2/23/2013 – Stepping Out of the Boat

A week or so after my last post was pretty uneventful, which gave us a little chance to breath and relax.  But it wasn’t long before the flu started hitting everywhere around us, we had some friends and family visit us from Ohio and Indiana, my grandpa passed away, and we felt God leading us in a direction that it would take a lot of faith to walk in…  Thankfully we somehow avoided the flu, and we had a great, encouraging and refreshing time with our house guests.  And although my grandpa’s passing was not unexpected, it’s hard to see someone so wonderful go.  He will be missed by so many… because of his kind and generous spirit, there were always people just looking for ways to help him out with something.  He was just one of those people you enjoyed being around because he loved life and didn’t need much to be happy.  My brother and I were both able to fly home for the funeral, and although the circumstances weren’t the best, it was nice to see all the family.  My grandparents left quite a legacy, and you can see the traits that made them wonderful people passed on through the generations.  They will always have a special place in our hearts.

 

One of my main prayers in the weeks after we got the amazing results back from my first cycle of treatment had to do with the story of Jesus walking on the water.  In the book of Matthew, chapter 14, Matthew writes of when the disciples got in a boat and set out across the lake.  They made it out quite a ways, the water was rough, it was dark, and they noticed Jesus walking towards them on the water.  They were terrified, they thought He was a ghost, which makes perfect sense to me.  I mean, I have heard the story before, but this was where the old "walking on water" cliché came from, who would have imagined it before it really happened… So Jesus tells them not to be afraid, that it’s Him on the water… and so Peter yells out from the boat to Him, saying that if it really is Him (Jesus), tell him (Peter) to come out to Him on the water.  So Jesus does, and Peter actually gets out of the boat and walks on the water.  And this is where I get a picture of "stepping out in faith."  Turns out that Peter walks a little, but then looks around and gets scared by the storm. He starts to sink at that point and yells out to Jesus, "Lord, save me!"  Immediately, Jesus catches him and says "You of little faith, why did you doubt?"  They get into the boat, the wind dies down, and the disciples in the boat say to Him, "Truly you are the son of God."

 

Every time I remember reading  that story, I have wanted to have a faith like Peter’s… a faith that believes even the impossible is possible with God… to believe that when Jesus says "come," there is nothing to fear, even if the only way to Him is over the stormy sea.  I find comfort that even though Peter’s faith waivered, and he started to sink, that Jesus was right there to catch Him.  I also am encouraged because it was just the "little faith" that Peter had that allowed him to step out of the boat and walk on the water!  The story reminds me to keep the eyes of my heart fixed on Jesus, the One who has the authority over all things…  who calms the storm, who heals the sick, who makes the blind see, who brought forgiveness for our sins, who raises the dead and who died and was raised again by His own authority, because He has authority even over death itself… and like Peter, if I get distracted by the storm and take my focus off of the One who sustains me (as I do time and time again), I too become fearful and my faith is challenged… but Jesus is always there to catch me, and gently lift me back up, and remind me of His faithfulness, and encourage me with His peace and strength.  Sometimes it’s not too hard to step out in faith, the sacrifice is relatively small and the risk of embarrassment or inconvenience isn’t too bad… but with some things, it feels like there is just about every reason not to, and it probably doesn’t make sense, but we see Jesus out there on the water and want so badly to be out there with Him rather than in the boat.  Which leads me to my prayer…

 

We felt like, with myeloma and the treatments they laid out for us, that there were many places where we could step out in faith, but this cancer is no joke… we sure weren’t going to just blindly step out with no guidance, and we did feel that God was doing something amazing already… we just didn’t know exactly what He was doing (and we still don’t know exactly what He is doing, but I’ll get to that later).  So we prayed for guidance and wisdom and faith and strength and everything else… and eventually, I got up the courage to pray "Lord Jesus, when it’s time to step out of the boat, tell me to come to You…  I’m listening…"  It was hard to pray that.  If you can imagine, which I’m sure you’ve felt the same in your own situations, it’s like when you really want something, something that’s good but that you know is going to be hard once you get it, so you kind of don’t want to get it because then you can go about your business the way it’s always been, and since you tried and didn’t get it, you feel good about trying, but glad you didn’t actually get it… but then disappointed too, because really, in all actuality, you do want it… so you wait, after you’ve done everything you could, with your stomach in knots, to find out if you’re going to get it or not.  That’s kind of what it felt like to say that prayer, and to mean it, and to listen for an answer.  And that’s when things started to become more and more clear… not just to me, but to Jas as well as she continued to pray alongside me, seeking His guidance.  As the beginning of a third 4-week cycle of chemo was about a week away, I had begun experiencing some different side effects from the chemo, and the ways we felt God speaking to us made that week pretty intense.  There were times when I was just mentally and emotionally exhausted, because thinking over the events we believed God was moving in already, and the ways I believed He was leading us, we both agreed that the time to step out in faith was now… We began believing what some of our friends already believed, that during that first month of chemo treatment, when my numbers went from bad to normal, surprising our doctors and throwing anything typical out the window… that’s when we believe God may have rid my body completely of cancer.  So what do we do now, right?  The "problem" with believing this is that the only way to know for sure if the cancer is gone, is if it never comes back… or to look at it the other way, the only way to know if it’s still there, is if it come back.  So we decided (and I say "we" because I couldn’t walk this road without the wonderful support Jas is for me) that we would stop treatments and see if it comes back.  We talked about staying the treatment path since we can’t really know for sure, which would probably be the safest road to take, but that just didn’t make sense when it comes down to what I really believe.  I have given up a life lived for myself, in exchange for a life of serving God… the God of the Bible, who’s one and only son Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, and who’s Holy Spirit lives in me.  I believe that God created the heavens and the earth and everything in them, and that He is ever present with power and authority over all things.  I believe in miracles and I believe God can and does miraculously heal people… although who, when and why are things I only wish I could understand.  So when I have two paths before me, one where God, who has raised the dead to life again, leads me to step out in faith and trust Him with my life, and one where the doctors believe they can help me live longer, but remind me over and over that they have no cure for what I’ve got… this time, we have the faith to walk the path God is leading us down, for His sake and for His glory.  If my life is going to be used to display God’s glory and presence to this world, then I don’t want my own fears to get in the way of that… I want to be part of something amazing!  And I feel like I already am.

 

The anxiety built as we made our decision and had to discuss it with the doctors at my upcoming appointments.  I was encouraged when I most needed it early the week of my first appointment, through my three year old, of all people.  God seems to speak through our kids in encouraging ways during intense times in our lives, and this is just one example.  Before we got up one morning that week, Wyatt was up and hopped into bed with us.  When it was time to get up and get some breakfast, he sat on the edge of the bed for a moment looking down at the floor.  He hopped off and stood a little strangely, motioning his hands towards the floor and said to me, "Come on daddy, this is the water, we’ve got to walk on the water…"  I smiled and said ok…  I hadn’t mentioned my obsession with that story to anyone that week, it had just been in my private prayers.  He hadn’t ever said anything like that to me before or since.  Just a little encouragement from God to give us the courage we needed to walk boldly on a path that doesn’t really make sense without God.  And so Jas and I went to see my doctor for my pre-third cycle consult.  We shared our thoughts and our reasons, and knew she understood us when she said, "Well, you’re pretty much banking on a miracle."  She shared her professional opinions with us, and candidly let us know that she thought it was a terrible idea, but was very respectful about us making the decisions that we thought were best for us, and very reassuring that she wasn’t upset about our decisions, just anxious for us.  We agreed to hold off treatment that day, delaying my third cycle by a week until we talked with the myeloma specialist at our next appointment a few days later… just in case he said something that would change our mind.  The intensity of the peace I felt about our decision at times, and the intensity of the anxiety I felt other times, grew over the next few days before we drove to U-Penn Philly for our consult with the myeloma specialist we were going to schedule the bone marrow transplant with.  We sat in the sterile little room waiting for him, and it was pretty crazy when he came in and one of the first things he said to us was that he didn’t believe my numbers, referring to my "complete remission" (or complete healing as we believe) in less than a month of treatment.  I reminded him that I have had three tests over the last three weeks, and he said he understood, but still didn’t believe the numbers were true, so he was going to test me again here at his facility.  Talking with him was a bit more scary because he went over, in great detail, how the chemo and bone marrow transplant work against myeloma, and how even though the drugs and treatments they have now are great for controlling the disease in many patients for many years, there are some myeloma cells that are immune to any kind of chemo… so it never goes away… ever.  Which seems to be the kind of thing that’s right up God’s alley.  There may be no cure for myeloma with drugs or treatment, but nothing is impossible with God, and I believe, my friends, that I am part of something miraculous.  My specialist obviously did not recommend stopping treatments, and told us that as much as he respects God, he has never seen a miracle when it comes to myeloma.  Both doctors gave me about a year max before they thought it would be back, showing up again in my protein light chain numbers.  I’ll be tested every month to monitor.

 

The one thing we are going to continue with, which both doctors suggested, is to collect my stem cells and bank them now; part of the original plan.  The procedure seems pretty simple.  They’ll hook me up to a machine that takes my blood, pulls out the stem cells, and then pumps everything else back into me.  I should be on the machine for two to four hours a day, for two or three days.  This will be done within the next couple weeks, and after that, I’ll be down to one blood test a month…

 

I do have to say, it’s hard to believe in a miracle I can’t see…  and I have to admit that as much as I am stopping treatment because I believe that God already did a miracle in me, I am stopping to see if it really is true…  I could probably write a thousand more pages with all the thoughts bouncing around in my head, but I will just say one more thing for now… I will never regret following where I believe God is leading me, no matter how foolish I may look, or how much the odds may be stacked against me.

 

So if you want to see a miracle… keep praying and stay tuned…