Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven

David Crowder's new book is titled, Everybody Wants to Go to Heaven but Nobody Wants to Die. (The publisher is Relevant, the same geniuses who design our SIM magazine.) It's the book Jeremy plans to read on the plane, and I've been sneaking some peeks at it. Crowder calls his co-author Hogan. Here's a sample from pages 8 and 10:
"Hogan once told me…that he had a very sinking feeling that there just wasn’t much of anything to live for here on Earth. That even the good stuff was so fleeting, so very easily stripped from you, that he felt existence created suffering too great for one planet to contain. He was just being honest and vulnerable in a rather dark moment. Forever the pessimist. But I suggested that maybe it’s not that there is not enough here to live for, just that here is not enough. Maybe it’s the container that’s flawed. . . .

"Everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die. And heaven, if we’re to believe what was proposed by a man two thousand years ago, is a kingdom coming and a kingdom here and now; something for the present, not reserved entirely for the ever after. None of us are getting out of here alive, but we will conclude that death is not the ultimate calamity. . . . Death does not win. It is the beginning."

I'm certainly not feeling like I'll die any time soon; it's just cool how often God has been reminding me about eternity--in my Bible reading, in books and in conversations. I like this book a lot and will probably have to get my own copy, since Jeremy leaves tomorrow morning. He likes David Crowder so much he's even growing chin whiskers like Crowder's.

Now for the kemo saga. We are switching to a new drug as expected: Doxil. But I didn't get it yesterday, since the doctor didn't have it. I'll go back today and get the infusion. It looks like the most common side effects are hot pain and rash on the hands and feet. I don't expect to get that. The list of things not to do to prevent it, both before and after kemo day, is so long it's almost laughable, but I'll obey it at least for the first infusion and see how it goes. Like all kemo, this one causes fatigue too. And then the port. We couldn't get an appointment at radiology to get that before today's kemo, so the port procedure is scheduled for tomorrow. (The nurse is sure she can find a vein one more time.) The sweet thing is that Doxil has a slow-release property so it needs to be administered only once every 4 weeks. Of course we're disappointed by the apparent setback evidenced by the rise in tumor marker numbers, but life is still a gift and we're thankful that there are fresh options for treatment.

"Let heaven fill your thoughts" (Colossians 3:2).

Love,
Carol