recently that faith is not leaping into the darkness but rather it is a leap into the light of who God is.  That statement grabbed me in a fresh way.  It is far different than how we normally view faith.  We live one day at a time in trust of the God who is already reaching out to us in His presence and power.  We pray even when we do not feel like it or when it all seems too big for God to handle.  We just keep praying for others who join us in the journey to keep our hearts fresh and open.  We find that this changes our heart for God and our heart for others.  That is a miracle in itself.

Bro. Trey

My first chemo drip is underway as we write.  The countdown is all of a sudden very real in the room.  Now we begin about a week of the various poisons to get me ready for the infusion of new cells in my body next Saturday.  None of this hurts.  My only complaint is how often they talk about side effects.  I would rather focus on the positive of what the medicine should be doing as it flows into me.  Most get a view that whatever bad things can happen will happen as we go along.  I never looked at treatments in that light.  My attention strives to remain on the possible good stuff that will happen.  Maybe that is naïve but it how I handle it the best. 

We might as well talk a little about the theological issues revolving around my transplant.  You can trust me that my choice would be to learn lessons or grow without all of this activity going on here.  Going through another round of cancer was not on my list of things to do this year.  It takes up too much time much less having to deal with the ugly side of going into therapy.  But the reality is here we are now with tubes running into my body with the medicine starting a final breakdown before becoming a positive.  Sometimes you cannot ignore reality.  You have to accept that what you are going through can be a time of growth no matter how difficult it may be.  There is also the truth that what you experience may not be as ugly as another person.  How we deal with what happens to us is dependent on what faith we do or do not have.

My initial response to the diagnosis was that this problem would be a time to glorify God somehow.  I do not know if that is always being done but it is still my desire.  That glory may not be immediate or it may be something to happen later after recovery.  There surely is a way for this trial to be used right now to bring attention to Him.  We have that tendency to get so distracted by what takes place that we neglect staying open to God for His help.  I am not saying any of this is ever going to be easy or simple.  Our troubles are very real to us  I do think there has to be a way for us to find a new approach to keep God first in our being.

I am still alive so my choice is how am I going to glorify God with my living.  Praying is not just a tool to use in my habits of spiritual growth.  More time is being spent praying alone or with others over the last three months that I can recall.  You add the discipline of remaining open to God through His word to praying to make the prayers and the living a dynamic facet of your faith.  There are times when I am reading or praying that the thought crosses my mind about why should I even do this.  We do all of this even when going into real difficulty so we grow into His presence and not let the trial be the final word.  We do it not because we are dying but because we are living.

Those times of prayer over the last few months mean more than most anything to me.  People that I know as well as total strangers joined me in asking God for His best in these times.  Maybe it is true that healing didn't happen as we often would ask God to do.  There would be no great miracle to free me from this travail.  Remission did happen and now this treatment offers a real chance at being free from this ugly disease.  Maybe there were other miracles though.  Relationships deepen.  Prayers take on a real heart for God.  Scripture is more than history.  God is more than way out there watching and waiting.  We just learn how to make our mental religion something that is personal and real.  I know this all sounds simplistic.  It maybe even sounds like a shallow answer to real trials.  But we have time to go deeper over the next few weeks.  I'm not going anywhere for awhile.

Bro. Trey

My room is barren as far as rooms go.  Right now it is very quiet around here.  Everyone left so it's just me and the quiet.  A hospital room is just that no matter how much they try to spruce it up.  A journey that began three months ago now awaits a final push.  We did not write much about a relapse of cancer since there was not a great deal of time free.  Most days were overrun with going to doctors or having tests and the like.  Now there will be plenty of time available to write on my new laptop.  We can start to share the whole story from day one until we are completed.  Maybe it is good to put it down here for my emotional health and maybe it will help me learn how to use this machine.

I never did feel right during the summer.  There was always some symptom of something even if I did not know what it was.  Eating became more of a chore than a normal part of life.  At least there was somewhat of a diet going on.  My energy came and went to the point I could not even enjoy exercise.  I could go a little bit but nothing like where I was before.  My son and I went to Minnesota for a few days in July. We had a blast but it was still tough on me to keep up.  Nothing got any better upon our arrival home from the great north.  I felt worse and worse until the day of August 17 arrived.  It was that Sunday which changed the whole world.

My body became so weak that I needed the assistance of a chair to complete the morning service.  I decided it was time for something to give.  We made our way to the emergency room of our hospital.  They checked me in for what would be five days of trying to figure out what was wrong with me.  It was on the fifth day my doctors informed me that my cancer of four years ago was back with a fury.  There were two masses down in my stomach area along with other signs of the disease.  Not only was it back but it was fighting me with a violence that threatened my very being.  Chemo had to start immediately if there was to be any hope of curbing the damage.  My total hospital stay would be eight days but the journey was just beginning.

There were three chemo treatments total for me.  They lasted three days each.  I was also invited to explore the possibility of a stem cell transplant.  Yet another doctor tested me on various occasions as they worked to see if it would help.  They accepted me so another countdown began.  Now we waited for a date to begin the process.  That day was ten days ago.  I went to Baylor hospital for tests and shots until today.  They spent three days working to extract my stem cells for a transplant.  Tonight is the time for me to begin three weeks in this hospital as they attempt to cure this disease.  Some of it may be easy but some of it could get rough.  I can only pray for the best.

My doctor said the current cancer is in remission.  That is a head start as we begin.  We start tomorrow tearing down my system so the healthy cells will take over.  I get a new birthday next Saturday when those blood cells enter my body.  Most of the statistics are in my favor but no one can say what a body will do when dealing with the treatment.  There are many things I hope to say over the next few weeks and from there about all of this.  I will surely have the time to write.  It is up to God and the medicine now.  I will do my part even if limited.  We should know soon enough how all of this turns out.

Bro. Trey