If you’ve been reading any of my recent blog postings, you know I’ve been spending some time in the book of James. This author has given me the tumbler analogy for what’s happening in my life. We began last week in Houston at the M. D. Anderson Hospital. Monday morning we arrived bright and early (or as bright as one can be following a late night arrival the previous day) for what we thought would be a quick two-day meeting with doctors. We’d not been told the time of our appointment on Monday, so we arrived shortly after 8:00 to avoid missing our precious time with the specialists. Judy began the detailed registration process and I found a secluded spot with a table and began my Bible study in James, chapter 4. God spoke to me a lot more about patience and wisdom and enduring. The tumbler analogy was reinforced in my mind. Somehow, in focusing on the testing and patience theme, I overlooked verses 13-15. Oh, sure, I read them, but they didn’t really sink in until after we arrived back in Lubbock and I returned to my study.

 

James 4:13-15 (NASB)  Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow, we shall go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." [14] Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. [15] Instead, you ought to say, "If the Lord wills, we shall live and also do this or that."

 

We went to Houston with appoints scheduled for Monday and Tuesday. But a strange thing happened on our way to scheduling our week--James 4:14 kicked in. Each day the doctors would schedule another test or appointment the following day. End result: we stayed in Houston until Friday afternoon.

 

You’d think that at my age I would have already learned the futility of scheduling life.  (We certainly didn’t schedule cancer into our plans.) Life often seems to consist of one big interruption. So, last week God did a little more sanding on us. (He did a whole lot of grinding on Judy’s body with biopsies.)

 

Today is Friday, September 25, 2009. Judy made a fast trip to Houston for another biopsy Wednesday. Today we wait for the biopsy results. During all her tests last week they found another “spot” in the same breast, near where the original cancer was located. They’re determined to know all the facts before we proceed with another surgery and decide on radiation and possible chemotherapy. Today, we wait.

 

If you desire to know more about Judy's progress and details about her cancer, go to a new blog spot I have created for this purpose. It's location is www.tumbler2.blogspot.com .