YAY, More Chemo!

Sometimes all you can do is laugh.

Last night, Brandon started his 3rd month of daily chemotherapy.  What I am laughing about is our conversation about how ALL of this continues to unfold as some ridiculously painful meets ridiculously redeemed plan.

If you ask Brandon about his perspective on the "treatment"...this is what you will get...

It started as 5 days of treatment with 23 days of rest...for eighteen months...well, no lets make that twenty-four months they said.....yay! ... finished, completed May 2012.  What followed was 4 months of nothing except a beautiful summer!  Then, BAM, precautionary treatment for something that is truly undiagnosed....but instead of that silly 5 days on 23 days off regimen (that you handled so well)...lets do EVERYDAY at 140mg.  At the last MRI....everything looked good....stable....even some improvement in walking and balance....great...keep moving towards that 365 day goal....except....well, now lets do 155mg instead of 140mg....Yay, More Chemo!

And so we laugh.  We laugh, because Brandon confessed that found himself becoming "comfortable" at 140mg....thinking and speaking...."I" can do this...."I" can handle this....."I" can overcome this 365 days....

How many times will He show us..."It's not about the tumor.  It never has been."

As we chatted last night, we knew there is still SO MUCH OF "US" in "US".  So much PRIDE....in our thinking, knowing, and walking within the comfort of what "WE" can do and accomplish. 

I am not saying this is a lesson that everyone has to be taught, but for us .....it is so clear....we DESIRE comfort in what WE can accomplish and acheive and overcome. We want to "DO" even within a deep understanding of His GRACE....we still want to "DO".
 Our dependency on Him, our increased faith in Him, our heightened awareness of His sovereignty are being produced within us....but this LAUGHTER opened us up AGAIN (haven't we learned this yet???) to see that He does not desire to move us from a place of comfort to a place of discomfort to another place of comfort....His desire is that we CONTINUOUSLY run into the only sustainable comfort....Himself....

EVERYTIME.

This isn't a blog to bring about any feelings within any reader...this is for us...Brandon and I....to remind us as we look back....that nothing short of complete and daily dependence upon Him will sustain and satisfy and bring the peace and contentment that Paul speaks to...."'Therefore, I am WELL CONTENT with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong."

May our desire be ...to be well content ....confident that He is longing to work through the lowest, darkest, weakest places within us....