Last night was a “six-hour” one, a rarity since the radiation. I slept six hours in one block. It’s a blessing to sleep that long, but it usually means that I can’t go back to sleep. I can function fine on six hours of sleep.
I woke up this morning “pondering” for the first time in a couple of weeks. I committed to writing these blogs only when I feel some leading of the Spirit. The pondering was a good feeling for me. I now have four or five things “in the hopper” so you may see a blog or two before another two-week layoff! There is a part of me that has thought that I should be done with these blogs. My life is somewhat back to normal, though normal may never be the case again. It is then that I get a card in the mail from a lady whom I have never met. She has been dealing with breast cancer and dropped me an encouraging note to tell me how much the blogs have helped her deal with her own cancer. I realized then that our Lord isn’t quite finished with these blogs. I haven’t shared that I have been dealing with neuropathy since the resumption of the chemotherapy. For five months the medical staff had asked me if I had any tingling in my hands and feet. Now I know why. I had no clue about neuropathy, which is a tingling or pain in your hands and feet. It is caused by damage to the nerves and can be one of the side-effects of chemotherapy. The challenge for the medical team is to balance the amount of chemotherapy to try to reduce the damage to the nerves while at the same time still being effective against the myeloma. It is likely something that I will have to learn to live with, maybe for the rest of my life. As with most pain, it is more pronounced at night. I have recovered from the surgery on my thyroid as quickly as any surgery that I have ever had. I have taken no pain killers other than Tylenol. After four days I quit taking the Tylenol. As directed by the surgeon, after one week I resumed a relatively “normal” lifestyle, trying to make good decisions about what to do and what not to do. I haven’t cut down any trees or lifted heavy boxes! There was a part of me that felt I could have preached the Sunday after the surgery. We had others scheduled for three weeks, not knowing how I would respond. It was a wise decision to let my voice recover for a while. Normal conversations haven’t been affected, but constantly speaking for half an hour could have been a challenge. Three things still cause pain in my throat. Yawning, which I try hard not to do. Singing, which is the hardest for me because I love to sing. It is when I start to sing that I realize that I am still recovering. And the obvious one: yelling. I don’t do a lot of yelling except at Oreo. About a week after the surgery Teresa and I came home from Cynthiana. Oreo is standing at the basement door waiting for us. We let her out, going with her to the backyard. Oreo comes back into the garage and is standing by me next to the door going into the basement. Teresa gets some stuff out of her car. She closes the back hatch and I punch the garage door opener and the door begins to close. For some reason when the door was about a foot or so from closing, Oreo decides she is going back out and runs toward the garage door. Though the door has the sensor, I perceived that it would not stop the door quickly enough. So I yelled, “No! Oreo! No!” Though Oreo has a mind of her own and often doesn’t respond to commands, she knew the tone of my voice meant trouble. She put on the brakes and turned around. Over the years and even in these blogs I have shared that I often hear the voice of God more clearly when God says no than when He says yes. God’s “yeses” are often understood when I walk by faith and not by sight. I have felt that “no” from God a couple of times over the last couple of weeks when I thought I ought to be writing a blog. For some reason God clearly has said no, until this morning. I have found that to refuse to listen when God says no always brings trouble and even danger. Often I try to “negotiate” with God when He says no. We all try to rationalize our behavior. When God says no, He isn’t kidding. When He says no, it is always out of His love and for our good. Just ask Adam and Eve what happens when we fail to listen to God when He says no or don’t. I think I will leave the fruit on the tree and listen to the voice of God today.
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Chuck Cooper
Pastor at Daybreak Community Church Archives
February 2025
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