Day 5 postsurgery

Pathology report came back.  The margins were clear.  For those who don't know what that means, when they take out the tumor they take a margin of healthy tissue.  If the margins are clear then there is no cancer within that healthy tissue.  That's good news.  They took 4 of my lymph nodes for the biopsy and 2 of those nodes show a small amount of cancer.  One measured 1 mm., the other 1/10 mm.  I see the surgeon next Mon. for his recomendation. 

In Genesis 32 I was reading where Jacob was meeting his brother Esau whom he had been estranged from for years.  He divided up his belongings into groups and sent them ahead of him and Rachel, partly as gifts for his brother, and partly as a means to appease Esau I am sure since the Scripture is clear that Jacob was distressed and afraid.  Jacob and Esau had good reason for being at odds with each other.  Jacob knew he was going where the Lord wanted him to go, but he had no clue what the future held when he met Esau. At this point Jacob sent everyone and everything across a river and was left alone on the evening before he was to meet Esau.  He was at a scary place in his life. 

I have been at this place.  The place where I believe I am doing what God wants, but I have no idea how this will turn out.  I can tell you I did not sleep well many nights.  It wasn't that I didn't believe God could heal me.  It was that I didn't know if he would.  My mind was trying to wrap itself around everything that I knew as well as all the possibilities I didn't.  It wasn't worry as much as just an inability to calm my mind down long enough to get sleep.  There were nights when I laid my head down and yet lay wide awake for hours, but there were also nights when I went to sleep but then woke up at 3 or 4 in the morning because even though my body had rested my mind just couldn't. 

But this night for Jacob was worse for not only could he not sleep, he was having to physically fight with God himself.  He had already spent the day traveling with 2 wives, 2 concubines, and 11 children.  That's enough to wear anyone out, but on top of this he had servants and cattle that he was traveling with as well.  And then, when all was said and done, Jacob was left with a physical deformity.  Jacob would remember this night for the rest of his life.  Jacob got God himself to bless him, but he had to experience a deformity for the rest of his life in order to get that blessing.   The thing that I ask myself is am I willing to live with a deformity for the rest of my life if it means I have to exchange a whole, healthy body for a blessing from God himself?  Personally, I will gladly give a normal body in exchange for that kind of a blessing.