Meditate on Gods word

The Lord Commands Joshua

1 After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide:2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites.3 I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.4 Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Great Sea on the west.

5 No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. 6 “Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them.7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go.8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful.

9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.

I read this this morning as I was waiting to get my blood work done in the chemo room.  I have to go there and have my blood drawn from my picc line.  They need to check my counts every week to be sure I am ok for chemo.  

The line that keeps coming back to me is verse 5...No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life.  As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you or forsake you.  

That is quite a verse.  

It speaks in scripture on how we are to meditate on Gods word, the bible. Psalm 1:2.  I have been meditating on that verse.  I really don't have any answers about it but it fascinates me.  No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life.  Wow.  

We are children of God.  He says He will lead us, He will protect us, He will fight for us.  Do we believe that.  It sounds good, but do we understand it?  

I think it is one of those things....we ponder it....we hold it....we meditate on it day and night.  It is a promise God gave to Joshua....is it a promise He has given to us?  

In the new testament Jesus tells his disciples that they will do greater works than He.  John 14.  

We need to be filled with the spirit, we need to study Gods word and we need to know what it says so we are not deceived.  Then we need to ponder on it, God will unlock the jewels that are placed within his word for us to discover.  

And indeed He will never leave you or forsake you all the days of your life.  

That I know for sure!

Blessings

Chemo number 3

Well I suppose this could be referred to as the halfway point. 3 chemo done 3 chemo left.
Everything went good in the beginning the happy pill we decided would be a good try seem to be doing its job. Blood pressure was a little up when I first got in the chair but had come down to normal after my 2 hours of hydrating. I asked my nurse to take my blood pressure just to see what it was before I began getting my meds and it was normal. Then two hours later it was very high with a very high heart rate again. Of course I now had four nurses around me. Apparently I am quite the oddity :). They said things like well you are getting a little blotchy....I said well you are all standing around looking at me. I don't think this is going to make it come down. They agreed :). So they said just sit down and relax. I said I don't think that is going to help so can I just take a walk. They agreed. As long as I didn't leave the building. I think they had the fleeting thought I might just bolt. Tempting..... So I walked around a bit but I knew my heart was racing and that this really wasn't going to work so I went back in to face the music. We sat somewhere else... Maybe a change of scenery.... It was still very high and so was my pulse. I assured my nurse it was not going to go down any time soon and I could see she was getting the same feeling. She consented along with the....if you have a headache, ringing in your ear....I have heard all that before. I assured her my husband who is a firefighter would be all over this and monitoring me. And she let me go, she said she was now concerned it might be the meds as well. My father in law picked me up today and we decided to take a trip to the fire station and have hubby check it out. Yep everything was high. So I went home and took another happy pill to hopefully get the blood pressure down. It did work, a few hours later I was up there again. My blood pressure was normal although my heart rate was high still.
My nurse called me later on and said they had decided to adjust the steroid they are giving me before the chemo in hopes this will help. My doctors nurse also called to check on me and told me the same.
What an adventure. Life is never boring.
I am feeling pretty well. Just hydrating like crazy. It makes me feel good.
Now for some blessings of the day.... Save all the good stuff for last.
My mom and a good and beautiful friend came and cleaned my house today. She also did my laundry. And they planted some of my favorite plants in my planter out front. I love them. They were huge blessings to me today... But then they really are always blessings to me!
Another beautiful friend made me some freezer meals and a yummy cake! And then another beautiful and special couple to us brought me dinner. I was going to be the only one home so I said not to bother. But they bothered and I was blessed.
I was also able to have my mom bring a prayer shawl today for a woman who was going through chemo for the first time today. We got to talk and I was able to encourage her. That was cool
God is cool, even when things are going a little off from good there are always blessing. It is our choice what we chose to focus on.

Blessings

Rescued from our enemies

Psalm 18:1-6

I love you, O Lord, my strength.

² The Lord is my rock, my fortress and my deliverer; 
    my God is my rock, in whom I take refuge. 
    He is my shield and the horn^[a] of my salvation, my stronghold.
³ I call to the Lord, who is worthy of praise, 
    and I am saved from my enemies.

⁴ The cords of death entangled me;
    the torrents of destruction overwhelmed me.
⁵ The cords of the grave^[b] coiled around me;
    the snares of death confronted me.
⁶ In my distress I called to the Lord; 
    I cried to my God for help.
From his temple he heard my voice; 
    my cry came before him, into his ears.

Psalm 18:16-19

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
    he drew me out of deep waters. 
¹⁷ He rescued me from my powerful enemy, 
    from my foes, who were too strong for me. 
¹⁸ They confronted me in the day of my disaster, 
    but the Lord was my support. 
¹⁹ He brought me out into a spacious place; 
    he rescued me because he delighted in me.

Our enemies can have many different faces.  Sometimes they have no face at all.  But even without a face an enemy can be very powerful.  This passage of scripture really touched me.  God is our refuge, He is our salvation, He will rescue us.

I don't know what that looks like all the time.  I don't know how God will rescue me from my enemies, from the things that grip my life, but I know He says He will over and over in His word.  And my only requirement is to believe and trust that.  

It says in verse 19 that the Lord delights in me.  I know that is a hard one to grasp.  How can a Holy Lord delight in a sinful me?  Because He is an amazing God.  He created me and He loves me, just like I love my children even when I don't like their actions, or motives...I still delight in them.  Think how much more a Holy God can delight in us.  

I am thankful God rescues me, and that he delights in me. That He created me to have a relationship with Him.  I am thankful I don't have to rely on my own weakness to be rescued from my enemies.

Blessings

Blood Pressures

It is amazing how many doctors one person can have.... Well today I got to go to my primary doctor. I like her. She is very sweet and calming. My blood pressure was up to about what it is when I go to the doctor. A little high. I have heard people say it is white coat syndrome. I don't know. I know it is real because when I got home and my husband took my blood pressure it was pretty good. I wonder why it goes up when I am going to the doctor? I like my doctor. She is always very nice. She makes me feel comfortable, she never gives me shots :). Who knows. I am very puzzled by this. I told my husband I am going to start wearing that blood pressure cup all the time until this goes away. It would match the IV on my other arm...
I know this blood pressure thing is real. I just don't know why it happens. What am I so nervous about? It is just my blood pressure. They just take it and give me that look and write it down. But eventually they seem to just accept that is how I am and we just move on. I think next time someone takes it and I get that look I am just going to shrug and say " oh well!". I am tired of worrying about my blood pressure being high. It makes my blood pressure high!!!
I don't think I will be solving this issue anytime soon. My doctor is monitoring it. My husband is monitoring it. The people at the chemo room will most definitely be monitoring it. So I think I will just try to relax with it. And the next time someone takes my blood pressure and gives me that look...I am just going to smile real big and say as sweetly as I can... Oh well....

Blessings

Anxiety

1 Peter 5:7

Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.

Psalm 55:22 

Cast your cares on the LORD and he will sustain you; he will never let the righteous fall.

I did NOT do this today.  Today was a big FAIL.  I did not walk the talk.  I most definately was not casting any anxiety today.  Apparently I just decided to hang on to it all myself.  I now wonder why?  

My blood pressure was a real issue today.  I was anxious, not for any good reason.  I know I need to just have it taken care of and I knew I had a doctor apt for Friday put today it got the best of me.  I could not get settled.  I was anxious.  

Phillipians 4:6

Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

I think that is where I may have gone wrong today.  I did not bring my situation by prayer or petition to God.  I just dealt with it...not even very well.  I don't know if my blood pressure would have come down today with prayer.  I believe it could have.  But even more than that I believe that I could have called on my Lord, I could have come to Him with my situation.  I know He would have given me the peace I needed, or at least a good trustworthy friend to talk to.  

Life isn't easy.  Struggles are difficult.  We will fail, or just not have it in us sometimes and that is ok.  God gives us grace, not only in salvation but everyday life too.

Grace defined: favor or goodwill.  Kindness, love.  A manifestation of favor, forgiveness, charity, mercifulness, pardon.

I needed these things today.  I just forgot that I had already been given them....

Blessings

Picc line

Got my picc line today.  It went well.  I was anxious, I just couldn't get past it.  My husband came with me and was able to sit with me right up until the procedure, that really helped!  The nurse had to draw some blood and the vein in my hand that is normally a sure fire was not into giving any blood up either.  It was a two stick kind of thing and then she really didn't even get to much blood but she said it would just have to do and she was very happy that she didn't have to do an iv on me.  I found it humorous that I would need to have an iv put in since that was the whole problem to begin with, but I was as happy as she was relieved we wouldn't have to go through that!
The procedure went smooth.  The prep time took over twice as long as the actual procedure.  The doctor just came in and zip, zip it was done!  Easy peasy!  So much for my anxiety.  Glad I spent a lot of energy on that...will I ever learn????
Now I have a IV line accessible for any thing that is needed.  I can't say that is overly exciting to have an IV dangling from my arm, but it is only for a few weeks and my kids think it is cool.  So hey! why not.
Tomorrow I go for my second chemo treatment.  This one should be a go.  The nurse said she felt I would most likely have the same results with this treatment as I did with the first.  Nothing to new to look for.  So here I am trying to hydrate again.  It seems to be my main goal in life right now :)
Today I remembered a saying I have hanging on my wall at home.

I believe in the sun
Even if it doesn't shine,
I believe in love
Even if I don't feel it,
I believe in God
Even if he is silent.

I learned this was written on a wall in the concentration camps in Germany...

That is amazing faith.
I am just remembering that God is always with me.  I might not feel Him near every moment of my journey, but that is when real faith comes in.  That is when we must remember His promise to never leave us.
Be Strong and courageous.  Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. (Deuteronomy 31:6)
We must trust in that kind of God.  Not the kind we only believe in when we feel Him near.  The one we know is there, the one who
We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)
That is the kind of God we can put our hope in, trust in, be confident in.
And on the days I am just hanging on to those promises.  I am so thankful for that.

Blessings

Bumps in the road

There are always bumps in the road.
Today was a bump.
We went to the chemo room and there was just no getting an iv into a vein.  They tried.  Three of the nurses tried....four times.  Oh well.
I don't like iv's, I suppose no one really does.  I must have the strangest veins.  I hydrated.  But, it just wasn't going to happen today...even with the magical vein machine....
So tomorrow I go and get a picc line..no more vein troubles.  I will then have chemo on Wednesday.
I prayed that God would go before me today.  In fact I was up earlier than usual.  I just felt I needed some time in Gods word today.  He was preparing me.  He reminded me that I had prayed that He go before me today.  So I will trust that He did and that this was His plan.
A picc line will definately make things easier at the chemo room.
So we will trust in that and go forward.

Blessings