My Way, My Life, My Light

Yesterday I felt really well. Thanks for praying. It would be reasonable for the kemo effects to get worse with each new dose, but that didn't happen. I am grateful. Tomorrow's is the last dose for this month.

We're looking forward to seeing dear friends this afternoon at our celebration. (If you live in the area and weren't sure you were included in the invitation, you are! It's 1:00 - 5:00 at SIM on Choate Circle. We want to thank you all for your prayers and support during this 18-month journey with cancer.) Friends are so precious! Neighbors dropped in last evening with a card that says, "A friend knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you forget the words." I would like to be the kind of friend who knows the song in your heart.

One of our friends urgently needs prayer. Her back hurts unmercifully, despite an ongoing regimen of medical treatments. She has developed asthma that doesn't respond well to her array of medications. Now the doctor says she has sinusitis and needs surgery. She's brave and uncomplaining, but oh, she needs God's healing touch.

I found a poem written almost 400 years ago that helps me talk to God about how important He is to me. It's so dangerous to feel self-reliant that I think it would be wise to pray this prayer daily. I changed most of the "thees" but left one for the sake of rhyme.

My Way, My Life, My Light

Why do You shade Your lovely face? O why
Does that eclipsing hand so long deny
The sunshine of Your soul-enlivening eye?

Without that Light, what light remains in me?
You are my Life, My Way, my Light; in Thee
I live, I move, and by Your beams I see.

You are my Life; if You but turn away,
My life’s a thousand deaths; You are my Way;
Without You, Lord, I travel not, but stray.

My Light You are; without Your glorious sight,
My eyes are darkened with perpetual night.
My God, You are my Way, my Life, my Light.

You are my Way; I wander if You fly;
You are my Light; if hid, how blind am I!
You are my Life; if You withdraw, I die.

My eyes are blind and dark; I cannot see;
To whom, or whither, should my darkness flee,
But to the Light? And who’s that Light but Thee?

My path is lost; my wandering steps do stray;
I cannot safely go, nor safely stay;
Whom should I seek but You, my Path, my Way?

You are the pilgrim’s Path, the blind man’s Eye;
The dead man’s Life; on You my hopes rely;
If you remove, I err, I grope, I die.

Disclose Your sun-beams; close Your wings, and stay;
See, see how I am blind, and dead, and stray,
O You, Who are my Light, my Life, my Way.

By Francis Quarles (1592-1644)

Have a great weekend.

Love,
Carol