Don't misunderstand me here, what remains is still not going to be easy. We're in for more than 2-1/2 years of monthly visits, each one of which will include a spinal tap, a couple of IV chemo drugs, and ongoing oral meds including many rounds of steroids. We're not out of the woods, but we do feel like we've just emerged from a very long, dark tunnel deep underground. For that, we are VERY, very thankful!
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to figure out how best to celebrate this major event. I consider it to be the 2nd most important milestone of the whole chemo course (the 1st of course being the end of it all - which will probably be Monday 4/27/2015 Lord willing). Unfortunately, most of what I came up with hasn't really worked out ... at least not yet. Over the coming days & weeks we'll still likely include a few more activities and a gift or two in celebration of his achievement. But for tonight, our celebration amounted to a (very) nice dinner for the 3 of us and a short awards ceremony. I'd intended to have a nice gift for him, but as it turns out, he probably didn't really want what I was going to get him anyway (thank you Lord that they weren't in stock today!)
I told Daniel he could pick any restaurant he wanted tonight - "the sky's the limit". Well he came pretty close to hitting that limit, but we thoroughly enjoyed the nice meal downtown. We wandered around the mall for a bit and then came home and I was frantically trying to put together an award (that I spaced doing earlier) before he got too tired. I didn't make it. By the time I had it ready, Andrea informed me he'd just gone up to bed. I had to actually drag him back downstairs to do my little ceremony. He wasn't very happy with that, but he did enjoy what I did for him.
Because of his new-found love of military things, I chose to award him with a genuine Purple Heart medal. Now before all the vets jump on me about this, let me state a few things up front. First of all, yes it's legal, I checked. Second, this is in NO WAY intended to detract from or in any way even compare to those who have earned this honor in service to our country. You have our undying respect and gratitude and IMO the possession of a chunk of medal is not what grants one entrance to the true Order Of The Purple Heart. Because I knew (and explained it anyway) that Daniel would understand these things, and because he has most legitimately also been wounded (countless times in countless ways) in a very real battle for his own life, and because of his own love for military things, I chose this honor as most befitting what he has been through. I know that it will be cherished and respected for what it really means as well as what it means to him personally and, for me, I believe it's a fitting gift.
What it's really meant to illustrate is that this has very definitely been a war ... a war no 10 year old should ever have to fight ... yet here we are and so we must be victorious. The enemy may be firing bullets, mortars, and artillery rounds at us, but there are SEVERAL very real enemies with every real weapons, and they are just as lethal to my son's life. Our enemies are both physical (cancer), emotional (fear, depression, defeat) and spiritual (Satan and his host) and any one of them could (and have attempted to) take our son's life on several occasions. He bears the scars in his body (surgeries, broken bones, no hair, more needle pricks than you can count), in his emotions, and in his spirit, but he continues to press on. Sometimes I've literally had to carry him back from the "front lines", other times, he's pushed forward in his own strength and courage, but the battles have been relentless and multi-fronted for over 9 months now.
I've believed for a long time, that this war was not really about cancer. In fact, crazy as it may sound, I actually believe he was healed back in January when we went to visit Solomon Wickey (check the blog history if you missed that story back at the beginning). But for whatever reason, God did not give me the all-clear to stop the chemotherapy at that time, nor has He since. We've been in this for the long-haul, not for the cure (I believe we've already received that directly from the Lord), but for the scars. As crazy as that may sound, we need the scars - we all do. We don't learn, grow, toughen up, gain patience, endurance, or experience, by having an easy life. No athlete wins the prize after spending years sitting on the couch. It takes years of discipline, self-sacrifice, "pummeling" the body into submission (as Paul put it), and enough difficulty to build a drive to want to win. Likewise, no soldier wins the battle without months of training, discipline, and having his "comforts" stripped away until he is molded into a fighting machine that follows orders without hesitation and reacts to danger with courage, training, a fighting spirit.
Over the past couple of weeks, I've been trying to figure out how best to celebrate this major event. I consider it to be the 2nd most important milestone of the whole chemo course (the 1st of course being the end of it all - which will probably be Monday 4/27/2015 Lord willing). Unfortunately, most of what I came up with hasn't really worked out ... at least not yet. Over the coming days & weeks we'll still likely include a few more activities and a gift or two in celebration of his achievement. But for tonight, our celebration amounted to a (very) nice dinner for the 3 of us and a short awards ceremony. I'd intended to have a nice gift for him, but as it turns out, he probably didn't really want what I was going to get him anyway (thank you Lord that they weren't in stock today!)
I told Daniel he could pick any restaurant he wanted tonight - "the sky's the limit". Well he came pretty close to hitting that limit, but we thoroughly enjoyed the nice meal downtown. We wandered around the mall for a bit and then came home and I was frantically trying to put together an award (that I spaced doing earlier) before he got too tired. I didn't make it. By the time I had it ready, Andrea informed me he'd just gone up to bed. I had to actually drag him back downstairs to do my little ceremony. He wasn't very happy with that, but he did enjoy what I did for him.
Because of his new-found love of military things, I chose to award him with a genuine Purple Heart medal. Now before all the vets jump on me about this, let me state a few things up front. First of all, yes it's legal, I checked. Second, this is in NO WAY intended to detract from or in any way even compare to those who have earned this honor in service to our country. You have our undying respect and gratitude and IMO the possession of a chunk of medal is not what grants one entrance to the true Order Of The Purple Heart. Because I knew (and explained it anyway) that Daniel would understand these things, and because he has most legitimately also been wounded (countless times in countless ways) in a very real battle for his own life, and because of his own love for military things, I chose this honor as most befitting what he has been through. I know that it will be cherished and respected for what it really means as well as what it means to him personally and, for me, I believe it's a fitting gift.
What it's really meant to illustrate is that this has very definitely been a war ... a war no 10 year old should ever have to fight ... yet here we are and so we must be victorious. The enemy may be firing bullets, mortars, and artillery rounds at us, but there are SEVERAL very real enemies with every real weapons, and they are just as lethal to my son's life. Our enemies are both physical (cancer), emotional (fear, depression, defeat) and spiritual (Satan and his host) and any one of them could (and have attempted to) take our son's life on several occasions. He bears the scars in his body (surgeries, broken bones, no hair, more needle pricks than you can count), in his emotions, and in his spirit, but he continues to press on. Sometimes I've literally had to carry him back from the "front lines", other times, he's pushed forward in his own strength and courage, but the battles have been relentless and multi-fronted for over 9 months now.
I've believed for a long time, that this war was not really about cancer. In fact, crazy as it may sound, I actually believe he was healed back in January when we went to visit Solomon Wickey (check the blog history if you missed that story back at the beginning). But for whatever reason, God did not give me the all-clear to stop the chemotherapy at that time, nor has He since. We've been in this for the long-haul, not for the cure (I believe we've already received that directly from the Lord), but for the scars. As crazy as that may sound, we need the scars - we all do. We don't learn, grow, toughen up, gain patience, endurance, or experience, by having an easy life. No athlete wins the prize after spending years sitting on the couch. It takes years of discipline, self-sacrifice, "pummeling" the body into submission (as Paul put it), and enough difficulty to build a drive to want to win. Likewise, no soldier wins the battle without months of training, discipline, and having his "comforts" stripped away until he is molded into a fighting machine that follows orders without hesitation and reacts to danger with courage, training, a fighting spirit.
Am I saying I think God caused these events to come into our lives? Absolutely not. Bad things happen for lots of reasons - all of which can be traced back to the presence of sin and evil in the creation at some point, but not because God made it that way. So we never blame God for bad things. But yes, God does allow "bad" things to come into our lives, within certain boundaries (e.g. 1 Cor 10:13), and always in accordance with a plan for both our and His greater good and glory (Rom 8:28) IF and only IF we have trusted our lives into His hands (no such promises exist for those who have not given their lives to Christ).
So without going any deeper into the theology lesson (my theology class at the Bible college begins in January! lol :), the point here is that we know we're here for the lessons God wants to teach us. I personally believe that the outcome is assured - thought that is not to say God isn't still in charge or can't change things around if we're not "getting it". But we're trying hard to learn / absorb / be molded by all that He brings our way. The greatest tragedy for a Christian going through a trial is NOT that we had to go through it - but if we go through it and don't learn anything ... don't allow God to shape us and teach us, and build our character through the midst of it.
So without going any deeper into the theology lesson (my theology class at the Bible college begins in January! lol :), the point here is that we know we're here for the lessons God wants to teach us. I personally believe that the outcome is assured - thought that is not to say God isn't still in charge or can't change things around if we're not "getting it". But we're trying hard to learn / absorb / be molded by all that He brings our way. The greatest tragedy for a Christian going through a trial is NOT that we had to go through it - but if we go through it and don't learn anything ... don't allow God to shape us and teach us, and build our character through the midst of it.
If Hannaniah, Azariah, and Mishael (more commonly known as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego) had simply obeyed king Nebuchadnezzar, they could have avoided an absolutely awful trial. But then there would not have been a Daniel chapter 3 for us to read 2600 years later either. (Well OK, there would still be a 3rd chapter, but it would be about something else).
So we continue to pray as best we can, and ask our prayer partners to join us this way also, not to pray for the trials to end before God's timing, but that we might get the most benefit out of them. How awful it would be to go through all this and miss the lessons they were intended to teach us!!!
Ever so slowly, we are being changed in all this. We are learning to trust God; we are learning to "not sweat the small stuff", we are learning to trust that God really is in control of all things, at all times, in all ways.
Ever so slowly, we are being changed in all this. We are learning to trust God; we are learning to "not sweat the small stuff", we are learning to trust that God really is in control of all things, at all times, in all ways.
Our "near miss" this past Friday when Daniel & Andrea were in an auto accident was a good example of this. They were driving north on our road and about to turn right into our drive way coming home from Daniel's chemo clinic appointment. As she slowed (brake lights and turn signals all working and on), the driver behind her was both talking on the phone, and (he says) fishing for something in his pocket ... i.e. not watching the road. By the time he looked up, Andrea was nearly stopped in front of him. He swerved to the right shoulder and off the road narrowly avoiding rear-ending our car. He'd have gone completely around her if she hadn't been turning into the driveway. But as the car turned, he hit the right, front fender - just a couple feet in front of Daniel's door! Damage was minor, no one was hurt, the car is still driveable, and it was clearly his fault. I was really fearful that this would freak out Daniel - who always seems to be just a heartbeat away from succumbing to the constant stress in his life anyway. But quite to the contrary, as Andrea wrote in her earlier entry, Daniel thought it was "really cool" to have been in "his first accident". Really? REALLY?! Well, thank you Lord - I can't imagine any other source of that kind of reaction. He enjoyed even more that the police officer that showed up was a K-9 unit and Daniel got to say hi to the dog and check out the SUV cruiser for awhile.
Further demonstrating that this was in God's hands from beginning to end, as they were pulling into the driveway in the first place, she was having to navigate around a delivery truck parked there. For a week or two prior, my cousin in Tennessee had been emailing with me to arrange a gift to get to Daniel from a woman in her prayer group that had been praying for Daniel for some time. She'd felt led to get Daniel a gift and we'd been going through the logistics of what kind of gift, shipping, timing, all that. And both these completely unrelated chains of events came together in such a way that, one of the nicest gifts Daniel has ever received was there waiting for him to take his mind off this situation that COULD HAVE BEEN really bad within only split-second differences in timing or locations. By the time I got home from work, they'd both forgotten completely about the accident and it's just been a non-issue for us entirely. What an incredible "coincidence"! :-) Of course not - God knew and has always known exactly what He was doing it and His timing is perfect in all things. The more and the faster we all come to rely on that understanding, the better off and the better disciples we will be.
As always, thank you all for your continued prayers, thoughts, notes, comments, and gifts.
I added a couple pictures to the CaringBridge album - one of the damage to the car, and the other of Daniel receiving his purple heart. For more pics of each, visit our Facebook Album at the links below.
Grace and Peace,
- Tim -
Accident damage Pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151256007479913.517334.665739912&type=1&l=71b484b088
Purple Heart Award Pics: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151256015774913.517335.665739912&type=1&l=12e373849b
Follow us on CaringBridge at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/danieljmiller
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