Storyframes: Jen McManus

God is good in our pain

The first blog I read this morning (here) made me cry. It is well written about indecent acts of sacrilege in this broken and fallen world. Pain is the norm in this life.

The next blog I read today (here) reminded me that pain is meant by God for our good, even when we can't exactly see the big picture. Somehow, in the mind of the omnipotent Creator of the universe, pain is the best way to accomplish certain good ends in this world. I don't always understand it, but I trust Him.

I was encouraged today by the following video from PCA pastor David Wayne (aka Jollyblogger). God is good in our pain. he says, in part, that instead of avoiding all pain and running for our peace and affluence, we should look at what God is doing.

David Wayne - My Battle with Cancer from David Wayne on Vimeo.

Lord, give me the grace to trust you, to see your plan, to believe your wisdom for my life, even when it hurts.

Death is not dying

Today a friend pointed me to this web page, and the video of a talk given by a young woman who is loosing her battle with cancer. Her testimony was both encouraging and heart-rending. But it reminds me of what is really important. If you have time, give it a listen here. And pray for the Barkey family, as mother and wife, Rachel, walks through the end of her life.

Weary

I think three surgeries and six and a half weeks of radiation in the last 6 months has taken a toll on my body. I feel so weary, and am having a tougher time bouncing back than I thought I would have. I am really battling discouragement this week (and yes, it's only Monday!) I'm just tired of feeling terrible, tired of having no energy, tired of shirking my responsibilities, tired of imposing on my friends to pick up the slack I leave.

God is doing his part to encourage me in every way: by His Word and through His son, through His body, the church, through my family and friends. Now the question is, what will I do with that encouragement? If truth be told, I'd like to ignore it and go to bed for a few weeks, not answer my phone or go anywhere. But somehow, I think that would be cuddling my sin. I *do* need to rest, but I also need to preach the truth to myself. And the truth is, so I'm tired. So what? No biggie. i won't be tired and achy forever. This will pass, and if I pull the covers over my head for a few weeks I will miss God's many blessings. So I trudge on. And I appreciate your prayers. I know the Lord will carry me.

Our inheritance

This morning I am weary. My post-op drugs are helping keep my pain in check, but at the cost of a certain amount of wherewithal...I am tired and fuzzy around the edges.

One of the things I have been thinking about through the stupor is the rich blessing of the communities I find myself a part of. God has richly blessed me with family, church family, and Christian community that is real and valuable. I praise Him for that! And I pray for the cloud of witnesses around me. May we stand firm for Christ in this weary world.

Besides the heavenly inheritance prepared for the saints, there is a present inheritance in the saints; for grace is glory begun, and holiness is happiness in the bud.

~Matthew Henry

Thinking on the eternal

Last night was one of those challenging nights. I think many things added up to make it so...

First, I worked out at Curves in the morning (gently) and then gardened for about an hour. By the time I finished that little bit of physical activity, my legs were shaking, and I literally had to lay down for a nap BEFORE lunch! And by the evening, I was sore and achy all over.

Secondly, my radiation area is not happy at the moment: it has turned pretty red and tender and itchy, and the skin is all beginning to peel. It's just not pleasant.

Add to that the fact that the evening had a long series of death scenes in my entertainment. We finished watching the HBO series on John Adams (which was very good, by the way-- I liked the book better, but it was well done). The final episode shows Adam's daughter, Nabby, die of breast cancer, Abigail die, Thomas Jefferson die, and finally Adams, himself, die.

Then I went off to bed to finish the book I was reading, entitled The Night Journal. I read the book because its setting is found in the part of New Mexico I live in. It was interesting, but I would not highly recommend it. {If you want a great book about this part of New Mexico, read Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Cather-- a much finer novel!} "Night Journal" in the title refers to the journal of a dark time as one of the heroines of the novel dies a grizzly death from tuberculosis. That was what I waded through after John Adams.

And finally, we ended the day with Spurgeon reminding us to find our encouragement in the eternal things, and to point others to the eternal.

So, I lay awake some time, off and on, hurting and feeling uncomfortable, searching my life for those eternal things. How have I spent my life, after all? If God took me tonight, what would I leave behind me, and how would the fruit of my years be measured? The aches and pains in my body and my weariness left me, for a time, without a trace of hope that I have ever done anything worthwhile in the eternal sense. But slowly, as I struggled in prayer and repented of my selfishness, and grasped at God, He met me with encouragement. He brought to mind those things that Scripture says are important. I have loved and tried, however imperfectly, to serve my husband. I raised two boys into men who, by God's grace, love Him. I have taught many students, challenged many women in bible study, all by God's grace. These are the eternal things, are they not? These are the quiet ways God changes lives, and He has allowed me to be part of it.

As I struggled before sleep, I realized anew that the eternal things are not always big things. They are not always martyrdom and majesty. Sometimes they are little things, like changing diapers, or grading book reports, preparing bible study lessons, or taking a meal to someone in need. Part of the amazing thing about our amazing God is that He calls us and enables us to be part of these little things, and instead of them only being "little things", they count forever.

Weary to the bone

Today I have been tired to the bone. I didn't sleep well, probably because I didn't rest enough yesterday. Don't get me wrong: I didn't actually accomplish anything yesterday, but I didn't really lay down and sleep. Then last night I was tender and ached all over, couldn't get comfortable, had nasty dreams when I did sleep, and got up this morning more tired than when I went to bed last night. So I conducted a forced march for 45 minutes this morning without enjoying it. I listened to good music with uplifting words, and read scripture, and tried to get my focus where it needed to be, despite how tired of the struggle I was feeling. I showered, and headed off to treatment especially thankful that My Gal Thursday was driving so I could rest to Santa Fe and back. And after lunch, I headed to my comfy chair with a book, ready to fall asleep reading.

The book I took with me to my comfy chair was Suffering and the Sovereignty of God. David Powlison, in his chapter, "God's Grace and Your Suffering", said this profound thing:

How does God's grace meet you in your suffering? We can make the right answer sound old hat, but I guarantee this: God will surprise you. He will make you stop. You will struggle. he will bring you up short. You will hurt. He will take his time. You will grow in faith and in love. He will deeply delight you. Yu will find the process harder than you ever imagined--and better. Goodness and mercy will follow you all the days of your life (Psalm 23:6). No matter how many times you've heard it, no matter how long you've known it, no matter how well you can say it, God's answer will come to mean something better than you could ever imagine.

As I dozed off to sleep contemplating this, I kept coming back to the idea of delighting in God. And it occurred to me in a flash that as God makes us more and more into the image of His Son through our suffering, He not only gives us delight in Him, but He delights in us. This Sovereign God not only allows me to delight in Him, but He chooses to delight in me. So when I am bone tired and dragging, the Sovereign of the universe delights in me, not because I deserve it, or because I've gotten anything at all done (or nothing at all done) but because He chose to make me into the likeness of His Son, and he chose me to delight in me. That is soothing salve for my weary bones.

Brokenness

On Saturday, I attended the memorial service of a child. A baby, really. Just over nine months old, she had begun her life prematurely, with a myriad of medical problems, but the image of God stamped upon her. In her short life on this earth, she touched the lives of others in ways they will never forget.

As heart-breaking as the death of a child is, there was something more heart-wrenching at that service: the brokenness of her family. Her parents are estranged and with other people. Her grandparents are divorced. One of her grandparents saw her for the first time at her memorial service. I could feel the tension and division in the air, and because I love each of them, I wept. I wept for their pain, and the scars they have accumulated and given one another. I wept for the way God created things to be, and the distance between that and the reality of all of our lives.

It made me think of Romans 8:18-25:

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

I could hear the groaning of the creation at that service. I could feel the groaning of my own spirit, and it's longing for things to be made whole again. I long for healing for me and for the family of this dear little baby. But that patience part, that's the rub. I am growing impatient for the promises of God to be fulfilled. I am so longing for the brokenness of our fallen world to be made right, for healing to flow, to find rest in God's arms. What precious promises these are! And I guess, after all, they are worth waiting for, and I can wait expectantly for their fulfillment. But oh, what longing...

Being cut down to size

That's how I feel lately: God is cutting me down to size, reminding me of just who I am before him. I feel like I imagine Ustace felt in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader when Aslan had to painfully cut and scrape through the rough dragon hide he'd grown in order to expose the real boy underneath. It hurt, and it was not any fun, but even as the pain was taking place, there was comfort that it had to happen, and it would be good in the end because while Aslan was not tame, he was very good.

The wonderful words to this song by Jason Gray, from his album All the Lovely Losers, express it quite well:

The Cut by Jason Gray

Under your blade
As you carve out Your image in me
You cut to the core
But still you want more
As you carefully, tenderly, ravage me.

As you peel back the bark
And tear me apart
To get to the heart
Of what matters most
I'm cold and I'm scared
As Your love lays me bare
But in the shaping of my soul
The cut makes me whole.

Mingling here
Your blood and my tears
As You whittle my kingdom away
But I see that You suffer, too
In making me new
For the blade of love cuts both ways.

Hidden inside the grain
Beneath the pride and the pain
Is the shape of the man
You meant me to be
Who with every cut now you try to set free.

With everyday
You strip more away
But in the shaping of my soul
The blade must take its toll
So God give me the strength to know
That the cut makes me whole.

Waiting for rain

This morning it's cool and raining. That is a rare treat in the desert Southwest in June!

Last weekend, Dave and I walked the rim trail, from our house, along the edge of White Rock Canyon. (See at right, just one of the spectacular views). It had rained the week before, and there were suddenly a myriad of wildflowers springing up from the sand and rocks. It is hard to believe little seeds could lay dormant in that barren place, just waiting for a few drops of moisture to produce something of great beauty.

That is somehow a picture of the eloquent way God speaks into our lives and the world, isn't it? In barren soil, there is treasure hidden, just waiting for the rain from heaven to call it to life. In the barren soil of my heart, I wait for the rain of the Holy Spirit to produce something beautiful.

As I enter my second surgery in a month this morning, I am waiting. Waiting for that beautiful thing that the Lord is producing in me, which cannot be seen right now, but it is there. And once it is given the right moisture from heaven, suddenly we will gasp at the beauty God has hidden beneath the ugly surface. May my life be soil in the hands of the Creator, to call forth from it all that He wishes, all that is beautiful and best. In Him I determine to lay fallow and at peace until His rains come.

Living with cancer

Obviously, my own cancer makes me remember in a keen way the journey we traveled 16 years ago with Dave's cancer. Add to that a friend whose husband is battling cancer, and another who is living with metastatic disease, and several more friends in various stages of the battle, and things I have long forgotten are rushing back to me in a fresh, clear way.

This morning I have been remembering the difference between dying of cancer and living with cancer. This is an important difference. There may come a time to die of cancer, but the more difficult calling is to live with cancer. It really does come down to relinquishing the last vestiges of our control, and letting God be God in our lives and deaths. This is all well and good in the abstract, and a real challenge in the here and now.

I was remembering this morning the time that Dave was doing chemotherapy in Los Alamos after our return here from treatments in Houston. He wanted to go on travel for work even though he had NO (read ZERO) white blood cells. I tried everything: reasoning, arguing, crying. Because, of course, it is foolish to spend time in the recirculated air of an airplane with dozens of strangers when you cannot fight infection of any kind, right? I was getting no where with Dave. He eventually agreed to take it to his oncologist for a final decision, and I agreed to abide by the decision of the doctor. The doc asked Dave, "Will you wear a mask and refrain from eating or drinking in the airports?" And Dave said, "Sure!". And that was that. He could go. I couldn't believe my ears! Then the oncologist reminded me that Dave's desire to live his life, carry on with "normal" activities, was just as important to his recovery as the other stuff we were doing.

I began to see the application of this to several things I deemed as "stupid" activities from Dave at the time: running with neuropathy in his feet that made him fall, working a half-day after extremely toxic chemotherapy treatments, fighting to stay awake at night until at least 10:00 when he was exhausted. I realized he was living with cancer instead of dying from it. Yet again, he became my hero.

So, this morning I want to promise the Lord I will live with cancer as long as it is my calling. I am not sure what that will look like, nor if I have the courage to do it. But I know I can do all things in Christ, who strengthens me, and I know He has prepared this road for me, and its end is secure. What more can I ask?

Remembering the Truth

One of the challenges during any time of trial is remembering the Truth when your mind and emotions are so distracted. The distraction comes from pain, worry, information overload, the love and care of others, feeling sorry for ones self, and a myriad of other temptations. And I find I am prone to all of these! But when I focus on these things and forget the truth, then I am jsut set adrift in a self-centered abyss. It's an ugly place.

So, what do I do to keep focused on the truth? Of course, I don;t do so perfectly. I have plenty of moments of being overwhelmed, but if I stay there I would despair. So here are some of the things that the great Christians of old, and the Scriptures, have taught me to do. These are my weapons in the day-to-day battle that goes on in my heart and mind when the enemy wants to drive me to despair...

• Dave and I memorize Scripture together. This week's verse is Isaiah 40: 29-31. Last week it was 1 Thessalonians 5:9-10. And the week before that, Romans 8:29-31. God's Word is like a balm.
• We also pray together and read together: good reading, like Spurgeon's Morning and Evening (which really seems like he wrote it for me, not 150+ years ago!) And we pray and read separately, too.
  
• I rehearse God's promises before His throne. "Lord, you promise to be sufficient for me, be so!"
• I try to think of others and send cards or e-mails, or pray for them. I recall that this is really not the "Cosmos of Chris" even though I'd sometimes like it to be, and see how the Lord would use me even in this place to minister to others.
• I listen to wonderful, uplifting music, watch cheerful movies, and watch my flowers grow. These are healthy distractions to keep me from wallowing.
• I do the tasks at hand (maybe not as fast or efficiently as I'd like). I try to keep moving on what God has called me to put my hand to.
  

The "sound track" to this illness is a CD I got from Sovereign Grace Music shortly before my diagnosis called "Come Weary Saints". The music is wonderful, in the contemporary worship style. But the words are deep and true. I have it on my mP3 player, my computer and in the car, and find myself putting it on when I need to take my thoughts captive. I concentrate on the truth in the wonderful words, and force my mind to dwell on the Truth. What a lovely weapon to have in my arsenal for this battle!

One of the songs I have been listening to frequently lately is below. Everyone should have this CD to encourage them!

As Long as You Are Glorified by Mark Altrogge

Shall I take from Your hand Your blessings
Yet not welcome any pain
Shall I thank You for days of sunshine
Yet grumble in days of rain
Shall I love You in times of plenty
Then leave You in days of drought
Shall I trust when I reap a harvest
But when winter winds blow, then doubt

Oh let Your will be done in me
In Your love I will abide
Oh I long for nothing else as long
As You are glorified

Are You good only when I prosper
And true only when I’m filled
Are You King only when I’m carefree
And God only when I’m well
You are good when I’m poor and needy
You are true when I’m parched and dry
You still reign in the deepest valley
You’re still God in the darkest night

© 2008 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)

God's better plan

I have prayed and prayed that the Lord would allow my lymph nodes to be clear of cancer. And while we don't have a confirmed diagnosis on the nodes in my chest and abdomen and pelvis, they are active with something bad. While this came as a blow, I knew it was God's answer to my prayers. I have such a strong sense that God is calling me to know Him better, walk with Him farther than I think I can, gain more intimacy with and trust in Him. While His answer to my prayers is difficult, and not what I wanted and hoped for, I know it is good, and it is better for me than my own plans. My own plans would trust God a safe distance, just to the very end of my finger tips. But He won't settle for that. It's all of me, without reserve, no grasping fingers struggling for control, that He insists on. So, here I am for our next great adventure, Lord. Be sufficient for me.

Here is my song for the day:

Glorious by Mark Altrogge

Shall I take from Your hand Your blessings
Yet not welcome any pain
Shall I thank You for days of sunshine
Yet grumble in days of rain
Shall I love You in times of plenty
Then leave You in days of drought
Shall I trust when I reap a harvest
But when winter winds blow, then doubt

Oh let Your will be done in me
In Your love I will abide
Oh I long for nothing else as long
As You are glorified

Are You good only when I prosper
And true only when I’m filled
Are You King only when I’m carefree
And God only when I’m well
You are good when I’m poor and needy
You are true when I’m parched and dry
You still reign in the deepest valley
You’re still God in the darkest night

© 2008 Sovereign Grace Praise (BMI)

Miscellany

This morning was one of those mornings that started early... after a peaceful sleep from about 11:00 until 4:15, despite grumblies in my tummy after my barium snacks yesterday afternoon. But at 4:15 I was wide awake, an the day was starting despite my best attempts to return to sleep. So I prayed, I cuddled with my husband, and then rose to listen to God's word and start the day...

Here are a few things I've been collecting that have been interesting or encouraging to me lately. Hope you find them so as well...

• Stephen Altrogge offers and excellent, brief audio clip of John piper talking about the benefits of suffering here. I can only say "Amen!"
• Dr. John Currid offers this encouragement for not losing heart here.
• Tim Challies offers a helpful reflection on our job as parents and our response as children here. (And his blog today on our inherrent sinfulness is excellent as well!)
  
• Dallas Theological Seminary has an online rare books collection that looks worth knowing about here.
• And lastly, just for fun, Switchfoot has just released a music video of a song done for the soundtrack of the upcoming Narnia movie, Prince Caspian, here. Since we are both Switchfoot and Narnia fans, this was fun to watch (thanks to T.C. for the link.)
  

Strange Things

There are many strange things about walking on this cancer road I find myself on. First, of course, is just the lack of control, seemingly suddenly, over any details in your life. Your schedule is suddenly rearranged, shuffled, and constantly in flux. Having done this with Dave and then with my mom, it doesn't seem quite as shocking as it was in the past, but it is still disconcerting. It comes with normal routine and normal interactions halted, and I find myself missing the normal, missing my students, missing my friends.

Then there is just the weird idea that you actually have cancer. I felt fine until they started exploring my cancer, of course. There was no lump, no physical symptoms, nothing. But now I am poked, prodded, on special diets for tests, drinking horrible substances, and starting to feel downright sick.

And then there are just the surreal moments. Last week as I was laying in an MRI machine, face down, with my arms over my head for 45 minutes, I had on head phones with music to help blur out the odd clicks, whirs and pounding of the MRI machine. I had told the technician that classical music would be great, and so she started a CD of Mozart music running. The first thing on the CD was the opening movement of the 40th symphony. Now, every music major has, at some time, had to memorize these themes. In college, we used to put words to every theme to help us remember them. So I found myself singing in my head, "It's a bird, it's a plane, no, it's Mozart..." as lovely, balanced and beautiful music came to my ears, with the clicking and pounding behind it and the weird feeling of being inside an MRI machine. For a minute I felt like I was in one of those sci-fi or horror films where something unnatural is happening but the music is calm and beautiful.

These are the times when being a Calvinist pays off. I know a God who is so much bigger than the circumstances around me that I can laugh at them (as I almost did in the MRI machine, though I was not supposed to move...) And I can hold on to the knowledge that, even if these things are not what I would choose, they are no surprise to God, and they are planned from the foundations of the earth to bring about my good and His glory. Those promises become not just platitudes at such times, but things of hope and substance. but sometimes I need to battle to hold on to them. I am not trying to paint the picture that I am not fearful at times, or dreading surgery. I am. But I run to Christ in such moments. And He is good to meet me where I am and love me through it.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified.

What then shall we say to these things?If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised— who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36As it is written,

"For your sake we are being killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered."

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:18-39

On being a demanding child

Spring is so full of promise. And so is my heart, though my body feels awfully weary today. The cold snap we are experiencing is biting to my soul, and seems to reflect the circumstances of my life somehow.

As I learn to rearm myself for the battle ahead (pick up the weapons of the spirtitual war that will help me fight the physical one), I am dwelling in God's promises. I am afraid I am also being a demanding child. When the enemy is attacking, I find all I can do is remind God of his promises and demand He keep them.

"Lord. you say you will be sufficient for me. Be sufficient."

"Lord, you promise the peace that passes all understanding. I need that peace right now. Please give it to me!"

Christ said what father, when his son asks for bread, will give him a stone instead. So I am asking for those things that the Father promises His children: peace and rest and trust in Him. And I am being insistent in prayer.

I am also asking Him for what I want: healing, restoration of health, minimal pain. But I am not demanding these things in the same way. I do not know the mind of God. I do not know what He plans for me. But I do know I can rest in the fact that His plan is perfect: it is good, and will bring Him glory. So the things I want, I lay before Him, and ask Him to give them to me if they are best, and to help me accept His will where it is different from mine.

What a privilege it is to be a child...even a demanding one.

A New Journey

Dear all-

A journey of a different kind is beginning in my life... I have been diagnosed with breast cancer. On my home page (linked at right, and found here), which has become my family information spot for family and friends, I thought I would post my journey mileage, so to speak. So by going to that blog and by clicking on that term "Cancer Journey" in the "Labels" in the side bar, you should be able to pull up whatever I (or Dave) has recently posted.

Here, I will still blog my other musings, thoughts, and contemplations. But the new category of "Cancer Journey" will be added here as well. I covet your prayers and desire to know my God in a deeper way along this road.