Chemo on Tuesday went well, it's falling into a sort of routine if you can believe it. The staff at the office/clinic are so wonderful and kind it makes the time and discomfort much less. During the infusion of the various chemicals there's a lot of time to reflect, read and sleep, not necessarily in that order. Yesterdays reflections brought me to scary and serene places.
In the evening I went from nausea to hunger to nausea and back to hungry. At about midnight I got the last of my other meds down (for asthma) took a breathing treatment and a final anti-nausea pill that was supposed to work 8 hours at 3:30 I was up wishing I had taken more anti-nausea medication or that it worked better.
As I am sure everyone knows, the middle of the night, when you are wide awake and your brain starts running it never seems to run to that beautiful beach in Hawaii or the dolphins in Saint Croix, NO it runs off to very dark places and drops anchor and sets up shop churning out every fault and shortcoming we have. Why is that?
I have so much, SO MUCH to be grateful for and yet I allow the storm to drive me. Allow myself to play the dirge in my head while rerunning every bad word, hurtful act, poor decision and insult (seemingly endless) that I or others have (that's right I worry about other peoples pain as well as if there's not enough in my own inventor).
I can certainly relate to Peter, climbing out of the boat fully intending to enjoy the experience, but then looking around at the enormity of the storm and the sea his mustard seed of faith was replaced by the anchor of doubt. In spite of the fact that he was on the water walking..... even that clear demonstration of the power we are given was not enough for our human brain to grasp. The moment we take our focus off of the source of that power and focus instead on the storm as Peter did, we sink, and yet Jesus was (and is) still right there, and still above the storm, and still was willing to lift Peter (or any of us) to safety. Matthew 14:30
Lord please help me to stay focused on you through this storm. Amen
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It's a common human thing to replace the void of seeming uncertainty with all of our fears of what we are or are not, have or have not. You have your faith and your family, and an amazing amount of resilience
ReplyDeleteI would say you could listen to CoasttoCoastAM on the radio in the middle of the night, which I do when my brain spins, except that occasionally the lack of 'scientific rigor' annoys me, and then I'm muttering at the radio...
You have a lot on your proverbial plate, Chris, and hopefully there are a lot of Christmas cookies. :) XoXo - Allegra
Ooh, ooh, I can SO relate!
ReplyDeleteWhen these type of thoughts come back to haunt me, I literally react with an audible groan! (Sometimes, I'm not alone when I do this and get funny looks, e.g., from my wife Maria)
This is usually followed by a heart-sick prayer asking God for His Forgiveness ONCE AGAIN, and that He minimize the hurt I caused, or give me a chance to make things right.
When I was a younger man, I used to mistake reactive, viceral, strident 'Soap Box' verbage as Making a Bold Stand for the Truth.
Now I realize that 99% of the time it was nothing more than Fleshly Arrogance driven by Intellectual Pride, and was contemptable in God's sight.
Sigh ...