I started out thinking I would record the battle toward wellness every week, but it's all becoming a blur. The biggest challenge as of late, in believing the healing is at hand, is letting go of any delusion that I had any control over this whole thing. Going with the flow, takes on a whole new meaning.

What we have before us is a rushing river. The river is the Holy Spirit, the healed disease, the person I love, and what to do about it. You first put your feet in and the water covers your ankles. Then the water is up to your knees, then your waste and pretty soon you're holding on to a rock for dear life knowing full well you have to let go and let the current take you. You don't know how long you will be carried down the river, or how rough the ride is. You just have to believe that God has you and your loved ones in the palm of his hand.

While this water is rushing by you, it is stirs up all kinds of stuff tucked away in the recesses of your soul. Past hurts and issues, long left to be covered with dust and cobwebs, rise up and float to the surface. Forced to look them squarely in the eye, because you have no where to run or swim, they taunt you. A sort of forced cleansing, though invited at the same time, because of course you just prayed for it. Not knowing of the tumult and pain that comes from being reformed by the Potter's Hand, you try to surrender to the new design. Oh He's got you alright, but he's making a tweek here, a chisel there, forming a new vessel.

The rare beauty of this agonizing journey, is that suffering once handed to God, can be seen in a new light. It doesn't make it any easier, and not a whole lot less painful, but if you can truely trust, you realize that God is comforting you. And--that though your loved one who is writhing from the pain of incessant acid and vomiting, is getting comfort somehow too. I know this because, Pat looked deeply into my eyes and told me so. "God is all I've got, " he said "You can't even imagine how long the night is, tossing and turning with the waves of chemo, and nausea and being so hungry but not able to eat." Did I mention he's lost another 12 pounds?

Just as Jonah, who though he tried to run away from what God asked him to do which was to prophesy to a sinful nation, God was there. First in the belly of the whale. Then after Jonah said what he had to in Ninevah, he sat on hill waiting for God to hit them with fire and brimstone. It was getting hot up there where Jonah was so God grew a plant to shade him with. When Jonah got mad because God didn't smite the nation (because they repented) the plant died. Johah was so caught up in what he thought should happen he cared more of the whithered plant than a population of people. Just like Jonah, first we might not want to do what God wants, then we say to ourselves we'll do it because we think this or that is going to happen. Then God shows us, what we thought would happen didn't but it what did happen was better and for a higher purpose.

I have been trying to think of this situation with Pat as a Mustard Seed faith, because if I just had that, then I could move the mountain in him and he would be instantly healed. Now I see that the moutain has already been moved we just have to have the faith to see it through.

Like the three fellows Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, that got thrown into the firey furnace by Nebuchadnezzar and walked out unscathed. And Daniel who was thrown into a den of lions, and returned unharmed. They stood firm in the promise of God though it looked otherwise.

All we can do is lift up our feet and let the river carry us. We may get seasick on the way but we're sure to end up on dry land.

On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, 'Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.' "

--John 7:37