The Shadowlands

The surgeon [Dr. Lynch] has scheduled my surgery for July 31 to remove the malignant tumor and lymph nodes. I will go in a day early so I can be monitored when taken off all blood thinners. The great concern of the physicians is that I will be 3-4 days without blood thinners and at significant risk for new blood clots to form post-surgery. I’ve been told to expect 5-7 days of recovery in the hospital and then about that same amount of time at home before I feel relatively normal…whatever that may be.

Hopefully you’ll understand if there are no blog entries for a few weeks. If recovery goes well and there is something I feel merits writing, I’ll certainly try to make my way to the computer.

This has been a long four months and we have been carried on the wings of your intercession. I have no way of expressing our gratitude, as I’ve mentioned before…we have been mercied by your praying in ways that leave us speechless. In a most difficult hour, Sarah Edwards wrote to her daughter, “We are all given to God; and there I am, and love to be.” And so we are and love to be.

For whatever reasons, my mind runs to Jonathan Edwards’ contemplation of God’s mercy and His world of love. Find a quiet place and drink deep from this well…we will live on this great and glorious God…

God Is A Being Of Transcendent Mercy: “Consider that the most wonderful act of mercy is already done in giving Christ to die. This is a much more wonderful act of mercy than justifying and pardoning the greatest sinner after way is thus made for it [i.e. after He made a way to pardon]. That God should show His mercy so was ten times more strange and incredible than that He should forgive your sins for His sake. Let your sins be never so great, He can’t hate your sins more than He loved His Son; and if He made His Son notwithstanding the subject of His wrath, He will be ready to make you the subject of His mercy.

Heaven, A World Of Love: “And oh! what joy will there be, springing up in the hearts of the saints, after they have passed through their wearisome pilgrimage, to be brought to such a paradise as this! Here is joy unspeakable indeed, and full of glory — joy that is humble, holy, enrapturing, and divine in its perfection! Love is always a sweet principle; and especially divine love. This, even on earth, is a spring of sweetness; but in heaven it shall become a stream, a river, an ocean! All shall stand about the God of glory, who is the great fountain of love, opening, as it were, their very souls to be filled with those effusions of love that are poured forth from his fullness, just as the flowers on the earth, in the bright and joyous days of spring, open their bosoms to the sun, to be filled with his light and warmth, and to flourish in beauty and fragrancy under his cheering rays. Every saint in heaven is as a flower in that garden of God, and holy love is the fragrance and sweet odor that they all send forth, and with which they fill the bowers of that paradise above. Every soul there, is as a note in some concert of delightful music, that sweetly harmonizes with every other note, and all together blend in the most rapturous strains in praising God and the Lamb forever. And so all help each other, to their utmost, to express the love of the whole society to its glorious Father and Head, and to pour back love into the great fountain of love whence they are supplied and filled with love, and blessedness, and glory. And thus they will love, and reign in love, and in that godlike joy that is its blessed fruit, such as eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor hath ever entered into the heart of man in this world to conceive; and thus in the full sunlight of the throne, enraptured with joys that are forever increasing, and yet forever full, they shall live and reign with God and Christ forever and ever!”

Soli Deo Gloria

I re-read The Suffering Letters of Charles Spurgeon…the letters written during the last 24 years of ministry when severe illness [probably Bright’s Disease] would lay him aside in agony for weeks at a time. There were days upon days of such physical misery that would leave him in delirium. He would write a weekly letter to the Metropolitan Tabernacle congregation and scores of other correspondence. During his last year of life, 1891-1892, there were long periods of severe illness when death seemed imminent. The church had ceaselessly prayed for Spurgeon’s restoration from the beginning of his prolonged battle, but in these days prayer was intensified. Let me give you a sense of it taken from Mrs. Spurgeon:

“The Tabernacle Church beginning with a whole day of intercession for he suffering Pastor, continued to meet, morning, noon, and night, to plead for his recovery. In hundreds and perhaps thousands of Nonconformist places of worship, sympathetic petitions were presented on his behalf.”

Spurgeon would experience times of restoration. He wrote on August 9, 1891: “The Lord’s name be praised for first giving and then hearing the loving prayers of his people. Through these prayers my life is prolonged. I feel greatly humbled and very grateful at being the object of so great a love and so wonderful an outburst of prayer. I have not strength to say more—let the name of the Lord be glorified.”

I read Spurgeon’s letters to feel his pastors heart and see his ballast. His love of the church and passion for her mission is never out of his mind:

“I shall leave you in the hands of our God. As a church of the living God you are ‘a city set on a hill which cannot be hid.’ Your love and unity, and prayer, and faith are known everywhere: will these bear the further strain which will be put upon them by the absence and feebleness of the Pastor? I believe they will: but let each one see to it that the part of service with which he or she may be individually concerned is carried on with more than past efficiency. Souls must be saved, and Jesus glorified whether the usual leader is present, or another, or no leader at all. The Lord hear my prayer for you, even as he has heard yours for me.”

I now find myself experiencing something of a pastor’s suffering. My eyes are wet as I consider the outpouring of merciful prayer on my behalf by the beloved ones of Five Points and countless other churches and saints. It is overwhelming and humbling to the point of speechlessness. There are no adequate words to convey my desperate thanks—what grace to have your name carried on the wings of love to the throne of grace! Daily I’m reminded by notes and cards and calls of the corporate prayer gatherings that remember me and the private soliloquies that carry my burden. I am a debtor to all of your mercy to me.

When I wrote the lyrics to this years Advent song, Grace Unknown, they were written as autobiographical affection and confession:

Immortal beauty, eternal love,
Incarnate glory, beloved Son of God—
Now we behold Him, the Word of God to man,
He who was and is the great “I Am”.
The Prince of glory, for sinners slain.
The Man of sorrows bore all our guilt and shame.
The holy Lamb pleads with His precious blood:
“Save this poor and hopeless soul for God.”

Who am I? A sinner, vile, unclean;
Without one plea, in shame and misery.
Who am I, that God would mercy me?
A grace unknown—what amazing grace—grace alone.

“Who am I, that God would mercy me?”—indeed! Never have I felt those lyrics as deeply as I have over the last several months…my very being pressed into this “grace unknown.” And now waves of mercy from the saints as expressions of God’s mercy to me leave me overwhelmed in humility. From the bed-time prayers of our little children to the mom who went through the house and wrote in lipstick on every bathroom mirror, “Pray for Pastor Dan,” the passion for intercession is unlike anything I’ve experienced in pastoral life. And everything in my being pleads for you to continue your ministry of mercy on my behalf. Oh, how I pray that our heavenly Father has ordained that our praying would lead to my healing and restoration for many more years of life and ministry! While I am humbly and gladly resigned to God being more glorified in an earlier death, I am unashamed to hope in the God who heals.

Having said that, I have one plea: When you pray for me, would you pray with as much blood-earnestness and passion and love for those who do not know Christ, for those who are perishing, for those who would die in their sin, for those who are without hope in the world and know nothing of God’s mercy? We have all come face to face with the reality of death and the “vapor-like” nature of this life. And it is right and good to have our emotions stirred with consuming compassion for our family and friends in the body of Christ who are facing the darkest “frowning providences.” But could we also see the horror and terror of those who are blinded by the enemy “to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” [2 Cor 4:4]. If I die, I simply and joyfully go to be with the Lover of my soul … I go “to innumerable angels in festal gathering, and to the assembly of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect” [Heb 12:22-23] … I go home to the Lord [2 Cor 5:8] … for me, “dying is gain” [Phil 1:21]. But for those who have not been mercied, to die is to face the reality of God’s eternal wrath [Rev 20]. Would you grant me this one plea, that your passion for praying for me would continue and be a catalyst to pray for the gospel to be glorified among those who are perishing…family, friends, co-workers, fellow students, neighbors, those that God sovereignly brings to your life, and all the unreached peoples of the world. Could your love for me be translated to love of that which we all love most—the glory of God, and specifically the glory of God’s sovereign grace in the redeeming of His people? Could our corporate prayer gatherings swell to overflowing because the “love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts” and we cannot contain our affections for Christ to be exalted in the salvation of men, women, and children? I plead for a God-entranced vision of my illness so that it redounds to the glory of the gospel—the gospel, our only hope and the glory of God’s grace.

I’ll leave you with Spurgeon …

“The church ought always to pray. Prayer is to her what salt and bread are to our tables. No matter what the meal, we must have salt and bread there, and no matter what the church’s engagements, she must have her regular constancy of prayer….Do not, I beseech you, forget the one thing needful in all this. Do not be foolish builders, who will buy marble and precious stones at great cost, and then forget to lay the cornerstone securely. If it is worthwhile to serve God, it is worthwhile to pray that the service may be blessed. Why all this labor and cost? It is but offering to the Lord that which He cannot accept, except by prayer you sanctify the whole. I think I see you as a church standing by the side of your altar with the victims slain and the wood placed in order, but there is as yet still wanting the fire from on high. O intercede, you Elijahs, men of like passions with him, but yet earnest men, upon whose hearts God has written prayer—intercede mightily! Until at last the fire shall come down from heaven to consume the sacrifice and to make all go up like a pillar of smoke to the Most High. I cannot speak to you as I would. The earnestness of my heart prevents my lips uttering what I feel. But if there be any bonds of love between us, above all, if there be any bonds of love between us and Christ, by His precious blood, by His death-sweat, by His holy life, and by His agonizing death, I do beseech you to strive together with us in your prayers that the Spirit of God may rest upon us, and to God shall be the glory. Amen and Amen.”
[Spurgeon’s Sermons On The Prayers Of Christ]

It’s Friday, July 18, and I’ll finally go home today after a week-long stay at the Beaumont Spa. Everyone on the 5th floor was terrific, as usual, and took great care of me…they are amazingly beautiful people who work on this floor…so much mercy, so much grace. A few more nurses and nurse assistants are wearing “LIVEWEAK” wristbands!

My arm is almost back to normal and the pain is quite manageable. I will be on blood-thinner shots for the next three months…one shot a day administered at home. Lonette got her first lesson in shot giving yesterday … there was that gleam in her eye that sent the mixed message of excitement [the look she gets when she knows she’s going to Cedar Point to ride insane roller coasters] and “I have no idea what I’m doing” … all went well, the post-shot bleeding was minimal. I also had a pre-surgery colonscope yesterday with the good report that the rest of my colon is clear and wonderfully healthy and the tumor has shrunk significantly, giving the surgeon [Dr. Lynch] as clean a site as we could have hoped for to accomplish the surgery. Surgery should take place in the next 2-3 weeks. The significant risk is that I will produce new clots. The clots in my lungs and left arm are really of no concern for this surgery. The propensity I have to produce clots, the fact that new clots formed while I was on a blood thinner, and the fact that this particular surgery tends to have a higher risk for producing clots all add up to no small concern, however. So, pray earnestly that for the several days that I am off the blood thinners before and after surgery no new clots form.

Heartfelt thanks for all of your intercession in these days … the evidence of your praying is seen and felt almost by the hour. So much grace being poured out … so much help in the times of need. Apart from the drain of being here a week and the toll of preparing for and undergoing the colonscope, I’m really feeling quite good. There is still some swelling in my left arm and that’s exacerbated by using it which increases the pain level. If the progress I’ve seen over the last two days continues, all of the difficulty with my arm should be gone in a few more days.

I still join Spurgeon in commending suffering as the best book in my library. That’s the news from Lake Wobegon where all the pilgrims are a joyful band on their way to the City.

Dan The Slow Reader & Lesser Pilgrm

Yesterday was my mother’s “Deathday,” July 16, 1981, a day to look back and celebrate the gift of grace that came through a life. Nancy Gibbs wrote an article in Time, “The Light Of Death,” remembering her father and celebrating his “deathday”… “a day when gratitude came to life.” “Deathdays” seem good to me…completely happy and holy…as Lewis would say, “There is a kind of happiness that makes you serious.” A good kind of happiness, not “preferring myth to truth.”

Back on May 26 I mused about a “deathday”…. So, on July 16, I would still have gone to Grand Haven and headed to the cemetery where mom is buried…just a few hundred yards from the beach, tucked into the side of a dune with huge beech trees and towering white pines…when there are waves you can hear them…perfect music for this day. I think I’d take roses…not that they would last or be practical…this is not a day for practicality and it certainly wouldn’t describe my mother. Roses because they are beautiful and say “I love you” better than other flowers and precisely because they are not practical. And I’d take my beach chair to sit in the grass near mom’s headstone. It would be quiet, probably breezy and warm, and as beautifully tranquil a spot as you might find. I would pull out my list that would make gratitude come to life and remember…

Mom’s smile…a little crooked, bright eyed, happy

Church … sitting next to her in church…coming into that seemingly huge auditorium at South after Sunday School and finding her saving our seats a few rows back on the piano side…her with her bulletin and supply of treats … she would never sing in the choir but she would sing, next to me… dinner back at home or at the Pretzel Bell … only to return at night for the evening service … after church meant grilled cheese and Bonanza! … a completely happy and holy day would come to an end [I’m sure she and dad never even thought about it, but they made the Lord’s Day the best day of the week].

Sacrifice and servanthood … a life seemingly lived for everyone else but herself…volunteering in my schoolroom, driving everywhere for everything, “the mom who was there” … feeding the students from the Michigan School for the Blind on Sunday nights at South along with all manner of church help … making our house the neighborhood place to be and happily feeding all my friends … the daily washing of uniforms and practice gear along with giving up so much of life simply to “be there” whenever I played anything [and I play a lot of sports…you would not believe the cumulative hours of bleacher sitting she must have endured … and eternal weight of glory, indeed!] … a life of happy sacrifice ad infinitum.

Food … mom was not an experimental cook, never anything weird—basics! … she was “one of us” so we enjoyed food we liked … the grand menu included spaghetti, hot roast beef sandwiches, goulash, hamburgers and fries, “breakfast for supper,” the occasional roast or ham, and Sir Pizza pizza on most weekends … and who had a mom with a candy drawer, a candy drawer!, complete with Hershey bars, plain & almond … a freezer stocked with ice cream and spontaneous dinner runs to KFC or Mickey D’s create big smiles when I remember.

Sports … there are not enough pages here! … here’s a glimpse—back in the day when all the really great bowl games were played on New Years Day, mom would make a huge pan of “Sloppy Joes” and baked beans and throw the chips and pop on the counter with this announcement: “You’re on your own.” With that she’d sit down in her favorite chair to watch the parades and the games … most likely double fudge brownies with marshmallows and frosting on top was the dessert for the day and a Sir Pizza would have been ordered for that evening … this is the woman who hit ground balls to me for hours and ran pass patterns for her Frosty Root Beer quarterback son … when everyone else grew tall and her Jr. Spartan quarterback remained on the shorter side, she planted five arbor vide on our side yard to emulate a center, two guards and two tackles that needed to be thrown over and around … she was even up for some one-on-one in the driveway, more often a game of “horse” … she thoroughly enjoyed the world of sports with me and loved to watch her son … the fall of 1972 brought her brain surgery and at the end of that football season the Jr. Spartans were playing in the Pop Warner championship game … she had recently come home from the hospital and, obviously, was not going to miss this game … I have no personal recollection of the interchange between her and dad, but the back end of our Ford LTD station wagon was transformed into a bed and mom saw the game and her quarterback.

Grand Haven… mom’s hometown and our favorite place in the world … so many trips to Grandma and Grandpa Rodgers big, old, gray house with the monster beech tree in the front yard … so many birthdays, holidays, and summers spent in the Haven … I think mom loved it there, too … the memories are too many to rehearse, but I can’t think of Grand Haven without thinking of mom … I think I’ll stay here and simply “remember” for awhile, a long while.

Ars moriendi … a beautiful death … one of the last conversations we would have she simply said, “It will be all right.” … I don’t know what she thought during those days of illness, we never talked about it … I don’t even know if I understood how sick she was the first time … when the cancer grew back I was old enough to understand everything … she loved hot fudge sundaes with lots of fudge … the cute, crooked smile would accompany the first taste … she would spend her final months in a coma … a picture of quiet submission to whatever was taking her life … I never heard a complaint, never saw a worry, never felt the darkness of death … a beautiful death.

Regrets … none, this is a day of thanksgiving and tracing all the goodness back to our heavenly Father and pouring out adoration to Him … regrets seem inherently selfish and subliminally rebellious against the sovereignty of God.

Thanksgiving … “Oh God of Love…You know perfect relationship and love and joy within yourself…the Father’s love for the Son and the Son’s love for the Father so infinitely pure and perfect that it is the Spirit. Out of your sovereign love you make us your people and you, our God. And you give us the gift of relationship here in this life…to taste the love and joy within the Godhead and to reflect back to you the beauty of your glory. We are so frail and imperfect and our relationships and families so prone to weakness and sin. Yet, you pour out so much joy…how can we miss it? On this “deathday,” I give thanks for the gift of my mother and the sweet mystery that I can only remember the good and beautiful…that which brings smiles and tears of joy. I thank you that she loved you and your church…what a legacy is mine from this simple lady of faith. I thank you that she loved me and all my memories prove it…oh to be loved the way I felt loved. And I thank you that in the consummation there will be no more sorrow or pain or tears or death…and that all things will be made new…and that forever and ever everything that was lost in this life will somehow be restored with infinite joy…and that I will swim in the ocean of your love with mom and we will sing of your love forever. Speechless. Holy Spirit, come and speak what no human tongue can utter on my behalf, give some expression to my thanks where I find no words. Jesus, be praised supremely for your redeeming love that purchased our futures with you. Father, thank you for a holy, happy day…most of all, thank you for being my God.”

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It is Tuesday, July 15, and I have been in Troy Beaumont now since last Thursday [July 10] with severe clotting in my left arm. It is inconclusive whether or not it is new clotting or a worsened state of my previous condition. What we do know is that the heparin therapy received back during the week of June 30 has significantly reduced the clot in my neck, clavicle and lungs. The DVT in my arm is presenting a more acute problem. First, my arm swelled to at least three times its normal size…”Popeye” arm and you would not have recognized it…I didn’t recognize my own arm. Second, the pain was quite excruciating, unlike before when there was really no pain at all in my arm. Finally, the timing of this could not be more disadvantageous to scheduling surgery to remove the tumor. We have a 6-8 week window after radiation is completed for my body to heal up and the surgery to be performed…that end date would be July 30. To do surgery with clots in my body carries its own set of risks that are not good, but, by far, the greatest risk is the formation of new clots when I am off the blood thinners during the surgery and the few day after.

My oncologist called in a vascular surgeon to look over all my tests and meet with me to discuss the possibility of a thrombolytic process where a catheter is inserted in my arm and a drug that would dissolve the clot is fed through the catheter. The attendant dangers of this procedure are far to great, in our opinion, even though the probability is low. So we’re going to stay on the heparin therapy until it is safe and good to go home. Then there is good probability that I will continue at home with heparin shots until the surgery date.

So, there are some very important and specific things to pray for:

1. Wisdom for Dr. Aslam [oncologist] and Dr. Lynch [surgeon] regarding how and when to do the surgery given the complications that are presented by the clotting.

2. Healing of the clots…God can certainly make these clots disappear with or without heparin. Whether healing immediately so a dramatic expression of His glory is displayed or a slower healing process, working through the medical procedures…either way or something in between, pray for the significant dissolution of the clot and no new clots.

3. The successful completion of the surgery with the greatest measure of success as it relates to getting all the tumor and infected lymph nodes.

4. More advantages for the gospel and for Christ to be exalted in “weakness.”

5. Sustaining grace for Lonette and the children…the days are getting tedious and draining with the susbsequent hospital stays, the summer is passing quickly, and three “big” school years are upon us…Sara returns Cedarville on August 15, Ben begins his senior year of high school, and Bradan enters his first year of high school. As most of you know, there is a lot of preparation for these school transitions, but more importantly, is the time we want with our children before the school year hits. Pray that we can find that time with the kids with all that’s happening.

I’ve been reading The Letters of John Newton…you know, slave trader turned pastor and hymn writer [Amazing Grace]…He was mentor and friend to the countless churchman and statesman in those rather dramatic years of the mid-late 1700’s in England [Wilberforce, Simeon, Martyn, Cowper, Whitefield, Carey, Wesley]. This particular entry should encourage us Godward….

“I doubt not you likewise have your share of trials; but when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost, it sweetens what bitter things the Lord puts in our cup, and enables us to say, None of these things move us. Yea, the life of faith is a happy life, and if attended with conflicts, there is an assurance of victory; if we sometimes get a wound, there is healing balm near at hand; if we seem to fall, we are raised again, and if tribulation abound, consolations shall abound likewise. Is it not happiness to have an infallible Guide, an invisible Guard, an Almighty Friend? to be able to say of the Maker of heaven and earth, He is my Beloved, my Shepherd, my Saviour, and my Husband; and to say to him,

Let waves and thunders mix and roar;
BE THOU MY GOD, I ASK NO MORE [caps, mine]
While Thou art Sovereign, I’m secure;
I shall be rich till thou art poor?

Dan The Lesser Pilgrim

Lament: Will It Never Stop?

By Two Wandering Pilgrims – One Young and One Olde

O God, here we are again in the grip of pain;
always hoping for respite but it escapes us
at every turn of life. We cry out to
be released from the complications
of this disease and they only
seem to multiply and intensify.
Hear our Cry, O’ Holy One, and Bring Hope!

We remember all the times you lavished your grace
upon our heads and into our hearts.
You gave us light and we walked tall
in the procession of life.
Look upon us and be moved to break
the cords of this disease.
Hear our Cry, O’ Holy One, and Bring Hope!

Hope is the only joy of life at present.
In that future day we shall be free
and run to join the procession of life
and we will sing hymns of praise
forever and ever and ever.
Only you can still the present tempest
Hear our Cry, O’ Holy One and Bring Joy Today!

A Debtor To Mercy Alone

It’s the Lord’s Day!…my favorite day of the week. I will celebrate the day in the hospital and not with my beloved Five Points—that would be no small misery, except that I’m up at midnight and will get to enjoy Christ in the sweetness of private communion for all twenty-four hours!

The dearest of fellow pilgrims sent me what has become my first place of refuge and balm after the Psalms. It is a collection of music by Travis Cottrell. … indeed, one of the pieces is Psalm 145 [Forever], by far my favorite. If you attend Five Points, you have heard him during our last Lord’s Supper together—I played his simple and beautiful and rhapsodic arrangement of God Leads Us Along. The entire collection is appropriately titled Found [I was able to locate extra copies through www.amazon.com]. So, my music for worship has been selected: Sanctus, In Rest, Forever [Psalm 145], God Leads Us Along. Sinclair Ferguson will be preaching on The Incomparable Christ from Colossians 1:15-23]. My Old Testament reading will be Isaiah 53 and my New Testament reading will be John 1. And my responsive contemplation will be on specific thanksgivings that have to do with my present stay in the hospital…I’ll begin now in the pre-dawn and finish after I’ve listened to my closing musical contemplation, God Leads Us Along…

I have a wife who loves me and cares for me more than she loves herself… “Thank you, Jesus, for such a ‘flesh and blood’ expression of your love for me… ‘how beautiful, indeed!’”

‘How beautiful the radiant bride
Who waits for her Groom with His light in her eyes
How beautiful when humble hearts give
The fruit of pure lives so that others may live
How beautiful, how beautiful, how beautiful is the body of Christ

How beautiful the feet that bring
The sound of good news and the love of the King
How beautiful the hands that serve
The wine and the bread and the sons of the Earth
How beautiful, how beautiful, how beautiful is the body of Christ
-Twila Paris-

My children are beautiful, too…whatever they are like anywhere else, here in the hospital, toward their dad, they are beautiful like Servant-Jesus: joyful in their coming, tender in their care, filling the room with happiness… and making being a father from a distant hospital bed mostly joy and with minimal stress … “Thank you, Jesus, for these gifts of grace…these children of the tribe ‘glass-half-full.’”

My doctor cares for me in ways that can only be explained by God’s intervening, overwhelming common grace that looks more like special grace…”Thank you, Jesus, for pouring out so much of your wisdom into the mysteries of the human body to the man who has been given watch-care over my sick body.”

The blood clots are in my left arm, not in my right… and all the things I have to do to have a relatively comfortable stay in the hospital are dependent on the right hand of this “right-handed” man… “Thank you, Jesus, that your sovereign providence reaches into the smallest of details…and while we’re on the subject of small details, thanks for a dietician who loves to give me chocolate shakes.”

My room is on the 5th floor of Troy Beaumont… “Thank you, Jesus, that you placed me here, again, in familiar surroundings, where life and death are in such close proximity and where I’m cared for with such mercy.”

My bed is closest to the bathroom [a very big deal to this “little gray duck”]… “Thank you, Jesus, again, for expressing your mercy in the details…I promise to try to trace everything back to You with thanksgiving.”

I shaved my head, one handed, with a heparin drip going and didn’t cut myself once!… “Thank you, Jesus!”

“Dear Jesus: I’ll be back after some ‘in-and-out’ sleep and after I’ve drunk deep from song and Word.”

Dan The Less Grateful Pilgrim

This morning I woke up early [around 4:00 AM] as I always do when I stay at the “Beaumont Hilton.” I’ve been finishing up some writing as the quiet light of what I suspect is a gray morning starts to filter into the room. The 5th floor is always a relatively quiet floor, filled mostly with cancer patients. It is unusually quiet this morning and, with the “whirrrr” of our room’s fan filtering clean air in, it makes for a drowsy kind of “go-back-to-sleep” feeling. Except I woke up this morning and the very first news I heard—CNN was already on…I fell asleep and forgot to turn it off—was that Tony Snow had died. He was 53.

Before you read further, I’m compelled to quote John Owen from his work The Death Of Death In The Death Of Christ—arguably the greatest book written on the atonement, arguing for the inherent biblicity of a definite or particular atonement and that Christ’s definite atonement is central to the gospel. Definite atonement is the “L” [limited] in “TULIP” … that “cursed” of all doctrines that rightly argues Jesus was an actual Savior, not a potential one…that He actually accomplished salvation for all that the Father gave Him to save [Jn 6, 10, 17] and that the atonement is not contingent on man in any way [Jn 1:12-13; 6:36-44; 10:14-30]. Read Owen and you’ll get the quintessential defense and propagation of the heart of the gospel. Unless, of course, you read the first part of his introduction to the reader and decide not to venture on. I’m using Owen’s introduction in the same way…to warn the reader about going on…

“READER … If thou art, as many in this pretending age, a sign or title gazer, and comest into books as Cato into the theatre, to go out again, —thou hast had thy entertainment; farewell!”

Tony Snow, like Tim Russsert, was one of my favorite people whom I’ve never met. He was a journalist turned White House Press secretary who was diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer at the age of 50 in 2005. The cancer was treated with success at the outset, but returned, invading his liver in recent months. He resigned his White House position to enter into the world of broadcast journalism where he could make more money in the time he had left to try to answer his family’s financial needs once he was gone…no small weight on a husband and father of three. And you should know, Tony was a faithful witness to Christ, his professed Savior, Lord and Love.

The 5th floor at Troy Beaumont is a floor where you can smell and hear and feel the reality of cancer’s evil as it mercilessly ravages the bodies and lives and families of so many. And I know there are countless hospitals and “5th floors” all over the US and the world…and even more “cancer” beds in villages and towns all over the world that know nothing of a “Beaumont doctor” or cancer treatment or pain medications—the evil is just left to rip. But I’m here…this is my world. And today it’s sad…today it brings tears while I sit here alone…today the sadness creeps in to that very private space in me that doesn’t want to die…today the best medical care and the reality of life-expectancy statistics converge…today for these few moments I’m not so full of great doctrine and “LIVEWEAK” optimism and answering politely to all the clichés about the glory of God in death and a chipper refrain of “not my will but God’s,” as if it’s really not scary and painful in the deepest parts of my being to face the reality of dying and leaving the ones I love.

I warned you, that if your were a curiosity seeker—“a sign or title gazer”—that comes here for some kind of entertainment or cheap spiritual piggy-back ride, just to come and get your fix to go out again, you should have not entered any further. If your God is not big enough, if He is not the God of Job—if He alone is not enough—then you should have never come here. If you can’t live for more than a few second in the “if-it-is-possible-for-this-cup-to-pass-from-me” part of suffering—maybe even a whole night of pouring out your soul in the deepest emotional agony—risking that you may not come out on the other side into the “not-my-will-but-Yours” part…you should not have come here. If you do not love with all your being the doctrines of grace, go out and read something banal from the “Top 10” list of Christian authors. If the infinitely wise and good and great doctrine of God’s sovereignty is not really “rope” that holds you, you should not have come here…go find the real “ropes” and “gods” that hold your life behind the lip service given to the doctrines others live on, praying to be held by them for another hour, another day, another week.

But if you can linger in the misery that life’s realities bring without going off into some self-made world of make-believe…if you believe God, through faith, will bring you to Him and never stop bringing you to Him and will hold you no matter what, then plod on. Plod on with me through Job and Psalm 42 and 43 and 55 and Psalm 73 … Lamentations, especially chapter 3, but all of it … the life of Jesus … Owen’s biography [10 of 11 children died in childhood and the other in young adulthood] and Martyn’s letters and A Spectacle Unto God.

The air in my room is becoming more God-entranced after a while with Jesus in a garden. Only when you writhe in private-world misery and weakness, it seems, that you can taste anything, anything of grace. But isn’t this where our story began?…

Ephesians 2:1-9
“And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience—among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

If you haven’t left by now, with the “sign and title gazers,” you might want to read Luke 22…you and I are in there.

It’s going to be a happy day. God is enough.

Dan The Less Sanctified But Hopeful Pilgrim On His Way To The City

Finally, “Popeye” arms!…and I didn’t have to lift a weight. Actually, it’s only one “Popeye” arm and it’s a tad more serious. On Tuesday [July 8] my left arm started to show some signs of swelling and by Wednesday night it was, well, let’s just say IT WAS HUGE!…at least compared to my skinny, little right arm. Lonette was sufficiently “freaked out”…so we headed over to Troy Beaumont on Thursday afternoon and I ended up being admitted. Diagnosis: probably a new clot [from what I could tell from the ultrasound, it’s in the upper part of my left arm] and the pain is pretty severe. I’ve had a fever a couple of time this week and the upper part of my left arm is rather inflamed, however, the doctor’s have ruled out the probability of infection. I’m getting antibiotics through the IV as a precaution, along with saline to keep me well hydrated [actually it’s just a way to keep me running back and forth to the bathroom every hour:) ]. My oncologist has consulted with a vascular surgeon and they have determined that, rather than injecting a drug that would dissolve the clot [a rather complicated option because it can cause bleeding elsewhere and would add greater risk to future surgery], it would be better to stay with the heparin drip until the swelling goes down. The decision may be made to switch from Coumadin [an oral blood thinner] to heparin injections [daily self-injections of heparin…”yippy skippy”!]. The vascular surgeon assured me that, even though the way my arm looks is a little unnerving, it’s quite fine and still presenting a healthy pulse. So, hopefully, after a few days all will be well and I can go home. A PET scan was conducted Monday [the more definitive scan to show activity at a cellular level, in particular, cancer activity] and the results were very encouraging. The lymph nodes that were quite “active” early on are all very quiet and their swelling is greatly reduced…the lymph nodes around tumor are still suspect. Three spots had originally shown on my liver in the first PET scan…those spots are not visible now. And, there are no new “hot spots” to report. It still looks like surgery is probable in next few weeks…we’ll know more after our meeting with the surgeon [Dr. Lynch] on Monday [July 14].

Sorry this dispatch didn’t get published sooner…I’ve been a wee bit preoccupied and didn’t get to it. Again, we are debtors to your ministry of mercy as you intercede on our behalf. I long for some way, some word, some anything to expres my personal gratitude as a fellow pilgrim, a husband, a father, a pastor, and as a brother in the familly of God. Please know that you all are in my private intercession every day and through the night watches. I love you all.

Dan The Blood-Bought Pilgrim On His Way To The City

The Jesus Way At A Funeral

Yesterday I preached at Bill’s memorial service. Two men—one old and one young—both with the sentence of a dread disease upon them and facing the problem of pain, suffering & death, found each other in the hospital. The older would die…the younger will plod on toward the City.

Miscellany: At one end of my fight for a God-entranced vision is “the problem of pain” … “‘If God were good, He would wish to make His creatures perfectly happy, and if God were almighty He would be able to do what He wished. But the creatures are not happy. Therefore God lacks either goodness, or power, or both.’ This is the problem of pain in its simplest form” [C.S. Lewis, The Problem Of Pain, p 16]. At the other end is Job’s song … “And he said, ‘Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return. The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.’ In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong” [Job 1:21-22]. I spend most of my days singing Job’s song…many of those simply trying or wanting to sing Job’s song. If we want God, why would we run from the deepest anguish of our souls? We cannot indict God’s goodness or greatness, neither can we blindly dismiss our most private soliloquies. The problem of pain, in the end, carries me to God.

So, what would they write into each other’s life in a week? Although brief, the convergence of our lives feels sacred. Bill can’t answer that question now…for the one who would live with Bill, I received a gift that will live with me the rest of my life: the indelible grace of a friend & companion who marked the first days of a “frowning pilgrimage” with a happiness that made me serious. I pray Bill lived with a weak but honest reflection of Jesus…I pray Bill came to see and apprehend the “Jesus Way” of living and dying. God is sovereign and good.

During those days and since, I’ve pressed on the somewhat presumptuous question of what Jesus would be like in our modern hospital settings and funerals…I have visions of … “Behold, my servant whom I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased….He will not quarrel or cry aloud, nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets; a bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not quench [Mtt12:18-21 quoting Is 42] … or Isaiah’s consummate portrait of our suffering savior who joins us in our misery … “He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. [Is 53:3-5]. In a word: mercy.
Jesus pours out mercy like a happy, overflowing fountain…listen to His song!

“And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and he stood up to read. And the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.’ And he rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. And he began to say to them, ‘Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’” [Lk 4:16-21 citing Is 61].

If the Gentle Healer came to your town, virtually all known disease and misery would have been eclipsed. And if He went to a funeral…for the masses of sinner-types and tax-collectors and prostitutes and Gentiles they would see an ocean of mercy poured out. See his mercy and come to Him all who are “weary and heavy laden” ….

Luke 7:11-16
Soon afterward he went to a town called Nain, and his disciples and a great crowd went with him. As he drew near to the gate of the town, behold, a man who had died was being carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow, and a considerable crowd from the town was with her. And when the Lord saw her, he had compassion on her and said to her, “Do not weep.” Then he came up and touched the bier, and the bearers stood still. And he said, “Young man, I say to you, arise.” And the dead man sat up and began to speak, and Jesus gave him to his mother. Fear seized them all, and they glorified God, saying, “A great prophet has arisen among us!” and “God has visited his people!”

Mark 5:35-42
While he was still speaking, there came from the ruler’s house some who said, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the Teacher any further?” But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the ruler of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” And he allowed no one to follow him except Peter and James and John the brother of James. They came to the house of the ruler of the synagogue, and Jesus saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. And when he had entered, he said to them, “Why are you making a commotion and weeping? The child is not dead but sleeping.” And they laughed at him. But he put them all outside and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him and went in where the child was. Taking her by the hand he said to her, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement.

John 11:25-27, 33-36, 38-44
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?” She said to him, “Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.” …. When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in his spirit and greatly troubled. And he said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept. So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” …. Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.” When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”

Revelation 21:1-7
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment.

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…What would you want Jesus to say to you if you were dying…if the curse of sin had come in time in your life? What would be the sweetest thing you could hear if you came to Jesus, you saw Him in His beauty, and you loved Him in His glory? …

Matthew 11:26-28
“Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Luke 23:39-43
One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

A Final Word From Jonathan Edwards [God Is A Being Of Transcendent Mercy]

“Consider that the most wonderful act of mercy is already done in giving Christ to die. This is a much more wonderful act of mercy than justifying and pardoning the greatest sinner after way is thus made for it [i.e. after He made a way to pardon]. That God should show His mercy so was ten times more strange and incredible than that He should forgive your sins for His sake. Let your sins be never so great, He can’t hate your sins more than He loved His Son; and if He made His Son notwithstanding the subject of His wrath, He will be ready to make you the subject of His mercy….The saints admire the excellency of Christ, and the glorious angels admire it, and every creature in heaven and earth, but only you unbelieving children of men. Consider not only how much the angels set by the glory of Christ, but how much God himself sets by it; for he is the darling of heaven, he was eternally God’s delight; and because of his glory God hath thought him worthy to be appointed the heir of all things, and hath seen fit to ordain that all men should honor the Son even as they honor the Father. — Is he thus worthy of the infinite esteem and love of God himself? And is he worthy of no esteem from you?”