The Cancer Chronicles, #3

*The Cancer Chronicles is a re-posting of blog updates I gave during my initial diagnosis and treatment*

June 6, 2011:

Today is a good day.  Not all have been since the last note, but since I'm feeling well currently and more than capable of writing, I thought I should send out another update.

The complications of the chemo caught up to me over the weekend as I spiked a high fever and required broad-spectrum antibiotics.  I also had a bleeding episode yesterday from the low platelets that has since resolved.  My counts reached their nadir a couple days ago and are already starting to bounce back up, which is good in the sense that I will start feeling better, but  leaves me slightly less confident in a full remission from this first round of chemo than I would be if they had gone even lower.  Ultimately, we will know more Wednesday when we repeat the bone marrow biopsy.  Dr. Doll says it is possible that I may revert to a chronic-phase CML, but that a bone marrow transplant will still be in the cards.  Regardless, the hair officially began falling today (at least from places other than my head, which of course got a head start of many years) 

I learned yesterday that my classmate, Brent Bushman, has had a relapse of his lymphoma and will also require transplant.  Pray for him and his young family.

I have been really blessed and a little surprised by the encouragement people have found in these notes, so I have decided (because I enjoy pondering the things of God anyway and have nothing but time on my hands) to read and reflect on  what suffering is and how we ought best meet it in our own lives while I'm here.  I am reading C.S. Lewis' "The Problem of Pain" currently and will try to relay to you whatever God reveals to me in that.

You should know that I do not consider my current situation to be especially unbearable or tragic or in any way different from any other form of suffering someone might endure.  What I am going through is something everyone goes through in one form of another; and I would much rather find myself the receiver of a particular medical diagnosis (even terminal ones to some degree, as there is nothing as certain in this life as death) than deal with the hopelessness that accompanies some of the less "scientifically-explainable" trials I have seen people face (divorce, miscarriages, addiction, financial strain, mental illness, loss, etc). 

People say that is is easy to believe God loves you when you get a promotion at work or when your relationships are going well or when your family is healthy or whatever... and that is is hard to believe God loves you when bad things happen.  I'm not convinced that this is true; or if it is true, it's certainly not that simple. 

I agree that it may be easier to say God loves you when things are going well, but only when things go badly are we forced to believe in God's love.  The fact that we use "going well" at all as a context for seeing God's love doesn't make much sense to me, as it is itself a concept mostly constructed by the world and is probably not of any real value.  On the other hand, trials and suffering are wonderful opportunities to see God more clearly and to lose sight of the things in life that really don't matter.  After all, I am not sure God, in loving me more than any person can, would have as His goal for me to be rich or happy or even healthy (although these may be things God would want for me, they wouldn't be what He would want most).  God's love is far more concerned with my eternity than my present human condition.  God's love wants the best for me; it wants me to know Him for my own good.

It seems to me that it would be awfully hard to appreciate God's love until you arrive at the point where you desperately need it.  In my life, God's love gives me peace and comfort.  It's not a lifeline.  It's not a crutch.  There's never a guarantee everything will be alright.  God's love is bigger than that; and it certainly need not conform to ideas we have about how the world should be.  It is the awareness I have that God sees me here; that He is aware of my situation and He is using it for good.  I am satisfied to partner with Him through this, knowing it will make me better in any way that matters and that it will bring Him glory if I allow it.