Tag: RT

and this is hope

Posted on by Wendi Thacker

There is a difference between pleasure and blessedness. Paul experienced imprisonment, pain, sacrifice, and suffering to their very limits, yet through it all he was blessed.

Dearest tested and tried believer, it is your mission to walk onto the stage of this world in order to reveal to all of heaven and earth that the music of life lies not in your circumstances or external things but in your own soul.

~Streams in the Desert, excerpts

This morning I woke feeling a sense of instability. Equal parts joy, weariness, and expectancy. Judah is low sick. And we got amazing news. If this cancer fight has taught me anything, it’s the beauty of balance. Balancing possibility and expectation. Faith and fear. Hope and suffering. Seeking and resting. And that necessary balance is impossible without Jesus. 

Sunday Judah got a fever accompanied by a hateful cough and we had to take a trip to the Medicine Room at St. Jude. They agreed that he was wheezing a bit but felt comfortable sending us home after fluids and a prescription for a humidifier, rest, and lots of water.  By Tuesday, the cold that sent me to bed for 3 days, feeling worse than I remember ever feeling, had taken up residence in my son’s chest.  It almost delayed an exciting procedure where an ENT inflated Judah’s vocal cord to give him more support and strength. That, along with Botox injections into some of his salvitory glands to reduce secretions, hope to put an end to Judah’s micro aspirations and chronic cough. But through God’s great grace, the Nurse Practitioner and CNA saw my vulnerability and decided to go against protocol and give Judah 24hrs to sound better. And God parted the congestion, like He did for the Israelites with the Red Sea, just long enough for Judah to safely have his procedure. The congestion crashed back down on him, complete with wheezing and sinus headache. And even though Judah was sick, I praised God’s name because He blessed us.

For the last 3 weeks, I’ve woken with a different praise and worship song in my head, embedded and on repeat. Thursday I woke, dreading our long day at the hospital. I was also feeling a sadness because the day before I had finished a 40 day prayer plan that had become part of my day-to-day. It was integral in me finding my way back to the heart of Jesus. And the song Old for New by Bethel Music kept circling in my head, pushing the dread and sadness aside.

V1
What was torn you mend again
You redesign the tatter thread by thread
You take the broken and destroyed
You rebuild, You make whole
Chorus
Joy begins to rise
Hope begins to light the dark
Our God exchanges old for new
Dawn has conquered the night
Death has lost to life
V2
And now we are exchanging old for new
You turn flame into a fire
In you we walk in the impossible
We take Your love into the world
We let our light shine, we let it burn
Bridge
There’s nothing that Your love won’t do
There’s not a mountain with can’t move
There’s power in the blood
There’s power in the cross

I did as I always do, give in to the gift of a song for my day, and claim it.

And then when we got to Judah’s Neuro Oncology appointment and found out the genetic testing results were back.

For those who haven’t been following our journey, St. Jude sent a sample of Judah’s tumor to a lab to be genetic tested, broken down, to look for clues to a possible treatment option. Because in the last 9 months Judah’s tumor has shifted from a low grade Pilocytic Astrocytoma to High Grade Diffuse Intrinsic Midline Glioma, it’s terminal. Radiation has a lot of side effects and his tumor is chemo resistant. The genetic testing was our last ditch effort to find SOMETHING.

And it wasn’t until the Drs said the results were back that I realized I had hung my hope on what they were about to say. And they were smiling.

The test showed that Judah had 4 relevant gene mutations:
K27M
P53
NF-1
NF-1 (variant)

We already knew about the K27M mutation. It’s the murderer. The one no one knows how to stop. The P53 mutation is common in cancer and isn’t targetable. And then 2 variations of the NF-1 gene mutation. This is one the drs seemed excited about. 

They explained that the NF-1 gene is like a controller for cell division. It’s job is to make sure that cell division stays balanced by turning on and off. When it mutates, it never turns off.

My eyes began to blur. 

They continued. The NF-1 mutation is typically a “driver” in tumor growth. But it’s rarely found in High Grade tumors. It’s more often found in Low Grade tumors. So its possible that this mutation is what made Judah’s tumor shift from Low Grade to High Grade.

Now I’m holding my breath

Drs again. And we think we can use MEK Inhibitors to counteract the NF-1 mutation. 

WHAT?!? (Internal dialogue: KIND OF BURIED THE LEAD! Are they saying they have a cure?)

Drs explain. This is ALL speculative. We do think MEK Inhibitors work to counteract the NF-1 mutation, but we do not know if the NF-1 mutation is what’s causing Judah’s tumor growth. And we won’t know until the growth halting effects of radiation wear off. In 3 months to a year we will either see tumor growth or we won’t. And there is literally NO clinical data to look to. Judah is 1 of 3 kids reported to have a shifted tumor kind with the presence of the K27M gene mutation in both tumor types. And the other 2 don’t have the NF-1 mutation, as far as we know. This is NEW territory for us. But when you brought Judah to St. Jude, we wanted to be able to give you guys hope. And this is hope!

So basically we are all stumbling around in the dark together but St.Jude and Jesus have resources like flashlights! I’ll take it. And praise God for His victory over my doubt.

Prayer is a funny thing. I’ve spent the last 8 weeks praying for healing. Praying for more time. Praying for acceptance. For daily joy. For closeness. I have been specific and general. And over time, my prayers have widened. I still pray for the same things but I have learned to pray God’s word. To pray to have his eyes and ears so I can see His hands and hear His encouragements. To pray that His will be done and mean it. To believe that God’s love for me is greater than my unbelief. His peace is greater than my fear. His strength, my only chance for strength. His word, truth. 

I have told you these things, so that in Me you may have perfect peace. In the world you have tribulation and distress and suffering, but be courageous [be confident, be undaunted, be filled with joy]; I have overcome the world. [My conquest is accomplished, My victory abiding.] John 16:33 AMP

This verse thrown around a lot when people are suffering. I’ll be honest, when I see it, I usually roll my eyes. But today when it popped up in my quiet time, I wept. Because God can overcome our cynicism. 2 months ago, when a praise and worship song came on about God being a mountain mover, or how great His love is for us, or worse, how they’ll praise Him even though everything is falling apart, I would roll my eyes and change the station. I would say, what trials have these super famous worship bands been through? When did they have to choose to praise God as their heart broke in half? It Is Well my foot. They don’t know.  

But now, I let loose my hands, close my eyes, and praise Him with the words inspired by God’s nature and goodness. Because recently I had an epiphany. It  doesn’t matter if the writer or singer or friend has been broken and spilled out. What matters is that I believe the Holy Spirit inspires, moves and works in the lives of God’s people for His glory. I must give Him glory in the big and small. For the things I asked for and the things I didn’t.

We praise God that He is showing us His works in this new treatment option for Judah. We praise Him that our hope is stronger than our strife. We praise Him that He fights for our hearts. And if there comes a time when we can no longer see Him working, we will remember His truth, that he is still working.

Shore me up

Posted on by Wendi Thacker

I have been kind of in shock at the way God is confirming that He, in fact, does hear me. I want to clarify up front that God has NOT healed Judah. He has not made his belly pain go away. He has not even consistently deployed His Spirit to speak into the dark, sad, broken places in my heart and comfort me. What He has done is help shore up and mend my questioning and doubtful heart.

It all started two Friday mornings ago. I was doing my quiet time and the verse that went along with the day was Psalm 61:1-2 

Hear my cry, O God; attend to my prayer. From the end of the earth I will cry to You, when my heart is overwhelmed; lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

We had been admitted the day before for possible pancreatitis. Then Friday, Judah had a massive headache after radiation that turned into a Rapid Response scare. Matthew and I were terrified. We kept looking at each other and then Judah, wondering if this was somehow the beginning of the end, already. The drs didn’t help our anxiety because it was obvious they were all very concerned. After 2 hours of multiple drs and teams and tests and checking on Judah’s state, it was agreed that Judah had a bad reaction to a new pain medication they were trying. The reversal agent would cause him more pain so we had to just wait 6 hours for it to wear off and for Judah to stop suffering. I forgot mention, Camilla Kate was with us at the hospital visiting. It was hell. I was overwhelmed with an intense need to be two places at once. I wanted to be holding both my babies, comforting them both for very different reasons. As I prayed for Judah to be ok, I prayed for Camilla Kate to be comforted and protected. And as I was praying, I felt myself sinking into that dark place where I am faced with grieving and comforting at once. I was sinking quickly, listening to Judah scream and watching Cricket hide.Then a prayer came to my mind from that morning. 

Help me release the burdens that preoccupy my mind and keep You at bay. Come near to me!

I repeated it over and over. I started to see. Return to the present. It wasn’t easy and the pain in the room didn’t disappear but I was ok. I prayed that Judah’s pain wouldn’t be more than he could bear. That the pain would would drag us closer to Him. That we could have more understanding and compassion for Judah. That if there was joy to been seen from this, we would have eyes to see it. Then Saturday morning a friend texted me a picture of 2 pages from a book. She told me God had brought the book to her mind and when she pulled it out, the pages were already bookmarked. It talked of pain, disease, prayer, miracles, and joy. A few excerpts spliced together: 

“We prayed that she would not have more pain than she could endure…the prayers never stopped, and the pain never got too bad to be relieved. As far as I am concerned, that is a miracle, corroborated by the doctors. Bethie wasn’t cured. She died. But she was healed. There’s a lot about this kind of healing that I don’t understand…And it helps, when we are praying for others, if we have some understanding of what we are praying about. I can pray better about pain, because I have had severe pain. Whether this my ill fortune or my good, it does help enlarge my capacity for compassion for those in pain…and out of the event in life which seem most negative, positive joys are born.”      

-Madeleine L’Engle, The Irrational Season

I read that text and wept. There are words from that excerpt that were almost exactly in my prayer the night before. God pulling at my heart, whispering “I see you”.

Monday morning’s quiet time started on Isaiah 60:20 

Your sun shall no longer go down, nor shall your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting life, and the days of mourning shall come to an end.

The prayer that went along with that verse was so timely. 

Help me to see the light at the end of my tunnel. Sometimes I can barely remember what light looks like or what it feels like to have simple joy. Help me focus on You even in the darkness.

Judah was doing much better that evening so Matthew and I took the opportunity to go out to dinner while my Mom hung out with him at the hospital. We talked a lot about having/not having hope for the future. I was leaning in the direction of “preparing myself”. Matthew was incredibly gentle and patient, listening and comforting me, while also laying out where he landed on the idea of hope. Which happened to be wildly different than me. He explained that if we believed that he was going to die sooner rather than later, we would spend the rest of our time left with him, in early mourning. And if we believed he would definitely be healed, we were being purposefully naive and run the risk of minimizing the pain and fear associated with a terminal cancer diagnosis. He proposed that we sit somewhere in the middle. As I cried, he shared the concept of both grieving and being present. That crying and feeling deep sadness for what is happening now and what may happen is normal and good. But sitting in it, living in it, refusing to fight to get out of it, is unhealthy and unhelpful. That if we don’t look for things to be grateful for, little joys, we will miss ALL of it. He reassured me that the way I felt wasn’t wrong. That the suffocating feeling of his ‘last birthday’ approaching was right to feel. And also, that we have to give ourselves time to feel those feelings and then CHOOSE to come back to now. 

This man, that God gave me, knows me so well. Knows how to help and how to pull the yucky stuff out of me. Knows when to push and when to leave me be. And if I’m looking for something to be grateful for right now, he is it! And God used my prayer time that morning and our conversation that evening to nudge my wounded heart toward Him some more.

Wednesday, Judah had radiation and a g-tube replacement procedure. While Judah was down in radiation therapy, our Chaplain came by the visit. He didn’t stay long but the time he spent with me was reassuring and encouraging. I told him that even though Judah’s diagnosis was terminal, we hadn’t given up hope and were still praying for a cure/healing. He nodded and smiled. Then began to tell me about the Parable of the Unjust Judge, which I somehow had NEVER heard or read. And just in case some of you haven’t heard it either, here it is: 

Now Jesus was telling the disciples a parable to make the point that at all times they ought to pray and not give up or lose heart saying, “In a certain city there was a judge who did not fear God or respect man. There was a desperate widow in that city and she kept coming to him saying, ‘Give me justice and legal protection from my adversary.’ For a time, he would not; but later he said to himself, ‘Even though I do not fear God or respect man, yet because this widow continues to bother me, I will give her justice and legal protection otherwise by continually coming she will be an intolerable annoyance and she will wear me out’.
-Luke 18:1-5

This parable struck a chord in me. It is so easy for me to fall into despair when my prayers go unanswered. I don’t want to hope and have faith. I want the miracle and I want it now! But the Bible is clear on this topic. We are told to pray anyway! Matt 6:9-23, 1 Thes 5:16-18, Eph 6:18, Col 1:9, Heb 4:16, 1 John 5:14, Matt 18:20, Acts 2:42, Romans 8:25, Phil 4:6-7, James 5:16 all (and many more) give guidance on how to pray. And so we will continue to pray regardless of the outcome, clinging to the hope that God has unfulfilled promises for us.

A little later, I was perusing Twitter, which is usually not a good idea as it is filled with vitriol, and noticed my sister (twitter.com/expandyourus) had alerted me to a thread. I excitedly navigated there and began immediately to see God’s care for me. The thread was about lament, struggle, and pain. And it was a direct connection to the Chaplain’s words earlier today! 

Just because God never promised us the miracle baby, the anonymous check that magically cover all the expenses, or the physical healing on this side of eternity – It doesn’t mean I’m not still called to ask for them, again and again, humbling myself into what feels like outright naiveté and choosing the terrifying vulnerability of believing He just might do it – all the while submitting wholly to His will and acceptance that He may say no once again.
– Stephanie Tait (twitter.com/joyparadeblog)

God wasn’t whispering or nudging me this time. He was jumping up and down, shouting, “I’m here, see me? It’s me! I see you!” I have spent the last week reflecting on these three very poignant moments. I have talked about them and prayed about them. I have thanked God for His very real presence. His answer to my daily prayer that He would come near to me. And in these moments, day-to-day, woven together in a way that makes it impossible for me chalk them up to coincidence or love of friends, God shows me His hand. His care. God has not answered our prayers for a cure. For healing. He hasn’t said no either. And as a wise man told me last week, God’s will is at work in the 1st hour and in the 11th hour and all the hours in between. We will keep praying for healing. And we will keep submitting to God’s will, while hoping that God’s will aligns with our dreams for Judah!

Just keep swimming

Posted on by Wendi Thacker

So when I don’t have words, or my prayers feel inadequate, I know God knows the groanings of my heart. He knows my deepest longing — for the Miracle Maker to perform a miracle right here and now, in Judah. That His glory be shown through Judah’s living. Not in his dying. And also that I know, though it hurts, that God’s way are higher than my ways. His thoughts, higher than my thoughts. And it will be His will, not mine, that wins out.

Yesterday was Judah’s day 1 of Radiation Therapy (RT) and he was very nervous. So was I, even though I knew nothing would be different when he came out. Right before they injected the anesthesia, Judah looked at me, with tears prickling in his eyes, and said “Momma I’m really scared”. I asked if I could pray over him and he nodded. I prayed supernatural peace over him. Unconditional love. Safety only God can provide. And then the put in the medicine and he fell asleep. I went out to the waiting room, put on my sunglasses, and wept. 

The thing is, this whole situation is impossible.  Even the bravest, most incredible kid gets scared and wants to run away. To be held and told everything is going to be ok. And I do my best. But it’s not enough. So I went through my list of prayers for Judah.

I hate that he has to go through all this. That those who love him do too. That there is no “everything will be ok” because it won’t. Unless God works a miracle. 

Judah coughed and cried last night. He was in pain. And I didn’t sleep. Mommas don’t sleep when their babies hurt. I’m bone tired. But today is day 2 of radiation therapy and my littles are going to their 1st day of school, in Memphis.

So I got myself up. I helped Cricket get dressed and fixed her hair, like I did every day last school year. Made them breakfast, got their bags and drove then over to Aunt E’s. We scootered/walked to their school. I wanted them to feel loved and seen. My youngest, his 1st ever class, ran to his room and was, as always, ready for whatever! Big smile. My middle, not so much. She cried. She didn’t want “this” school. She misses her home. Her friends. Her school. I did the brave thing and told her it was going to be great. That she would have a blast. That I would see her after school and that I was proud of her. But I knew she wanted Judah. Because her school experiences have been WITH him. Her big brother. Little sister being forced into Big sister role. It’s not right. 

I got back to my car and fought tears. Lost. But not for the reason I should have been crying; my baby going to school for the 1st time. But because of what isn’t happening. And honestly, I’m struggling to find the fiber of hope I clung to yesterday. It comes and goes, my faith – my hope – my strength. And at times it doesn’t feel like the Spirit is interceding for me. It feels like I’m shouting into the void. And I want to turn my back and do it all on my own. But I know I’ll fail. My kids deserve better than that. So I turned on a worship playlist and drove back to our Home Away From Home. I forced myself to do a short quiet time but it felt fruitless. I was distracted. Heart sick.

So today, as Judah gets radiation for a terminal brain tumor, all I can do is ask God to grant us mercy. To heal Judah. To bless us. To be present. To show us His glory. And then keep asking.