Restoration

Walla Walla, WA October 23, 2010 Partly cloudy, 60 degrees.

We continue to wait for the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance to inform us concerning a stem-cell donor. I called them this week and all of my nine siblings have submitted their blood samples. They should have the results from the first five that they have received the middle of this coming week. I will call back then. It takes 2-3 weeks for a complete evaluation of the samples, so they won't have a final recommendation for some time. I would guess that we will be heading back to Seattle around the 15th of November. By that time, we will have everything ready for winter here at the farm and at the church. We will be dedicating the Wasser House tomorrow afternoon during our Annual Harvest Party. It will all be at the church this year. There have been so many people help out to get the house ready. It is inspirational to see so much effort and sacrifice for people none of us even know. I am looking forward to seeing how God will use this ministry of hospitality to be a blessing and an encouragement to these families who will stay at the Wasser House in the coming months and years. We will keep a journal for families to share what is going on in their lives during their stay with us. I am confident that it will be a significant step in the journey of restoring their health and well being.

I have thought a lot about the idea of restoration this week. In the Old Testament lesson for this Sunday from Joel 2:25-26 it says: "I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten--You will have plenty to eat, until you are full, and you will praise the name of the Lord your God, who has worked wonders for you; never again will my people be ashamed." Cancer feels a lot like the devastating effects of locusts. Growing up in North Dakota, there were years when the grasshoppers would be so thick that when you walked out in the pasture or wheat fields every step would cause a cloud of locusts to swarm up before you. They would eat all the things we planted in our garden. They would damage the crops in the field so badly that it cost more to harvest a crop than you would receive from selling it. They would fly into your hair and clothes, clinging to your face and hands and leaving behind a dark brown liquid that looked a lot like my Grandfather's chewing tobacco. They made you feel increasingly discouraged, day after day, as you saw your hopes and dreams slowly eaten to nothing. Cancer treatment does something like that to you. You watch your hair fall out and your skin start to age as if time were accelerating out of control. In fact, it's that sense that you are going downhill in a car without brakes that keeps you awake at night. So many other people are making decisions concerning what you do and where you go that if you are not vigilant, you become apathetic about everything. It's a great temptation to give in and accept the label "cancer patient" and act out the role of a passive victim. There is a fine line between unhealthy denial and a positive expectation for the future. Like locusts, cancer eats away at your hopes and dreams not only for the present, but for a future that you may not have. Two things happened this week that I believe were the voice of God to give me hope and strength. All the passages in the Lectionary for this week's worship speak of God's restoring promise and power. I dream about what my life will be like when God restores the years the locusts have eaten with a time of health and strength. I long for a season without pain, procedures and PET scans. In fact, the very second I was entering into the tunnel for my scan on Thursday, this song began to play:

"I Will Be Here"
Tomorrow morning if you wake up and the sun does not appear
I will be here
If in the dark we lose sight of love
Hold my hand and have no fear
Cause I will be here.

I will be here
When you feel like being quiet
When the laughter turns to crying
Through the winning, losing and trying
We'll be together
Cause I will be here

Tomorrow morning if you wake up and the furture is unclear
I will be here
As sure as seasons are made for change
Our lifetimes are made for years
So I will be here

I will be here
And you can cry on my shoulder
When the mirror tells us we're older
I will hold you
And I will be here
To watch you grow in beauty
And tell you all the things you are to me
I will be here

I will be true to the promise I have made to you
And to the One who gave you to me

I will be here
And just as sure as seasons are made for change
Our lifetimes are made for years
So I will be here
We'll be together
I will be here

This song was written for a wedding ceremony, but to me it is what God says to us about the depth of the Lord's love and devotion. At just the perfect second in time, I heard God's voice remind me that we were together in the bowels of that machine. The biggest drawback of feeling the presence of God's Spirit, is that you often can't keep the tears from flowing. Being in the process of the scan, you can't move at all and so your ears fill up with tears and you just try to keep from doing anything that would mess up the results. A friend of mine who has a problem with divine visitations, always thinks these things are just co-incidence. It happens so often and brings exactly what I need at exactly when I need it, that I believe without a doubt that God is that faithful, if we are willing to listen and believe. Even just a mustard seed amount of faith could do mighty things Jesus was oft to say. I would imagine there are many of you who will read these words that can identify with the image of the locusts and the time you have lost in life. Being stuck in a PET scan machine forced me to be still and listen to God's gracious voice in the words of this song. I would encourage you to find a time and place where you can just be still and know that God is God. You might be amazed at what wonderful things God may speak to our hearts when the volume of our life is turned low.

Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada - Summer of 1967

I went back to Canada for a second summer of work for brother Noel. The bred heifer I had purchased the year before had a problem pregnancy and the calf didn't survive. It was a disappointment, but a valuable lesson in the reality of farming and ranching. I ended up selling her back to Noel the end of my second year. I knew a lot more what to expect my second time around. Like any sophomore, I knew just enough about farming and equipment to be dangerous. I drove Noel's prized pick-up truck into the corner of a building and dented the body just behind the driver's door. I baled straw, but didn't know enough to adjust the tension as it warmed up and he probably rued that omission every time he picked up a 30 lb. straw bale that winter. I spent more time with the neighbor boys and friends from the church. It seemed like something always happened when I was with them, like getting skinned up riding double on a motorbike. I was sore and bleeding for a couple of days, but the work had to be done and no mercy is given for stupidity. I learned to drive a swather, cutting wheat so it would dry and cure before winter set in. I only ran the swather into a rock pile once, and there was no damage. Putting up hay became a major work preoccupation. Noel had a German immigrant friend who was a competing weight lifter. He liked to come out and throw bales up on the trailer we used to haul them from the field to the stack near the barn. After you got higher than you could throw them by hand, you took a three pronged pitchfork, stuck it in the middle of the bale and lifted it up and over your head to the top of the stack. This guy could do it effortlessly. I secretly would go out after dinner in the evening and practise, hoping one day to take my turn putting bales up over my head with a pitchfork. It was a real challenge and I prayed for God's strength so I could prove myself to my brother and his buddy. The last week of hauling hay, I screwed up my courage and volunteered to take a turn with the pitchfork. They were both sceptical, yet curious. I took a deep breath, said a silent prayer and successfully lifted maybe 5-6 bales like a full fledged hay hauler. I had crossed the threshold from kid brother to hired man. I felt like the Biblical Samson who had been given supernatural powers to accomplish some great feat of strength. Now I was faced with a spiritual challenge equal to the physical one I had just passed.

Sunday evening worship service was always devoted to testimony and praise from the participants. Having had a clear and obvious direct answer to prayer by my successful hay hauling feats, I knew I was supposed to give a public testimony of God's faithfulness and goodness in my life. I dreaded the rest of the week. I bargained with God nightly about all the reasons I shouldn't have to stand up and testify in church the coming Sunday evening. I thought about faking illness, but I knew that was a coward's way out. I rationalized that God would certainly choose other more righteous and worthy people to speak His praises. I promised that I would tithe my income, read my Bible and pray every day, if God would just give me a free pass from ever standing up in front of a group of christians and saying anything publicly. Knowing what I know of my life today, I can only imagine God getting a good laugh out of what my life's vocation would entail. Vocation comes from the latin word vocare. It literally means the voice or call of God upon your life and destiny. My friend Frederick Buechner says that your vocation, or the place where God is calling you, is where the world's greatest needs and your greatest joy intersect. I went to church that night resigned to my divine appointment. About in the middle of the praise and testimony session, I felt like the Spirit of God yanked me out of the pew and there I was standing in the congregation with everyone curious as to what this rather strange young man from WA state would have to say. The only thing I could testify about was: "God gave me the strength to lift some hay bales over my head with a three pronged pitchfork this week." I sat down sweating profusely and was amazed that I hadn't keeled over, dead on the spot. I was certain that this was a once in a lifetime experience. I went home confident that I would probably never have to stand up in front of a church and speak, ever again in my lifetime. How little do we know or even imagine what craziness God is up to. It's probably better that we don't know where God's hand will guide us, we might just die from fright.