A Covenant Keeping God - April 20, 2008

Dear Friends:
I sat at the window peering at a blackened sky, giant, sloppy drops falling in sheets, made puddles the size of an Oldsmobile. The glove on my left hand well oiled and perfectly formed. I threw the ball in my right hand hard against the leather, almost to punish it for being so ready. This is baseball season, it is not supposed to rain. Tears flowed softly down my cheeks; my shirt was slowly looking like the landscape beyond the window.

I took off my uniform and hung it up. Pulled the hand-me-down jeans, third removed, from under my bed and a thrift store shirt, with a logo I did not understand, to cover my now changing torso. Today, I could not escape. I was home. I mumbled to myself, I hate it when God lies.

I felt that I had a covenant with God, I would not complain as long as He did not ruin my seasons. At the time, our relationship was not so secure. I knew God; He was to whom I prayed. He made the universe and He made me. That was about the extent of our relationship. I also knew that He didn't always listen and He didn't always keep my covenant.
He was not to be trusted. He was too much like my father. I kept hoping in Him but I could not trust Him. Intellectually, I knew this was not right but my heart was the one who talked to God, asked for safety, pleaded for peace, and laid silent waiting for the answers that never came. My heart needed a God who would not break the covenant, would not let a little girl fear the visits of the nights or the violence of the days. No one could show me that God.

That little girl still lives in this very mature adult. The difference is that I have experienced a God that will not let me go. He will keep His covenant. I know that from many trials and victories. Yet, late at night, when the pain is high and sleep will not come, the little girl returns. She wants her own way. She has never said, "Not my will but yours Lord." She still wants to make her own covenant and have God follow it.

This is the battle: How to silence the little girl who never knew her God; how does one take away the fear that holds no hope; how do I remind this little girl that she is only a product of pain, fear, and sleepless nights?

This is the struggle. I know this child is wrong. I know that God is close, He will hear and He will answer. I know there is hope. My hope is not just in a present day miracle, though I know that God can do that. My hope is mainly in the eternal life that is waiting. There I will be healed. I do not fear death. My fear is life. I do not know the future and it really doesn't look good. If God chooses for me to die of cancer, I cannot think that it will be pain free or leave me strong until the last day. That is when I forget that if God chooses this as a way for me to go home, He has a reason, and He will be with me through it. It will not be my strength but His. That is His covenant.

We are now in the third of six cycles of chemotherapy. I have spent two nights in the hospital. Once on the first cycle because pain levels were too high to think and once on the second cycle because I needed a transfusion to bring my red blood cells back up. At the end of the first cycle, I was frightened and felt abandoned. I knew the pain levels could go higher and I could not think of a good reason to continue the chemotherapy. The little girl was back. Knowing how to get her to leave, I started praying. I asked God to give me some assurance that I should keep this chemotherapy going. I did not know how He would do it but I just needed something because I was scared, weary and facing a husband who wanted me to keep going but was as scared as I was. The next morning I woke to a wonderful peace. I knew I should keep up the chemotherapy and that He would take care of the pain. This last cycle was almost pain free, even when my blood levels dropped. I know that God kept His covenant. He is a covenant keeping God.

Please pray that the blood levels will not drop quite as fast and that the pain levels will stay in tolerable amounts. I have surgery right after this round to replace the stint near my right kidney. It needs to be done and depends on my blood levels being just right. God has already intervened and moved the surgery a week so the blood will be better. Your prayers help in many ways.
Thank you so much. Marj.