8-16-03
Dear Family and Friends,
Today there isn't much change in Tim's condition. He's still running a fever. The doctors have taken out his central IV line and the chest tube that they were using to drain fluid from his lung because they could be culprits in the infection. It seems like every few days Tim's breathing becomes a little bit more of a struggle. Usually they drain some fluid off and he rests easier. So, I half expect a phone call tonight or tomorrow morning asking permission to put the catheter back in to his lung. I think we will be meeting with the doctor on Monday.
Thanks to all the folks in Misawa who brought meals to us for the past three weeks. Every meal was so wonderful.
I wanted to share an excerpt from a book that I read during my cancer treatment. I hope you don't mind. It's touched my heart and helped us keep things in perspective.
"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world." -C.S. Lewis
Sometimes murmuring, sometimes shouting, suffering is a "rumor of transcendence" that the entire human condition is out of whack. Something is wrong with a life of war and violence and human tragedy. He who wants to be satisfied with this world, who wants to believe the only purpose of life is enjoyment, must go around with cotton in his ears, for the megaphone of pain is a loud one.
We are like the survivors of a wreck, like Crusoe, cast ashore with relics from another land. It is this aspect of Christianity that made Chesterton say, "Modern philosopher had told me again and again that I was in the right place, and I had still felt depressed, even in acquiescence. But I heard that I was in the wrong place, and my soul sang for joy, like a bird in spring." Optimists had told him the world was the best of all possible worlds, but he could never accept it. Christianity made more sense to him because it freely admitted that he was marooned on a mutinous planet.
This planet emits a constant "groaning", a cry for redemption and restoration, but very often we ignore the message until suffering or death forces us to attend. I do not say that God permits suffering because of its megaphone value. (Nor do I believe it carries a specific message- "Your suffering is a consequence of this action.") But the megaphone of pain does announce a general message of distress to all humanity...
I can believe God when He says this world is not all there is, and take a chance that He is making a perfect place for those who follow Him on a pain-racked earth. (Where is God when it Hurts? -Phillip Yancey)
John 14:1-3
Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in Me. In my
Father's house there are many rooms. If it were not so, I would have told you. I
am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for
you I will come back and take you to be with me, that you also may be where I
am.- Jesus of Nazareth
Love,
Carole and the Kids