Count Your Blessings

"Count your blessings one by one, count your blessings see what God has done".  We (I) don't do this enough.  As I was reading through the last few months and processing where we've been, I was amazed at how intense this has been - reading through this, I'm amazed we are still here. I'm not going to apologize because frankly things are still intense.

Reading though all that warfare made me want to glorify the High King.  Want to know why?  He's been faithful.  He's been our strong tower when we have had enemies on every side.  He's been the one to break through when we are surrounded and relieve us.  Do you want to know how?

You.  His church, his bride.  His people.  I would be blogging 2000 years post rapture if I tried to quantify all of the things people have done for us. People that don't know us, people that do. People from literally all over the world.  The goal here is to try to convey both a universal THANK YOU and more importantly give you a chance to understand what happens to people when they surrender their lives to this man, this God, this Jesus we love.  In fact he loves us so much that the God of the Universe, the maker of us all includes you and I in what he is doing.

"My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working."

-Jesus of Nazareth

Like our Dad you have been working:

-Meals:  Since March, at least twice a week people have brought us meals. With parents splitting time between Children's Hospital, work and home this has been one way in which god has sustained us  kind of like the Ravens fed Elijah (Thank you for being a raven)

-Cards, letters, visits:  We have been showered with well wishes, letters of encouragement, written about in blogs (not this one - right Adeye?) which spurred a no kidding deluge of mail to Jacob from people from all over the globe. Each word written by you was used by our King to say "Never will I leave you, Never will I Forsake You to Jacob and to us. This is like having personal messages of encouragement from the High King delivered by the King's personal emissary (Thank you for being the Kings Presence)

- Support for Gas:  You have sent us to be with Jacob.  He lights up.  The floor full of suffering - lights up.  Lorrie comforts other Moms.  Nurses smell Jesus in that room.  The gospel is lived out.  You sending us not only comforts us and Jacob but people feel the hope that comes with your sending. As I type this I am starting to realize that this is a mission field - it is.  And you are sending us.  (Thank you for sending us)

- Shoulders:  Back to those intense blog entries. Lorrie and I have used many of your shoulders. You let us be a mess and you love us anyway. You told us its ok to be ok.  You carry our 90 lb ruck sack.  You don't get all churchy on us when we tell you that this sucks.  You cry with us.   You rejoice with us.  You comfort us in this trial we are in.  (Thank you for being our Comforter and bearer of our burden like our Father is - you are starting to look just like him you know...)

-Warriors:  I related to a friend a month or two ago that dealing with all of this is kind of like that first horrific scene in Saving Private Ryan.  We've been in the enemy's kill sack.  He was and still is intent on taking us all out to sow despair, to steal kill and destroy.  We've been down. Wounded. Bleeding out.  And out of nowhere - there you all are.   You drag us to cover, sprinkle scripture sulfa on our wound and bind us up. You are fearless. And the part I love is the enemy fears...you.  (Thank you for being warriors like our High King)

-Servants: A family just left my house and I am 40% sure (you know who you are) they just walked our dogs. My goodness people you have walked dogs, toilet paper and paper towels mysteriously appeared at our home yesterday. You have sat with our Son, given up your time so Lorrie and I could have time. You have washed our feet. (Thank your for doing what Jesus does)

-Gift Givers:  Jacob now has more legos than any kid in Colorado I think. Someone sent him the coolest globe ever. T Shirts, hats have appeared to many other things to mention - all with one goal: Ease Jacob's Suffering. People have slipped us checks, paid more than what I asked for when selling a tent and then told us "we want to help."  (Thank you all for being a lavish Giver like Dad)

So many people, so many "Statues of God walking about in the Garden" as one theologian put it. You all remind me of my Abba. All of this also reminds me of this:

As it is, there are many parts, but one body

                                                          -Paul to the Corinthian Church

Each of you acting through the Spirit has been part of that body, that beautiful bride that our Jesus is madly in love with and no small wonder why he is. He's jealous for me, for you, for us.  

I want you to see in this post what I see.  The church is not a building. Christianity is not Religion.  It is the power of Jesus to transform you and I into what we were meant to be, a reflection of him and my friends you certianly do look and act like my Jesus.  

We will never ever be able to buy enough thank you cards for each of you who has prayed and acted on our behalf, so I wanted to give you all the highest compliment any person could get outside of a card.  You look like Jesus to me.

Glory, Honor, Strength and Power be to Jesus the One Who Was, Who Is and Is to Come.

What I learned about being OK.

Just a quick update.  I really am hoping that those of you who are going through something hard consider what I am about to say - particularly you men out there who like me feel the wieght of responsibility and duty.

Maybe you are ex military like me or your father taught you these important virtues of responsibility and duty.  They are important to be sure.  But here is what I have learned going through the muck of the last month.  Responsibility and duty do not trump these truths in God's word:

Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall. 

Proverbs 55:22 

Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you

1st Peter 5:7

Do you men know what this means?  It means it's ok to be...well ok.  Here is what I mean.  It is ok for you not to carry the wieght of a trial,  it is ok for you to give your 90 lb rucksack to Jesus. In other words, this means that the weight of a trial is only ours to carry when we refuse to give it to Jesus to carry out of duty or honor or obligation or what ever 'ought to' that is plagueing you.

What I will call a 'false obligation' kept me under that rucksack.  I chose to go into the hole.   I felt it was my 'duty'. While Jesus only wanted to free me of the burden...I chose duty over Jesus's offer of rest.  In his book, 'It's Your Call' Gary Barkalow told a story of being asked by Jesus "Is it heavy enough for you?" referring to a burden Gary had been carrying for many years.

Gents - Jesus wants your burden - for whatever reason - He wants it.  No matter what you are up against.   I now know what these scriptures mean.  Learn from my mistake..drop your rucksack...It's ok. 

Not all better and it's OK.

So it's been a long while since I last wrote.  Suffice it to say - I went into the crawlspace (see the last post).  I love how I can  articulate to others how it's bad to go there and then I go and do it.  I was there for a long month.  I got angry, good and angry about everything.  I tried to do it all while at the same time realizing that was impossible and I failed. Then of course came the enemy, "you're not up to it" and "you're dropping things, you are...failing"

I started to make agreements with that enemy.."yep I am failing" and "I'm not handling this well". Then of course when the enemy has you there he easily gets you teetering on the brink of absolute dispair.  And there I was on the edge.  Then as God often arranges, a friend got me to open up....Kurt.  I had been complaining mightily to God. So he asked me how I was... I was honest.  Eventualy in our conversation I told Kurt " Man I am not doing this well!"  Pause....Kurt says "Marshall who could do this well?" And there it was. I had been trying to carry everything myself.  That conversation gave me permission to "not do this (my son having cancer) well."

Now then to say I am all better would be a lie.  I am not all better.  I am however now "not all better" and it's ok.  I  am (the whole family is) still in a tempest and we have no idea what beach we're going to wash up on.  But I've given myself permission to rest some and not try to carry all of it - that was an impossible task and the enemy took me out for a bit.  There is much much more to the story. But I wanted to be honest about where I've been.

The Laughterof a Warrior

 Now then Jacob - here's part of the "more". When we  checked out of the Hospital after numbers recoverd from  round 2 we had what we now call "the meeting".  Chemo  had not worked, Jacob was not in remission, we were  dealing with what the docs called a "refractory leukemia".  We were given 3 choices:  1. Take Jacob home and call it  done - he would have 3-4 months.  2. Take his already  sevearly weakend body through chemo round 3 right away  and hope for remission.  3. Go home rest, recooperate and  then try again.  No Brainer right? Option 3 it was.

And how he played, how he visited with his friends, how he laughed!  They wanted us to take him
in on that Friday after the Monday he was released.  We called the docs and told them - give us the weekend and they did.  So when Monday came we grudgingly took Jacob back to the hospital.  Now there is a routine to this.  First he gets a bone marrow biopsy.  Then he gets admitted.  Then chemo starts.  After a week of chemo and its side effects we get the results for the biopsy that Friday.

I (and the Doctors) fully expected to find Leukemia Blasts in the biopsy.  They didn't find them. I had fully expected to hear the same 'thats it' kind of news.  I heard the opposite.  The doc's even said they were surprised.  All of the sudden.  Hope.  We have even started to use the transplant word again and there are 2 perfect matches.  So pray for the Lord to 'Surprise' these doctors again.

10 mL per hour of suck.

There is hope, there is a break in the clouds - like an eye in a Typhoon.  The trial is not over. But as I sit here and watch Jacob sleep peacefully after a day of being a light to others on this floor with so much suffering on it I am thinking about this:  in a storm you have to struggle to hear someone speak to you through the wind and the rain - its been kind of like that for me. I know God is good. He never left us. He never left me. He used a friend to give me permission to "not do this well".

I have to apologize to my beautiful bride who knew I was in this hole and tried to help me when I was in that crawlspace for about 30 days.  I was a mess.  But having Lorrie greet me when I came out of the hole with that smile of hers well...there are no words. I Love my Lorrie very much.

And as for Jacob - a man can learn alot about how to walk through a trial from him.

Walking out of the crawlspace

I wanted to write a brief update.  So as I said in my last post it's been hard the last couple of weeks.  A big part of this has been the fact that since Jacob got out of the ICU he has not been himself.

You have to understand before the infection Jacob was light on the 7th floor -people who came into visit left...well, feeling better.  Well for the past week this has not been the case.  Jacob came back to his room -changed.  Sad I guess is the best word.  It was not simply speaking - him.

So last night we had a talk.  I asked Jake to tell me what it was that he was feeling since that terrible time in the ICU.  Two words:  sad and...mad.  So we dug deeper.  "Jacob - what is making you sad?"  He replied:  "I'm sad I feel bad"  and  "I'm sad that I can't be with my family."  I listened then I  asked "Jacob why are you mad?"  To which Jacob said "I'm mad that I have Leukemia."  and "I'm mad that I'm in the Hospital."  Clarity.  Honesty.  A weight lifted. I was able to answer:  "You know, we are all mad and we are all sad.  We are missing you too.  We are mad that you're not home with us - that you are stuck in here. We miss you."

I went on. "Jacob you have every right to be both mad and sad - but mad and sad are only two very, very small parts of your life.  Your life is bigger than mad and sad."  I went on to explain to him that if he lived out of those two very small parts of his life - it would be like having a big house and choosing to live in the crawl space like our cat does.  I'm sure the Lord was giving me the words - because he got it.

Today Jacob chose to live his life and turn away from mad and sad.  He chose to turn his light on again and not live in the crawlspace.  And the staff here - they noticed. (Jacob does not yet fully realize that his light is needed on the 7th floor) We all have those you know - our crawlspaces.  We hide in work, in business, in what we feel people value us in or for or the other lesser things in life to deal with things. We all (me included) do that.  But today I watched a young man choose to live out of the most important thing in the world - the life that the Lord gave him.

Getting that out, verbalizing the fact that this...well -sucks was so huge.  It freed him. Today was a 180.  A good 180.  I think that the light is back on.   Answered prayer for sure.

Jars of Clay

ICU.  Three letters I never wanted to hear.  Two weeks ago Jacob was taken to the ICU with a very high fever.  For a week his body battled the infection.  He spiked  at 105.7 at one point.  The impact on him was severe.

The good news is that last Monday he was returned to his room - paroled from the ICU. He's recovering as we speak.  Slowly but surely coming back.  We're waiting on his ANC to come up again after the last round of chemo - kind of like oh yeah we beat the infection now we need to get back to beating leukemia.  But the good news is I heard him laugh again today ;)   -Nothing was funny during that last week in the ICU so that was huge!  And...he's snapping legos together again!

I'm going to be the first to tell you - this is a hard, hard road.  We're tired. We are all (especially Jacob) so tired.    But obviously quitting is not an option.  Now I know what this means:

But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is 

from God and not from us.  We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; 

perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; 

struck down, but not destroyed. 

We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, 

so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body.

Even though I know what it means now, I feel like I am such a mess at this moment.  I can't yet see how Jesus is being revealed in my life because of this.  Mostly I am just simply a mess.  "How's Jacob?"  I get tired of fielding that one.  "How are you?" that one too.  The answer is "we are a mess".   The answer is we are being pressed on every side - but we're still in the fight.  We are perplexed, confused and have no idea how to face all this - but we are not despairing while still acknowledging the fact that this is harder than we could have imagined and shows no sign of letting up.  We are certainly not abandoned.  Struck down?  Yeah this is a gut punch every day.  But we are still here....by God's grace alone.

So what do we need?  Pray for Jacob for him to recover from this infection both physically and emotionally - it was hard on him.  Pray for a bone marrow donor and pray that when we go to transplant it takes - pray obviously for recovery.  Pray for Mom and Dad and Brothers and Sisters - we're a mess.  Pray mostly for the life of Jesus to be revealed in all of us. You can keep up on Lorrie's facebook that gets updated more often than this.

For all of you who have cooked meals, driven kids to Denver, helped make Jacob's room ready for an immune compromised kid, prayed for us, bought gas, talked with us, hugged us, loved us.  You have no idea the kindness you have shown us - no idea.  Thank you.

Marshall

Home and then back again.

As you know we've not been writing much lately.  So the last post left us at 45 days in the same room - quarantined. Jacob spent another two weeks in room 760 at Denver Children's Hospital.  He was in the same room from March 21 - May 19.  So the prayer was "Lord, let him be home for his Birthday" and that prayer was answered.  We celebrated his 14th birthday at home.

What a beautiful time that was!  He was reunited with his best buddy (Naomi) for MAJOR romps in the Colorado sunshine.  He was able to just be Jacob, hanging with his big brother Noah his sister Hannah and play with the dogs.  He was able to be simply speaking himself.

The only difference was frequent Dr's appointments and Mom and Dad gearing up to flush his brovi catheter (two people who chose careers other than medicine for a reason).  The last appointment was a bone marrow biopsy and getting the news - "blasts were found".  - No remission.  Leukemia coming back.  Pretty hard news after a great two weeks of "normal".  Shock.  Anger. Fear.  Lorrie and I had all of that within about 3 hours of the news.

So the procedure is when you don't achieve remission on the first round you are fast tracked to the bone marrow transplant lane.  This is a place we had hoped not to go.  But once again here we go - Jacob is once again running down there with a smile on his face beckoning Mom and Dad to follow.  Where does his courage come from?

He's not said so - but it seems to me he's like a kid hollering at his dad from a cliff to catch him as he launches himself totally confident that Dad will catch him - he just ...does it.  But you know what I think?  I think he know's who's arms he's jumping into.  My arms are a small, very small metaphor for the real arms that catch us - His arms- the Carpenter's arms.  Its breathtaking to me.  I want that courage. I have learned so much from my children.

I said earlier that this is not a sprint - its a marathon.  It's true.  But know this our family is now yelling "Catch us Daddy!"  And I fully expect to land in those strong arms - maybe even listening to a giggle from a 14 year old boy as I land.  So the way ahead:

- We're now on day 2 of a 6 day chemo session.  We hit zero, come back hopefully having achieved remission.  Then we transplant.  We have no idea what this looks like.  Sounds awful. But  he's down there and we better catch up.  So what do we need?  Prayer, cheaper gas prices and to become artists at making things as normal as we can for our kids.

We Love You All.  - will try to write more often - but th ese last two weeks at home - we were just basking in the glow of a happy young man and a family reunited if only for a short time.

45+ Days and....You.

I have never heard of a kid that can stay  in a room (one room) for 45+ days and still be happy.  Jacob has. His attitude blows me away.  He is no kidding, honest to goodness happy.  One of the nurses told me today that Jake has a 'list'  -of nurses that like to care for him.  Now what guy wouldn't want that!?

Do you know why that is?  It is his heart.  He "just want(s) to get better". The most negative thing I have heard him say during this whole thing is "I'm bored".  Really?  Who wouldn't be.  But I have heard that maybe twice.  He did get in a bad mood yesterday though - want to know why? Nope - not being stuck in a room for 45+days.  Nope- not because he has leukemia.  -Because he lost a part to the R2D2 lego kit that dear friends bought him.  Do you believe that - it's true!  So you know what he does?  He just goes into his spare lego parts bin and jerry rigs it to work - expertly.

The coolest globe ever - sent by friends

Why this positive attitude?  I think it is because people like you are holding him up in prayer and our God has taken up residence in this room.  There is something supernatural going on with this boy and with our family.  Its both beautiful and awe inspiring.

What's beautiful you ask?  Well for starters the courage of a young man that comes from somewhere both deep inside and from God.  And then there is the blanket of love our family has been cocooned in by both friends and complete strangers.  Our church family mobilized and are helping us get Jake's room ready for him (ensuring its ready for an immune compromised occupant).  People are coming out of the woodwork to help.  Our church, other churches all over, my Mom's Sunday school class, my Dad's church, home school groups, MoPs moms that Lorrie worked with, co workers, friends, neighbors you name it - all being the hands and feet of Jesus.  Such generosity, such beauty.

What is awe inspiring is the fact that God is using you to carry us, to hold us, to speak peace to us - and I mean the family - not just Jacob.  People often ask us "how's Jacob?"  I have lately answered them "He's fine - its the rest of us that are all banged up."  So you know what these people do?  They step in and patch us up.  They give us a break, they come spend the night with Jacob, they buy us gas, they bless us with meals and above all else they pray -and they patch us up so we're not banged up any more.

R2D2 Lego Kit

I have been humbled to watch and experience these people, this church.  It's like the hands of Jesus himself carrying us.  No.  It is the hands of Jesus holding us -and now I see it.  This is the clearest understanding of the church -what it really is that I have ever had.  The church, what the word refers to as His Bride is ...you.

I think you can only see this if you have been on the receiving end of abundant grace as we have been these last 45+ days.  Don't run from trials, don't fear them - it will open your heart to receive gifts that you would otherwise never understand.  Experiencing all of you is a great gift.

Now for Jacob:  We're finally seeing some movement (a little) in his blood work.  The indications are that his bone marrow might be waking up.  The biopsy from last Tuesday showed no Leukemia that's huge - it means the first round of chemo did its job.  So we need the right cells to come back so he can come home for a short visit - then round two of chemo.


We love you all.