Random thoughts regarding chemo treatment 1...

     Well, 1 down and 11 more to go of this type of chemo treatment over the life of my 8 month procedure.  Needless to say, it was more than what I expected.  I have experienced the cold sensitivity, especially in my fingers.  I feel as if I feel every joint in my body, especially in the back of my neck.  My port is still sore so I have to watch how I sleep at night.  I am tired but I think I am more mentality tired. The worse part for me is position of the tumor and how that restricts me from having a normal bowel movement.  I have not had solid food for a month and thought I had a regimen down that was working before the chemo but now I feel like I am back at square one.  These are the realities of my physical life right now.  

     The Lord gave me a similar situation this week that I needed.  Back in the summer of 2000 our family went on an "out west" trip for over 3 weeks.  We packed up the van with 4 kids and headed to Colorado and the Grand Canyon and the Pacific Coast and then back across the upper part of the U.S. It was over 6600 miles round trip.  I cherish those times.  For me it was the most I had ever been away from the ministry at the church.  I was able to put in extra time as being a dad and being a husband.  About 2 weeks in I started to wonder, if I wasn't a pastor would I still be passionate about my Lord?  We were hiking up a mountain just out of Lehi, Utah to see a cave.  It was almost a two mile hike up and I wasn't used to the thinness of the air so I was huffing and puffing.  Up along side of me came a young man dressed in his ranger uniform headed up to the cave for work.  We struck up a conversation of where are you from and where do you go to school.  When he found out that I was a pastor he started asking me questions about the faith.  I remember praying to God that He would give me the breathe to keep talking about Him.  I was sucking in enough air with each breathe to say a few more words about Jesus.

     This week, I was presented with a situation that shock me out of the cancer mode.  A young lady had some questions or maybe perceptions about the faith that weren't Biblical sound.  She was a little brass and confrontational in her approach.  As I listened to her, it was like the cancer to a back seat to me feeling such a need to stand before her and hear a different message than what she was perceiving.  It was like she was the only person in the room and there was no option for me but to talk to her about my Jesus.  I want to thank the Lord for that encounter to let me know that there is a part of me that has not changed.

Adam