They that wait upon the Lord
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings
As an eagle.
They shall run and not grow weary;
They shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31
Tag: wisdom
Weekly Photo Challenge: Waiting
These men are waiting. They may look like they are quite active, but I know them. One is 80 years old, and the other is not far behind him. They devote their days to making improvements they will never enjoy, such as planting trees on Arbor Day.
They do enjoy much of it, though. The ability to move about and act like men, still, free of huge medical problems, they enjoy. The camaraderie with other men who care about the future of our grandkids and great-grandkids, they enjoy. Rising early and dressing for work, like the good old days, they enjoy. They are real men, more so than some of their self-professed more virile co-males on this planet, who still lie abed at 10:30 a.m.
They gave up waiting for them.
The tree around which they just finished firming the soil is also waiting. The soil, the men discovered, was moist only down to about 8 inches. On this overcast morning, everyone is hoping for rain. It does fall, 1/2 inch that night and 4 inches the next couple of days. In tree-years, it did not have to wait long.
The tree also is waiting for spring, to show off its promised beauty and to grow into the new soil around its roots. It is waiting to increase enough in size to shade the walking trail just beyond it. And someday, it will have waited until, like the men who planted it, the end will be very near and it will be ready for a position on a truck similar to the one parked in the background.
That truck also is waiting for someone who lives nearby to get going on this mid-morning. Is he lazy? Does he have the day off? Is he bound by a schedule that will not allow him to deliver his load until later?
Or is the driver also waiting? Did his wife sleep in and forget to make breakfast? Is he waiting for an important phone call before he begins his day? Is he waiting for the dryer to stop tumbling so he can finish dressing?
How inter-connected we all are! How much one slow one can affect it all!
I Have Slept . . .
. . . but I did not dream.
I love dreams, except for nightmares. I love recalling those crazy twisted dreams and trying to figure what was going on in my head that I could have thought such things when my mind was disengaged.
They say “house” dreams are about yourself, so the one I dreamed with the flooded basement probably was not a good sign. But what about the one where the staircase just went on forever with thousands of rooms on hundreds of floors, all furnished like a ritzy bed-and-breakfast? Hmm.
My other dreams, my wide-awake dreams where I plan how wonderful I will be next year, are another story. These dreams haunt me. I put them off, thinking I need some other thing to be just perfect before I can get started. You know the type: losing weight, writing a book, finishing crocheting that afghan, unpacking the last box from moving several years ago, etc. I know I should make some headway on at least some or at the very least one of these dreams, but the facts stand on the sidelines laughing at me. The facts are that I don’t do what I could and I don’t know why.
I used to keep ironing up to date. Really. I used to keep my flower beds weeded. I used to weigh less.
I think partly I was living before my children and insisted on setting a good example at all times. Now they are grown and mostly gone and no one is watching me.
Except the Lord. He sees. He knows.
What I used to do because I believed I must do it, I now must learn to do only because it is right. My mind allows me choices these days, and I am surprised at who I see living underneath all the exterior rules I had made for myself.
I distinctly remember thinking, when the last child was off to college, “Whew! Now I can rest and do whatever I please. Finally! I am my own puppy!”
I think I need to rethink.
I have slept. It’s time to wake up.
Sheer Terror.
This is long, but it is astonishing reading, in that it is a true story. In fact, I’ve included a link at the end where you can read more of it, because I think you will want to. It is written by Michael Farris, a lawyer for the people, of whom children are a part.
Who should make very difficult decisions for children? Parents or doctors?
In March of this year, 8-year-old Jacob Stieler was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma, a dangerous bone cancer. His parents took him to a highly-rated children’s oncology center in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Jacob had surgery to remove the tumor, which was followed by several rounds of chemotherapy. The treatment was incredibly difficult, and Jacob’s mom, Erin, told me that when she looked her son in the eyes, she knew in her heart that he simply could not survive many more rounds of these drugs.
Erin and Ken, Jacob’s mom and dad, joined by hundreds of others, prayed for Jacob and his complete recovery.
After all of these rounds of chemotherapy were completed, there was a PET scan done to check on the status of the cancer. There was no evidence of cancer detected in Jacob’s body. Jacob’s family and friends rejoiced in his healing—prasing God for this wonderful outcome.
But the doctors wanted to give Jacob several more rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, despite the clean PET Scan. When asked why they wanted to keep giving Jacob these incredibly dangerous drugs, the doctors replied that this was “the standard of care” for his illness.
Jacob’s parents begged the doctors to make an individual diagnosis, rather than simply following unbending standards. But the doctors were steadfast. All children with this cancer needed multiple rounds of these drugs—regardless of PET scan results, the doctors contended.
Jacob’s parents did extensive study of the side effects of the five different chemotherapy drugs that the doctor wanted to administer. And they believed that the risk of the drugs was far greater than the risk of recurrent cancer, since Jacob had a clean PET scan. They said no to the doctors. No more chemotherapy treatment for now.
But the doctors would not take no for an answer. They called child protective services in Jacob’s county and asked the agency to file charges against the family for medical neglect.
After looking into the matter, both the local CPS agency and the local prosecuting attorney refused to file charges. They believed that the parents were making reasonable decisions for Jacob.
The doctors still would not take no for an answer. They called higher authorities in the state level CPS agency. The doctors had to make several calls before they finally found someone who would agree with them.
As a result of all of these calls, the local CPS agency was pressured into filing medical neglect charges against the parents.
The local prosecutor still refused to take a case against the family, so the state level CPS officials hired an independent private lawyer to serve as the prosecutor against Ken and Erin Stieler.
A jury trial is scheduled for early January to determine if the doctors will be given the authority to take over the medical decision-making for Jacob.
When I heard about this case—and checked out the facts—I knew that I could not sit on the sidelines and watch this family be overrun and parental rights be trashed by well-meaning but overzealous doctors.
I recently flew to Michigan and took the depositions of all three doctors who were scheduled to testify against the family.
Jacob’s treating physician is the key.
I prepared for the depositions by obtaining copies of the official “package inserts” that the FDA requires all drug companies to give to physicians and patients. Undoubtedly, you have seen these inserts when you have picked up prescriptions for your children.
The inserts tell you several things:
- Indicated uses—that is a list of the diseases for which there is evidence that the drug is a safe and effective treatment.
- Warnings—these are strong cautions that indicate serious potential issues.
- Side effects—these disclose all of the potential consequences that arise from taking the drug.
- Approval for children—there is a specific disclaimer on many drugs that indicate whether the drugs have been proven to be safe and effective for children.
“Have all of these drugs been approved by the FDA as safe and effective for children?” I asked Jacob’s treating oncologist.
“Yes,” she replied, “they have been FDA-approved for children.”
According to the official package inserts that we were able to obtain, she is just flat wrong.
She wanted to continue to give Ifosfamide to Jacob.
The FDA disclosure for this drug says: “Pediatric Use: Safety and effectiveness in pediatric patients have not been established.”
The oncologist wanted to give Jacob a week’s worth of Etoposide.
The FDA disclosure says: “Pediatric Use: Safety and effectiveness in pediatric patients have not been established.”
The warning on the drug Doxorubicin says: “Pediatric patients are at increased risk for developing delayed cardiotoxicity.” This means that the drug can cause severe harm to a child’s heart—at even higher rates than it can in adults.
In fact, as it turned out, the treating doctor had never even seen, much less read, these official FDA-required package inserts. She did state that she had seen similar information from other sources.
Most of the drugs did not list Jacob’s form of cancer as an “indicated use.” This means that these drugs had not been tested and validated as safe and effective for this particular kind of cancer—even for adults, much less for children.
And then we get to the official warnings and side effects.
In addition to the strong warnings about “congestive heart failure” from Doxorubicin, other drugs the doctor wanted to give were known to have caused cancer—new forms of cancer—in patients being treated for an original cancer. Vincristine’s label is typical of these warnings: “Patients who received chemotherapy with vinchristine sulfate in combination with anticancer drugs known to be carcinogenic have developed second malignancies.” The warning labels say that sometimes these second cancers develop years after the treatment.
All five of the drugs that the doctors want to give Jacob are either know to cause other cancers or have not been fully tested.
Some of the other side effects for these drugs include:
- Damage to the cranial motor nerves
- Serious infections
- Failure of boys to sexually mature
- The inability to father children
- Anorexia
It would take pages to recite all of the warnings and side effects.
Parental rights are increasingly being lost in the medical arena. I am beginning to wonder why physicians even bother asking for parental consent if they will just do an end run around the parents whenever it is convenient for them to do so.
To read more, go here.
Sunday Scriptures – Family
. . . Defend the cause of the fatherless . . . Isaiah 1:17
Isn’t this what families are for? We stick together and help the weaker among us. Right?
I’m not a Catholic, but we’re all part of the family of man, right?
This from Life News:
“Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is at it again, bashing Catholics for their pro-life position when she has promoted abortion in defiance of Catholic Church teaching at every turn.
“This time, Pelosi is upset that the nation’s Catholic bishops are protesting a potential O**** administration decision forcing insurance companies to cover birth control, contraception and drugs that could cause abortions. They say certain religious groups may not be exempt from providing the insurance, which would violate their moral and religious views.”
And then Pelosi added, ” . . . they have this conscience thing . . . ”
Read more here.
And be glad if you have a conscience. It is not a bad thing to have, no matter what anyone says.
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Image via Wikipedia
Spirited Away . . .
You likely have a spirit.
It may be good or bad, but we all have a “spirit-shaped” hole inside that something will fall into, if it fits.
All people groups from way back to ancient times until about 60 years ago, have known there were spirits out there. Now, only the more primitive peoples still know this truth.
What’s wrong with us?
Is the truth that we are more advanced, that we no longer hold to such “superstitions”?
Or is it that we are merely numb?
Look around you at all the things we gladly keep close by to anesthetize ourselves.
I don’t mean only chemicals, although alcohol has long been called “spirits” for good reason. Look at the TV, the endless games, the movies, and other entertaining things that we freely admit cause us, help us, to forget reality for a while.
Entertain means entrap. That is what the word means.
A trap is not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes we even use traps to protect our helpless animals from predators.
It all depends on which side of the trap you are on: outside or inside.
If you are stuck in the trap, how do you get out? Some, a very few, are strong enough to open the trap and walk out, but they forever have wounds from being in it, and some have wounds even from their struggle to escape.
There is another way. Someone stronger than you, stronger than the trap, stronger than the trap setter, can rescue you, heal your wounds, and give you strength to join the fight against the trap settter.
But only if you want Him to.
Why wouldn’t someone want to be released and healed from a trap?
I haven’t been able to figure that out.
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Image via Wikipedia
Do-by-Self Is Done For
Thirty-seven times.
Paul mentions himself 37 times in Romans 7:14-25.
I try, I can’t, I fail, I wish . . . We could join him couldn’t we! And when Paul calls himself wretched, isn’t there a part of us that says, “Oh, yeh!” We know. We’ve been there. We even have shirts with jokes about our failures:
My get up and go got up and went. My wife and I had words last night . . . but I didn’t get to use mine.
It’s not funny, though, not really, to be depressed or to squabble with a spouse. We laugh because it helps us not cry. It helps us feel less wretched.
But the misery will not go away by itself. We look around for a friend to help, and although a friend might listen and sympathize, really, what can another hurting person actually do to change me? We’re all alike, each carrying some type of misery, each wretched in his own way.
We each do things we knew better and never dreamed we would do, and we each carry around fear and painful memories from it. Like Paul.
And like Paul, we each can find the blessed victory he mentions just a line or two after bemoaning his wretchedness:
“There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.” Romans 8:1
Why does he say that? Because the “flesh” is just another way of saying the soul, the personality. It’s the part of us we know could be good, except it can’t, the part that weighs all the input and decides–decides wrong. It’s me, myself, and I; Mr. Do-by-self. The wretched one.
That guy.
And the solution Paul found?
Christ Jesus. There is something about Him, something in Him, that is our great escape.
And any who actually want to unload their wretchedness need only let go of it, turn their backs on it.
Turn to Him.
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