Tuesday, October 2, 2007

No Boasting

Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit" Yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that."

Once again today we listened sadly as the doctor talked to us about Russell's dad's cancer growing again. When we first started this journey, we didn't expect papa to live very long....he's still with us 10 1/2 months later. That doesn't sound like much time, but we have enjoyed every minute of that time. Now, as then, we say God and God alone will determine how many days papa lives, as He does with each of us. We plan to take Russell's parents to North Carolina for Thanksgiving with Russell's sister and a lot of the grandkids, Lord willing!

One strange and really unimportant fact.....papa was diagnosed with small cell lung cancer, the fastest growing kind, which when killed in the lung (I guess they try to kill it) moves to the brain. His never responded to the treatments except that maybe they kept the mass from growing faster. Now that the treatments have ended, it has started growing again in the lung, but is growing slowly and has not spread anywhere else, which the doctor says is also not how the disease "is supposed to behave".
We really don't know why this disease is not behaving like it usually does, but we believe that God is controlling the behavior of this thing and not a medicine or doctor. Please pray God's mercies on papa and so many that are diagnosed daily.

4 comments:

Dawn said...

God has a way of astounding doctors, that's for sure! I can't believe I am so far behind on my reading - I've missed so many good posts here. I did one once on That Was The Week That Was. I don't think I watched the show much, but I do remember that expression!

Tonja said...

I'm so sorry, Nancy. My prayers are with you all. May God be merciful to him.

Seawashed said...

I can hear the love you have for papa in the way you write. It warms my heart. I always take news as such of his cancer not behaving the way its supposed to as a twinkle of hope...like a whisper from the Father that He's in my care, all is well. So give thanks that it hasn't spread to his brain and keep thanking him for every day papa is still here with you. Isn't God good.

nancygrayce said...

Thank you fairmaiden...we too, think that God is doing His work. We certainly know He's in control! Thanks!