Seeing is believing

Who coined that phrase??? It must have come from the bible somewhere. Was it when doubting Thomas had to touch the scars in Jesus's hands to believe he was looking at the risen Lord???? Probably so. There is so much in the Bible about the ways people believed in the unbelievable. One woman believed if she could just touch Jesus' robes, she would be healed from years of heavy bleeding. One centurion believed Jesus could heal his servant by just speaking the words. Jarius believed that Jesus could heal his daughter by laying his hand on her. And, if you know your bible, all three were healed, and Jarius' daughter was raised from the dead. The faithful, faithful people ......all believing in His words, his hands, even the clothes that he wore.
All healed. If only I could have such faith in a consistant, unwavering way.

After all is said and done, through this long and amazing journey, I still have moments where I want to SEE evidence of answered prayer. I still today, when my side has a dull ache or my right hip starts to hurt, wish for...long for something that I can look at to confirm what my faithfulness and the numbers are telling me: I am better...we are winning.....IT is retreating. But just like cancer, doubt is an infiltrating, invading shadow, lurking in places we cannot see, cannot put our finger on. I have often longed to be able to just touch His robe and know.

People who deal with people like me are very aware of our fears and doubts. People like myself who have dealt with cancer on a long-term basis have to fight to remain positive and hopeful and strong. We have to fight to keep from being jaded and cynical and resigned. "Cautiously optimistic" is the phrase we use when something seems to be working, even when the something has produced spectacular results. And even though I have seen my chart, my tumor marker graph with its dramatic drop over the last three months, even though I have seen other, more amazing things that this new drug is doing for people like me, some days are still a little hard....a little depressing. Because I can't see what is happening inside me...I can only feel what it feels like to have numb fingers and toes, skin like tissue paper, aching joints, non-specific abdominal twangs, unexplained stomach upset. I can only see that I have no hair, eyebrows or eyelashes, red and mottled hands and a constant runny nose.

So I try and remember what Jesus said to Thomas as Thomas put his hands where the nails were and touched His side where it had been pierced: "Stop doubting and believe" (John 20:27) Some one once told me that a great thing to ask God was for help with my unbelief.
Oh yes, that's it. That is the best way to sum up what I'm trying to say here. Even though I can't always see proof..even though I long some days for constant physical evidence...even though I struggle with my unbelief, God is standing by, waiting to help me with that as well as everything else He does for me...always.....every day.

Next week will be my last dose of Ixempra. That's a little scary for me, stopping the drug that seems to have my disease on the run. Three weeks after that, I will have my scans run again.
We will finally get to see more evidence of what we hold to be true. We expect the scans to be spectacular. We believe we won't believe what we will see. I look forward to those scans, that day, but I can't put too much stock in them...can't base my faith on those pictures. My stock and faith are with these words that I always needs to remember regardless of what I will see: "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed." John 20:29

That Jesus, I tell ya, He always knows just what to say.