Friday,

Today was another day of watching and analyzing Bonnie’s status as it relates to her overall response to the chemo. The frequency of the intestinal issues has decreased, but still comes on without much notice, so that continues to be somewhat unnerving for Bonnie and limits her confidence of straying too far from the room. She really doesn’t have the energy to do much anyway. We did get her bathed and changed today and her feet washed. This may sound like a fairly simple process, but it is very hard for her to sit on the edge of the bed for an extended period of time without getting overly fatigued as well as chilled. Once she lies back down in bed shivering, the thing that brings her the most physical comfort is the hot blanket I get from the warmer to wrap her in.

The key aspects of her blood labs that we track continue to make much headway. Obviously the White Blood Cell count will continue to be 0 until such time that the chemo has worked its way out of her body. Her platelets and hemoglobin continue to drop requiring additional transfusions. By the end of tonight she will have had three transfusions of platelets today. We are waiting for the last two (currently 9:00). Tomorrow morning she will be given Red Blood Cell transfusions to boost her hemoglobin. Please pray specifically that she will not have an allergic reaction to these transfusions. So far so has had no sign of reactions to the transfusions she has already received. The pre-transfusion regiment includes Tylenol and Benadryl, which makes her tired. She has to have this prior to every transfusion.

Please pray for my (Steve) lower back and tailbone that I will not wake up in the middle of severe pain, numbness and tingling. I’m not going into all the details, but did see the doctor today and working on why. I am also trying a new roll away bed tonight as opposed to the extending sofa.

As we reflect on where we started on this journey and wondering where we are going, we know one thing for sure, God is there. It is so encouraging to see just a smidgen of God’s plan and handiwork being played out through this trial. We had another example occur today reinforcing that God is in control and revealing Himself to us through His word.

In my daily Bible reading today, I read the account in 1 Kings 18 of Elijah taking on the many false prophets of the day by challenging them to call upon their gods to bring fire down to burn up their offering while Elijah taunted them because of the lack of response from their (false) gods. Meanwhile Elijah prayed to God to bring fire down and accept the offering, which God answered with a vengeance and showed all the people gathered who the real God was, is and will always be. Elijah’s faith was great and saw an incredible miracle and answer to prayer that day, yet it is interesting to see in the very next chapter Elijah’s weakness of feeling of alone. The thought struck me on how a man of this stature could feel so alone and afraid following the witness of such a great act by an awesome holy God. 1 Kings 19: 9-10 says:

“And there he went into a cave, and spent the night in that place; and behold, the word of the LORD came to him, and He said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” So he said, “I have been very zealous for the LORD God of hosts; for the children of Israel have forsaken Your covenant, torn down Your altars, and killed Your prophets with the sword. I alone am left; and they seek to take my life.”

It was the next section of this same encounter between God and Elijah in verses 11 & 12 that caused me to stop and dwell on the text a little more than usual:

"Then He said, “Go out, and stand on the mountain before the LORD.” And behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind tore into the mountains and broke the rocks in pieces before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire; and after the fire a still small voice.”

It was the last four words of this encounter that brought comfort to me as I sat in the atrium lobby at 5:30 this morning, “a still small voice”. How terrifying the thought of a wind with the force and power to break rock off a mountain. I tried to imagine the noise of the wind, the shaking of the earth and the roaring of the fire and then….a still small voice. I couldn’t help but think of the “noise” surrounding our encounter with a holy God imposing His perfect will for our lives, a will that is challenging for us to understand with our earthly, finite minds. Yet there He is, in the midst of our turmoil, “a still small voice”. What a wonder, what a relief and what a comfort; the source of the abundant peace we have been overwhelmed by since the day of our arrival here at Sparrow. Elijah may have felt alone, but he wasn’t. We are not alone either.

This was a great moment for me (Steve) as I sat there in the quietness of the early morning pondering this. I returned to the room and found an email from our daughter Callie (who is currently with a friend in Indianapolis). Her email was “stuff for Mom”, meaning inspirational commentary and Bible verses for her to read. The very first commentary was on “Confidence in Times of Distress”. The first verse on the list was Psalm 46:10:

Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!

There was that word "still" again, but this time it was not describing God, but rather how we are to respond. We need not be anxious about Bonnie’s disease. We need to be “still” in our hearts so we will continue to know God’s “still” small voice. May He be exalted in this challenging journey. Please pray that we will be “still” in our hearts. Thank you so much.