Yesterday a good friend of ours and his wife blessed us by coming to worship.  After church we went out for lunch and spent a couple of hours together.
     Dave and I go back to college days.  We were in each other’s weddings and we have stayed close friends.
     Like I did, he left our previous denomination, which is now imploding.  We were just 25 years ahead of lots of other folks.
     Dave has gotten involved in some ministries in Africa, visiting many of those ministries.  Daybreak supports Pastor Moses in Malawi through Dave’s international ministry.
     Dave has become a mentor to several young pastors in Africa.  He told me about one of them yesterday.
     This young pastor emailed Dave, asking him advice on a serious circumstance in his church.  He did not ask Dave for any funds.
     Recently in his church a young Muslim college student committed her life to Jesus.  As you would expect, her family ostracized her and forced her out of their house.
     This young pastor asked Dave, “What am I to do to help her?”
     She has three more semesters to finish for her nursing degree.   Some of the final words her dad said to her were, “Let Jesus pay for your tuition.”
     I must admit that when Dave shared this part of the story I literally laughed out loud.  I said to Dave, “Then let’s let Jesus pay for her tuition!”
     Her expenses for tuition and housing are only $1300 a semester.  One of the three semesters has already been covered.
     Like this young pastor to Dave and Dave to me, I am not asking you to help.  I am simply sharing the story and the rest is up to the Holy Spirit.
      What a great witness to a Muslim dad that Jesus actually has the resources to meet the needs of his daughter, not to mention the witness to a brand-new child of God and a young pastor.
      Let Jesus.  I believe we will.
     There might just be some other circumstances in which we would do well to “Let Jesus.”  I will ask for discernment from the Spirit to see those today.

     I have found over the years that God has a way of checking us.  It happened to me this week.  Integrity seemed to be the theme that kept popping up in my week.
     Last Sunday’s sermon mentioned a righteous life, which involves integrity.
     The last blog I wrote was about the man who agreed to sell me an SUV but then reneged and sold it to someone else for $500 more than we had agreed upon.
     Why would I be surprised if something happened that would check my integrity?
     Our family has been in the candy business since I was a child.  I don’t remember a lot about my early childhood, but I remember before going to kindergarten dad buying some cinnamon balls in bulk cases and some glass jars. 
     I can remember counting out 200 cinnamon balls for each jar.  I am sure dad made sure each jar contained at least 200.
     If you know much about me you know that I am a lover of Reese Cups.  I could eat them every day and not tire of them. 
     When Mom and Dad started their business Reese Cups came singles in a pack, 24 packs in a box.  They sold at retail for a nickel.  They bought them for .85 a box and sold them for .90 a box.  The retailer made .30 a box and Cooper Wholesale made .05 a box.  You had to sell a lot of boxes to make a living.
     I thought I knew a lot about the candy business, but I found out that there was more to learn this week.
     We got in six cases of Reese Cups in the last 10 days as part of a truckload of merchandise.  I was notified by one of our employees that the date on the Reese Cups was short dated.  The “best by” date on the side of the box was 7 12 23.
     I was already running a candy special for our customers by email so I sent an email indicating that we would sell these short dated Reese Cups at a significant discount.
     I also contacted the distributor from which we purchased the Reese Cups, seeking a discount because of the date of the candy.
     After much discussion with the distributor,  I learned something that I had never known in the candy business.   There are two ways of dating candy.  One we might call the US dating and the other we might call International dating.
     In the US when we date something we date it month, day, year.  So to me 7 12 23 would be July 12, 2023.  Someone outside the US, however, would likely see 7 12 23 as the seventh day of December 2023.
     I also learned that Hershey dates US candy with only two digits, the month and the year.  Hershey only dates international product with three digits.
     We received Reese Cups that were manufactured for either US or International shipment, but were dated international.  Same product, same manufacturing plant in Pennsylvania. 
     I was left with a double-edged dilemma.  First to convince our customers that the short date isn’t short at all.  These Reese Cups are fresh until December.
     Secondly, do I keep my word and give them the additional discount I offered them, thinking that they were short dated?
     How much is your soul worth?  What is the price you’d put on your integrity?  $500 more for a car or $5 less discount for a box of Reese Cups?
     There’s an old story about a millionaire who propositioned a beautiful model.  She declined his advance.  He then offered her a million dollars.  Her response was, “give me some time to think about it.”
     His response was, “it apparently has nothing to do with your morals, only the price.”
     What is the price of losing my integrity?  Hopefully even a million dollars wouldn’t be considered.   Jesus said, “What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
     I will be giving our customers the additional discount on very fresh Reese Cups.

     I found out this week that integrity isn’t what it once was.
     Megan found an Expedition on Marketplace and I spent a couple of hours waiting for the guy to get off work.   The SUV was a bit older than I would have liked, but it was in very good condition and the mileage wasn’t a great concern.
     We agreed on a price and how we would meet to transfer the car, either for me or for Megan and Bryan.  We shook hands on the deal.
     The next day I texted the guy to meet as we had agreed.  He texts back and says, “When I stopped for gas on the way home a guy offered me $500 more than we had agreed.  So I took it.”
     Then the kicker.  He sends another text that says, “My wife made me take the other deal.”
     Looks to me like the guy has more than one issue. 
     Where has integrity gone in our world?  The Bible says your yes should be yes and your no should be no.
     I would hope that my word is better than any piece of paper that I would sign.   The paper could be lost or destroyed.  My word would still be intact.
     I guess the next time I will either head right for the County Clerk’s office or put down earnest money.  I did know where the guy worked!

     Yesterday I started the fourth of six cycles of chemotherapy.  The last three cycles are not expected to be as intense as the first three cycles.  Two weeks on, one week off for the next nine weeks. 
     The hardest of the treatments has been reduced from once each week to just once each cycle.  I had that one today, so I only have two more of the most difficult ones left.
     I had something happen for the first time yesterday when I was taking the treatment.  I have shared several times that I often hear from folks that I don’t look ill.  It reached a new height yesterday.
     My family has said how good I look.  People I haven’t seen in a while say the same thing.  So do total strangers from time to time.  But never someone who has treated me.
     As the nurse was hooking up the IV for the Benadryl she looks at me and unsolicited says, “You don’t look like you are sick at all.  You are the heathy person I have ever seen taking treatments.  You look healthy as a horse.”
     I said, “Well, at least until the fall.”
     She then says, “I guess you are facing a stem cell transplant.”
     I said, “Yes.  And then I will look like lots of other folks here.”
     She said, “I am sure that you will.”
     Being healthy as a horse might be considered to be a good thing, unless I was running at Churchill Downs this spring/summer.
     There are lots of things for which I have been thankful in these last six months.  Beyond the “spiritual things” that the Lord has done in this, I am thankful that I have tolerated the treatments as well as I could have expected.
     Beyond looking healthy, my blood work has pretty much been on target of what the doctors had desired.  I have been able to deal with the fatigue and have functioned as needed most days.  I have been able to preach each Sunday.   What more could I have hoped for 10 weeks ago when the chemotherapy treatments started?
     I am a blessed man.  Seeing our blessings during the troubles helps us better handle the troubles.

     Not to complain, but I did have a couple of things happen yesterday that made me struggle.
     I cherish each day and see the time each day as a gift from God.  It unsettles me when I consider some time wasted.   Once it is gone, it is gone.
     I started the morning with blood work, followed by a meeting with the doctor.
     I then headed to the treatment and was called back about 15 minutes after the appointment time, not an unusual thing.
     Some things must happen before I can take the treatment.  An IV and blood work to make sure I can take the treatment.  That had already been done and the results were already posted.   The pharmacy must know that I am there before they prepare the treatment.   I had been there for an hour and a half at this point.
      Benadryl is then given through the IV, which takes 20-30 minutes.   Then I am required to wait an hour after the Benadryl is finished before the chemotherapy infusion can begin.
     I realize that I am not the only patient some nurses have.  I’ve got a decent insight on things after about 20 treatments.
     I sat for about half an hour before the nurse decided to start the Benadryl, which meant I lost about half an hour of my life waiting.  I finally asked her if I could be given the Benadryl.  Later I apologized for asking.  Twice.
     I then went to a large box store to pick up some stuff for the business.   I paid for the merchandise and then picked a couple of other things I personally needed, knowing it wasn’t likely that things would happen quickly.
     Well, they didn’t.  It was maybe 30 minutes before it was finally loaded in the van.   I am thinking maybe 20 minutes longer than it could have taken.  
     I confess.  I am a bit focused on the time I have.  Actually, all I really have is each day.  That is all that any of us has.  Wasting it, or someone else wasting it for me, is a hard pill to swallow.   And I have been swallowing enough of those of late.
     Lord, give me patience when I encounter others who maybe aren’t as concerned as I am about time.  It is very precious to me.

     After dealing with a rash and lots of itching this week, I have a much greater appreciation for my mother.  She was a saint.
     Mom had a rare blood disorder that manifested itself in a rash and itching pretty much all over her body.  She had doctors from Nashville to Mayo Clinic treat her, but the disease finally took her.  The relief from the itching never came until she was given her new body in heaven.
     When we see pictures of her in the last months of her life they remind us of what she went through.  As I look back on the last day of her life I believe she was one of the few people who ever told Jesus that she was coming home.  Now! 
     Mom was a saint beyond how she handled her illness.  We’d all like to think that our moms were saints.  And the way they had to deal with some of us, maybe they were!
     Mom had the holy triad in my mind of what it takes to be a saint.  We’d think faith, hope, and love.  Mom had those.  I am thinking more of giver, servant, and prayer.
     As I have shared, Mom was the best giver I have ever known.  She gave of what she had and she gave of herself. 
Mom had the heart of a servant.  Jesus said that the greatest among us would be servant of all.  She was that, too.
     Mom was a prayer warrior.  You rarely heard her pray verbally.  She did what Jesus said.  She went into the “closet” and prayed alone. 
     If Daybreak donned people saints, I have a feeling that we would have included her.  Saint Norma.   Mom would have rejected the notion that she was a saint.  All believers who truly could be cast as saints would deny it.
     I don’t think Dad would have made the list.  Good man, as faithful as anyone you’d ever know.  But I am way too much like him to know that neither of us would qualify. 
     Who might you consider a saint in your world?  You’d be blessed if it was one of your parents, maybe doubly blessed it could be your spouse.
     If I was looking to put some “money” in my “husband account,” I’d say Teresa is a saint.  But if I said that I’d get some razing from some folks rather close to me.
     So I won’t say she’s a saint.  I’ll just think it. 

     I am apparently rather strange when it comes to medical stuff.  It appears to me that the culprit causing the allergic reaction is aspirin.  That was the only medicine added to the list and after four days of not taking the aspirin, the rash and the itching are very much subsiding.
     Go figure.  I didn’t have a reaction to two different chemotherapy drugs but it seems that I did to aspirin.
     I actually slept eight hours last night, including one stretch of five hours, which hasn’t happened but once since the radiation.  Thanks for the prayers.
     Teresa’s two friends from high school did make it over yesterday and I bolted as much as possible.  Teresa got from them what we have heard often in this, “He doesn’t look sick.”
     I am glad that I don’t look like I have cancer.  As I have shared, I know that day is coming in the fall.  Until then, I am very happy to look and try to function normally.
     I may look healthy on the outside, but if left untreated, the multiple myeloma would eventually kill me.
     One day Jesus said this, “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean.”
     Woes are never good in the Bible.  Neither are hypocrites.  Appearing to be one thing when you are actually something else is as deadly as a disease that makes you appear to be healthy, when in fact, you actually are not.
     Cancer can take your physical life.  Hypocrisy can take your eternal life.  I’d prefer the former of those two.

     I started this blog on Tuesday.  Here is what I wrote yesterday:
     The last three days have been the hardest so far.  I have had an allergic reaction to something.  I felt on Sunday morning that I was the weakest that I have been since the chemo started. 
     Sunday and Monday I had several rashes from whatever is causing the allergic reaction. 
     The nurse this morning doesn’t seem to be too concerned about it.   She obviously didn’t see me last night.
     I had been trying to write a blog at least every third day, just so you know that I am still kicking.  I haven’t been able to keep to that.
     I wrote a blog on Friday that I never sent.  A couple of times I went back to try to redo it because I didn’t feel comfortable with it.  I felt kind of stuck.  This morning I decided to punt that blog, at least until another day.
     Feeling stuck is something I have felt often in this.  Right now I am taking the Tuesday treatment.  I am stuck in this recliner for a couple of hours.   At least the stick of the IV is past. 
     I am stuck as I listen to the nurses try to figure out which chemotherapy I am supposed to have.  Confusion is never a good thing when it comes to medical procedures.
     I am stuck needing to stay close to Lexington, unable to go anywhere for longer than a couple of days.
     Over the years as a pastor I have seen a lot of people who have gotten stuck.  Sometimes it was in a relationship.  Sometimes it was in a job.  It could be in a lot of things.
     Maybe the most significant “stuck” that I have seen is over some sin that happened in people’s lives.  It’s almost like they literally stopped functioning spiritually.  Whatever the sin, it is so grievious to them that they don’t believe that God could or would ever forgive them. 
     I am thankful for the grace of God that is greater than all our sin, even those sins that are so grievous to us that we just can’t believe that God would ever forgive us.  Paul says the greater the sin, the greater the grace.  What a great Savior we have.
 
Wednesday morning:
     The allergic reaction hasn’t subsided a great deal.  I quit taking what I think is causing it.  I guess we will see.
     I am glad that I am not stuck at home today.  Teresa is having two friends over whom she has known since high school.  I think I will bolt for the afternoon.

     When I went for treatment last week Baptist Health was having a Cancer Survivor Celebration Day.  If there was one balloon, there was a 1000 of them.  That might be a low estimate.
     Booths were set up in the waiting area and people who would cover those booths were scurrying around trying to get ready.
     My treatment was early and I was finished before most of the celebration began.  I was glad about that. I slipped out the door to the special valet parking for cancer patients and had to wait longer than normal because of the influx of people coming to the celebration.
     There was something in me that had some trouble celebrating that I am a cancer survivor.  Survivor indicates that something has happened in the past that is now behind me.
     I would be a cancer survivor of the sarcoma in my leg 22 years ago.  It does appear from the blood work that the prostate cancer is now somewhat in the rearview mirror. 
     I could not, however, celebrate that I am a survivor of the multiple myeloma.   Cancer “Surviving” Celebration Day might have been the name I would have chosen.
     From the first surgery I had on the sarcoma I have never once said that I am cancer free.   I hear cancer patients say that from time to time and I cringe when I hear that.  None of us ever knows for sure that we are cancer free.
     There is someone whom I love deeply who has fought breast cancer for over 10 years.  She is a model for me of what it takes to fight the dreaded disease.
     She still takes chemotherapy treatments every month and will for the rest of her life.  That is likely what will lie ahead for me after the stem cell transplant.  I guess you could say that she is a cancer survivor after 10 years.  But I think she would say that she is “surviving” rather than survived.
     The Bible uses leprosy of the body as an illustration of sin in the soul.  If the Bible was written today I would think that cancer would be the illness used as the illustration.
     Like cancer of the body, I would never say that I am sin free.  I am not a “sin survivor.”  Dealing with sin is not in the past.  It is an ongoing reality.   I am surviving the cancer of the soul. The treatment of the blood of Jesus is an ongoing reality.  I need the treatment often.
     There is far more celebration that I am surviving sin than I am surviving cancer.    There’s coming a day when I will step into the next life.  That’ll be the day when survivor could be said.  I will have survived and the disease of sin will be in the past.  Forever.  The ongoing treatments will have worked.
     Someday when my obituary is written there will likely be something in it about me battling cancer.  That battle isn’t the one to celebrate the fight that is in me.  I’d prefer for the obit to say something about the fight that really matters. 

     I am sitting in the recliner taking today’s treatment as I write this.  In some sense it is already a significant day.
     Today marks the halfway point for the infusion treatments.  It would be nice if it was halfway for all the treatment for the myeloma, but at least I am half done with the preliminary treatments.
     Teresa baked her awesome cinnamon bread as a thank you to the staff for the way they have cared for me.  Sunshine supposedly placed it in the breakroom, unless she hid it somewhere to take home!  Noah, the valet attendant, enjoyed the first piece.
     I have a nurse that I hadn’t had yet.  We will call her Nurse K.  I would take her every time.  Full of life.  Great smile.  Caring spirit.  And the IV was a first-timer.
      This was the earliest in the morning for any of the treatments.  I got in the Explorer at just about daybreak.   There was a “Canadian” haze in the sky according to the radio.  Through the haze the sun was a beautiful deep red.  It wasn’t until I pulled into the hospital parking lot that the haze had lifted and the bright yellow of the sun could be seen.
     Hazy wouldn’t be a bad analogy of what the last few months have been like.  Beauty through the haze, often followed by a clear ability to see the Light.  Knowing He is always there helps in the times when things seem hazy.
     I hadn’t much left the driveway before I got a text from someone who has stood with me in this struggle.  Of course, I read it when I stopped to get eggs at the DQ!
     The text was a verse from Zephaniah 3:17.   Here is the complete verse:
The Lord your God is with you,
    the Mighty Warrior who saves.
He will take great delight in you;
    in his love he will no longer rebuke you,
    but will rejoice over you with singing.”
     Her emphasis was on the last part of the verse that “The Lord is rejoicing over you with singing.”
     While I have read that verse several times and I have heard it quoted even more, I must admit that this morning there came a thought that I can’t say I can remember thinking before.  As I was driving this morning I had some thoughts about the Lord rejoicing with singing.
     There are lots of Scriptures about singing, but few insights about God being the One who was doing the singing.  If God is rejoicing over me (or anyone for that matter) with singing, what is that like in heaven?
     I can’t say that I have a mind picture of what that looks like.  It must be a joyful singing if He is rejoicing. 
     What I do know is: I will rejoice in knowing that somehow this sinner, saved by grace, has the Mighty Warrior on his side.  I am not too sure how much God delights in me, other than to know that He is pleased that I love His Son and that I have trusted Jesus for my eternity, as well as my today.   
     I would sing along with Him, but what He might be singing is a mystery.
     And to top it off, as I was finishing this, the tech who checked me in came by to verify just how good Teresa’s bread is.  At least what may still be left of it!

     Please forgive me for not getting the last two day’s blogs to you on a timelier basis.  I finished them early one morning while we were on the way home from Rochester, but I failed to send them to Megan.  Call it getting forgetful or maybe just lots of things on my mind.
     I am far from an expert on dealing with cancer.  Though three times now, three different unrelated cancers have given me some insight.
     What I have experienced in dealing with cancer is that cancer is a downward, negative spiral.  First comes the bad news that you have cancer, sometimes it is expected news and sometimes it is totally surprising news.  I expected the prostate cancer diagnosis.  I was totally blindsided by the news of the multiple myeloma.
     After the initial whack you realize that it is something with which you must deal.  It’s almost like being in quicksand, the longer you are in it, the more it seems like you are sinking.  This test, then the next one, then something else is found, then more tests and more results.
     Maybe this is more on my mind after getting the plan for the treatment of the myeloma.  But it is something that I have thought about for a long time.  Going on 22 years and rekindled in the past six months.
     If you have had a serious cancer, you know exactly the feeling.  You don’t think it could get worse or more difficult, but then it often does.
What I have found is that the spiral continues downward until one of two things happen: You hit rock bottom in every sense of the word—physically, mentally, and possibly spiritually and then the spiral stops and begins an upward climb with hope and possibility.
     The other reality is that cancer can be the victor physically but not mentally or spiritually.   My brother in the Lord, Phil, lost the earthly battle but won the spiritual battle. 
     In some sense, I am still in the downward spiral on this one.  Waiting for the rock bottom in late summer.  And hoping that the upward spiral begins with hope and new possibility.