February 17

I may be wrong, but I could almost swear I heard a demon open my bedroom door, just before 10 PM last night, and whisper the following: "Yoo-hoo, Mr. 'captivating, lovely discipline of drawing near to God,' have we got a surprise for you. " And then the hourly beep of my watch on the bedstand, catapulting me into a waking condition that lasted for three hours.

At least, I think the demons were behind that beep. Or maybe I just forgot to shut off the hourly alarm feature. Anyhoo. Same difference.

Needless to say, my time with God this morning was neither captivating nor lovely. But that's the way it goes.

Take it from someone who's been around the block a couple of times, life has its up's and life has its down's. We live in a broken universe that, according to Romans 8:21, will only be healed when it is brought into the freedom of the glory of God's children. (By the way, there will be no insomnia in that universe.)

Meanwhile, believers experience tragic situations that will never change, no matter how much they pray for relief, and other situations that will change, but oh, so slowly, and only with overwhelming amounts of pain. I think of my friend Robert Dawkins. God never promised anything different.

But he did promise that he will be with us through the situation. And that he will be enough. And that, both here and on the other side, the pain will ultimately bring great glory to God and profound joy to us.

Here are the lyrics to one of my favorite songs, entitled simply "Through."

When I saw what lay before me
"Lord," I cried, "What will you do?"
I thought he would just remove it,
But he gently led me through.
Without fire, there's no refining,
Without pain, no relief.
Without flood, there's no rescue,
Without testing, no belief.
Through the fire, through the flood,
Through the water, through the blood,
Through the dry and barren places,
Through life's dense and maddening mazes,
Through the pain and through the glory,
Through will always tell the story
Of a God whose power and mercy
Will not fail to take us through.

February 15

Two weeks and a day have passed since my last post, and I am here to report that I am presently working the five hour per day light-duty assignment, a custodian's job in Archdale, and will continue to do this for a month or more until I am ready to come back to carrying mail. I putter around, here and there, all at my own sweet pace. God is so very good!

I was sharing with my pastor today that, prior to my surgery, several groups of people had prayed for divine healing of the tumor. I believed with all my heart that this was a possibility, and even asked for one more MRI in case it had happened. It had not, however, and I proceeded with the surgery.

If it had happened, I would have missed one of the great blessings of my life. This whole process has brought me much closer to Jesus and has begun to warm my heart in a way I had longed for but never really thought possible. More specifically, I have been able to spend more time with Jesus and to grow, albeit so slowly, in the captivating, lovely discipline of drawing near to God. I had known beforehand what it meant to be warmed and nurtured by the Word of God, to crawl up on Jesus' lap, so to speak, and pour my heart out, to listen for his voice to me, but these times were much more irregular than they should have been. It occurred to me after the surgery that the time God was giving me was a great gift, and so I began to spend regular periods in the evening reading my Bible and then praying--either lying on my back beside my bed or just kneeling. Sometimes my mind would wander, but I saw a growth in my ability to call it back.

Somewhere along the line, I asked specifically to be able to pray passionately, and, praise God, that is happening more frequently.

And one more thing. I have begun, oh so slowly, to comprehend the amazing love of the triune God for Chuck Eggerth. There was a time when I did not really think I could comprehend it. Now I'm thinking differently--now I believe he wants me to know and experience and live in that tender, overwhelming love.

The challenge now is to transfer the evening time to the morning, which will involve getting up earlier. I'm not sure I'm up to it, but I'm going to try.

Sheldon Van Auken wrote a book entitled "A Severe Mercy." In it he recounts the death of his beloved wife and all the beauty that terrible, terrible grief ultimately worked into his life. My situation is not tragic like his, but the beauty is similar, and it has stirred my soul.

By the way, you don't need a brain tumor to experience this.

But that's what it took for me!