A Week Gone By

My family and I can hardly find words to fully express what the outpouring of your love has meant to us this past week.  So many of you came to the Memorial Service last Sunday.  The sanctuary was packed and afterwards we were told there was a huge overflow into the Fellowship Hall watching by closed circuit TV.  How blessed and touched we were and our hearts made glad.  Others of you were not able to come but you expressed your love through phone calls, emails and cards.  To merely say “Thank you” doesn’t seem enough.  Even so, I’m sure you will read the depth of our own love for you through those words.

 

Thank you for praying for me as I spoke at my Dad’s Memorial Service.  I have to say I felt those prayers and I was filled with a great sense of God’s own strength and peace and gladness.

 

On Monday I had to fly back to the UK to resume treatments for breast cancer.  I saw my doctor on Wednesday and she was very pleased at my progress.  The “guitar strings” are all gone, the swelling completely down, incisions healed a beautiful shade of bright pink, and my arm is in full use again.  So, we’re ready to begin where we left off.  On Tuesday the 22nd I’ll be “tattooed!”  Really!  Just two little blue dots to guide the radiologist for each treatment.  I’ll also then be given my daily schedule for radiation.  Three weeks of zapping and it should all be over.  I continue to have no side effects from the drug Tamoxifen that I take daily and will do so for the next five years.

 

I have felt unusually tired since my return.  Jet-lag most often affects me a day or two but this week I really am sort of dragging around, eating and sleeping and then….waking up to eat and sleep all over again.  My Mom is also extremely tired. She is also battling diverticulitis and I know will appreciate your prayers that this passes quickly.  Of course, we know it’s the sudden stop.  All last week we were both up all through the night tending to my Dad.  Those were lovely moments doing things for him and he was so gracious receiving our care.  Spoken words of love were passing between us frequently.  Then the moment of his departure for Heaven.  Then the Memorial Service.  It was a whirlwind of activity and now it has stopped so our bodies are having ‘catch-up’ time with some needed rest.

 

This afternoon it dawned on me that the very hour and minute was approaching that would mark one week ago when Dad left earth for Heaven.  A sudden pang in my heart ached for him; but at the same time as the pang, I recalled that at the moment of his departure I sang over him the song, “On Christ The Solid Rock I Stand.”  So, I stood in the middle of my living room and sang the song aloud to myself.  The words gave me a great measure of cheer.  There is no comfort as satisfying as God’s own truths ringing in one’s ears, making it’s way to our heart, pulsing peace in our veins.  I share those words with you now.

 

On Christ The Solid Rock Stand

 My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus’ blood and righteousness;
I dare not trust the sweetest frame,
But wholly lean on Jesus’ name.

When darkness veils His lovely face,
I rest on His unchanging grace;
In every high and stormy gale,
My anchor holds within the veil.

His oath, His covenant, His blood
Support me in the whelming flood;
When all around my soul gives way,
He then is all my hope and stay.

When He shall come with trumpet sound,
Oh, may I then in Him be found;
Dressed in His righteousness alone,
Faultless to stand before the throne.

Refrain:
On Christ, the solid Rock, I stand;
All other ground is sinking sand,
All other ground is sinking sand.