Hope in Death and Hope in Life

I'm utterly and completely ready to see Jesus, to be raised incorruptible, to know even as I also am known. I have been given grace for this hour. I trust completely that to die is to see face to face the One Who loves me and by Whom I have been loved most intimately. Honestly.

So I've asked blunt questions and tried to think through the details of my death as it will impact Karen and Jake. If a 16-year-old boy discovers his father's body, what's he likely see and what traumatic effect will it have, and what immediate actions will be required of him. Karen and I hope to talk to him about that tomorrow night, after we get some better answers ourselves from the doctor tomorrow afternoon.

I've got some idea now of what the last days and hours will look like if I die, because I'm probably close to that now, if the doctor's correct. If the doctor's original 4-8 week prognosis is right, I'll die between November 30 and December 28. Today is November 22. I'll most likely die in my sleep of internal bleeding, and Karen will call an ambulance. Internal bleeding would be indicated by the color of the fluid that's building up changing from yellow to red. A doctor would declare me dead, Karen would have my body cremated and cash in my life insurance policy, which would take care of her, and be some relief to the kids and the church we're planting, hopefully.

Meanwhile, those I leave behind will still cling tenaciously to the conviction that, nevertheless, God is still God, love is still enough, and that although the answer this time was "no", still they'll ask again next time because sometimes the answer is yes. And they'll look for a way to let God turn even this bad thing into something good.

On the other hand -- on the other hand -- ON THE OTHER HAND -- the Holy Spirit makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered. He is the Great Physicican, whom even the wind and the waves obey. All over the world, from my mother to Karen and Roland to Nazarene General Superintendent Jerry Porter to dearly loved friends all over the world, people have assured me that they will pray and believe until I draw my very last breath for my complete, miraculous healing because our God is a God of the impossible and he has done it before. I'm not praying for some cliche, cop-out answer to prayer like the "ultimate healing" or "final healing". We're already assured of that because we are His heirs. We're praying for a real, physical, exceptional revoking of the laws of biology.

When he heals me, this is probably what it will look like:

The fluid will stop building up, so my belly will stop being bloated and my feet will stop being puffy. My energy, strength and alertness levels will increase. I'll have increased lean muscle tissue. Blood vessels will stop looking so prominent and enlarged. Bowel movements will return to normal. Then the doctor will see the need to do another set of CT Scans of both the liver and colon areas. He'll get the film and radiologist's report back and maybe order another colonoscopy. At that point, he'll report to me that he can find no evidence of cancer in either the scans or the bloodwork. He'll smile and say that it looks like we've gotten our miracle and tell me to come back every 3 months for a follow up.

And a God not only of love but of power for miracles beyond the imagination of doctors will become a part of my story and a part of the DNA of NewStart-RiverCity and all those people who are praying fervently for my healing will know that sometimes the answer is "YES." God will be God indeed.

Great God Almighty, I'm holding out for "YES!"

The Farewell Tour

I'm writing this from Dallas. It's been a great week. I've had my parents, siblings and their significant others with me the whole time, and a steady stream of aunts, uncles, cousins and friends coming through, eager to do something, anything, for me, and to tell me they love me. We've watched old family home movies, re-told the old favorite stories and jokes and laughed ourselves silly. I have a wonderful, fun, loving family.

Wednesday night we went to supper at Richardson Church of the Nazarene. A steady stream of cool old friends stood in line for a chance to tell me what I've meant to them and how much they love me. I've had a good life.

I've had e-mails plotting the future of NewStart-RiverCity, the church we're preparing to plant in Brisbane. I've had an email exchange with a Nazarene general superintendent who knows and loves me and is praying for a miraculous healing.

Physically I feel like I'm continuing to decline, but spiritually and emotionally I'm on top of the world.

Keep praying for a miracle.

Brad

Minor Good News and Major Bad News

Well, it looks like if I'm going to be miraculously healed the time for that miracle is getting shorter.

I just got back from the oncologist's office. He said my bloated belly is fluid buildup rather than fat. The good news is that they can readily fix that, at least temporarily, by draining it, which they'll do on Friday, 26-10-2007. After the draining I should feel a lot more comfortable, and probably look better, too. (Today is Wednesday, 24-10-2007.) And I can help reduce fluid buildup by eating more protein, which just means quitting two days early the "cancer cure" diet I've been on for the last two months, which required that I consume no animal products at all, which obviously cuts out a lot of protein, no matter how many beans I eat.

The bad news is that the fluid buildup probably means that the cancer in my liver is growing agressively again. They'll know more about that on Friday after the ultrasound, which comes before the draining.

So, whether God heals me or not, I'm in his hands and I trust him. But if I had my druthers I'd rather have the miracle. He still can and he still may, so please continue to pray for a miraculous, complete healing of the cancer.

In the meantime, I'll try to continue to do this day what he gives me to do, to reflect to the people around me his love and their worth to him.

God is still God and love is still enough.

Koalas and Electric Shock Therapy

How's that for a title?

Okay, first the koalas. They are nocturnal animals and most of the time that they are awake there in the tops of trees. Your only chance of seeing one is during one of those brief times when they climb down from one tree to find a better one. Living in the city, of course, you don't see a lot of wild animals under the best of circumstances. So Kaylah Hearn, age 18, who has lived in Australia for 13 or 14 of those years, has never seen a koala in the wild. Warning signs along the road warn you to be watchful for native animals to avoid making them roadkill, but the fact is, you're very unlikely to ever see a koala in the wild, as far as I can tell.

Kev Crowther, my friend, employer, and brother-in-law of Roland Hearn, who I moved her to plant a church with, has a small acreage on the edge of the developed area of Brisbane, in what has been kind of a semi-rural area that is now being developed. He has a small office building on the acreage as well as his home, and I work in that office. Kangaroos aren't too tough to spot in the area in the right time of day, but in the 18 years he and his family have lived there, they've never seen a koala -- until last week. He, one or two of his kids, and his mother-in-law all saw a koala waddling along from tree to tree, looking for a good one, right there on their property the other day. It was a big event. We were all very excited. And now we know koalas do live in the area, and they saw it at a time of morning that I'm normally at work, so I do have a realistic chance of seeing a live koala in the wild at some point.

Now to the electric shock therapy. One of the weird side effects of chemo is numbness and tingling in one's fingers and toes. Mine started doing that some time before chemo ended, and the doctor said it can take as long as six months for that to go away. For some people it doesn't even start until shortly after chemo ends. Mine seemed to get a little worse after chemo ended. Most of the time it's just mild numbness, but every once in a while you get a brief moment of actual tinglinng that takes you by surprise and even feels briefly like a very mild electric shock.

This past Sunday, Karen and I visited a nearby church. After the service she was visiting with someone she knew from work and I walked over to her. As soon as I reached her and stood still, my feet started tingling so much that I actually asked her if the floor was vibrating in that spot. The sensation went away shortly, but it's just very, very weird.

Life these days is just one novel experience after another.

For my one actual bit of news, I'll be home for Christmas, although Karen and Jake won't be able to come. I'll be there for about a month, so I should have time to enjoy all the relatives and friends. It'll be good.

Just Checking In

Okay, everyone's afraid I'm dead because it's been a while since I last updated my blog. Just for future reference, if I do die suddenly without getting to post a deliberately last blog, I'll have Roland or Karen post a blog entry letting everyone know.

My real problem is that even with a death sentence hanging over me, the day-in, day-out routine gets pretty, well, routine. I'm still too busy and/or tired and/or poor to go on a lot of exciting adventures to report, but not much new is happening on the cancer front (as far as I can tell), either. In addition to that, I'm trying to maintain 4 pages on www.choosing2live.com, as well as writing on www.naznet.com, so my writing energies and inspiration are pretty diluted.

On a wildly different subject:
Pinto Beans
Brisbane
Australia

Those are just listed to make it easier for search engines to find this blog entry. I had another poor stranded American e-mail me this week wanting to know where to find pinto beans in Brisbane because I mentioned in a blog entry many months ago that we'd found them but didn't say where. So, for future searchers, I get pinto beans from Mrs. Flannery's Natural Grocers in Chermside. They have several other locations listed on their website: http://www.mrsflannerys.com.au/. They also have several other kinds of beans AND Karo syrup. I have no idea how THAT qualifies for shelf space in an organic natural food store!

On still another front, Roland preached at one of the Brisbane Nazarene churches last Sunday. It was a good message, of course. At the end of the service, the pastor gave me a check from an offering they'd taken for me earlier. They have some incredibly sweet, caring people there.
We also this week got a refund check from the hospital for charges we'd paid and then the insurance company wound up paying. We'll be able to apply both checks to our remaining debt for chemo drugs.

So, all in all, not a bad week.

A Year in Australia

We moved to Australia one year ago this weekend. It hasn't been the year we expected. I now spend a shocking amount of time, energy and thought on bowel movements. I wonder if each minor physical issue is a sign of my time line being shortened still further.

On the other hand, tomorrow night we'll watch the fireworks at "Riverfire" in downtown Brisbane, or "the City", as they call it. It's by far the largest, most impressive fireworks display I've ever seen in my life anywhere. Almost as nice, a few members of our group have to get there early in the day to save a good spot for the evening fireworks display, because both sides of the river will be packed beyond capacity by the time the show starts. The nice part is that by being one of the volunteers to get there early I can spend the whole day lying around on a blanket on the grass, sleeping in the name of noble self-sacrifice. You gotta love that.

Then on Sunday morning Roland and Emmy and Karen and I will attend part of a district pastor's retreat. That'll be a good time.

The best thing I have to show for my year, as far as advancing the purpose for which we came though is that people's hearts are growing softer. People who were suspicious and guarded toward each other are getting sweeter and tenderer and experiencing new joy in rediscovering God's love. And, of course, although it's not nearly as much as I want to accomplish, there's some small value in my mere being here, as it reconfirms in the hearts of others the value and power of the dream we share. It helps keep hope alive, and hope is one of those three powerful things the Bible mentions in the same ranks as faith and love.

Anyway, I've had this day and I have a reasonable expectation of an enjoyable, fruitful weekend. An old hymn from my childhood asserts that Jesus "never has failed me yet." In that same vein I can say that, so far at least, God is still God and love is still enough, and that gives me confidence that, no matter the circumstances, the same will be true tomorrow.

We're Staying

I sent the following e-mail to my parents and siblings on the 10^th of August, 2007 in response to a plea from my brother to come back to Texas for medical treatment. It seems appropriate to post it here for the rest of you who care about me, as well:

We've decided to stay here in Australia. Karen talked to Charlotte by phone and we had a "family meeting" with Wesley and Jake. We are all agreed.

The doctors here know about M..D. Anderson, what they're doing and what they can do. They've been quite clear that I have a better chance of a literal, supernatural miracle than of a cure, even from some medical breakthrough. I'm either going to get a miracle or I'm going to die. The only difference between treatment and none is a few months. The main advantage to dying there a few months later is that I get to die with you. The main advantage of dying here is that I get to spend the time I have left, doing what God has called me to do, helping as much as I can to get a church established that will make a bigger difference in a couple of years than everything I did with my life previously to planting the church in Frisco.

And if God chooses, as we're praying, to heal me, his miracles are not geographically dependent and it will be easier to stay here than to get back here, because of the financial situation we'd leave behind if we left now, including breaking our lease and phone contracts.

I'm sorry. I love you with my whole heart, but we're staying. We're still working on getting tickets for a 3-week visit during Jake's Christmas break from school. It's not certain we can achieve even that, but I think we can pull it off. Someone has offered enough frequent flyer miles to buy the tickets. We just have to figure out the details of how that's done and when.

In the meantime, I will try a new "alternative" therapy of diet and supplements that claims to cure cancer or dramatically reduce it after two months on the regimen. And Kenneth's magic cancer-curing water should be here sometime during that period, as well.

Love,
Brad

I've been rich and I've been poor.

Rich is better. I saw a poster in a shop once that said that. I thought it was cute.

The miracles we need seem to keep piling up. Karen just got a call from the hospital pharmacy saying I can't continue with chemo unless we pay the full $7,000 for chemo drugs we've already been provided and for which we've been billed. We have $3,000 in our medical donations account, but they told Karen they won't take a partial payment. We did just have $2,000 until today, when we received another significant donation, but those are few and far between. We were holding that $2,000 in reserve to pay for things like the upcoming cat scans that should be scheduled for sometime in the next week or two, that require up front payments rather than being billed. So we could only pay $2,000 now toward the drug bill, holding back the remainder for the cat scan. That means unless another $5,000 appears in the account between now and Tuesday, I'm done with chemo. Otherwise, I'd be receiving several more -- probably between 4 and 8 more weekly treatments. I have no idea how much difference that makes to life expectancy, but presumably some.

My oncologist may have some thoughts on how to get around the financial problem to continue treatments. I'll be able to talk to him about that on Tuesday when I go in to schedule the cat scans. We're also working on scheduling a trip home to Texas around Christmas. I'll work at that time on getting approved for medicaid there, for the possibility of treatment at home if I could benefit from further treatment and can't get it here in Australia.

Beyond that, in God we trust. We remain, as ever, in his hands and he is wise, powerful and loving and that's enough. And we have this day which he has given us, and it's good.

We've just moved into a townhouse of our own, out of the Hearns' house, and we don't have internet connected there yet, so my ability to post updates here and at www.choosing2live.com has been limited. I hope to update www.choosing2live.com after my oncologist's visit on Tuesday, the 7th of August.

Love,
Brad

The Lighter Side of Life

A poor, dear fellow Texan living in Brisbane contacted me by e-mail this weekend. Like me, she had begun an increasingly desperate search for life's staple food, pinto beans, and like me discovered that Australian supermarkets simply do not carry them in any form anywhere. When she searched the internet for pinto beans in Australia she found my blog entry of some months ago in which I announced that Emmy had found a local source for pinto beans. The blog entry didn't say what the source was though, so my desperate fellow Texan e-mailed me to ask where the wonderful, compassionate magic store might be found. It was nice to be the hero and supply a basic human need in this poor, culinarily unenlightened land. I did break the news to her that I still have not found a local source for masa or turnip greens, mustard greens or collard greens.

This morning I preached at the Capalaba Church of the Nazarene here in Brisbane. It was my first time to preach to an Australian audience other than our little NewStart-RiverCity group which is largely Roland's extended family at this point. I was a little more nervous than normal, worrying I'd say something offensive to anyone who may ever have misunderstood Roland's methods or goals, worrying that I'd use some Americanism that miscommunicates ( a hoagie in the states is a sandwich, for instance, while in Australia it's a dirty diaper. Bubba means brother in the states and baby in Australia.). And the message just never felt like it was coming together adequately in my head as I prepared it during the week. I wanted it to be a message of hope and encouragement and affirmation to a good group of folks who have reason to feel beaten down and discouraged, and I wasn't sure I was up to the task.

When I actually preached it, however, the people understood and seemed to enthusiastically embrace what I was saying. Roland, his mother and Karen all said it was perfect, and Emmy said it was the best message I'd ever preached. So that was a relief. And of course, it's always a joy to recognize that God has answered my prayers to use a sermon to deliver his message rather than my own, to open my spirit to communicate his heart clearly, and to open the group's spirit to see his heart clearly.

And to dispel any doubt that we were really in Australia, on the way from the church to the pastor's house for lunch after the service, we saw two dead kangaroos on the roadside and four live ones in a vineyard.

An otherwise good, interesting weekend was only dimmed slightly by our weekly family movie night. We watched a DVD together tonight called “The Good Shepherd”. It had a whole raft of big names and was about the CIA. It sounded like a thriller. It wound up being long, slow and virtually incomprehensible. I do not recommend it. But when that's the low point of your weekend, it's been a great weekend.

A Message About Suffering and God

The following is a message I wrote several years ago, that I'm just posting here for the benefit of someone who was interested in the topic.

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I want to talk to you this morning about abandonment; about pain and suffering, about praying desperately for deliverance and not being delivered, praying for rescue and not being rescued; about fearing the very worst and then having your worst fears realized and finding it even more terrible than you had feared.

Some of you have experienced disease and great physical pain. Many have grown up in broken homes or with alcoholic parents. Others have experienced horrific sexual abuse. We all have some basis for feeling abandoned and unprotected and insecure. I grew up moving every year or two. Maybe that wouldn’t have been too bad, but it fed into other things that also helped shape my experience of life at an early age. By the time I was 11 years old, 5 members of my family that I lived with had died, including my sister who was 18 months younger than me. My best friend at school died in second grade. My mother’s family has a hereditary disease that is slow, wasting, debilitating, incurable and ultimately fatal. If a parent has it, the kids have a 50/50 chance of getting it, too. My grandmother, a great-aunt, a great-uncle, an aunt and two uncles have all died of it so far in my lifetime, and two of my first cousins are dying of it now. Those things shape my experience of the idea of abandonment.

I remember the moment Daddy told me that my sister Paula had died. I ran back to my cousin Doug’s bedroom and threw myself across his bed and sobbed “No, no, no, no, no, no, why, why, why, why? Why!?!” And God didn’t answer. I asked Daddy what time she had died and then I thought back to remember what I had been doing at the moment of her death. I had been watching a cartoon about a big, goofy, bumbling one-eyed giant. At the moment of her death I had been laughing, and I felt somehow that I had been tricked into committing some sort of terrible sin. It seemed like God should have let me know what was happening at that moment so I could have prayed against it, or at least been appropriately grieving or reverent or somber to show my love for my sister and express the significance of my loss. Daddy felt obligated to have an answer for every question, and he eventually tried to answer the why. He said that three families had become Christians through the impact of Paula’s death and the way her spirit had reflected God in the hospital. Bless Daddy’s poor, grieving, Daddy heart, trying to answer unanswerable questions that deserve answers. It’s terrible sometimes being a parent, isn’t it? I didn’t find that answer even remotely adequate. I would very much have preferred that all those three families burn in hell if I could have kept Paula. I couldn’t imagine that God couldn’t have found a less destructive way to reach those people.

Christians aren’t supposed to feel that way, are we? We aren’t supposed to question God or doubt his power or his goodness. We’re not supposed to feel devastated. We’re supposed to always be happy and confident, aren’t we? If we aren’t, if we feel all those bad things and have all these bad thoughts, we’re supposed to stuff it, hide it, deny it. If you fall apart when your world collapses in on you, it scares me, because I’m afraid I might react the same way. I’m afraid that what I believe about God always protecting me from my circumstances, might not be true, so I tell you to stuff it, to get over it. We think we have to make God look good by acting like nothing ever really gets to us. If we were writing the Bible, none of the heroes would ever look bad or weak.

But that’s not how the Bible was written. The Bible is sometimes just shockingly honest. As Jesus hung dying on the cross, he cried out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I think that must be the most puzzling, terrifying, bone-chilling sentence ever spoken or written. Think of it! Jesus is God so God cries out to God: “Why have you forsaken me?” Why would they tell us he said that? Why wouldn’t they hide that or censor it? I mean, it makes me think, what if I journeyed to the center of the universe and found this forbidden city and found gates of pearl and on a great white throne, this ultimate being of absolute power just like the world religions led me to expect, but it turned out that this ultimate being at the heart of the cosmos was utterly, certifiably – mad. Insane. But Jesus wasn’t just fully God, he was also somehow fully human. Still, why is the Bible so honest about human fear and pain and loss and alienation?

King David in the Bible is called a man after God’s own heart, and this is what he wrote in the 22^nd Psalm, that Jesus was remembering on the cross:

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My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me? Why do you remain so distant? Why do you ignore my cries for help? Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief.... Our ancestors trusted in you, and you rescued them.... But I am a worm and not a man. I am scorned and despised by all! Everyone who sees me mocks me.... Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb and led me to trust you when I was a nursing infant.... You have been my God from the moment I was born. Do not stay so far from me, for trouble is near, and no one else can help me.... My life is poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax, melting within me. My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay. My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.... My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs; an evil gang closes in on me.... My enemies stare at me and gloat. They divide my clothes among themselves and throw dice for my garments. O LORD, do not stay away! You are my strength; come quickly to my aid! Rescue me from a violent death; spare my precious life from these dogs.... Then I will declare the wonder of your name to my brothers and sisters. I will praise you among all your people.... Honor him, all you descendants of Jacob!... For he has not ignored the suffering of the needy. He has not turned and walked away. He has listened to their cries for help. I will praise you among all the people.... All who seek the LORD will praise him. Their hearts will rejoice with everlasting joy. The whole earth will acknowledge the LORD and return to him.... Our children will hear about the wonders of the Lord.... They will hear about everything he has done.

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That’s the 22^nd Psalm. When David was a young man, his king kept trying to kill him. Later, his wife ran off with another man. Still later, one of his sons raped one of his daughters and two years later another of his sons murdered the rapist. When David was an older man, one of his sons staged a coup and started a civil war, trying to kill David and take his throne. But David deeply loved that son and when the son Absalom was killed, David publicly wished that he himself had died instead. David had plenty of reasons in the course of his lifetime to feel forsaken by God. At the beginning of Psalm 22 he’s accusing God and at the end he’s praising God. David experienced miracles. He’s the one that killed the giant, Goliath. But it’s not apparent that David’s circumstances have changed at all between the beginning and the end of Psalm 22. But his experience of God has changed. He has changed. What matters most to him has changed. The thing that is really most important to him has changed.

Sometimes life hurts. Sometimes it hurts bad. Sometimes it’s just not fair at all. I don’t know why sometimes God clearly miraculously spares me from pain and sometimes he doesn’t. I don’t have all the answers, either about this life, or the life to come. But I know one thing for sure. Jesus loves me, this I know. I only have one answer that I know from personal experience to be true. Even when I am in despair and in agony, God is there with me. All the way with me. He hurts with me and cries with me and he restores my soul and heals my pain. And when I seek the Lord I wind up praising him. My heart does rejoice with everlasting joy. Let me tell you about one such experience.

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Let me tell you about my very favorite Christmas. We had some good ones and some bad ones. I remember a good one when the entire extended family was together, and our rich Aunt got me this really cool telescope and my cousin only got a stupid velour shirt. The prices were comparable, I'm sure, but he still brings it up. I remember one year when a big, full-sized van from a church in Little Rock pulled up in front of the house filled to the brim with toys and clothes and food for us. It was all the Christmas we got that year, but it was incredible. And then there was the year I got a "Thingmaker" by Mattel from the rich Aunt. It was so cool. You could make your own rubber insects with it. It was great. The first Christmas after my sister died when I was 11 and she was 9 was pretty rough. It was one of my chores to set the table before supper every night, and for months after she died in July, I'd forget and put down six place settings. Then I'd remember, and put the sixth setting back, and cry.

That Christmas, my parents went to a party and took my other younger sister Janet and my brother to a babysitter, but decided I was old enough to stay home alone. We had this really old, fragile, but authentic looking nativity scene with Mary and Joseph and baby Jesus in the stable, with angels and shepherds and all that. Daddy used to set it up every year. Each piece was separately wrapped in tissue paper for protection. They would be very carefully unwrapped and arranged around the manger. Daddy made it seem like an art, or surgery. That year, he decided I was old enough for that job. I was so excited and honored. So while they were at the party, I got to work on it. We had this fireplace that was supposed to have a gas heater in the fireplace part, but didn't. I arranged the manger scene there, with all the thought and care for realism that Daddy always put into it. Then I strung a string of Christmas lights around the mantle. And set out all the wrapped Christmas presents around the baby Jesus and the manger scene. Then, with Christmas carols playing, I turned out the overhead lights and turned on the Christmas lights and opened a Bible and read the Christmas story out loud to myself, with no one in the house but me. And God.

God was there. For the first time in my life, it hit me what God had done -- what a miracle it was that he could reduce himself to a human baby -- and what a sacrifice it was. What awesome, unearned, transforming, empowering love. We had very little money, no Christmas tree, few friends because we were new in town, my sister was dead, I was by myself. And my precious Jesus came down to me, and in to me, and wrapped me in his arms and loved me as warmly and as deeply as I have ever felt in my life. And I was transfigured. Maybe no one noticed but me. But that was my favorite Christmas.

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That seems to me to be pretty much the same thing David experienced in Psalm 22. I personally have seen miracles of physical healing, miracles of very specific comfort in times of trial, miracles of financial and material provision. But that Christmas, my circumstances didn’t change at all.

Ultimate reality, our ultimate joy and peace is not in our circumstances, it is in our relationship with God in the midst of our circumstances. Our pain here is absolutely not a part of his divine plan. He does not cause it or desire it. God does promise that ultimately, finally, everything will be redeemed and our circumstances will be perfect. But the truest thing we learn about God is learned not from our circumstances, but from what happens to us as we walk with him through the circumstances – from what is revealed about God and about me in the context of our relationship in the midst of the circumstances. My ultimate happiness depends on my relationship with God, and on my confidence in his character toward me, rather than on my immediate circumstances – no matter how terrible or wonderful my immediate circumstances may be. We all know what it’s like to be unhappy and dissatisfied at a very deep, fundamental level, in both good and bad circumstances. On the other hand, God invites us to experience, in both good and bad circumstances, real joy and real peace. I’m healthy right now. I may be the only person in the world over the age of 40 who doesn’t have back problems. I have a kind, beautiful, loving wife, and smart, sweet, good, beautiful kids and a bigger, fancier house than I ever imagined as a kid. But I am not promised any of that for tomorrow. I have known bad times, and almost certainly will again. I cannot base my happiness or value my life on the basis of my circumstances. I expect to experience heaven – eternal paradise with God and with you, but Jesus warned us that in this world we would experience pain. At the same time, he promises joy. The joy is in our relationship with him and our confidence in his character, his intentions toward us, and his power to secure our glorious destiny.

I stand here today and testify to you with God as my witness that such joy is possible and real here and now. And that it is worth everything. We are offered joy unspeakable and peace that passes understanding in this life with Christ and each other. And it is worth more than anything else I could ever desire. It is worth everything! It is worth everything! Those of us who’ve experienced that to be true need to continually remind each other of that truth, and keep each other focused on that one great prize. Those of us who haven’t, deserve to be drawn into that relationship, by being surrounded by people who can testify that it’s true. And we are surrounded by such people, right here and right now. I promise I won’t name names, but I could, and I did think about it. I could point to someone in this room whose childhood was a nightmare and ask is it true that God heals the deepest emotional wounds of childhood? I could point to another who spent most of their life feeling lonely and unconnected and ask is it true that God gives more and deeper and happier relationships than you ever dreamed possible? I could point to another and say is it true that God forgives your past and takes away your shame? Is it true that God sets you free from the things that held you in bondage? I could point to an old Christian who’s walked with God for decades and ask is it true that God never has failed you, yet. And you would testify from your own experience here at NewStart, resoundingly, confidently, joyously that yes, those things are true. It’s true. It’s true. Precious hearts, let us resolve together to allow the Christ of the cross to walk with us through our pain, and to allow ourselves to experience his power and his healing, and his everlasting joy.

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Bad News as Good News

We've now got more medical bills getting past due than we've got money in the fund to pay. I just have to not get treatment cut off for another 3 months to be finished with this round of chemo.

I got some wierd good/bad news from the doctor Tuesday. He'd said originally that life expectancy with no treatment was 8-9 months and with treatment was on average 22-24 months, with 5 years as absolute maximum, short of a real miracle. He also said that each succeeding round of chemo would be less effective than the previous one.

So Tuesday I asked him how much the second and subsequent rounds of chemo would actually extend my life. He said none, really, it would just relieve symptoms, and the symptoms it would relieve are just the (bearable) ones I'm experiencing now from the chemo itself.

The bad news in that is of course that this round will do essentially all that medical science can do to significantly extend my life. The good news is that I can just forego future rounds of chemo, which the insurance is basically not paying, avoid all the debilitating symptoms of chemo, stay in Australia until the end, and rely on much cheaper alternative therapies and prayer/a miracle instead.

I actually feel wierdly good about those prospects. It feels somehow freeing.

Anyway, keep us all in your prayers, and expect a miracle, but count on the peace that passes understanding, and joy unspeakable, full of glory.

Church Family Camp

This past weekend the 24 people in our little proto-church went to a rural retreat center. The kids played ping pong, tennis, minature golf, volleyball and soccer, and took long walks looking for Australian wildlife. Our kids have seen enough kangaroos now that they've lost a little of their novelty. The challenge now is to see a koala in the wild. They're small, nocturnal and mostly stay in the tops of certain types of gum/eucalyptus trees, so you don't often actually see one. No luck this weekend, but they saw lots of kangaroos. The picture below is just of the Brisbane river near it's source, running right past the camp, and nearly dried up from the drought that is severely effecting Queensland.

I did a lot of sleeping, reading, sitting around visiting with folks, and eating. I gained a pound or two over the weekend for the first time since my cancer diagnosis, so that was encouraging.

We had a couple in attendance who normally are active in a Wesleyan Methodist church. They're good folks who enjoyed the weekend. Saturday night we watched Bruce Almighty and afterward discussed how it portrays God.

On Sunday morning we had a wonderful church service with communion. At the end of the service Roland had the whole group, kids first, gather around me, put their hands on me and pray for my physical healing. It was very moving.

I'm not at all afraid or unwilling to die, as far as it just involves me. But I would dearly, desperately, fervently, intensely love to be the miraculous answer to the prayers of those kids that builds into the DNA of this new church we're planting that the God they love is not only a God of love but a God of power who can, indeed, miraculously, instantly, supernaturally and completely do things that are humanly, naturally, physically, utterly impossible. Even if they get a hundred no's for every yes, I want them to know that, no matter how big or impossible the request, sometimes the answer is yes. I want them to have the opportunity to remember last Sunday morning for the rest of their lives as proof of that to carry them faithfully through all the hard, dry, discouraging times that every life brings.

Love,
Brad

More Medical Stuff

When the oncologist released me, he wanted me to see the colorectal doctor to decide whether the ongoing bowel problems were from the cancer in my colon growing instead of just chemo side effects. That appointment was yesterday, Friday, 22-6-07. The colorectal doctor thought it most likely was from the colon cancer growing, and that they'd most likely have to do surgery to remove the colon cancer, and do a colostomy. They've been reluctant to do surgery on the colon as long as the cancer there wasn't growing, because surgery would make the cancer more likely to spread to other places.

To determine whether he was right, he had x-ray's of my colon done on Friday and arranged to get the results immediately so he could make a decision right away. The x-rays convinced him that the colon cancer wasn't the problem, so they don't need to do a colon re-section and colostomy. Wierdly enough, he decided that I need to deal with the ongoing loose bowel movements by taking over the counter anti-constipation medication and stop taking all the anti-diarrheal medications. Apparently there's constipation back behind the diarrhea. Also, my belly and ankles are bloatetd and he decided that is from not getting enough protein, so I'll eat more protein-rich foods and see what that does.

One of the things I've discovered is that serious cancer provides a wealth of first-time-ever experiences. Swollen ankles is one of those. Also, perspectives change. When I told Karen about the possibility of a colostomy, she asked if it would be permanent. I replied: "well, the doctors think I'm dying, so as far as they're concerned, pretty much everything is permanent for me at this point." So we continue to not worry about tomorrow, but live this day for all it's worth.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggedy Jig

I'm writing this from the hospital, where I don't have internet access. (AAARRGGHH!!!!) I'll post it after I get out. After losing 13 pounds and being dehydrated and very low in potassium from a week of chemo-related diarrhea, the doctor skipped this past chemo session and had me come in for 3 consecutive days of just re-hydrating me intravenously with potassium and salt-laced water. He assured me that a week or two off chemo now wouldn't be a big deal, but 3-4 sessions off later would be, and that would be what will happen if we don't stop now and get the diarrhea under control. On the 3^rd day of trying to rehydrate me on an outpatient basis, with the potassium levels still low, he convinced me to stay in the hospital as an inpatient so they could pump fluids into me 24 hours a day and get a handle on the diarrhea. I checked in on Thursday, 14 June 2007. The diarrhea has gotten better and the oncologist liked what he heard and felt when he poked around on my belly on Friday, and evidently what he's seeing from the daily tests they're doing daily. The diarrhea is apparently just an unusually severe response to the chemo. At any rate, it looks like, having checked in on Thursday afternoon, I'll be heading home with everything under control again Sunday afternoon or Monday morning, skipping chemo on Tuesday, 19 June 2007 and then coming back in for chemo as usual on Tuesday, 26 June 2007. I was 40 pounds lighter when I checked into the hospital than I was on 5 March, 2007 when the cancer was diagnosed, and I wasn't overweight then. Half the weight loss was from the initial naturapathic diet I went on after the original diagnosis. The naturapathic diet changed after 52 days, but while the new, permanent anti-cancer naturapathic diet didn't make me keep losing weight, it didn't help me gain back what I'd already lost, either. Then, the other half of my weight loss was from the various effects of the chemo. The good news is I've gained back a significant amount of weight while in the hospital, so I should be able to safely resume chemo and the naturapathic diet as soon as I get home, without fear of further weight loss and without fear of being at such a low weight as to rob me of normal strength, energy and immune system responses.

Meanwhile, I've actually had a surprisingly good time in the oncology ward. It's always nice being waited on hand and foot, of course. The food is good, and I've got hot sauce from the house for those meals when my taste buds just don't taste anything at all. Dulled taste buds is another of the unfortunate effects of chemo. And they've got a little kitchenette on the ward, just for patients, so I can stroll down there in the middle of the night, as I did once last night and help myself to a chunk of cheddar cheese, a dab of peanut butter and Vegemite and a cup of tea with milk in it. It was great.

And visiting with the nursing staff is fun. One was interested in my Churchill book on my nightstand. One uses terms of endearment like honey and sweetheart the way Texans do but that I was warned that Australians generally don't. And a couple of the nurses are from India. I got to chat with them about India, about our common experiences as immigrants, and about our shared taste for hot, spicy foods that Australians generally don't like.

Even without internet access here in the hospital, I've got my laptop, so I've got this blog update as well as updates for www.choosing2live.com ready to upload as soon as I get home tomorrow, and with the Bible program on the laptop, I've been catching up on “daily” devotions that I'd gotten behind on.. So whether I have 3 months to live or 30 years, I feel like I've spent this day doing the things that make this day matter.

And moving quickly from the sublime to the ridiculous, what kind of computer spell check function doesn't recognize the word “blog”!?! This goofy spell check doesn't know that word and thinks maybe I meant flog or biog instead. Good grief! It's a limited enough dictionary anyway, you'd think it would at least know basic computer and internet-related words! It does insist I show a little respect for the internet by advising me to always capitalize it, though. I guess it's heart is in the right place.

Maybe near the end of a bad spell

One of many possible side effects of my chemo is diarrhea. I had been keeping it under control by a combination of Imodium and a prescription codein pill which has a normal side effect of constipation. Monday, 4 June 2007 I began a period of frequent, uncontrollable diarrhea that the medication just wasn't phasing. It has continued through today, 13 June 2007.

This week the oncologist cancelled chemo for the week, assuring me that one week off wouldn't hurt, but letting it get worse til I need 3-4 weeks off would be a setback. In the meantime he's got me off the Imodium but has given me a pain patch that has a side effect of constipation and combined that with another specific prescription drug that directly and primarily fights diarreha, plus the codein. Last night I slept 6 straight glorious hours without having to run to the restroom, for the first time in over a week, so I think we're starting to get it under control. I still have diarrhea, but less frequently, and hope to be "solid" again by this time tomorrow or the day after.

In the meantime, they've had me in for the last two days, plus tomorrow just pumping potassium/salt water directly into my veins at 3 liters per day, just to rehydrate me. On the other hand the dryness in my mouth and throat, plus "thrush" on my tongue and throat, apparently dulling my tastebuds to an extreme degree, has limited my dietary intake to liquids (Ensure, Cup of Soup, etc.). Between the diet and the diarrhea, I've lost weight very seriously. We expect I'll be able to resume chemo next Tuesday and hopefully begin to be able to eat normally again to start gaining weight again. I hope in 3 or 4 weeks to be back up to a minimumly healthy weight again. By then we'll just be 2 months from the end of this 6-month round of chemo and I'll be off it until or unless it mutates and begins to grow again. As soon as the chemo ends I'll start on an alternative diet and supplements that make gigantic and implausible claims to cure cancer in 2 months. But it's cheap and harmless at worst and it's the only thing left to do but sit around waiting for death or a miracle, so I'll give it a shot and see what God will do.

Thanks for your continued concern and prayer. At this point, even the oncologist and the naturapath agree that it's my best hope of a cure so keep praying and believing for a literal miracle.

Every Birthday is a Gift

I think I was born at 5 or 6am Central time, so I guess it would have been June 4 in both the US and Australia, so my birthday is now well and truly past.

It was a good one. My mother and brother just left today after a good two-week visit. I took them to Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast just south of Brisbane yesterday, along with my oldest son Wesley who's here for his summer break, and his girlfriend Eva who's visiting for 3 weeks. Everybody played in the water at least a little, walked along the beach, and then had lunch in one of the beachfront restaurants and did a little people watching.

Then we spent four hours testing the limits of our love for each other while being lost on the ever-winding, unnamed streets of north Brisbane before finally finding our way home.

Today my chemo visit was made immensely quicker by my brother's gift of his own iPod to me. I've had to figure out by trial and error what dosages of meds adequately control nausea and diarrhea. I told the doctor what those doses are today and my prescription now reflects that, so I shouldn't run out again like I did yesterday. So hopefully today will be the last day for at least a while that I have to worry about diarrhea dehydrating me and keeping my weight dangerously low. My focus for the next couple of weeks is purely on gaining back to a minimum healthy weight.

A year ago I was firmly of the opinion that, there being no significant difference in anyone's mind between 48 and 49, or between 51 and 52, that birthdays were now meaningless unless they ended in zero. This year I've obviously had occasion to change my mind. Each birthday is a milestone of victory and a precious gift of God in which to further enjoy and love the amazing array of people who love me.

We are enjoying this day each day, praying thank you for healing me today; please heal me tommorrow. We're taking "no thought for tomorrow" and praying "not my will but your will be done" but meanwhile praying and trusting God for a genuine, literal miracle of complete physical healing for many more long years of just loving people more deeply into the kingdom of heaven.

God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.

Thanks for your love, prayers and good wishes.

A Small Miracle

Pretty much all the events of this week are at www.choosing2live.com on the following pages:

Choosing to Live Physically
Choosing to Live Psychologically
Choosing to Live Spiritually
My Thoughts on Choosing to Live

However, since those entries will disappear as soon as I replace them with new entries, here's the short version of my week.

Mama and my brother Roy Lee arrived this past Tuesday for a 2-week visit. This week we visited rain forests, mountains, downtown Brisbane, the Gold Coast beach and enjoyed a proper "Devonshire Tea". We laughed together, cried together, prayed together and generally had a good time.

A potential major breakthrough or two at work give us optimism about the future of the company. Physically I had more trouble than usual with nausea this week than normal. The doctor has slightly adjusted my medications for that so we'll see if it gets back under control in the next few days. I've also had a problem this week with hiccups, which make me more likely to throw up if they coincide with nausea. That makes it harder to gain the weight the doctor wants me to gain, so it's a problem.

The coolest thing for me this week was the regular monthly district prayer time here on the Australia Northern Pacific District of the Church of the Nazarene. Mama requested prayer for my healing at the meeting, and prayed with her usual fervor and emotion, which kind of drew everyone else into her pain and desire and faith. The group that gathered around me ranged from strangers to new friends to deep old friends, but they all poured out their hearts and love on me a foreigner who had not yet given much to them. As they prayed for my hiccups, the hiccups vanished and haven't come back.

I felt their faith and their love and the healing presence of God for the hiccups and was encouraged to believe it might not be the only miracle he has in store for me.

Roy Lee's largest expression of love for me was the astonishing gift of his own very nice laptop computer. I'm amazed at the openness and generosity of his precious heart.

All in all, a lot of small things pointing to the possibility of big things ahead. It was a week of increased joy, hope and faith.

It's Good but it Feels Bad

Initially, the weekly chemo requirement of getting a needle stuck in my arm was no big deal. But I lost 20 pounds in the first month because of a naturapathic diet designed to rob the cancer of needed glucose, then had trouble gaining it back the second month because of chemo-induced diarrhea. Between the direct effects of the chemo and the effects of the weight loss and tendency toward dehydration produced by the diarrhea, it became increasingly difficult for the nurses to find a vein each week, and the attempts became increasingly painful. I raised that issue with the doctor last Tuesday and he advised getting a permanent line stuck in my arm so they only have to stick me that once and then every week when I need chemo or blood work, they just stick the needle in that permanent line sticking out of my upper right arm, instead of trying to stick the needle in my arm. It makes the whole process quicker, easier and less painful. When they're done, the line will just come right out and not even leave a permanent mark.

It's good, but somehow it feels kind of bad on a purely psychological level. Something permanent sticking out of your arm every minute reminds you every minute that you're not really as well as you feel; that you're a patient. I feel like it makes me look like a patient, too, to people like my mother and brother who'll be here in three days, and for whom I wanted to look as normal as I feel, to reassure them. It's an odd, silly little thing, and it'll pass, but for the moment, there the feeling is.

Another good thing that feels bad is the people who are being drawn into my consciousness. When you're fighting cancer as publicly as I've chosen to, you get to know a lot of other past and present cancer patients. The first round of stories that you hear are the great, encouraging victory stories of people who won their battles when the doctors said they couldn't. But part of the reason I've chosen to be so public in my struggle is that I want God to use even this as an avenue for ministering to other people. That means I'm getting to know other people who are still fighting cancer now, and some of their battles aren't going well at the moment. Because I'm in the same battle, I know how to pray and what to say that will be encouraging instead of merely trite. God gets to use this as a tool for more effectively loving other people who need to know that they're loved and lovable.

That's good. That gives my own struggle meaning and value even if I ultimately lose it, but even more so if I ultimately win it. But it feels kind of bad at the same time, because I care about those who seem to be losing their battles at the moment and I begin to carry their load with them. And it feels a little bad because I realize that what's going badly for them could be going badly for me tomorrow. It even feels a little bad that my latest news is encouraging while theirs is discouraging, because it raises the question of why God will heal some of us of cancer but not others. The trite, easy answer of the living that suggests it's because those who live always have more "faith" than those who die, doesn't fit my personal observation or experience or understanding of faith or scripture or God, or the view of most of the wisest and most holy of Christians through the centuries. So trust has to be enough when my understanding isn't. When I don't have all the answers like I did when I was younger, I have to choose to let God be God and love be enough.

So I do.

My execution date has been postponed!

I had a new CT scan yesterday, 14 May, 2007. The previous scan was on 27 February, 2007. That was the original scan that diagnosed my cancer. The oncologist said then that my kind of cancer only responds to chemo 50% of the time. Today he told me that I'm in the 50% that does respond. He showed me the two sets of CT scans and showed me what he was looking at and said they showed "quite significant improvement."

I'll take it. He also said I look better. I still have no symptoms except side effects from the chemo. The doctor isn't yet willing to say the cancer won't ultimately still be terminal, but my improvement was clearly on the high side, the "hoped for" side of what he would consider the normal, expected response to chemo. He agreed with me that we're just almost weekly seeing news reports of potentially major breakthroughs in cancer treatment that the researchers expect to have on the market within 1-3 years, so staying alive that long potentially dramatically increases my chances of a cure for what he initially declared flatly incurable.

In short, I am still having no trouble remembering to live each day as if it may be my last, but I am encouraged and thanking God for his healing at work in my life. And of course, I'm profoundly grateful for the love and concern of so many people for my well-being. Today's chemo has left me a little woozy and I really want to lay down for a little while, but I can't until I've written something here, on my blog and on the choosing2live website, because so many amazing, precious people are waiting anxiously for news, like Darius outside the lion's den.

Thank you for your love and prayers, and thank God for his love and power and grace.

Love,
Brad

A Time for a Miracle

I measure my life these days by medical re-assessments; by those moments when, if God is performing a miracle in my life, I'll have a chance to hear a doctor confirm it. Next week is my next chance to hear that God has healed me. On Monday, 14 May 2007, I'll get new CAT scans and on Tuesday, 15 May 2007, I'll meet with the oncologist and he'll tell me what they show and give me an updated prognosis. I've had no symptoms this past week except a couple of minor chemo side effects. It's easy right now to believe in miracles. It'll get harder if the news is bad next week. I'll obviously take any improvement that results in an extended life expectancy, but it would really be cool to get a genuine, flat-out, supernatural, miraculous total healing.

Miracles are by definition the exception rather than the rule, but if you're reading this, I'd sure appreciate it if you could over this next week pray for a miracle, no matter how small your faith.

In life or in death, God will be God and love will be enough, but I'd sure love to "be the miracle", as Bruce Almighty says. I'd sure love for this miracle to be a part of the story we tell when we tell the story of the great church God is planting in Brisbane. I'd love to be the first in a long list of stories of how God is transforming people's lives, healing them, liberating them from fear and from shame, "happifying" them in this place, in this generation.

And as my kids cling to me, hoping to see God intervene to avert tragedy in their young lives, I'd love to see the look of relief and triumph in their faces as their budding faith is confirmed and sealed by one enormous "YES" to a prayer that they've prayed, to carry them through all the dark moments that will come in their lives when God will seem silent. One memorable yes, can carry a person's faith through a lot of silence. I'm prepared to hear from God that his grace will be sufficient for me even on my death bed, but I'd love to be that yes in the early life of my children and my church.