Your Name is higher, Your Name is greater, all my hope is in You
Your word unfailing, Your promise unshaken, all my hope is in You2
Beyond all the fear, the unknown, we know that God is our anchor and we know that He has the ultimate plan. Thank you for being a part of this journey with us.
Day 26—Calm Before the Medical Storm
By Brenda Pue—January 26, 2014 10:39 p.m.
I was given the gift of a beautiful, calm day today. I treasured this day. I want to remember all the details of this day.
Wife-care duty started at 7:30 a.m. so that Carson could head into church for the first time since this all started two weeks ago. It was so good for him and for the church to see each other. Meanwhile, at home, my friend and I read the Psalms and talked and prayed. Then we went for a long walk together.
When Carson got home, I made us a nice lunch, and we talked about the day. And then we went out for dinner together. It was a sweet gift to us, because tomorrow begins another big medical week. I have my fourth radiation treatment first thing in the morning, followed by an appointment with my radiation oncologist and finally a biopsy of the tumour in my lung. On Tuesday my fifth and final radiation appointment for this round is scheduled. The remainder of the week will be more tests, more results, etc. No wonder I’m so tired. This is a full-time job!
Here are a few of my biggest prayer concerns as I head into this week:
1. Minimize the impact of the radiation to all the normal, healthy brain cells while destroying the cancer cells.
2. No complications with the lung mass biopsy and that they would get a sufficient sample the first time—they don’t make more than three tries due to damage/complications to the lung.
3. That the genetic coding of the mass shows it is treatable.
4. I need a diagnostic mammogram appointment very soon.
5. That in the midst of all this we would not lose heart.
Those are the biggies—I know God will lead you to pray the long list of things that are not mentioned. Thank you for standing with me, and my precious family, in the greatest challenge we have ever faced. Your kindness/mercy towards us is a gift too rich for words.
Day 27—First@work
by Kristin Pue—January 27, 2014
On Mondays, Dad (Carson) typically writes an e-letter that goes out to business leaders at First Baptist Church. This week, in his absence, Darrell Johnson wrote it. Mom and Dad asked that I share it with you all to read.
First@work: A Framework for Prayer
I know that you, along with literally thousands of other believers, are praying for Brenda and Carson Pue as they, hand in hand with the Lord, continue the aggressive treatments for the cancer. I ache for them. And I am humbled by their faith.
And I know that you are praying for others in your life—in your family network and in your workplace—who also need God to do a miracle. You are, no doubt, praying for Him to work a miracle somewhere in your own life.
So I thought that I would share with you the framework, so to speak, in which I am praying. The gospel truths on which I depend as I pray.
The Living God knows. Everything that we are facing. Every dimension of everything we are facing. Everything we are thinking and feeling about what we are facing. He knows it all intimately.
The Living God hears. Everything we pray. The articulated prayers, and those we cannot articulate, that may only get expressed as “sighing” (of which the psalmist regularly speaks). He hears.
The Living God cares. About everything we are facing. About everything we are thinking and feeling. About our longings, about our fears, about our dreams and nightmares. He cares. Deeply. Non-judgmentally.
The Living God is able. To do something about everything we are facing. He is, after all, the Creator of the universe! He raised the Lord Jesus from the grave; He overcomes the greatest of all enemies. “Now to Him who is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20 NKJV).
He is able, more than able, to do what no one else can do or dream of doing. If this were not so we would be wasting our breath in praying.
The Living God invites us to share with Him our heart’s desires. I often do not know whether what I am asking Him to do is what He wants to do. He tells us to not let that bother us. He invites us to simply express what we want Him to do—no holds barred. Just lay it out there. “This is my will, Lord. I do want Your will. But this is mine.” He knows what we are wanting anyway, so just lay it out before Him in all our uncalculated desiring.
The Living God then asks us to trust Him. To trust Him to be at work in what we are facing, trusting Him to be good and work for the good (Romans 8:28). For more is going on than what we see, hear, think, feel, understand.
Four days before Christmas in 2000, our then 18-year-old son Alex, whom we had adopted from Russia six years earlier, was hiking with a group of friends in the mountains and fell off a 120-foot cliff. He sustained broken bones all over his body, as well as injury to eight different parts of his brain. He went into a coma. On the night before Christmas Eve, as I drove home after spending the day with Alex in ICU, I was feeling all alone. I then heard in my head the following words, to which I have clung in other crises.
“Things are not as they seem.
In your life.
In your son’s life.
In the lives of other patients in ICU.
Things are not as they seem.
More is going on than meets the unaided senses.
There is a God.
A good God.
A faithful God.
A powerful God.
A reigning God.
An ever-present God.
There is never a time when this God is not good.
There is never a time when this God is not powerful.
There is never a time when the God of the Bible is not attentive.
There is never a time when this God is not on the throne.
There is never a time when the God who comes to us as Jesus is not present.
It is His promise: ‘I will never leave you or forsake you.’”
Pour out your heart to Him, and trust Him to do what only He can do.
In Christ,
Darrell
Day 27 Evening—Day Is Done and Comic Relief
By Brenda Pue—January 27, 2014 8:57 p.m.
It is so good to crawl into bed tonight after a big day. Carson, Kristin and I headed to the cancer clinic first thing this morning. The first appointment for their day was my fourth radiation treatment.
It felt good to introduce another daughter to the radiation techs and to show her around the treatment area. The treatment itself is quick and painless, and the technicians are very nice. Our next appointment was with my radiation oncologist (loved it that Kris could meet him too). It was an opportunity to ask him lots more questions.
At the end of our time—this is the comic relief part—I informed him that the toll-free number on his business card was actually a number for an escort service and probably a little more. The look on his face was priceless! The funny thing is that he’s had these cards for years and no one else has ever mentioned this until today. I don’t know why I find this so funny…but I have always loved Gary Larson’s The Far Side kind of humour.
My