Another set-back. The ‘bad stuff’ in my blood is proving stubborn. The current treatment regime has been judged to have done all it can so I am going back to the original regime beginning on Tuesday. The ‘bad stuff’ has to be brought down as low as possible in order to ensure the best possible result from a future bone marrow transplant.
It’s disappointing. I had hoped I would be through the transplant before Christmas and possibly returning to ministry in the New Year. That’s not now going to happen. Moreover the VTD regime (Velcade, Thalidomide and Dexamethasone) is more demanding and going by past experience there may be some low days ahead. But as a friend has commented, this will take as long as it takes and while there have been difficult days since March I am going forward with confidence in the medical staff, friends and family who care for me and pray for me and in God’s loving and good purpose which I believe unfolds through every experience. And I mean every experience.
Just this morning I came across a verse in Psalm 112. It means a lot to me because not long ago I texted it to a friend who was going through the cancer experience and had been told that things were not progressing as hoped. The Psalmist is painting a picture of the ‘righteous man’ and one of his qualities is given in verse 7:
‘He will have no fear of bad news;
his heart is steadfast, trusting in the Lord.’
Very often that kind of description that we often find in Scripture can make us wilt. We feel a long way from realising those standards in our lives. But I believe they are there to give us an aspirational goal. We may never make it completely this side of eternity but we see the qualities that God is seeking to make flourish in our lives and we are in no doubt what we are called to aim for. Always remembering that our failures are seen through the eyes of a loving Heavenly Father.
That comes through in the verse above. A ‘steadfast’ heart could bring to mind hardness, stubbornness, intractableness. But then we are told what a ‘steadfast heart’ is in the life of faith. If we carry this at the centre of our lives we are ‘trusting in the Lord.‘
I can’t be sure what lies ahead in the next couple of months but I am in no doubt as to my priority and supreme aspiration, to stay close to the God revealed in the life of Jesus and trust in His ways with me.
